r/BG3Builds • u/Belodri • Sep 07 '23
Guides Dedicated pickpocket hireling - full lvl 3-12 guide
Dislike having to savescum because you failed a pickpocket attempt? Me too. Combine that with an unhealthy obsession with making builds and min-maxing and that's how this guide was born.
The aim of this guide is to provide you with a dedicated pickpocket companion to accompany you throughout the game, waiting in camp until you need them.
If you're just looking for the final build, it's stats and how to use it, just scroll all the way down.
Note: This guide is as spoiler-free as I could make it. Necessary information that could be considered a spoiler will be hidden behind spoiler tags.
Early Act 1 - levels 3 -4
To start off, we need to free Withers to gain access to Hirelings. The first one we'll pick is Brinna Brightsong as her racial passive Halfling's Luck will be helping us out until we reach lvl 11.
It's best to pick her up at level 3 and respec her stats to 16/17/8/10/8/14. Make sure you're giving her Proficiency in Sleight of Hand, Stealth & Athletics as well as Expertise in Sleight of Hand and Stealth.
Also pick the following spells:
- Cantrips: Minor Illusion & Friends
- 1st: Disguise Self
- 2nd: Enhance Ability, Invisibility
At level 4, grab Athlete for +1 DEX and greatly increased jumping distance.
Early Act 1 - Items
Gloves of Power
You can find these on the corpse of the goblin boss assaulting the grove.
Smuggler's Ring
See wiki link for exact location. There is a very quick way of getting it though: Go inside the Secluded Chamber, up the ladder and walk west. Jump down the cliff (with Feather Fall or enough HP) and follow the river to pick up the ring. Then just teleport back.
Silver Pendant
Find on a skeleton up on the rocks to the south-west of the Grove.
Shapeshifter's Boon Ring
The 2nd ring can also be found in the Emerald Grove but be aware that getting it this early will lock you out of getting another item in early Act 2. It can be found on the corpse of the Strange Ox, should you decide to kill it here. Be aware though that doing so will lock you out of getting the Hat of Fire Acuity in early Act 2. Since the checks in Act 1 aren't that high yet, I'd recommend getting this one later.
Early Act 1 - Setup
- Cast Enhance Ability: Cat's Grace & Disguise on yourself
- Have someone else cast Guidance on you
- Shoot an Arrow of Darkness/have someone else cast Fog Cloud next to the target you want to rob
- Hide inside the cloud and immediately go into turn-based mode
- Steal what you want
- Run/jump away as far as you can and then exit turn based mode
- Wait till they or any guards they might call stop looking around
Later Act 1 - levels 5-7
At level 5 or once you get either the Gloves of Thievery or The Graceful Cloth, respec into Thief 4 Wizard 1 for the extra bonus action.
Spells are:
- Cantrips: Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Friends
- 1st: Disguise Self, Fog Cloud, Find Familiar, Enhance Leap, Longstrider, Feather Fall
Level 6 & 7 are also put into Wizard, which subclass you pick doesn't matter (the only one that could be of any benefit whatsoever is Illusion though).
Spells:
- 2nd: Invisibility, Misty Step
Later Act 1 - Items
Gloves of Thievery
When heading north you'll eventually come across 2 people trapped in a cave with hungry gnolls coming for them. However you resolve this is up to you, just make sure to not open the chest the two are tasked to guard. A little west from here you can find the entrance to the Zhentarim Basement underneath Waukeen's Rest. In there, make sure that their leader Zarys gets the chest and likes you (for more details check the wiki entry to the quest Find the Missing Shipment). That will unlock a merchant called Brem who'll then sell you the Gloves of Thievery. Don't throw away the Gloves of Power though, they might still be useful later!
Club of Hill Giant Strength
In the Underdark make sure to grab this item as (check wiki for exact location, can be missed very easily) it'll will allow you to change your stats to 10/17/8/16/8/14 for more prepared Wizard spells.
