Star Ocean: The Second Story R - Pickpocketing

In this topic I will explain all about the pickpocketing in this game. This will not be a list of all the places and persons and what to steal - but simply a topic to explain how to steal and how does it affects the game.

Pickpocketing while you're not in the private action mode lowers the Friendship bond points between you and your party members. Have that in mind, as raising points means you will unlock different endings when you beat the game. Using thief skills mess up with that, so you might want to leave that for your second playthrough. You can steal in private action mode, but that also affects the bonding.

As for the other stuff, the most important part is having the talent "Nimble Fingers". If you enter the Status screen from your inventory, and press the square button, you can see Talents tab for your characters. These talents gets unlocked as you level up IC/Specialties, use them etc. What is advisable if you're starting your new game is to retry until you get Claude or Rena with Nimble Fingers talent. That one is also called Dexterity in the previous versions. With that talent there is a change to steal/pickpocket, but without it will always be 0 or 1% no matter how high you level up your Pickpocketing IC/Specialty skill.

First of all, you need to reach a certain moment in the game to unlock IC/Specialties. It will happen quite soon, after Krosse City and Celine. Investing in Pickpocketing takes a lot of SP, so you want to make sure to wait until you unlock Determination IC/Specialty and raise it to level 10. It lowers the SP needed to level up all other skills. That is the BEST IC you can level up.

How to find Thief's Gloves for stealing

You can buy Thief's Gloves in Item shop in Harley. Harley is on the far east side of Kross contined, directly east from Krosse City. You can get them soon after Krosse City, but you might be weak at that point. It's all up to you! Having the setup to steal early will prove handy if you aim for such playthrough. They cost 40,000 Fol, which is quite a lot for that point in the game.

There are 2 ways to raise money. You can either catch a bunch of Harley Marlins and sell piece for 3000+ Fol in shops, or you can level up Determination and Purity (first Determination, then Purity to level 10) with 1 party member for a whoopin' 100k Fol! The fishing method is explained in the next topic:

• Star Ocean: The Second Story R - Unique Spots

How to enable Pickpocketing

After you have that IC at least on level 1, go to IC/Specialties in your inventory, find Pickpocketing and turn in ON. When you have the gloves for stealing, approach an NPC and there will be a L1 prompt for stealing. It's advisable to save before you try to steal, there are only a few changes that lets you steal, then it gets blocked. But, you can use Relax Perfume to reset the number of times Pickpocketing can be used (you can buy that in shops).

How to find Magician's Gloves for even easier stealing

You can craft them using Machinist IC/Specialty. Select "Create Support Item" category. You need to be at least level 8 (that level has 50% chances of crafting them). Buy couple of Mechanic's Toolboxes in item shops (most of them sells that), and save. Try to craft them, if it fails you can load and retry. When you get them you will increase your pickpocketing chances.