Thieving Abilities

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Thieving abilities are mainly used by thieves, but all of the following information can be applied to any other class with similar skills, such as a bard's pickpocketing or a ranger's or monk's stealth or a familiar's thieving skills.

Racial bonus[]

Humans represent the abilities' base values – other races obtain modifiers which are noted on race descriptions in-game and on the wiki. The following table, however, doesn't list the modifications but the overall values.^[1]

Note: Detect Illusion and Set Traps aren't available in the original Baldur's Gate, and Move Silently and Hide In Shadows are averaged as Stealth.

Note: The Enhanced Editions fix some values (marked with "^b" in the table) that are present in the original Baldur's Gate II splitted Stealth columns, based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition's Player's Handbook, but keep other ones that still are different in another ruleset sourcebook, the Player's Option: Skills & Powers (marked with "^nr" in the table).

Race	Open Locks	Pick Pockets	Move Silently	Hide In Shadows	Stealth Baldur's Gate (1998) This icon indicates content from the original *Baldur's Gate* campaign.	Find Traps	Detect Illusion	Set Traps	Total	Total Baldur's Gate (1998) This icon indicates content from the original *Baldur's Gate* campaign.
Humans	10	15	10	5	10	5	0^nr	0	45	40
Dwarves	20	15	10	5	10	20	5^nr	10	85	65
Elves	5	20	15^b	15	20	5	0^nr	0	60	50
Gnomes	15	15	15	10	15	15	10^nr	5	85	60
Half-elves	10	25	10^b	10	15	5	0^nr	0	60	55
Half-orcs	10	15	10	5	–	5^nr	0^nr	0	45	–
Halflings	15	20	20^b	20	25	10	0^nr	0	85	70

Dexterity bonus[]

This table shows the relation between dexterity and thieving skills. The numbers are added or subtracted from the base points plus racial modifiers. Detect Illusion is not affected by dexterity.

Note: Set Traps isn't available in the original Baldur's Gate, and Move Silently and Hide In Shadows are averaged as Stealth.

Note: There are no further modifications for a dexterity below the table's initial value of 9.

Dexterity	Open Locks	Pick Pockets	Move Silently	Hide In Shadows	Stealth Baldur's Gate (1998) This icon indicates content from the original *Baldur's Gate* campaign.	Find Traps	Set Traps
9	-10	-15	-20	-10	-20	-10	-10
10	-5	-10	-15	-5	-15	-10	-5
11	0	-5	-10	0	-10	-5	-5
12	0	0	-5	0	-5	0	0
13	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
14
15
16	+5	0	0	0	0	0	0
17	+10	+5	+5	+5	+5	0	0
18	+15	+10	+10	+10	+10	+5	+5
19	+20	+15	+15	+15	+15	+10	+10
20	+25^nd	+20	+18^nd	+18^nd	+18^nd	+15	+15
21	+30^nd	+25^nd	+20	+20^nd	+20	+20	+20
22	+35^nd	+30^nd	+23^nd	+23^nd	+23^nd	+25^nd	+25
23	+40^nd	+35^nd	+25^nd	+25^nd	+25^nd	+30^nd	+30
24	+45^nd	+40^nd	+30^nd	+30^nd	+30^nd	+35^nd	+35
25	+50^nd	+45^nd	+35^nd	+35^nd	+35^nd	+40^nd	+40

Pick Pockets[]

	Pick Pockets
Helmet	–
Armor	–
Shield	–
Gloves	80
Rings	60
Amulet	80
Belt	80
Boots	–
Weapons *	95
Quivers *	50
Cloak	80
Quick items	50
Other inventory	10
Magically created weapon	–
Fists	–
* Impossible for the currently equipped weapon, alongside the active quiver if a ranged one.

Baldur's Gate I & II: Enhanced Editions
This icon indicates content from all Enhanced Editions of the Baldur's Gate games. May situationally encompass Siege of Dragonspear and The Black Pits I & II content as well. Pickpocketing in the Enhanced Editions works differently than in the original games. Regardless of success or failure of the check: if the Thief's skill is not high enough to steal from any of the available item slots (or if the target has no items), the attempt fails safe without being detected. A breakdown of the skill needed to steal items from various item slots is provided in the table. If the skill is high enough to steal from more than one slot, the item is chosen randomly from all available ones. From some slots cannot be stolen at all.^[2]^[3]

Notes[]

Since there are no locks or traps with a difficulty over 100 in any of the games, there is no benefit of raising Open Locks above 100: a value of 92 minimum allows to open all locks and disarm all traps, though it may require more than one attempt. Detect Illusion and Set Traps also don't benefit from a skill above 100.
According to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition ruleset sourcebook Player's Option: Skills & Powers, half-orcs would have a Find Traps skill five points higher than humans, which is equal for both in the Baldur's Gate series. Also would all races have a base value of ten points in Detect Illusion opposed to zero in the series, to which half-elves receive a bonus and half-orcs a penalty of five each – while dwarves and gnomes have the correct modifications to this in Baldur's Gate, those former two races miss them.
A "bugfix" for this can be installed with the unofficial mod Rogue Rebalancing.
The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition sourcebooks Player's Handbook and Player's Option: Skills & Powers handle dexterity bonuses differently than the Baldur's Gate series: values for it of 20 to 22 are slightly modified, and skills aren't adjusted any further for even higher dexterity.

Dexterity	Open Locks	Pick Pockets	Move Silently	Hide In Shadows	Find Traps
20	+20	+20	+15	+20	+15
21	+25	+20	+20	+25	+20
22	+25	+25	+20	+30	+20

Bugs[]

Baldur's Gate II:
Shadows of Amn (2000)
This icon indicates content from the original Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn campaign.Baldur's Gate II:
Throne of Bhaal (2001)
This icon indicates content from the original Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal campaign. The Move Silently skill uses wrong values for elves, half-elves and halflings in the original Baldur's Gate II: all three races have it set five points too high. This is fixed in the Enhanced Editions.
According to manuals, the chance of success for opening locks is modified by adding a d10 roll. However, as implemented, the added modifier seems never to exceed 9. Therefore, a lock with difficulty 100 can be opened with a skill of 92, but not 91. ^{[Verification needed]}