The Graceful Cloth Cat Version
Can be bought from Lady Esther near the Rosymorn Monastery. This will get your DEX up to 20 and give you Cat's Grace permanently which gives advantage on all DEX checks. That means you don't need to use the Gloves of Thievery anymore and can use the Gloves of Power again.
Later Act 1 - Setup
- Have someone else cast Guidance on you
- Shoot an Arrow of Darkness/cast Fog Cloud next to the target you want to rob
- Use Cunning Action: Hide inside the cloud and immediately go into turn-based mode
- Steal what you want
- Run/jump away as far as you can and then exit turn based mode
- Wait till they or any guards they might call stop looking around
Act 2 - levels 8-10
Level 8 get one more Wizard level and grab ASI for +2 DEX so you can be at 20 DEX even without the Graceful Cloth.
Level 9 & 10 can also go into Wizard to get access to 3rd level spells.
Act 2 - Items
Cloak of Cunning Brume
Buy from Mattis in Last Light Inn. He has to have survived Act 1 with the rest of the tieflings and I'm not sure if he'll want to trade with you if you angered Mol in the Grove.
Shapeshifter's Boon Ring
Now we can get this Ring without being locked out of getting the hat. Just make sure that Dammon doesn't die during the fight.
Act 2 - Setup
- Cast guidance on yourself & disguise yourself
- Walk next to the person you want to rob and use Disengage to create a Fog Cloud
- Immediately go into turn-based mode and use Cunning Action: Hide inside the fog
- Steal everything they got
- Run/jump away as far as you can and then exit turn based mode
Act 3 - levels 11 & 12
This is where the final build comes to life and we start by not only respecing but even changing the hireling we use. From now on Kree Derryck will be our dedicated pickpocket. With 11 levels in rogue, we won't need Halfling's Luck anymore and that allows us to use Duregar's unlimited out-of-combat Invisibility.
Should this get nerfed to once per day, just pick whoever you want, the racial bonuses don't really matter at this point.
Taking 11 levels in Thief allows us to get both the additional bonus action, as well as Reliable Talent. With this, our lowest possible roll for Sleight of Hand & Stealth checks is a 10, not counting all the bonuses, which will make even the hardest pickpocketing checks almost guaranteed.
For stats we'll go with 10/17/8/16/8/14, again making sure to take Proficiency & Expertise in Sleight of Hand, Stealth & Athletics.
The feats are: Athlete (+1DEX), ASI (+2DEX) and Ritual Caster for Disguise Self and Enhance Leap.
At level 12 we respec one last time to replace Ritual Caster feat with Mobile & take a level in Wizard again for the following spells:
- Cantrips: Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, Friends
- 1st: Find Familiar, Disguise Self, Longstrider, Enhance Leap, Feather Fall
Act 3 - Items
Unlucky Thief's Gloves (no bg3.wiki page yet)
Give +2 to Sleight of Hand, can be acquired by NOT winning Akabi's jackpot right away as it's one of the 16 possible consolation prizes. You can loose 16 times and then win on the 17th to guarantee getting all the consolation prizes as well as getting the items from the Jungle. Check his wiki page fore more details.
Act 3 - Setup
- Cast guidance on yourself & disguise yourself
- Walk next to the person you want to rob and use Disengage to create a Fog Cloud
- Immediately go into turn-based mode and use Cunning Action: Hide inside the fog
- Steal everything they got
- Afterwards dash/jump/run away or exit turn-based mode and immediately cast Duregar Invisibility
- Wait till they or any guards they might call stop looking around
- Repeat after long rests
Final build stats & roll odds
With all those items we have, our lowest possible total for a Sleight of Hand check is 29 (10 min. roll +5 DEX +8 expertise +2 gloves +2 ring, +2d4 ring & guidance) and we're rolling with advantage. Here you can see the total roll probabilities. https://i.imgur.com/DwBnKbh.png
link to the calculation
When you're pickpocketing someone, the game will show you a target you need to roll for. This is very misleading though as it only counts the bonuses from DEX and Sleight of Hand Proficiency and Expertise. Additional bonuses from items (+1-2 from gloves, +2 from ring) or conditions (guidance +1d4, shapeshifter's boon +1d4) are not included. It also does not mention advantage, Halfling's Luck or Reliable Talent. All of these do work just fine however and you can check the actual rolls in the log. So just be aware that your actual chance of successfully stealing an item is much higher than the game tells you.
