Ways to avoid Pick-Pocket ?

[Kerilstrasz]

As tittle say...
My low level group [3 persons, 4 lvl each, melee fighter, ranged fighter and cleric(healing oriented)], came up with some big amount of wealth
in the form of items (pots, extra weaps and armor and some mundane & alchem items) that we need to carry around with us...
we decided and bought a Bag of Holding (Version 1) and our carrying problem kinda solved...
the problem now is...
almost all our belongings (except primary arms and weaps) are all together in a small bag that a good/lucky thief can pick it up kinda easy..
so..
I m looking of any Non-Magic ways to prevent that from happening...
I m not looking for answers like raise your spot or sense motive skills...

My 1st idea was to place the bag o' holding in an ordinary looking (but safe enough,with locks maybe) backpack...
Or adjust a thin chain on the B.o.H. and cuff it on my wrist, but that will look suspicious enough to a good spotter thief...
anything you can thing that can help???

Thnx all :)

[Ravens_cry]

Well, there is the old question of access verses security.
Do you need to access the bag often or only at an end destination?
Strapping it to your chest and wearing a breastplate over top, with a chain shirt over everything, should realistically prevent most thefts, but would make getting at it quite difficult yourself.
Put more immediate wealth, like coins for food and inns, in smaller pouches distributed through the party on pouches around everyone's neck.

[The Random NPC]

With your limitations, I believe it's impossible. After all, the beating the pick pocketing attempt just informs you that you've been robbed, it doesn't actually stop the pick pocketing.

[Kaeso]

Non-magic ways to avoid pickpockets?
:smallamused: Don't use pockets.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Slight of Hand can only take a small object, and a two-foot-by-four-foot bag that weighs 15 pounds is not comparable to anything that can be pickpocketed. It would take a Disarm check to remove such an item, per grabbing items (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#grabbingItems). No chance at all of Slight of Hand removing a Bag of Holding.

[deuxhero]

My standard solution would be figureing out a way to get Arcane Lock on a backpack, but that's out of the option for you, even as a UMDed spell.

[graeylin]

put all your items in a handy haversack. Granted the haversack can be stolen, but you should honestly notice if someone takes an entire backpack off your back.

You have to wear it to retrieve a specific item, and retrieving an item is a move action, so... hard for a pick pocket to do that AND move in the same round.

[Kerilstrasz]

Do you need to access the bag often or only at an end destination?
Put more immediate wealth, like coins for food and inns, in smaller pouches
distributed through the party on pouches around everyone's neck.

lets see... some items like 1-2 torches, a rope, 2-3 heal pots and some coins are not in the B.o.H. and easy accessible...
the B.o.H. will be used like 1-2 times per day at most everyday, to prepare for a fight or set up a camp or for storing treasure found...



Slight of Hand can only take a small object, and a two-foot-by-four-foot bag that weighs 15 pounds is not comparable
to anything that can be pickpocketed. No chance at all of Slight of Hand removing a Bag of Holding.

as by Dm's description of the bag, it is as small as a woman's purse (remember harry potter when Hermione got a tent out of
her purse? about the same size).. weight though remains the same.

[Slipperychicken]

Keep your bag under your armor (preferably plate), and stuff the inside of the armor with leather or cloth. It will take a while to get it out, so keep any combat-essentials on your belt or whatever.

Sew your pockets shut (or use Mending), cut them open when you need them.

[olentu]

as by Dm's description of the bag, it is as small as a woman's purse (remember harry potter when Hermione got a tent out of
her purse? about the same size).. weight though remains the same.

Just glue a whole bunch of bulky stuff to the bag.

[Crasical]

The Arms and Equipment Guide has a money belt, which can hold 50 coins and raises the sleight of hand DC by 5. Kind of feeble, but there it is.

[King Atticus]

Because the DM was kind enough to make it smaller for you it makes it possible for you to use an inside pocket (1gp CSc 108). As medium creatures wearing medium sized clothing the largest inside pocket you could have is Tiny. Which is defined as 1x1x1ft which should be plenty large enough for a purse. So they would have to search to actually find the stuff in the pocket before even getting the chance to take it hopefully buying you time to notice whats happening.

[Slipperychicken]

Also, cover the BoH with tiny bells, and put it inside a really crinkly paper bag, which is stapled/sewn shut, and fixed to the inside of your plate armor.

Cast Magic Aura on the BoH so it doesn't detect as magical.

Get a Restful Crystal so your stuff is always inside your armor, which you're always wearing because you can sleep in it.


If someone's legit and wants payment, he can wait a minute for you to fish your BoH out of your armor.

Keep a little pocket change (a few coppers and silvers?) for beggars, carolers, or whatever.

If you don't need your pockets, trap them. Yes, you can trap your goddamn pockets, using the BoVD armor/equipment traps. Because **** pickpockets, seriously. Stick a damn bear trap in your pocket, and watch the filching bastard squeal. Tie a little bag of coppers to the bear trap, with just enough rope that it can't leave the bear trap's teeth. Like a mousetrap, only with teeth.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

as by Dm's description of the bag, it is as small as a woman's purse (remember harry potter when Hermione got a tent out of
her purse? about the same size).. weight though remains the same.

Still too big to Slight of Hand it, especially if it has some kind of strap that goes around your torso that would have to be cut or broken to take it. Again, that would fall under the last section of the Disarm action.

