Thieving

[lord_gabriel]

I wanted to start as a thief and assassin, however unarmed combat seems to be pretty useless will it be more effective later on ?
How does stealing work ? The shopkeepers stay in their shops regardless how late it is and the people on the streets don't have to sleep either. The first Thieves-Guild Job is to steal some Diamond, but as the Shopkeeper is always awake i can't get them. Help, please...

[ 05-14-2002, 06:38 AM: Message edited by: lord_gabriel ]

[vesselle]

hiya!

okay. first off stealing.
what's important in stealing is your sneak ability. athletics and acrobatics both affect it also. so here goes:

...get used to going into sneak mode. its HARD on your fingers, pressing W and CTRL at the same time, but you get used to it.
...hug the corners and the walls, and sneak everywhere.
...inside a store, find that sweet spot where your sneak icon flashes off and on and stay there for a bit. it will raise your sneak skill several points in a minute or so. boring as all get out, but it helps.
...now, to actually steal from a merchant. its too early to steal his goods. you need more skill for that. instead just settle for skulking around his store, then going upstairs where there's usually no one in site and steal everything he has up there.
...do NOT attempt to sell him anything you stole from him. bad idea!

this will prepare you for when you gain more levels and get into the other cities and can really wreak havoc thru stealth!

now, for unarmored. i have that also and have been developing it. i'm an assassin ::ducks as everyone on the board yells "We KNOW!!":: and at first, i was training Lt Armor. but since i got the topless mod i now prefer to go as light as possible and....

OOPS! i guess you meant hand to hand, eh? ugh. the only thing its good for is it does affect your athletics skill. but i haven't found anything i want to attempt going HtH with. save it for the Monk, hon!

so, does any of that help? if not, then we'll just pass you onto another resident expert.

V***V

[Yack]

Last report on Vesselles activities.

Balmora Town, 3:45 am

Scully and I just arrive in town after the EBI (Empire Bureau of Investigation) send us to investigate the mysterious case or loot disappearance, without to much information we venture into the streets to learn more about what was happening.

Almost all the male population of Balmora was outside, as if they want to have their loot to be rob, was then I felt 'something' in my back, actually was a couple of 'somethings', and at the same time my loot had disappear, in what seems to be an hypnotic trance I was frozen, and only my eyes, tilting up and down can follow this creature running to escape, with a strange bouncing...

the truth is out there...

[Stillwater II]

I gotta get that topless mod...then all I need's a mod that allows me to change every female NPCs name to Vesselle....Quests? What quests?

[coil]

Originally posted by Yack: [QB]was then I felt 'something' in my back, actually was a couple of 'somethings'QB]

a couple of over-amorous males methinks

[Yack]

ACK! its dangerous to work for the EBI, at least Scully its there [img]smile.gif[/img]

[vesselle]

~~yack~~

LOL! that was sweet. a brief vignette ala XFiles! anyways, you ended up with scully, which i guarantee practically every guy alive would prefer.

~~stillwater~~

you know what "they" say: be careful what you wish for! i think that having that many of me in one place may lead to nightmares.

now, however, change that to only one of me and i don't think it would fall into the nightmare category at all. [img]graemlins/kiss.gif[/img]

V***V

[img]graemlins/kiss.gif[/img]

[Stillwater II]

yummy

[Raederle]

A couple more notes on stealing. First you can take anything as long as you are out of direct line of sight of any npc's or over a minimum distance if they can see you. That means, for example, that in the original town of Seyda Neen you can steal most of the contents of the chests and sacks in the lighthouse, even though the monk is in the same room with you , as long as you have a support pillar for the stairs right between you two. This despite the fact that the crates themselves were in plain sight of her. Ditto in the custom's warehouse, as long as stair pillars are between you and the guard. This is without sneak etc.

You can lockpick doors in broad daylight with a guard right next to you as long as you pay the 5 gp fine for doing so. Five to 10 attempts and fines later the door was unlocked. I walked inside, looted the entire contents of the home in question, trotted off to the merchies to sell it off, whilst the guards looked on benignly. After all, the door was unlocked, and they didnt see me pick anything up themselves.

Selling an item to a merchant and then buying it back does not clear the 'stolen' flag. If you at any point surrender or are caught with it on you it will be confiscated. Worse yet, as far as I can tell, the flag of stolen is applied to the item *type* not just the item in question. Thus if you steal a silver longsword you can buy five legitimately but every time you're caught they'll be treated as results of larceny and taken from you. EVERY time. Sigh. So in the long run it's best to steal what you'd never choose to use, and buy those things you plan to keep on you full time, preventing having to drop your shorts (so to speak) when you need to get caught to clear your name.

I've read that confiscated items are kept in the local 'evidence' chests, at forts and such. I havent checked up on that myself.

If you steal from a merchant's bedroom area it has no impact on thier inventory but if you steal from their shop area those items are no longer reflected in the items availiable for sale. This means that if you would want to buy refreshments of that item (potion ingredients and arrows/bolts in my case) it's best to leave that portion of a merchant's inventory alone.

Getting caught with loot on you *seems* to drop your faction a bit with whoever's loot it was. This isnt entirely confirmed but I think I lost 10 pts in seyda need from the folks I stole from when I hadnt sold off all their loot before lockpicking the next house along in the street. Again, not fully confirmed.

Frankly the upshot is that stealing is far too easy in this game. I love the mechanism of it, swiping things off the shelves themselves, but I dislike how little of a challange it is (as compared to the twitch and click combat system which I *loathe* but that's another post).

Raederle

Updated re persistant stolen flag.

[ 05-24-2002, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: Raederle ]