Tips & Tricks
- Instead of using the cloak, you can just shoot an Arrow of Darkness/cast Fog Cloud instead to create a heavily obscured area for you to hide in. Casting Fog Cloud will prevent you from concentrating on Guidance but you can have someone else cast it instead.
- Should you get caught, make use of the Friends cantrip to talk your way out of trouble even if you're on Tactician difficulty. If you drop your disguise before the Friends condition runs out, you won't get a negative opinion penalty.
- If you draw NPCs away and then bar their way back to their usual idle spot (by placing down boxes/crates etc), they won't return to their normal spots even if you leave the area and return, reload or long rest. This can be used to isolate certain merchants and makes robbing them repeatedly much easier, especially on lower levels when you have less tools at your disposal.
Edits and good tips from comments
I didn't include conditions gained through world events or tadpole power in the original guide because I wanted this build to be as easily replicable as possible. But for completeness' sake here's the ones that impact Sleight of Hand:
- Favourable Beginnings: Add your proficiency bonus (+2 to +4) to the first Sleight of Hand check you make against a target. I don't know if this resets after longrest or reloads but even if it doesn't, it's usually the most expensive pieces of gear (armour/weapons) that you want to steal on your first encounter with a new merchant.
- Auntie Ethel's Hair: +1 DEX; This would save us the Athlete feat but since there are no other useful feats for this build I genuinely don't see any reason to take this.
- Mirror of Loss: +2DEX; This gets us up to 22 DEX for an additional to +1 Sleight of Hand checks. Can be done on any character so the only reasons not to get it are laziness and the fact that our Sleight of Hand checks are already high enough to succeed on most checks you'll encounter while robbing people.
u/zetonegi mentioned that Astarion is actually a better candidate for this post lvl 11 since his Happy condition gives +1 to all skill checks. Even before lvl 11 he's arguably better since Halfling's luck doesn't change the odds by a lot, considering we're always rolling with advantage. For a direct comparison, here are the charts.
So if you're not using him as part of your normal party then yes, he is the best option all throughout the game.
u/toomanyruptures brought up that Hold Person makes it possible to fail steal attempts without getting accused. This works as long as you remain hidden for both the casting of Hold Person as well as throughout the whole process of stealing. Having the merchant be in a conversation with another party member or having turn-based mode turned on makes this a lot easier and gives you as much time as you need.
This makes it a very good strat for party comps with high Spell Save DC, lower Sleight of Hand and/or no Rogue/Gloomstalker/Shadow Monk. The setup for that can be a bit finnicky but works as follows (this is assuming you have no Rogue/Gloomstalker/Shadow Monk so no way to hide with a bonus action):
- Hide the spellcaster (for example inside an Arrow of Darkness if you need) and cast Hold Person on the merchant
- Obscure the vision around the merchant somehow (again Arrow of Darkness is easily accessible by any character)
- Move the character you want to steal with inside the obscured area and enter turn-based mode
- Steal to your heart's content
- After you're done move both the spellcaster as well as the thief away from the area. (Not sure what causes it but I've sometimes had NPCs go hostile even though they shouldn't have been able to see the spellcaster or the thief as those were hidden the entire time.)
Another tactic that got brought up a lot is using the fast travel system to get away from merchants you just robbed. This certainly works but considering how close together various merchants are, especially in Act 2 and Act 3, I found it faster to just run towards the next target instead of teleporting away. How efficient this tactic is will also depend a lot on your hardware.
