Steal Steal is a skill in " Fallout " , " Fallout 2 " , Van Buren , J . E . Sawyer ' s Fallout Role - Playing Game and " " . In " Fallout 3 " and " " , it has been merged into the Sneak skill . Initial Level . formula _ 1 Example : A starting Agility of 5 . formula _ 2 Maximizing the Odds . Stealing is a tricky business which can , when done wrong , end in combat inevitably followed by one party ' s death . A good thief will work to avoid this outcome . To do so he must know how to maximize his odds based on the type of theft . Regardless of the type of theft , a failed attempt to steal from an unfriendly character will likely result in combat , while a friendly one will speak up , showing floating text along the lines of " Get away from there . " Pressing your Luck with a friendly character can cause that character to become unfriendly . Unattended Items . Often , unattended items are in locked and / or trapped containers , making Lockpick and Traps essential skills for these heists . " Even unattended items stored in plain sight or unlocked containers may require unlocking doors or thwarting traps along the way to the item . " In some cases the thief may need to sneak past guards to gain access to the item . However , this situation dangerously borders on " Attended Items " below . Attended Items . Attended items and containers have the same acquisition problems as their unattended counterparts , with the additional complication of a guard in the immediate vicinity . Sneaking will help ; but with a sober guard in the immediate vicinity the odds are against the thief . The simplest solution , of course , is to kill the guard . This can be done via combat or by more insidious means , such as poison . If there are other guards in the area combat will catch their attention , possibly presenting the thief with overwhelming odds . However , combat and poison are not the only ways to bypass a guard . A guards ability to stop a theft comes from the ability to notice the theft . Reducing a guards Perception increases a thief ' s chances of going unnoticed , as does sneaking . This can be done by slipping the guard a few doses of rot gut or booze . Four or five doses often allow a thief to make off with the goods with the guard none the wiser . Simply cutting off the guard ' s line of sight to the thief helps tremendously . This can be done in most situations by pushing a companion between the guard and thief . In Fallout 3 , since you are able to carry things , you can drag the item away to a spot that is hidden . Once in the hidden spot , steal the item , and no one has seen you . Pickpocketing . Sometimes it ' s necessary to relieve someone of an item on his person . This is called pickpocketing and utilizes the Steal skill . The person being relieved is the Mark and the person doing the relieving is the Pickpocket . When pickpocketing consider the following : When practicing Pickpocketing first dull the Marks senses with rot gut , approach from the side or rear , then try lifting a single chip , stimpak or other light item . This is more likely to succeed than directly facing a sober mark and lifting a microfusion cell or turbo plasma rifle . Experience : Pickpocketing give experience as follows ; 10 for the first item , 20 for the second , 30 for the third etc . so long as you don ' t leave the steal screen between items . Thus the totals go up 10 , 30 , 60 , 100 . . . A thief with a high steal skill may be able to steal money from someone one coin at a time in order to gain a large amount of experience . Applicable perks . Four perks aid in creative procurement efforts : Of these , the entrepreneurial Pickpocket will find the namesake perk most useful as it eliminates weight and facing modifiers .