Steal

Steal is a skill in Fallout, Fallout 2, Van Buren, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel. In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, it has been merged into the Sneak skill.

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 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 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'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:
 * The mark's Steal skill.
 * Unless there is a critical success, a roll against mark's steal skill is made. The higher the skill - the more chances there are of being caught.
 * The mark's Perception rating.
 * A higher Perception means a higher chance of being caught. Consider lowering the mark's Perception with rot gut. (direct relationship not confirmed, may be only indirectly influencing the mark's Steal skill)
 * The mark's facing
 * The odds of success are 25% lower face-to-face with the Mark. Approach the mark from the side or rear. If you have Pickpocket perk, mark facing is ignored.
 * The size of the object lifted
 * Larger objects are more likely to be missed; likewise, smaller objects are less likely to be missed. Each point of size reduces success chance by 4%. For reference, typical armor has size 10-15, pistols 2-3, rifles 4-5, heavy weapons 6-10. Item size is ignored if you have Pickpocket perk.

When practicing Pickpocketing, first dull the mark's 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 gives 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:
 * Thief
 * Harmless
 * Master Thief
 * Pickpocket

Of these, the entrepreneurial Pickpocket will find the namesake perk most useful as it eliminates weight and facing modifiers.

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