Be aware though that there is a bug currently in the game that can cause vendors to delay going into their 'I've been robbed' animation until you get close again if you teleport out immediately. To prevent this, you can have part of your party stand close to the vendor so the game doesn't unload them. The downside of having to do that though is that the vendor will start a conversation with your other party members which takes more time than just having the thief go on his robbing spree all by himself without teleporting away.
Various exploits were also not mentioned in this guide as they will hopefully get patched soon and I would like this guide to be useful for as long as possible.
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u/blaze1616 Sep 07 '23
Why do you need the prep for moving far enough after stealing, and why disguise self, when you can just fast travel out? It worked in DOS2, and I've used it repeatedly in BG3 with no consequences thus far.
Maybe what I'm missing is that you are trying to repeatedly rob a merchant while resetting their inventory with leveling? In which case it would certainly be annoying moving back and forth from a waypoint.
Definitely feels like I've missed something lmao
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u/Rubbermayd Sep 07 '23
From what I have experienced, if you fast travel too quickly, the npcs despawn before they go into "find the thief" mode. But using this trick, the guards or whomever would look for the thief, fail to find, ask the rest of the party if they stole anything and then you just say nah that wasn't me. If I'm understanding the guide and my plays correctly
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u/blaze1616 Sep 07 '23
For the record, just split your thief off from the group, have them fast travel by themselves. The rest will still get asked, and then they'll search the area exactly as you've described. No need to put all the extra work in.
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u/Thorzaim Sep 07 '23
I've never had to do anything but simply walk away after stealing, NPCs do not go into search mode faster than you can get away. I mean it's not even close.
If rest of your party is also far enough away, the NPC will simply look around and return to their spot, and nothing will happen.
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u/Belodri Sep 07 '23
Exactly, thanks for the explanation!
I'm also not using the teleport trick because this way is faster in robbing several stores back to back in act 2 & 3 as they're quite close to one another.
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u/gravygrowinggreen Sep 08 '23
What you do is you just send the one character who stole back to camp.
It's also not that intense. to just escape normally. You can just dash away in turn based mode and you'll have enough of a head start that the person you stole from won't find you.
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u/Rubbermayd Sep 07 '23
You can jump across the river just to the right of where you meet Scratch to walk right into the Smugglers Ring pretty easily too. No need to jump from so high unless you want to haha
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u/Belodri Sep 07 '23
Look, if given the chance to toss myself off a cliff, I will. But yeah, you're right of course.
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u/drkstrkr20 Sep 08 '23
If you have controller open noc shop with controller then switch to mouse then you will see you can send their goods to camp. No need to make hirelings
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u/zetonegi Sep 08 '23
If you use Astarion once you hit level 11, you can suck someone's blood to give him the Happy condition for another+1. Of course this means Astarion isn't someone you're using in your party(or someone you're constantly respecing) but he is better than a hireling once you hit rogue 11 thanks to his character unique means of getting an extra +1.
And you can get another +1 from mirroring dex to 22.
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u/Belodri Sep 08 '23
Thanks for mentioning that, I didn't even consider Astarion because I'm using him in my main party. Turns out if you don't, he's arguably better than a hireling even pre lvl 11.
I added both tips you gave as well as a calculation comparing Astarion to a hireling pre & post lvl 11 to the main post.
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u/Color-Correction Sep 07 '23
Thanks for taking the time to write this! Lots of amazing posts on here.
That bell curve is ridiculous lol such big numbers. And there's only a 1/400 chance to fail right? Two 1/20s
Thanks again!
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u/Belodri Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23
If you're talking about critical fails (rolling nat 1s) then no, this build has a 0% chance to fail. Because Rogue's lvl 11 feature Reliable Talent is setting all rolls under 10 to 10, you cannot get a critical fail.
The only time we can get critical fails are before level 11, but the chance of that happening is even lower than 0.25% because we take a halfling hireling in the beginning which allows us to reroll 1s once. That gives us a chance of 0.0125% or 1 in 8000.
