Thief new player guide

This is a page for the Thief specific page for the Newbie Help Guide. Whenever possible, overlap with the general guide should be minimized.

Note: This guide should strive to minimize the amount of spoilers it contains. While the general mechanical information is not a problem, guild locations, methods of entry, and any quest should be described in the most general sense. The purpose of this guide it to enlighten a brand new person, not spoil the mystery.

For details, rules, and the other pages involved, see Category:Newbie Guide Contest.

Start

Getting Started

Let's just say this now: If you don't know how to join the guild, you won't be learning how to do it here.

But if you have already joined, congratulations! You're on your way to taking your first steps into becoming a true Thief of Elanthia. Granted, you may not exactly know what it is we do or what being a Thief means, it's the purpose of this little guide to help you figure that out. So, without any further ado, read on and maybe learn a bit about what you've gotten yourself into.

Crossing

There is a guild hall in the Crossing once again! It is being kept a better secret this time around though. It still has an entrance into the hall that newcomers are able to enter through, if you can find it. There is also a man on the street that will let you join and even circle a few times before he directs you to the Guild leader in the guild hall.

Riverhaven

There is no way to join the guild in Riverhaven, so you must make your way to Crossing if you started out here.

There is no single guild hall in this city, instead there are a series of boltholes scattered across the city that the co-leaders, Swan and Crow, move between.

Survival Skills

Similar to Rangers and Necromancers, we're survivalists at heart. This means that most of your time in the world will be spent working on those skills which will help you survive all the obstacles you will face within it and furthermore, that it will be easiest to train these skills when compared with skills from other skill groups, such as weapons. From the very start you will be required to train eight survival skills to varying degrees, though the choice is upon you as to which those will be. Scouting and Thanatology cannot be trained by thieves, as they are exclusive to Rangers and Necromancers respectively. Despite having this minor amount of freedom, there are two skills which you must train: Stealth and Thievery. These may count towards the eight required survival skills and the required ranks per circle are lower or match all but the lowest survival skill requirement.

Evasion

Simply put, evasion is the skill which determines how well you avoid attacks. Aside from classes in the subject, the only way to learn is to get out there and use it within combat settings.

Athletics

The main use of the Athletics skill is to overcome natural obstacles, such as climbing a tree or swimming a river. A good place to start training this skill is the town walls in whichever town you started in.

For more information see Athletics.

Perception

Perception is rather simple and not all that dangerous to learn. Collecting rocks is the most common outdoors method to learn perception, while collecting torn cloth inside is helpful. Collecting is done with the Collect verb, and to reduce clutter kick the piles after collecting. It will also teach the skill Outdoorsmanship. Initially you may need to gain a few ranks by doing simple foraging, use the FORAGE verb.

While in combat you can train perception by using the Hunt verb.

Additionally you can gain perception through normal box popping, during the disarm ID, and pick ID steps, and also the disarm analyze steps.

Stealth

Being Stealthy is part of being a Thief, and sneaking around town may seem like a grand Thiefy thing to do.

However challenging things are needed to train skills. Hiding in combat, is one of the most straightforward means to training hiding. As well if you want to be an accomplished stealth attacker, following up hiding with backstab is the traditional close quarters one-two Thief 'punch'.

Hiding and firing a bow an also be done. However critters sometimes wander around unless engaged. This can lead to arrows going missing.

Perhaps jarring from reality, hiding repetitively and at close quarters isn't problematic, it trains well and can get a Thief out of a pinch. Practice often, and don't forget to repeat.

Locksmithing

This ability lets us get into places others do not want us. The primary use for this skill is opening boxes dropped as loot from critters. We are hands down the best guild at disarming and picking locks, so other guilds will usually seek us out to open their boxes for them.

For more information see Locksmithing

Thievery

Thievery is the hallmark skill for the Thieves guild, and as such there is a hefty circle requirement for this skill. While having a specific Thievery requirement to circle you can still use it as one of the eight general survival skills you are required to train to circle.

This skill only has a few uses at the moment, which are stealing from shops, other players, NPCs, and the Throne City Museum. The only way to reliably train it is to steal from shops. You can use the Mark ability to check items to see if you are able to steal them or if they even will teach you if you can.

WARNING!!! Stealing from PCs will result in being locked PvP open for 4 hours.

For more information see Thievery.

Mark

This is our ability that lets us assess a mark (person or store item) before you make any actions towards them. You are able to learn it within your first couple of circles from the Crossing Guildleader.

For more information see Mark

Outdoorsmanship

There isn't much use for this skill as a Thief, but it is becoming an important gathering skill within the Crafting system and can be easily trained while training perception.

For more information see Outdoorsmanship

Skinning

One of the most popular choices of survival skills, skinning also has the benefit of being one of the easiest to train. However, in order to make use of it you must combat creatures which can be skinned.

For more information see Skinning.

Backstab

This skill is our guild specific skill. The purpose of the skill is to make our attacks from hiding more powerful and accurate. There is no hard requirement for this skill to circle, so it is not required to train. If you plan to be proficient in combat then this skill is required to use your abilities to any effect.

For more information see Backstab

Ambushes

A minor amount of backstabbing, and debilitation can be trained by using our guild-only ambushes. They use concentration, like our khri, so you have to be careful not to overuse them or you may run out of concentration and be unable to use any abilities.

For more information see Ambush and Thief Ambushes.

Combat Skills

Beyond being a master survivalist, Thieves are also skilled killers. Because of this, the guild requires that you keep up with not only weapon skills but also armor skills as well. The choice of what weapon and armor to use are purely yours to make, however this guide will give you a little advice in what to choose and how those choices will impact your advancement later on.

