Stealing skill
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The Stealing skill encompasses a wide variety of theft-related skills. These include robbing coins from the pockets of characters (both PC and NPC), shoplifting, and stealing gems from players' open containers. The skill also has a few more esoteric applications, almost all of which are considered game secrets.
The Elanthian justice system understandably treats these acts as criminal offenses. Stealing from NPCs carries the charge of Pickpocketing, and is the lightest of the stealing offenses. More serious charges of are those of Pilfering from shops and "Felony Stealing", which is stealing from another player character.
Teaching
Stealing from shops will result in the gain of Stalking and Hiding experience. Classes are also a viable way to learn the skill with little to no risk. Stealing from other player characters has a hefty timer on learning and even then teaches very little of the skill.
Stealing from Player Characters
Coins and gems on a player can be stolen by a skilled thief. There are a few restrictions though:
- Total of coins carried by a non guilded Thief must be greater than 3 silvers worth. Any amount can be stolen from a guilded thief
- Gem must be in an open container and that container can not be in any other container.
- You must have sufficiently high stealing skill in order to grab gems, general consensus is aprox. 100 ranks.
- Gems maybe stolen by a guilded Thief even if your coins are under the 3 silver protection
- (future) Boxes have been discussed as being able to be stolen.
A general <steal (player)> command will try and grab for gems first, if there are any available to be stolen, than try for coins if no gems. A clever person was able to protect all the coins they were carrying by having an open gem pouch full of glass pebbles. In response, a guilded Thief is able to choose between Coins or Gems when they steal from a player. The syntax for this is <steal (player) coin> or <steal (player) gem>.
Creature Stealing
(future) This has been talked about. The idea is for players to both steal and be stolen from by NPC type creatures.
Guild Interactions
Paladins are not permitted to learn Stealing. They will suffer guild-specific penalties, including loss of soul state and inability to circle, if they somehow learn the skill for any reason. To unlearn any experience that may have been learned, a Paladin needs to go to Chadatru's altar in Theren Keep and REPENT.
Thieves who are caught stealing or committing other crimes will lose Reputation in the providence they are wanted. Placing recently stolen items in the guild bins will raise their reputation.
Advancement Quirks
Stealing is seldom counted for guilds' survival requirements.
Bonuses
Agility and Discipline boosters will help with stealing. If one has more hiding and stalking than stealing, those skills will provide a small bonus to stealing while hidden; if not then it's best to steal while unhidden. Thieves get bonuses from Urban Bonus and Confidence.
Defending Against Stealing
Perception is the skill that needs to be trained to make a player more difficult to steal from. Wisdom is the stat that helps the perception skill, so it would also help with defending against theft. Stealing ranks also provides a small bonus.
Old Defense
Prior to changes in 2007, Stealing was the skill used to determine how difficult a player was to successfully steal from. Perception was used to determine if the would-be victim noticed the attempt. It was conceivable that a character with high Stealing and low Perception would be difficult to steal from but would hardly ever notice an attempt, and that a character with high Perception and low Stealing would be easy to steal from but would almost assuredly catch the thief in the grab.
Many of these measures seem to have been implemented to give Thieves Guild members a larger advantage over other player characters in conducting these sorts of crimes. For a period in the early 2000s, other guilds' abilities were sometimes viewed as more beneficial overall to a life of crime than the Thieves Guild's. This was especially true of Moon Mages, who have many magical abilities that allow them to be stealthy and elusive.