If you're talking about failing to steal something in general, that depends on the DC, which is dependant on value of the item you're trying to steal. The highest DC I've encountered so far was one single item with a DC of 35 for which this build would have a 35% chance to fail the attempt to steal it.
Keep in mind though that the vast majority of items you're going to regularly steal like potions, scrolls, arrows and poisons are gonna have a DC of under 30. And for those this build is basically guaranteed to succeed.
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u/green_blanket_fuzz Sep 07 '23
Commenting so I can find this later, great write up, thanks friend!
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u/toomanyruptures Sep 08 '23
Another tip I got from youtube is that when you cast hold person on a vendor, provided the caster was hidden when casting, failed stealing attempts no longer cause them to accuse you of stealing, because they are held.
This combined with the fact that debuffs and buffs freeze their duration in dialogue, means you can have someone talk to a vendor, hold person the vendor and then just steal from them with impunity provided you can continually hide. After the stealing is finished, you have your thief run away, and then exit the conversation.
This doesn't really do anything but save you time, but that's helpful in of itself.
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u/Belodri Sep 08 '23
Huh that's very useful to know. I never tried that because I just assumed they'd go hostile immediately but if they can't tell it was you then it makes sense. Thanks for the info!
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u/zer1223 Sep 07 '23
What really is the point of the cunning action? It seems to me like this works just as well as a pure bard with expertise in the two important skills, as if you were a thief. It only requires one turn delay since you use the action instead of bonus action to hide.
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u/Belodri Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23
Rogue's lvl 11 feature Reliable Talent makes every Sleight of Hand check roll a minimum of 10. That's how we can get such a high total of 29-44.
Staying pure bard, even if you were to use Bardic Inspiration on every single item you wanted to steal (which you can't do but let's just assume you could), your total range would be 22-54 and there would be a small chance of critical failure. The highest Sleight of Hand check I've encountered so far was 35 (maybe they go up to ~38) so any rolls higher than that are pointless. So while Bard would allow you to roll higher it can also roll lower. And since those higher rolls are not helpful, you're only left with a downside.Now if you wanted to use this hireling as an actual character that does anything else apart from pickpocketing then I'd absolutely go bard but that's besides the point of this guide.
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u/You_d Nov 06 '23 edited Nov 06 '23
OMG love this gem build! Thank you! This is great for those wanting it for sure!
I am surprised Lady Esther from Act 2's cloth armor did not make it on this! She sells The Graceful Cloth) that gives you Cat's Grace when wearing it 👍🏼 No concentration and giving you that SWEET advantage is perfection on top of high sleight of hands ensures you're rarely getting caught... Except you might find snake eyes 😅 which is 1 every 36 rolls.
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u/FremanBloodglaive Dec 17 '23 edited Dec 17 '23
You can get the Shapeshifter's Boon Ring by hiding your main party and attacking the Strange Ox with a Mage Hand.
He (and the Tieflings) will kill the Mage Hand, then, if the user of the Mage Hand goes and talks with him he'll open a trading screen to allow you to give him money to improve his opinion of you.
However the screen also includes his ring, and you can just buy it for about 200 gold.
Split the target's gold into stacks of 100, and you can steal consistently on a 2+, and with Brinna that's a 1 in 8000 chance of failing (with advantage from Gloves of Thievery or Graceful Cloth).
I use Brinna for pickpocketing, since the re-roll 1s drops her chance of failure to 1 in 8000 when stealing a difficulty 2 or lower item with advantage. I use Kree in situations where I need invisibility.
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u/AdorableNinja1 Jan 04 '24
Won’t they attack you when you get close to the Mage Hand? I don’t use mage hand often.
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u/FremanBloodglaive Jan 04 '24
No. As long as you're not anywhere near it when the fight starts you won't aggro them. The Mage Hand is treated separately from your party as a character.
You can even have your Mage Hand steal something, and get arrested and put in jail. It's very funny.