Weapons

As a member of the Thieves' Guild, you will be required to learn the use of at least two weapon classes in addition to the Parry skill. In order to facilitate that parry learning, it is encouraged that one of your weapon choices be something that you can use at melee with an opponent.

In order to make full use of our abilities later on, it is also encouraged (but not required) for you to practice use of either a Bow, or Crossbow. Skill with these weapons will serve you well when using either the Reduced Load or Snipe abilities described below.

In addition to those weapons it is recommended to train Small Edged for use with backstabbing, Light Thrown to improve your use of the ambushes that use dirt, and to take advantage of the reduced skill needed to throw multiple throwing blades, and Brawling to improve your use of Ambush Clout.

Reduced Load

Every guild has added roundtime to loading weapons while in hiding. As a Thief, once you get enough skill with your ranged weapon (either bow, crossbow, or sling) and have enough skill with your stealth, you will work that additional roundtime down till your load times are the same in and out of hiding.

Snipe

Upon achieving your 40th circle within the guild, you will be allowed to learn the Snipe ability from Guildmaster in Crossings. This ability will allow you to fire an aimable ranged weapon from hiding with a chance to remain hidden.

It needs to be mentioned that there is strict policy on using Snipe, and the ability can be taken away if the GMs feel it is being abused.

For more information see Snipe.

Armor

Thieves are required to train only one of the armor skills, the choice of which is up to you. It is, however, recommended that you do train your shield because a number of attacks are easier to block than they are to dodge.

Lore Skills

You will be required to train three skills from the Lore skillset. There is no specific skill you have to train so it is your choice which three those are. Appraisal, Tactics, and either Scholarship or a craft is a good choice.

Appraisal will improve your use with Mark, as well as being able to appraise weapons, armor, and critters effectively. Tactics is a combat skill that all non-damaging attacks use. This is a good skill to have if combat is important to you as it has some debilitating moves, and moves that can improve your balance and position while in combat. Scholarship will improve your teaching and listening to classes, along with reading first aid compendiums, and other scholarly actions.

Crafting is open to anyone to learn, and I suggest you take time to research the different systems before you pick one to dedicate your time to. There are some skills that will be more of a benefit to you as a Thief than others. The Engineering skill, and Alchemy skill will be the skills that our current guild-only crafts (lockpick carving and poisons respectively) will fall under. Neither of these crafts are released under the new crafting system yet, so play around with what's trainable under those skills and try some of the other crafting skills to find what you enjoy most.

Magic Skills

As Thieves we only have access to about half of the Supernatural Skillset to train. The Inner Magic skill, Augmentation skill, Utility skill, and Debilitation skill.

You will learn the Inner Magic skill by training any of the other Supernatural skills. Augmentation and Utility are both easily trained by starting and letting a khri run for it's duration. This can be done in and out of combat, and is suggested to have a khri going at all times since the Supernatural skillset is tertiary and learns slower than most of your other skills.

The Debilitation skill can only be trained in combat against critters of close to equal stats. Debilitation learning is based on the comparison of stats between you and the target instead of the skill it's self. This means various abilities will train differently depending on their stat contest and how you have trained your stats, so try different ambushes and khri to find the one that teaches best for you in different hunting grounds.

Ambush Choke is received at second circle, and is the only way we can train debilitation till Khri Prowess is able to be learned at 20th circle. This ambush trains debilitation poorly compared to other ambushes so it is recommended that you find someone to teach the skill until you can train the skill reliably yourself.

Khri

Khri are our main abilities that we use. They are fueled by our concentration pool and require no preparation to start, unlike spells. You are able to learn your first khri at circle 1 which will be Khri Focus once you find your way into the Crossing guild hall.

Khri use the Supernatural skillset to determine if you can even start them and how powerful they will be once you can. Khri that use the Debilitation skill are only useful when engaged with an enemy.

For more information see Khri.

Other Information

Reputation

Reputation is how well the guild feels about you.

Some Thieves confuse Reputation and Confidence. It is important to realize they are two separate things and are not intertwined.

Keeping your reputation solid allows you access to Thief areas and certain Thief abilities.

Allowing your reputation to go too low can result in the guild acting against you, even resulting in your character's death.

Confidence

Confidence is how well you see yourself.

The verb SMIRK SELF or SMIRK while in hiding will access how you feel about yourself, it will also advise if you are in an urban bonus area.

Currently it seems the only manner to improve your confidence is backstabbing.

Confidence can help you with thiefly endeavors: locksmithing, being stealthy, backstabbing, and the like.

Urban Bonus

Rooms within DragonRealms are either urban, neutral, or wilderness. Thieves thrive within the city walls, so we have a bonus to our stealthy skills while we are within an urban area. This is checked with using SMIRK SELF or SMIRK while in hiding. This will stack with our confidence bonus to provide a bigger bonus.

Passages

The guild has hidden passages across the cities of the realms that provides us with a safe haven when the heat gets to be too much, and to make it easier to move in and out of the guilds to other areas of the cities. This ability is learned very early in your career and can make crossing the Segoltha River to the south of Crossing much quicker.

Slips

While most abilities can be learned from a Guildmaster or are granted upon reaching a specific circle within the guild, the use of slips is not. Achieving access to the slip abilities must be taught to you from either a fellow Thief or another who has access to them. Slips do not grant any sort of edge when training, but can offer the Thief who knows them a little bit of versatility when using them while hiding. These abilities automatically grow with you as you gain more circles and Thieves are able to perform the first at 10 circles.

For more information see Slip.