I read a lot of tips/guides/FAQs before I start playing.
All the articles says the pickpocket is the most imbalance skill in wiz8.
But I only succeeded few times on Burz after countless save&load and never succeeded on the other NPCs.

I downloaded save file editor, raised pickpocket&dex to 100 but it's still very difficult to steal anything.
Did I miss something when I perform pickpocket?

Then how do I get better gear for my party?
Gold farming?

When you get there, have a chat with the Rapax smith in Arnika about his custom pieces.

The Speed stat also affects pickpocketing.

IIRC, some NPCs are more difficult to pickpocket. I can't say I'm surprised that Burz is, given how he obtains most of his goods...

As for money-making, you'll pick up a fair bit of stuff as time goes on and selling it to vendors will bring some income. If anyone in your party has Alchemy (Alchemists obviously do; Bishops start with it; Rangers and Ninjas will gain access to it at level 5), mixing potions and powders can also be a cash generator.

Prices (both buying and selling) also depend on your Communication skill, so things will slowly shift in your favor as time goes on. (Some merchants are also more stingy than others.)

I was about to make a thread about the exact same topic, when I saw this one. I started another W8 game, and my bard can hardly ever actually succeed at stealing anything. Even after I'd used an editor to crank up her pickpocket skill to 100 as an experiment, she couldn't steal Saxx's saxophone. It's just not worth the effort and endless save/loads. Meanwhile, alchemy still lets you break the economy in tiny little pieces.

IIRC a few character-significant items like the saxophone are deliberately difficult/impossible to succeed at pickpocketing even under normal circumstances.

That indeed seems to be the case. It may have been another thing they changed in the patch, since a strategy guide I'm reading advises you to steal the saxophone from him, and since it's otherwise highly accurate, I doubt they'd make it up. One way or the other, yeah, picking pockets is just too unreliable. I don't think I've seen an RPG that did it well - even if it's effective, it relies on save-scumming.