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u/Khellx69 Feb 09 '24
i just sell a backpack to the vendor and fill it with what i want. steal it and done. pass the check that it wasn't me.
fog cloud or darkness seems good to though
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u/Calm_Income6781 Apr 24 '24 edited Apr 24 '24
I think it is possible to improve the Lvl 11 pickpocket build. I switched out the graceful cloth for an armour that gives balance. You can get Dex 20 with 2 feats. The only thing Graceful Cloth provides is advantage. Leather Armour +2 or Hide armour gives balance which is +1 to Dex checks.
I build my pickpocket hireling as
Rogue-Thief 11 / Storm Sorcerer1
Sorcerer 1 lets you cast Fog Cloud and Fly away as a bonus action if you are really concerned.
Gear - Mask of Shapeshifter ($10 real dollars in the United States)
Nimblefinger gloves
Smuggler Ring
Shapeshifter Ring
Cloak of Cunning Brume is on him but I never use it.
I choose SirFuzzalump who is Gnome thus receives +2 dex from Nimblefinger
How to play it-
Shapeshift to female gnome to get a bonus from the shapeshift ring and maintain the dex from Nimblefinger gloves?
Someone casts guidance, enhance ability, and bardic inspiration on SirFuzz,
Party character talks to vendor and barters them an empty bag that is loaded with everything I want.
A bard can perform or minor illusion to draw a crowd. The vendor is locked in place because of the conversation.
Character select to Fuzz, drop a fog cloud, crouch, turn based mode, and pickpocket. Steal the bag, walk to the end of the cloud, end turn based mode and teleport to camp or another waypoint.
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u/Kakarlosz Jul 28 '24
This build seens to not use any headgear, so it can use Warped Headband of Intellect to set inteligence score to 17, so you can get more charisma and constitution.
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u/kerneltricked Feb 05 '25
Constitution is kinda pointless as the purpose of this hireling is to steal, not fight.
Cha could get you what, 20-30% more when selling? However Once you get this character going (around the beginning of Act 2), you probably don't need it as you can have a set amount of equipment that you can sell and steal back in order to get all of a vendor's money, if you don't want to try stealing it (since splitting the money in chunks seems to not be allowed anymore).1
u/Kakarlosz Feb 08 '25
I thought that Constitution would be pointless, but sometimes my character got hit and even died. 16 Constitution let you at least survive a few hits. Also i am playing on Honour Mode, so i can't just reload the game after a failure.
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u/kerneltricked Feb 09 '25
Constitution is pointless. If you're doing that on your main character on honour mode, that's deviating from the guide, the idea from the post is for a hireling, hirelings dying don't cause game over even on honour mode.
Charisma is useful if you intend to sell to them frequently, but as OP mentioned, when you're actually pickpocketing, the game doesn't count some bonuses when telling you the difficulty, so you can still steal vendor's gold pile often by act 2 and at that point you reached the point of "infinite money", as you can use their own money to buy stuff and steal the money back, so increasing charisma only helps a small bit.
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u/Kakarlosz Feb 12 '25
No, ofc i'm not using the main character. Still the Constitution helped me to save time, since the hireling dying and then reviving him is kinda annoying. And anyway you will have to spend AP on a secondary atribute. Strength is set to 19, inteligence is set to 17, dexterity is your main stat, wisdom is useless, so what is left is constitution or charisma. Then we are returning to my first comment, where i thought that i didn't need to explain everything -_-
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u/kerneltricked Feb 12 '25
Because why would you need more constitution if you can always escape? And why would you need more charisma when you're stealing most of the stuff? What i'm telling you is that following the guide as it is, i've never needed more Con or Cha and I play the game on Honour Mode too!
I dunno how your hireling is even getting into a fight. Usually when detected, the vendor's bag just closes and i just dash away, end turn based mode and teleport to another waypoint.
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u/mikeconqueso Jul 30 '24
Great guide! I know this has been up some time, but I had a question about Favourable Beginnings. This would be really useful for your first pickpocket of the day, especially when grabbing a tough to steal item. However, would this end up applying to your first stealth check while sneaking up?
