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Earlier today, I finally realized what a viable skill "Steal" is; however, after making a character whose sole purpose was to level up through stealing, I found that my odds were somehow worse than my earlier character.

My first character, my regular character, had only 20% steal skill and was able to systematically rob everyone in Shady Sands with some, but not excessive save/load trickery.

My second character, the one made exclusively to be a pickpocket, had 106% steal skill by level 2, but had significantly less success than the first character. Where the first could steal a pistol and caps in one go; the second character is spotted stealing the smallest things and after 12 loads has not been able to take even a single rock -even on easy difficulty, when the other had little difficulty on normal-, despite having five times the skill. Both characters have identical SPECIAL and I cannot understand why this is happening.

Does anyone else have trouble with the "Steal" skill.? Are there any tips/tricks/reasons that 20% somehow has demonstrably better success than 106%?
Post edited December 20, 2013 by generalkass
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generalkass: Earlier today, I finally realized what a viable skill "Steal" is; however, after making a character whose sole purpose was to level up through stealing, I found that my odds were somehow worse than my earlier character.

My first character, my regular character, had only 20% steal skill and was able to systematically rob everyone in Shady Sands with some, but not excessive save/load trickery.

My second character, the one made exclusively to be a pickpocket, had 106% steal skill by level 2, but had significantly less success than the first character. Where the first could steal a pistol and caps in one go; the second character is spotted stealing the smallest things and after 12 loads has not been able to take even a single rock -even on easy difficulty, when the other had little difficulty on normal-, despite having five times the skill. Both characters have identical SPECIAL and I cannot understand why this is happening.

Does anyone else have trouble with the "Steal" skill.? Are there any tips/tricks/reasons that 20% somehow has demonstrably better success than 106%?
Unfortunately, this is one of those areas where the game shows its bugs. Or lack of proper implementation. The following is from The Nearly Ultimate Fallout guide by Per Jorner:

"I'll put a couple of Steal notes here, because they don't seem to fit anywhere else. You gain a bonus (or suffer a smaller penalty) stealing from the back or side of someone, but the Sneak skill does nothing. Item size (which is not the same as weight) is a factor unless you have the Pickpocket perk. Regardless of your skill level you can use Steal to see what humanoid critters are carrying, although you won't see items they're holding or items that they "produce" during the course of a quest."

So I think this disconnect between skill levels could be due to your facing (from behind/side vs from the front). More likely though it's just a coincidence that one is worse than the other in those runs, as in the long run they should both average out to be the same.

I assume there are mods that fix this - I think Fallout FIXT might, but I haven't tried it myself.