Now I'm a big fan of playing the thief character but can't seem to find a mod for pickpocketing which I find fair. Right now all I do is hit F5 and start stealing, and I ever fail I just hit F9. Now I know this is my fault but I only do this because pickpocketing is very unfair early game. I mean you have like 50-60% chance to pick gold and if you fail once you have a bounty on your head and all the guards try to murder you.
I feel that there is a slim chance of anyone taking the time to make a mod which I am about to describe but I just want to get my ideas out there.
- So the first thing of all should be (if possible) that you cannot pickpocket someone perhaps a minute after quickloading/quicksaving. Just to stop the whole F5 abuse (or if this can be solved some other way).
My other suggestion is that chances are a bit more fair, right now I think almost everything starts at 40-60% chance after perhaps two points into pickpocket/fingersmithing you suddenly have 90% chance on almost everything, also the fact the you can never go above 90% bothers me. If I'm the best thief in the empire with over 100 in my skill I shouldn't get caught stealing a septim from a farmer who is sleeping.
Now my suggestion is that you have a certain amount of chances to pickpocket someone. Because getting caught the first time you fail makes it no fun. Let's say the sleeping farmer has 3 chances, this means you can afford to fail 3 times without him noticing you. But the fourth time you fail he will wake up and call guards just like in vanilla. This gives you the chance to decide if you think it's worth the risk or not. Different NPC's will have a different amount of chances, the chances and percentage of being able to steal will also change if the NPC sleeps or not.
- Now the part I haven't figured out yet is the reset time or how long it takes before a certain NPC get's his chances back so you can pickpocket him again. Ingame time wouldn't work since you can just wait, but perhaps actual game time. Not sure if that's possible but having to wait 10 minutes before being able to pickpocket someone again seems fair.
- I think some things should be re-balanced, the 90% chance as the primary thing. When you reach a certain level in pickpocketing I think that gold and perhaps lockpicks should be 99 or 100%. I also think it's weird that a silver ring (that is infact on the NPC's finger) can be taken with a 90% chance while a gold diamond ring (let's say on the same finger) is much much harder to steal. This is weird but I guess some balance has to be made. I don't think all rings should have the same chance but stealing something of someones finger shouldn't be that easy, nor should lifting a necklace over their head be.
- Now getting a bounty of 25 gold is okay if you steal a septim from a sleeping farmer, but will Maven Black-Briar let you get again with 25 gold in fines after you tried to steal her jewelry? I think not! Bounties should perhaps be a percentage of the value of the item you tried to steal ( with a minimum of 25 gold). I don't think the prison time should be longer, just a bigger fine. If possible you could also add in the option of getting higher and higher fines each time you get caught, but also of course the option to bribe or persuade the guard ( I know you can do this via thieves guild but that's only once! i think).
I think that's about it, If you find any flaws, suggestions or just thought about this please post them so we can discuss the matter I've been playing skyrim for 2 years now and I haven't gone to jail once! I hoping to change that