Pickpocket skill perk increases player's efficiency when stealing items from a person. Pickpocket skill level and perks affect player's chance to succeed in pickpocketing, silently killing people with poisons, increase player's maximum carrying capacity and the ability to steal equipped items. The Pickpocket skill tree has a total of 8 perks and it requires a total of 12 perk points to complete. The stealthy art of picking an unsuspecting target's pockets. A skilled pickpocketer is less likely to be caught and is more likely to loot valuables.
Pickpocketing in Skyrim
Skyrim Pickpocket Guide
How to be a Pickpocket in Skyrim
While sneaking and approaching a character, players will be given an option to open and view that character's inventory. Viewing the inventories is not considered a crime.
Players may fail the pickpocket by being detected, even by other characters that are not the target. Failing a pickpocket will raise the player's bounty and likely cause the target to become hostile.
Regular pickpocketing success rate is capped at 90% and cannot be increased past this point even with enchantments and potions effects. Paralyzed characters can be pickpocketed from with a 100% success rate.
The Misdirection and Perfect Touch perks are required when looking to obtain certain unique or special items that are equipped or held by special NPCs. There are some equipment that cannot be pickpocketed even with both perks due to some items being unobtainable or characters being marked as essential.
Skyrim Pickpocket Skill Leveling
The pickpocketing skill contributes to the amount of weight that can be successfully pickpocketed while skill gain is instead based on the value of the items being stolen. Players can also look for trainers to level up from or by finding and using Skill Books.
Players should look to find expensive but low-weight items to gain more skill quickly.
Reverse-pickpocketing gold and items back into a target and then stealing them again is a viable method for quick leveling when successful.
Trainers are often a good target for leveling pickpocketing, after paying them for training a skill players can pickpocket that same gold back. They make good targets as players can guarantee that they have money to steal from by paying to train skills.
Skyrim Pickpocket Tips
The success rate of pickpocketing is increased by skill level, potion bonuses and enchantment bonuses. Remaining hidden will also help the success rate. The following are some tips for succeeding at pickpocketing.
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Pick the target and location well to not be easily detected while pickpocketing
- The Night Thief perk makes pickpocketing sleeping targets easier
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When failing the target may become hostile, be prepared for combat or with a Calm spell
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A paralyzed character can be pickpocketed for 100%. Paralyze them through paralysis poisons and spells or using the Poisoned perk to stealthily cause paralysis
Skyrim Pickpocket Skill Perks
Perk Points in Skyrim
Players gain 1 perk point every time they level up their character. A player will need 251 perk points to get every perk to the maximum level which is achieved at level 252.
Before spending perk points to get the bonuses from the perk, the player must first unlock the perk. Perks can be unlocked on their respective skill trees by having enough levels in the skill as well as the prerequisite perks leading to the perk. All skills have their base perks unlocked with perks further into the tree being unlocked as points are invested and levels gained.
Perks can have multiple levels to them giving increasing bonuses with more perk points invested in them. Different skill trees will need different number of perk points to fully unlock all the perks in each tree. Players may want to check and consider the number of perk points they need for their builds and at what level they will need to be to unlock everything they want to have.
Reclaiming Perk Points in Skyrim
There are 2 ways that players can reclaim the spent perk points in Skyrim that are quite difficult to get to so players do still want to be careful with their perk points. At level 100 players can set the skill to be Legendary. This will refund all perks invested into that tree as well as set the skill back to level 15. This will also allows players to increase the skill experience once again and gain new levels and more perk points.
Alternatively players who have completed the Dragonborn main questline will be able to reclaim points repeatedly by using the Black Book: Waking Dreams. This will require them to have a dragon's soul from hunting a dragon.
Click the header to sort the table.
| Perk | Rank | Skill LVL. | Perk Requirement | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light Fingers (1) | 1 | - | - | Pickpocketing bonus of 20%. Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds. |
| Light Fingers (2) | 2 | 20 | - | Pickpocketing bonus of 40%. Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds. |
| Light Fingers (3) | 3 | 40 | - | Pickpocketing bonus of 60%. Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds. |
| Light Fingers (4) | 4 | 60 | - | Pickpocketing bonus of 80%. Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds. |
| Light Fingers (5) | 5 | 80 | - | Pickpocketing bonus of 100%. Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds. |
| Night Thief | - | 30 | Light Fingers | +25% chance to pickpocket if the target is asleep. |
| Poisoned | - | 40 | Night Thief | Silently harm enemies by placing poisons in their pockets. |
| Extra Pockets | - | 50 | Night Thief | Carrying capacity is increased by 100. |
| Cutpurse | - | 40 | Night Thief | Pickpocketing gold is 50% easier. |
| Keymaster | - | 60 | Cutpurse | Pickpocketing keys almost always works. |
| Misdirection | - | 70 | Cutpurse | Can pickpocket equipped weapons. |
| Perfect Touch | - | 100 | Misdirection | Can pickpocket equipped items and armor. |