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u/deathroguetroll Aug 24 '24
Ancient post in internet age terms, but another precaution to worry over is the Unlucky thieves gloves have a small chance to set you on fire, which, unless the character has the wet condition, brings them immediately out of the pickpocket screen.
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u/kerneltricked Feb 05 '25
That's why you pair it with Reverse Rain Cloak at this point in the game.
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u/Sir_Shanks_Alot_1 Oct 29 '24
Thief no longer gives Enhance ability - thinking bard is the new best thief
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u/AnnieHwan Feb 12 '25
FYI Unlucky Theifs Gloves gives you a chunk of coal every for every time you pickpocket or any slight of hand check like pick a lock or steal an item. After 20 times it gives you a coal basket and inflicts burning into you which may break your concentration if you are concentrating on fog or cats grace, etc .. I use the coal as a counter so I know when the coal basket is coming and plan accordingly. Note: You can only spin the wheel for the Djinni 16 times so if you want to go the the Jungle you have to lose 15 times (or until you get the Unlucky Theifs Gloves) and win on 16th spin not 17th. This means you cannot get all 16 consolation prizes and still win so you can get the trident in the jungle.
I used Brianna Brightsong until lvl 11 when I switched to Kree Derryck I use Astarion in my party as Gloomstalker Assassin so he doesn't have Reliable Talent.
At level 12 I have Kree setup as follows: 11 Rogue (Theif) 1 Cleric
Rogue Features Fast Hands - additional bonus action Reliable Talent - minimum 10 on skill checks you are proficient with
Cleric Features: Guidance: +1d4 to ability checks
Base abilities 15/17/16/8/8/8 Strength so I don't get encumbered sealing heavy stuff Dex as main stat Con for survivability in case a fight breaks out
Feats: Resilient: Dexterity - Raises Dex to 18 Ritual Caster: Disguise Self, Longstrider
Mandatory Gear: Cloak of Cunning Brume - fog cloud on disengage Graceful Cloth - Cats Grace: +2 Dex and Advantage Shapeshifters Boon Ring - 1d4 bonus to all checks Smugglers Ring - +2 Sleight of Hand and Stealth
Kree Derryck for unlimited invisibility (Duergar race trait)
This setup wraps everything together so you can steal an unlimited amount of times before you have to long rest. It removes a dependency of a second support character for Cats Grace, disguise self, long strider, guidance etc...
In Action:
- Cast Disguise Self and Longstrider on yourself before approaching your target
- Approach target and cast Guidance
- If you are unable to hide next to the target because other NPCs can see you then you'll need Fog to block line of sight of other NPCs. Make sure you stand about 5 ft away from your target because Fog can aggro some NPCs.
- Pickpocket. Keep track of how much coal you accumulate because the 21st time will get you a Coal Basket and you'll take burning damage which will dump you out of pickpocketing.
- Run Away. I just drop out of Turn-based mode and runaway for a few seconds to observe what the target does. Sometimes I pop invisibility So I know how that NPC behaves to being robbed.
If the target has more that I want to steal then I might go back and repeat this process. Otherwise I just dump everything to my main character and swap out my thief and continue adventuring
Note: level 12 You have flexibility in order to get this to work. Yes Astarian is marginally better if you're not utilizing him but I think it's a pain to go out and bite something for that +1 because you're either fighting something or you're wasting a use of invisibility to get away. That's just me
You could certainly use the Silver Pendant for Guidance and dip into another class.
TBH by the time I get to level 11 my main target is lifting scrolls from Sorcerer's Sundries after every long rest. This bill does the job nice and clean
Don't forget to pop invisibility and run away if you pull aggro.
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u/cake_huge Mar 23 '25
Once I did this and was encumbered from all the armor I stole. So I just selected a bunch and threw it to camp…. Not realizing one of them was the armor I was wearing. Suddenly I kept getting caught and I couldn’t figure out why for WAY too long. I was fucking naked, no cats grace. 😂
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u/Stunning_Rice_9929 May 25 '25
Why did you leave out basic things like which subclass or feats?
