Thieves Skill

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A what Level (or % , like Open Lock: 85) should I stop increasing my Thief skill, say at 100% in a given skill or even higher?

 

I once jacked my thiefs dissarm traps up to 346 or something with potions of master thievering and still failed dissarming a trap, twice!!!

I died instantly from being squished by some walls. It was in Spellhold.
That incident really pissed off, what type of bonus does the trap have?!?!?
I always thought my pure class thief was all mighty, so that trap really pissed me off

 

The Spellhold instant-death wall trap can't be disarmed. It does not matter how high you pump up your skill you will still get squashed like a bug.

 

How high must be my thief's Find Traps skill to disarm the trap within Neb's House, in Bridge District?? I had never done it without receiving a large amount of gamage and being held!!

 

I think 255% is the maximum you should get for every thieving skill

 

Likewise, I think some people catch you "in the act" pickpocketing ... even if you are very good at it... and much more often than 1% ...

 

Damn it...I was relly hopeful that I could finally get that trap disarmed!! Shame on me!


OBS: The Priest Spell Find Traps can disarm traps too?? (Sorry if I'm a bit here..)

 

Find Traps is just for finding traps.
You use open locks to disarm traps dont you?

So therefor the Find Traps spell cant disarm traps.

 

No, its a seperate abillity!!

I, having just started a new game, boosted my pick pocket stat up to 98% and started stealing from people in the government district (and the Cowled wizard place/hall) and I got caught 7, maybe 8 times (after reloading from frequent Q-saves), and only used the ability, say, 30 times at most, this is a lot more than the 2% most people would assume.

 

I guess I've heard somewhere that some people(especially Ribald) has some kind of "penalty"(or "resistance") to their abilty to be pickpocketed.

Let's say you have 100% in your PP ability. Then you try to PP a victim that has a "penalty/resistance" that is 65%. Then your thief only has 35% chance to succeed. At least I think it's like this...

 

I read somewhere that if other characters are nearby, it decreases your pickpocket chances (you might get seen) sort of like how in BG1 you could steal from someone's chest if they were around the corner and couldn't see you (chest owner wouldn't turn hostile)... Also I heard that sleeping targets are easier to pickpocket --remember that old 1st level sleep spell? Madam Mim is the one I tested it on, where you can try to pickpocket her before or after you expose the affair... After you expose the affair and everyone runs off, Madam Mim is definitely easier to pickpocket...

 

As far as I can tell, the most you can effectively take a thief skill to is 255. I suspect that the value is stored in a single byte, with any higher bits being lost. This means that your effective thief skill is actually SKILL mod 255. For example, a thief skil of 346 is really treated as a skill of 91.

I'm sure there is merit in taking a skill above 100%, especially pickpocket. A good example of why can be found by trying to pickpocket (or steal from the shop of) Bernard in the Copper Coronet. You won't be able to consistently pick his pocket until you have over 200 in pickpocket (whether natural or, more likely, with the aid of a few potions).