Psychotic Prankster

Psychotic Prankster is an achievement in Fallout 3 which is awarded for successfully reverse pickpocketing a live explosive into someone's inventory.

Pants Exploded is both a term and a player-statistic that appears on the screen between loading areas. It measures the total number of times the player has planted explosives on someone.

A Stealth Boy can be used if pickpocketing is too difficult against that particular character. Also keep in mind the bulk of equipped gear, ambient lighting, and distance/position behind the target count against you, same as pickpocketing.

Strategy

 * For frag grenades, make sure you holster your weapon before you put frag grenade since you have to be crouching to pickpocket. You only have a couple seconds to back out of the blast-zone and its best to keep your hands free so you can move quickly. Also backstepping usually nets you on the limit of blast radius and damages you little.


 * For frag mine, blast radius is relatively small and does not produce red arrow that usually indicate live grenade. (Exploding Pants Grenade will produce red arrow when it is live in enemy's inventory.) You can backstep with your weapon holstered and watch enemy either run away, looking for that frag mine on pants, or just shooting last-word swears all over places.


 * Even with 100% sneak skill, silent running and an active stealth boy you won't always succeed. So, when its an important or dangerous target, its probably best to save before trying.


 * If the target has the same type of grenade in his or her inventory as the type that you're trying to reverse-pickpocket (for example, if it has frag grenades in its inventory and you try placing a frag grenade), they will always catch you, so clear out their inventory of any grenades before you place the live grenade.


 * Even if you fail, if you are sufficiently hidden, you will not be "detected" by the enemy - and will remain . However, you will be unable to attempt pickpocketing on that particular NPC again.


 * An easy way to earn this achievement if you have positive karma is to simply hide behind any friendly NPC, and save. Then you can try as many times as it takes, and once you get it, you will unlock the achievement.  You can then reload and have no negative karma added.

Usable Explosives

 * Bottlecap Mine†
 * Frag Grenade
 * Frag Mine
 * Nuka Grenade†
 * Plasma Grenade
 * Plasma Mine
 * Pulse Grenade
 * Pulse Mine

†Despite the value and lack of quantity of these explosives, if you're attempting a mass murder with one smooth move, use these.

Related Pages

 * Sneak
 * Sneak Attack
 * Shady Sands Shuffle
 * Fallout 3 achievements