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So in pick-pocketing, you have the option to steal from somebody's inventory, and/or place something into it. Outside of leveling exploits and quests, what function does placing actually have? Can you use for stealth kills or something?

Eric
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AwesomePizza138
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    Not 100% related, but in that other famous Bethesda game (Fallout 3/4) you can do the same thing and plant bombs there... – Peter David Carter Jun 01 '16 at 19:19
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    You can also place heavy items in their inventory to burden them if you plan on fighting them and want to ensure they cant run or move to chase you. Like 100 dragon bones, which most players will have after about 30 minutes of playing the game... – TylerH Jun 02 '16 at 05:46
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    We call this put-pocketing and some practice it IRL – Louis CAD Jun 02 '16 at 14:04
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    In the Fallout 3+, it was usually some form of handgrenade you put-pocketed.

    Hilarity typically ensued.

     – 0xSheepdog Jun 02 '16 at 15:42
  • My friend and I used to pass an old bic pen around like this. – Wayne Werner Jun 02 '16 at 20:11
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    This was one of my favourite things in ES:Oblivion with the item creation - Make a hat that causes Fire damage to the wearer, reverse pickpocket it onto a sleeping NPC, Wake them, step back and be amused as they put their new hat on and slowly burn to death. – SeanR Jun 03 '16 at 08:12
  • @LouisCAD FYI that website has a weird sporadic redirect thing going on. I suspect the site may have fallen victim to a black-hat SEO injection. – Adrian Jun 03 '16 at 14:12
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    @Adrian SEO injection is a sort of put-pocketing ;) – Louis CAD Jun 03 '16 at 14:24

8 Answers8

191

Another lesser known use for reverse pickpocketing is to remove the stolen flag from items.

If you reverse pickpocket a stolen item onto someone and kill them it will no longer be considered stolen.

l I
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    Skyrim Ethics: 101 – Ranger Jun 01 '16 at 14:54
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    Today I learned. – Alan Jun 01 '16 at 15:15
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    LOL.... that's awesome... "here, the money I stole" kills whoever he just gave money too SWEET, NOT STOLEN LOOT! – Patrice Jun 01 '16 at 17:35
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    Money isn't marked as stolen though. It's more like "Here is this giant sword I just stole, now plant it on the shopkeeper and kill him to make it unstolen." – Nelson Jun 02 '16 at 02:42
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    Thats a good one, didnt know about this. – Gigala Jun 02 '16 at 08:47
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    I always though it odd that taking an item from a live person permanently marks the item as stolen (and therefor hard to sell), but murdering everyone in the area and THEN taking their stuff is considered socially acceptable. – GreySage Jun 02 '16 at 18:37
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    @GreySage: That totally violates the normal "loot, THEN pillage" rule. – Peter Cordes Jun 05 '16 at 02:58
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    @GreySage I guess it's because you killed the original owner so he can't claim it as stolen. Plus you killed/intimidated all witnesses so they won't testify against you. – Cave Johnson Jun 06 '16 at 16:20
  • This is a great thing to do early in the game with the Bow in Aela's room you can steal very early in the game but won't drop until Level 20. Put it on an NPC you're going to kill anyway (Calixto in Windhelm, Grelod the Kind, Narfi, etc.) – durron597 Jun 06 '16 at 23:01
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Yes, you can poison people by placing poison into their inventory.

Reverse pickpocketing a poison using the Poisoned perk does not count as a crime, even if the magical effect of the poison (e.g. "damage health") would otherwise be considered a criminal act if applied any other way. This makes it entirely possible to kill or weaken innocent enemies, right in front of everyone, without incurring a bounty (unless you get caught, as noted @Kevin).

Also, reverse pickpocketing a paralysing poison into your target's inventory and then pickpocketing them as soon as the effect starts to wear off allows you to take any item without being caught, no matter the chance of success.

