Starting from the call at 0x00561F00 to a strangely large function that appears mostly to just return the skill level.

SkillLevel -= 10;
if (SkillLevel < 0) SkillLevel = 0;
SkillLevel *= 6;
if (SkillLevel > Random(100)) {
"steal_fail_bad" // or rather, you get caught.
}

The code, for explanation, says that the chance of getting caught INCREASES as skill level goes up.

It begins checking at 10 because anything under mastery level 3 (or skill level 11) is an automatic "if you didn't get anything you get caught"

Cause I'm lazy, Attaching a zip file "patch.jpg" just rename it to patch.zip, place the files in Inquisitor\GameData and let the thing do whatever it does.

The truth is that it was reported some time ago that the Stealing skill seems to be poorly balanced because even Masters at level 20 get caught very often. It would seem that this explains it...

I'm currently just looking at the pickpocketing, but there seems to be something strange also happening with determining if the player gets anything (Not if the player gets caught, but that the player GETS anything).

The function that compares against a different random 100 returns negative values and seems to be making it impossible to actually succeed in pickpocketing. (Well, you can, but it seems like you need to roll a 0 to have any chance of success and even then it isn't much.)

(1 + EDX / (isMaster ? 8 : 4)) * (OtherSkillLevel[EAX]) - ((SkillLevel * 7) + 10) * PTR[EBP-0C]

OtherSkillLevel[EAX] = Skill Associated with Person You're Robbing
EDX = Times Attempted to Rob?
PTR[EBP-0C] = 0.25 always?

Okay, that mess... is a mess; but it makes it clear that the direction of the comparison is wrong.

***

Really though, this is rather sad. I was just going in to increase chances on a few things, not fix bugs :S

Checked it, and yep the same problems are true for stealing out of the store, as you gain mastery level you have an increased chance of getting caught.

In that case I think that the message is clear: "Stealing is bad, m'kay?" :-)