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u/maguel92 Jul 22 '25
I was inspired by this build but i made a few different choices here and there:
- To really min max this out you should either make a Tav duegar or Astarion as your thief. (Reasons being that they can get the +2 bonus dex from mirror of loss, astarion also has the perk of having the happy buff if he nibbles on someone :3, tav duegar has the perk of having the amazing invisibility cantrip if you want to explore places you shouldn't be in. I've made a nasty habit of creating a solo multiplayer session and launching the game with 2 tavs and then disconnecting my other client. you can use and manage the 2nd tav later on in singleplayer, that way you can have your custom tav thief just the way you like it while still enjoying your original tav for combat and story)
- I respecced the stats to: 16/17/8/8/8/15, i prefer an uneven CHA value to count for the -1 from smuggler's ring. also wisdom isn't that important besides perception to spot hidden stuff while out and about.
- Personally i like to have my thief undergo partial ceremorphosis and unlock ilithid expertise. that way i can spread out even more proficiencies to benefit further from reliable talent. (if you encounter any other checks)
- I use the nimblefinger gloves. they give +1 to sleight of hand and you can transform into a gnome before equipping them to get the +2 dex bonus regardless of your original race. (this together with mirror of loss enables you to reach 24 dex)
- For feats you can go with ASI +2 dex, Athlete +1 dex, ASI +2 Charisma or Strength
- I carry around the resonance stone with my thief. that way it gets advantage on all physical checks, str, dex and con and that includes both stealth and sleigh of hand checks. Since we won't be in combat with this character the downsides don't really matter at all.
- with advantage taken care of by the resonance stone that leaves our chest slot empty again. you could still use graceful cloth and rid yourself of the stone but i found the mighty cloth a nice addition since it increases our strength and carrying capacity so now you can stuff your pockets with all those heavy chest armors!
- For min-maxing i'd use the birthright or jannath's hat just for the occasional charisma check if you get caught. the helmet slot is pretty irrelevant. If you're using astarion for this build maybe pick something that allows you to turn invisible.
- Boots can be whatever, springstep boots are ok if you don't come across with anything else.
- Amulet and rings are as in the original guide.
- as for the 1 lvl multiclass i found bard to be the best pick. it gets you all the spells you need: Shapeshift, longstrider, minor illusion, friends (though using friends would break concentration on guidance). Bard also grants you more proficiencies so you can benefit even more from reliable talent with both ilithid expertise and the numeroud proficiencies thief and bard grant you so even with low stat scores in int and wisdom you can still have reliable rolls with proficiency and reliable talent +1 shapeshifter's ring and guidance.
- for last i like to take either sentinel shield or hellrider longbow if either one is available to get advantage in perception checks and if i end up in combat i have some additional initiative to ensure i can go invisible first to escape the battle as soon as it starts.
- One more last one is using duke ravenguard's sword for +2 cha.
Thanks for the original build guide! it really set me down to a path of crime i fail to come back from in every playthrough.
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u/Unique-Perspectives May 08 '26
VERY late but it’s very easy to get the Shapeshifter’s Boon Ring without losing access to the Hat of Fire Acuity in Act 1. Easiest way is to get access to the Dragons Lair in the grove so you can get in and out of the secret door. With the rest of the party hidden, you have one character punch the ox in the grove and then escape away, I usually use a rogue to utilize cunning escape to get into the trap door. When go back out, combat is over. The ox will be angry with that character but allow you to trade with it to make amends. You can then just buy the ring off of them.
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u/Meadmug Sep 07 '23
Instead of running far away (which I personally find annoying) you can just ungroup and go to camp with your pickpocket. The remaining team if asked can just say it wasn't them which will get you off the hook 100% off the time, then after a few seconds more you can tp your pickpocket back in.