Preventing Sleight of Hand stealing

[Cybris75]

Reading the Sleight of Hand rules there doesn't seem to be a way to prevent someone from stealing stuff from your character. You can notice it with Spot, but then it's too late.

I guess big weapons, fear auras, or damaging auras should discourage stealing attempts, but what can you do to actually prevent someone determined from stealing items you carry, wear or wield? (Besides being incorporeal, I guess)

[Vaz]

It's DM's fiat, really. if he wants something stolen, he'll steal it. If he wants something protected from being stolen, there'll be some way of doing that.

If it's a PC who's invested enough ranks into it should be able to. Provided of course they get close enough to the target, in whatever manner that needs to be.

Is there a specific scenario in mind?

[Cruiser1]

Reading the Sleight of Hand rules there doesn't seem to be a way to prevent someone from stealing stuff from your character.
Wear a Belt of Many Pockets (CA), or a Belt of Hidden Pouches (MIC). They both store items in extradimensional spaces which can only be opened by the wearer. The Belt of Hidden Pouches even says Sleight of Hand doesn't work against most of its spaces. :smallsmile:

[hymer]

Prevent people from getting close enough to steal from you.

[winter92]

From the SRD: If you try to take something from another creature, you must make a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check to obtain it. The opponent makes a Spot check to detect the attempt, opposed by the same Sleight of Hand check result you achieved when you tried to grab the item. An opponent who succeeds on this check notices the attempt, regardless of whether you got the item.

This section seems to indicate to me that there are two tests being applied here, albeit against one check. You have to pass a DC 20 check to steal the object, and then your target gets to try to spot above your check to realize you've done it. Given this, I think some DM discretion is called for. Magic holding shouldn't be necessary to modify that save DC - a loose bag of gold in a drunkard's pocket probably shouldn't be 20, and a well secured pouch tucked under a breastplate ought to be a hell of a lot higher. It's stupid RAW, but I can't see most DMs playing it straight.

[Piggy Knowles]

Remember that they still need to succeed on the DC 20 check to successfully steal an item. DC 20 is trivial by the mid levels, but still, some people seem to think that failing just means they get spotted. You need to hit DC 20 just to succeed at all, plus beat their Spot check to avoid being spotted.

Limiting free actions per round helps, as does making sure you enforce the "small object" restriction. As a houserule, you could switch to the rules for disarming if the target succeeds on their Spot check - it would make sense, as seeing it happen would make them likely to try to hang onto the item in question.

[Calimehter]

I'm away from my books, but I could have sworn that there were some pouch types that had crunch rules for making pickpocketing harder? Arms and Equipment Guide or something like that?

[Telonius]

Carry a Bag of Devouring, and there's a chance that the theft problem will simply go away. :smallbiggrin:

[Chronos]

Personally, I would houserule that if you're seen on the Spot check, your opponent gets an attack of opportunity against you, and if that succeeds, your theft attempt fails. This still leaves it as an effective option if you've invested in Sleight of Hand, because damnit, mundanes should get nice things, but it also makes it possible to defend against it.