Exerion
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    Reverse pickpocketing does not count as a crime unless you get caught. But then you'll be going for a dinky little ~40 gold pickpocketing bounty, instead of the 1000 bounty for murder. – Kevin Jun 01 '16 at 06:30
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    What? So you can just place poison in their inventory and they drink it? And i thought the poisoned apples in Oblivion were odd... – Gigala Jun 02 '16 at 08:47
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    @Gigala Think of it as a contact poison – Landric Jun 02 '16 at 11:32
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    @Gigala I think they are writing about giving the NPC an armor with a poison or damage health enchantment, not giving them a potion. Edit: Dragonrage talks about it in his answer with more detail : there is a special perk to allow poisoning people by giving them poisonous potions! It's not by default.. – Shautieh Jun 02 '16 at 11:36
  • Finally! I can each that little $#&% some manners so that he can think twice before calling me a milk-drinker again! – MonkeyZeus Jun 03 '16 at 20:00
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If you reverse pickpocket fancy arrows onto an archer (and take his lousy arrows) who regularly practices his archery, you can get an endless supply of that type of arrow from his archery target whenever he practices.

rrauenza
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If you reverse-pickpocket equippable items, the NPC may equip them. This is useful if you have an unarmed follower who refuses to trade with you, like Maurice Jondrelle, who appears in the Blessings of Nature quest. If you reverse-pickpocket a sword and some armor to him, he has a better chance of surviving the quest.

For that particular NPC, the Elder Scrolls Wiki says that you have to reverse-pickpocket him before you talk to him for the first time, or it won’t work.

Lord Harkon
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    Interesting. So it's a cheat that only works if you're also cheating by taking advantage of knowing who a character is that your character hasn't met yet. – Dronz Jun 03 '16 at 16:21
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You can use this to drop poison into their pockets and stealthy kill/damage them, but only if you have the poisoned perk in the pickpocket perk tree.

see here for a description of the perk

Dragonrage
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16

I would like to stress upon the "pickpocketing someone while the paralysis effect has just been weared off for anything(as mentioned by @Exerion)" a bit more:

Since Alchemy is quite hard to level up. Whenever my player levelled up, I used to go to an Alchemy trainer, train 5 levels, and steal the money. But, as my level grew in Alchemy, the chances of stealing large amounts became 0 no matter what i did(tried all sorts of potions and stuff). And then I thought of an IDEA. I put a paralysis potion in the trainer's pocket and as soon as the stealing option became enabled, I stole my money back successfully.

Also levelled up other skills like Archery, Enchanting, Smithing etc the same way. It saved me a fortune(hundreds of thousands).

Sarthak Mittal
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    Alchemy is not that hard to level up, you just have to make the right potions, Blue Mountain Flower + Blue Butterfly Wing + Giant's Toe and Glowing Mushroom + Glow Dust + Hanging Moss spring to mind... – durron597 Jun 06 '16 at 22:58
  • @durron597 yeah i knew about that, still used to be very hard to level up after 50 or so ;) – Sarthak Mittal Jun 14 '16 at 06:58
  • Alchemy is IMO one of the easiest to level up once you've gotten decent fortify alchemy gear. Just wear four pieces of it, then use http://www.garralab.com/skyrim/alchemy.php to tell you what potions to make, then sell the potions to alchemists and buy all their ingredients (even the expensive ones), rinse/repeat. Usually I carry around a bunch of expensive potions and just stop at the alchemist when I'm doing my shop rounds for dungeon loot, eventually you have so many ingredients it becomes a cake walk. – durron597 Jun 14 '16 at 19:02
  • hmmm, alchemy is the first thing i level up, so no gear :) – Sarthak Mittal Jun 14 '16 at 19:31
  • You can do this pretty early on if you work on enchanting as well, right from the beginning of the game go to solitude you can probably find at least one piece of fortify alchemy gear in radiant raiment and then you can start the fortify enchanting potion with blue butterfly wings and snowberries. Obviously leveling up alchemy is going to be pretty tough to do in Riverwood, but if you wait a little bit then yeah. – durron597 Jun 14 '16 at 20:39
0

Sometimes it is an optional way to complete some missions, like the Quest where you have to put the ring in the guys pocket

Pantheroro
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If you reverse pickpocket gold onto a merchant immediately after investing in them, you can increase the investment permanently. There seems to be a 16 bit limit in place where raising a merchant's gold much past 32,500 will cause it to freeze. You can sell items, but won't receive gold in return. Also, it may be wise to reverse pickpocket multiple smaller amounts so you are less likely to get caught.

Jtenorj3
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