[animewatcha]

Dimension hole with pocket on inside of pants/shorts/whatever covers your rear. Need to reach something? Pull it outta your 'ass.' Bonus points if the item(s) are brown colored and/or maybe drip a bit of brown stuff.

[Ashtagon]

The ancient Greeks used to do this by having a manservant (aka slave) keep the money in his mouth.

More modern approaches usually involve having a decoy money bag. Thieves will normally assume everyone is carrying something of some value, so if that something is extra-well-hidden, it gathers attention simply by its concealment. Having a decoy with a couple of coins in it allows the thief to believe he "won".

[Kelb_Panthera]

How's about you just carry it in your hand?

If you're holding it in your hand it can't be swiped by SoH, period.

[prufock]

Just glue a whole bunch of bulky stuff to the bag.

Sovereign Glue to the rescue! One of my "must have" items! If you're really paranoid, you can actually glue the bag to your body. Of course, Sovereign Glue is magical, so that might not be an option. Some alchemical glue, maybe?

[hoverfrog]

Making pick pocket impossible is probably too hard but you can make it more difficult or you can work to mitigate your loss if something is stolen. The obvious way to mitigate any loss is to take everything out of your bag of holding and distribute it across the party. If you are robbed then they might get away with 50gp or so which you can live with a lot easier than losing everything of value that you own.

Next level you get Glyph of Warding. Use it a lot on anything of value that can be opened. Keep the warded bag of holding in a warded box inside a warded backpack. Don't go for anything explosive, use Summon Monster III that activates when opened and hit them with elementals.

Before you get glyphs just use traps and poison to protect yourself.

If your DM will allow it have the glyph on easy clash, lock, tie or switch so that they have to face an army of beasts if they just open the backpack to steal the goods.

Have the person with the highest Spot score carry the bag. A slight of hand check is opposed by spot checks. Take advantage of this.

Get a wizard. use magic mouth imaginatively. No-one will ever be able to sneak up on you or rob you again.

[Hopeless]

1) "I prepared Explosive Runes this morning" stitched around the top and have your bard spread rumours that you carry a cursed pouch as a decoy for your real money pouch.

2) Then invest in a bestow curse so that the first few who do try to steal your bag of holding find themselves returning said pouch with an added donation and an apology due to the curse!

3) Have the bard point out that a party member tried to steal your pouch and thats what caused his/her scars!

4) Have decoy pouch with line 1 written on a note inside with "Are you feeling lucky today?" on the outside of the note.

My cleric carries a bag of holding and so far it hasn't been stolen but then he is clad in enchanted full plate and has a rogue as high level as he is as a friend which is what happens when you make sure you have Remove Blindness and other spells ready to help your teammates when they need it and they're more paranoid than you are!

[Kansaschaser]

Slight of Hand can only take a small object, and a two-foot-by-four-foot bag that weighs 15 pounds is not comparable to anything that can be pickpocketed. It would take a Disarm check to remove such an item, per grabbing items (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/specialAttacks.htm#grabbingItems). No chance at all of Slight of Hand removing a Bag of Holding.

Unless you get into Epic uses of pick pocket. But then the DM is basically saying, "I don't want you to have these items anymore."

[Slipperychicken]

You can probably avoid most pickpockets by flying everywhere, or making your equipment meld into your form via polymorph effects.

[elonin]

Get a glove of storing and store your pouch.

[Crasical]

We are about three bad ideas away from a recreation of the 'a** of holding' story.

[Seffbasilisk]

Wear a belt, holding the bag over your groin. Put your trousers on over that, hold them up with a belt. Put your tunic on over that.

Now you just have a bulge in front. Good luck finding a thief that wants to reach in to steal that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Wear a belt, holding the bag over your groin. Put your trousers on over that, hold them up with a belt. Put your tunic on over that.

Now you just have a bulge in front. Good luck finding a thief that wants to reach in to steal that.

Be aware that you'll probably get dirty looks from shop-keeps when you reach in there for coinage. :smalltongue:

[Thiyr]

Get a large top hat, monocle, and cane. Strut around town with the bag of holding sewn into the hat. When you need something: stage magic it out. Because really, who's gonna steal your *hat*?

[Crasical]

We are about three bad ideas away from a recreation of the 'a** of holding' story.


Wear a belt, holding the bag over your groin. Put your trousers on over that, hold them up with a belt. Put your tunic on over that.

Now you just have a bulge in front. Good luck finding a thief that wants to reach in to steal that.

There's one.

[TypoNinja]

Last time I had stuff stolen we tracked the thief to his guild, burned the place down around his ears, quite a few bodies, quite a few people who were no longer complete bodies and very unhappy about it. Dragged the guild master through the streets by his ankles into the local guard HQ. Strung him up a rafter and collected the bounty. Made a point of explaining that the bounty was kind of low, but one of his underlings had annoyed us.

Never actually found our stuff, but now pickpockets cross the street when they see us coming. I call it a win.

Course you need to be high enough level to just stomp all over a whole guild like that to pull that off.

Just remember pickpocketing is a skill not magic. You can make the checks impossibly high fairly cheaply. Chain it to your belt, keep it inside your Armour, flush against skin so you will notice it moving immediately. Have the wizard arcane mark it, so that it can be scried upon easily if it ever does turn up missing, then make the thieves sorry they woke up that day.

Let your reputation speak for you. Everybody knows adventurers are rich, everybody also knows adventurers are also all crazy bastards who kill things for a living, things that whole goddamn militia doesn't want to fight. The Captain of the town guard is a safer target than an adventuring party.