Steal

Steal is a skill in Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, it has been merged into the Sneak skill.
==Initial level==
===Fallout===
:\text{Initial level}\%=20+\text{Agility}
Example: A starting Agility of 5.
: 20+5=25\%
===Fallout 2===
:\text{Initial level}\%=3\times\text{Agility}
Example: A starting Agility of 5.
:3\times5=15\%
==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, they must know how to maximize their 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." Trying again with a friendly character — and getting caught — 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, while in other cases the item itself may be watched by a guard; see the section below for more information.
===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 is to kill the guard. This can be done via combat or by more other means such as poison. If there are other guards in the area combat will likely catch their attention.
However, combat and poison are not the only ways to bypass a guard. A guard's ability to stop a theft comes from the ability to notice the theft. Reducing a guard's 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.
===Pickpocketing===
Sometimes it is necessary to relieve someone of an item on their 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.
Pickpocketing works like this, and is divided into two stages:
#Stage 1
##Chance% = 1 - Stolen (after a successful theft, the odds of the next successful pickpocketing go down 1% in Stage 1; Stolen starts at 1, so the first thing stolen has no modifier).
##Does the thief have the Pickpocket perk?
###If not, larger objects are more likely to be missed; likewise, smaller objects are less likely to be missed. For reference, typical armor has size 10-15, pistols 2-3, rifles 4-5, heavy weapons 6-10. Reduce Chance% by 4 times the object's size.
###In addition, without the perk, the odds of success are 25% lower face-to-face with the Mark. Approach the mark from the side or rear to avoid this. Reduce Chance% by 25 if the thief is in front of the mark.
##If the mark is knocked out or knocked down, increase Chance% by 20.
##Set Success% = Thief's Steal + Chance%.
##If Success% is greater than 95, reduce it to 95.
##Roll against Success% and against your Critical Chance.
###On a critical success, stop now: the theft was successful.
###On a failure, stop now: the theft failed.
###Otherwise, the thief succeeded, so move on to Stage 2: the mark catching the thief. First, set Catch% = mark's steal skill - Chance% (so a positive modifier to stealing is a negative modifier to catching, and vice-versa).
###Now roll against Catch% (note that Catch% is not limited to 95% and can be 100%) without any chance to critically succeed.
####If the mark succeeds at catching the thief, the theft fails. Otherwise, the theft succeeds.
This means these are the basics of raising the odds of pickpocketing:
*Only ever steal one object at a time.
*Without the Pickpocket perk, stick to small objects and never steal from in front of the mark.
*Knock down the mark if it is possible to do so without repercussion. If they're asleep, it is even better.
* NPC Steal skill ratings can be found here. Marks with a Steal skill of 0 and low Agility, like Louis Salvatore, are unlikely to catch on.
The mark's Perception does not matter for pickpocketing, so dosing them with items such as rot gut will not help. However, the Finesse trait does matter.
Experience: Pickpocketing gives experience as follows: 10 for the first item, 20 for the second, 30 for the third, and so on, so long as the pickpocketing screen is not exited between thefts (which means each item is harder to steal than the last.) Thus, the totals go up 10, 30, 60, 100, and so on. 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, although this will get risky quickly if the target is conscious and standing.
==Applicable perks==
Four perks provide boosts to pickpocketing. Of these, the namesake perk can be the most useful, as it eliminates weight and facing modifiers.
* Thief
* Harmless
* Master Thief
* Pickpocket
== See also ==
* Planting items
Category:Fallout skills
Category:Fallout 2 skills
Category:Fallout Tactics skills
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