Starfield: Ultimate Pickpocket Guide

You’ll meet many interesting individuals as you travel the galaxy in Starfield. Some of them will carry around valuables that can be yours if you learn to pickpocket!

Pickpocketing is a pretty simple but rewarding mechanic when used right. You just have to be careful not to get caught, or your Bounty will skyrocket!

In this guide, we’ll tell you everything there is to know about how to pickpocket in Starfield.

Ultimate Pickpocket Guide for Starfield

Pickpocketing in Starfield is extremely straightforward and only has one pre-requisite: the Theft skill.

Theft is a tier 1 Social skill, so you can unlock it from the very start of the game. You can start your criminal adventures quite early!

Once you’ve unlocked the Theft skill, you just need to find a pickpocket target.

But, before you go shoving your hands in anyone’s pockets, one little recommendation: save your game! Keep a save as a failsafe for you to reload in case you get caught in the act.

Anyway, let’s get criminal!

When you’ve picked your mark, crouch to enter stealth and approach whichever NPC you’re pickpocketing.

You’ll notice that the prompt when close to them changes to “Pickpocket” now! Press the button shown on the screen and you’ll open their inventory.

Now, viewing their inventory in this way doesn’t count as a crime just yet. This is great to let you gauge if it’s even worth committing to the pickpocketing or not.

Additionally, this allows you to see the chance of a successful pickpocket next to each item’s name. This chance increases when you’re undetected, and is also naturally better when your Theft skill is higher.

Once you’ve confirmed the item you want to steal, just select it and press the prompt for Steal as shown on the screen. Easy peasy!

Try to avoid stealing if the game warns you that you’re detected, though. It lowers your chances and will place a bounty on your head.

These are the basics, at the very least, but you can improve your pickpocketing ability further.

How to Get Better at Pickpocketing

There are two main skills you want to level up when focusing on the ability to pickpocket in Starfield. One is the Theft ability, obviously, but you also want to invest into Stealth.

Stealth is a tier 1 Physical skill, so you can get it just as early as Theft. It’s a great idea to get both together, as they work well in tandem!

The first rank of Stealth will make you harder to detect when crouching. Additionally, it will unlock the Stealth Meter, which makes it much easier to know when you’re hidden or not.

Whenever you crouch, a bar will appear on the top center of the screen. It will tell you that you’re either “Hidden” or “Detected”. Stay out of the line of sight of NPCs to remain undetected!

With both of these skills unlocked, you just need to complete their respective challenges to get higher ranks of them. This will make you harder to detect and increase your pickpocketing chances!

Thankfully, the challenges are pretty straightforward. Theft just requires you to keep pickpocketing successfully, while Stealth just requires you to perform a series of sneak attacks.

So, that’s all there is to it, now you just need to go out there and use your skills to improve them! However, we still recommend making saves often before pickpocketing.

Even a 99% chance to succeed can backfire, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

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