Baldur's Gate 3: How To Make Gold Fast

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Creating A Pickpocket Build
Strategies For Pickpocketing

Money is surprisingly hard to find in Baldur’s Gate 3. Cash rewards are rare and even the largest stashes of gold don’t give you much money — the most treasure you’ll find in a stack is 200~ or so in Act 1. Maybe 500~. But that’s hardly enough to buy the most useful magical items from the starting vendors. If you want to earn infinite cash, you’ll need to learn some simple pickpocketing tricks. This isn’t cheating or exploiting the game. This is about using your skill wisely.

Below, we’ll explain the best gear to get early to make pickpocketing easier, and how to pickpocket vendors step-by-step. By using a few sneaky tricks, we can safely steal stacks of 900+ gold and get away before the vendor can accuse you of crime. Check out the full guide below. It’s really simple and any player can pull it off with some practice.

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Creating A Pickpocket Build

To make a lot of gold, you’ll need to create a party Pickpocket — this can be the Main Character (Tav), Astarion or a Hireling. Use Whithers and you can even respec a character 100% for only 100 gold. I recommend using Astarion as a dedicated Pickpocket, but you can follow any path you like. To become a master pickpocket, you’ll want the following skills and

Class: Rogue -> Thief Subclass | Wood Elf Race is Hireling for +Proficiency on Stealth Rolls.

Smuggler’s Ring: Grants Stealth +2, Sleight of Hand +2 and Charisma -1. Find it on a skeleton north of the Blighting Village. The skeleton is under the large broken stone bridge, obscured by a bush.
Gloves of Thievery: Grants Advantage to Sleight of Hand checks. Sold by the trader Brem in the Zhentarim Hideout. Only available if you save the caravan on the Risen Road and don’t open the chest.

Cast Enhance Ability on your pick pocketer if you don’t have the Gloves of Thievery. This is a Level 2 Transmutation Spell available to Bards, Clerics, Druids and Sorcerers.

Strategies For Pickpocketing

To truly master pickpocketing and earn lots of cash, you’ll want to only pickpocket vendors. Find vendors in areas that are sparsely populated or that aren’t closely watched.

Start by splitting stacks of gold in the Vendor menu. On PC, you can select a stack of gold and split it in the vendor’s inventory during a normal trade.

Instead of stealing items, only steal gold. Buy items from the vendor, then steal the gold stack. Gold is much easier to steal than high value items.

Distract the vendor and other NPCs in the area. Hold [Shift] to see the vision cones — you’ll need to make sure nobody is looking at your pickpocketer. You can distract everyone by playing music with a Bard.

Pickpocketing | Step-by-Step
Select any party member to talk to the vendor.
On the conversation, select [Character Select] and switch to your Pickpocketer.
While the vendor is in a conversation, they won’t be able to move or react unless you’re caught.
Quicksave before attempting! If you fail, you’ll be attacked.
Enter Turn-Based Mode (Not required). Pickpocket the vendor from behind. Sneak with [C] and [Left-Click].

On the Pickpocket menu, select the vendor’s stack of gold. A Sleight of Hand Check will appear with a Difficulty. To make this DC easier, split the gold stack from the trade menu.
Quicksave again, then select [Steal]. Reload until you succeed.
After a successful roll, leave the area. Teleport to a Waypoint far outside the vendor’s vision range.

When you’re done, exit the conversation. The vendor will quickly notice he’s been robbed and will start searching for the criminal. Your pickpocket should not be very far away. Simply wait for the vendor to calm down and you can steal from them again. Buy whatever you want and take the cash you just gave him to earn free stuff.

Following this method, you can rob every vendor. Setup your dedicated Pickpocket and enjoy stealing back all the cash you’ll ever need — buy what you want, take the money back, and repeat. You’ll always have plenty of money for whatever comes next.