Stealing

Skill Group	Miscellaneous
Skill Title	Thief
Actionable	✅
Main Tool	N/A
Skill Synergy	N/A

Overview

Stealing is a skill that allows you to take items from another player's backpack and some special items from the world.

You can steal from NPCs (but not shopkeepers) and monsters, however if you want to steal from players you need to join the Thieves Guild.

The Stealing skill becomes particularly useful when used in conjunction with the Snooping skill.

Limitations

• The more non-medable armor you are wearing, the harder it is to steal.
• Performing beneficial acts upon a thief will flag you as criminal.
• It is possible to steal weights higher than expected for your skill, chances are very low. If Random Stealing (rather than Direct Stealing) is used, then the thief's ability to steal high-stoned items successfully is greatly increased.
• You can be noticed by any player or NPC who is withing a 15x15 tile box surrounding the victim. So that's within 7 tiles of the viction, square shaped. You can get caught on the diagonal compass points (NW, SW, SE, NE) at almost 10 tiles.
• NPCs that notice you stealing will call guards on you.

Weight System

Stealing is closely correlated with item's weight.

Generally speaking, you can steal items that weight 10% of your Stealing skill:

Item Weight (stones)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Stealing Skill	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%	70%	80%	90%	100%

Note: Currently, due to some Sphere problems with fractional weight, each gold coin weights aprox 0.1 stones. This means that you can, at best, steal 100gps per attempt if you're a GrandMaster Thief.

How to Raise

You need to find a townfolk NPC like a Peasant or a Noble, you can find some in the Britain Fields, or around docks in cities.

Talk with them, and they will stop walking around to answer you back. Steal from them, and repeat. These NPCs are valuable because they usually carry clothes which will make you fail, however, you still raise Stealing even when you fail.

After you've stolen everything from then, they will accept the clothes back, which means you can repeat the process.

Razor Macro

# Organizer Agent-06 contains 1 cloak
# and the hot bag is targetted at the NPC's backpack
UseSkill Stealing
Wait for Target
Exec: Last Target
Pause 5.00sec
Exec: Organizer Agent-06
Pause 1.00sec
Say: hi

Standard Thief Templates

These are two common thief templates that have been used with great success. There are, of course, ways of altering them.

Stealth Thief

This template works best for someone totally focused on stealing and getting away with the goods unscathed. Hiding and Stealth aid in getting close to the chosen mark, while Magery, Resisting Spells and Wrestling allow a safe and quick escape.

Status		Skills
Strength	100	Stealing	100
Intelligence	100	Snooping	100
Dextery	100	Hiding	100
		Stealth	100
		Magery	100
		Resisting Spells	100
		Wrestling	100

Dexer Thief

This template forgoes the safety of recalling away for standing up to marks with the possibility of a kill that nets you all of the mark's loot. Mace Fighting is the generally preferred melee skill, due to the value of the stamina drain effect.

Status		Skills
Strength	100	Stealing	100
Intelligence	100	Snooping	100
Dextery	100	Melee Skill	100
		Tactics	100
		Anatomy	100
		Resisting Spells	100
		Healing	100

Note: if you're a member of the Thieves Guild, you can't have murder counts on you.

Stealing and Criminal Flags

A member of the NPC thieves' guild cannot report murders. If you steal from an innocent player, then there are a few different possible outcomes.

1. Complete Success: One possibility is that you successfully steal an item and go completely unnoticed (in the sense that the game will not officially count any player or NPC as having noticed you even if a player realizes you stole from him or her). If this is the case, you will remain blue. You will, however, be freely attackable by anyone, even in guarded zones. This is known as being "permagray." Once you are permagray, you remain so until you die.
2. Partial Success: Another possibility is that you successfully steal an item but are noticed by a player or NPC. In this case, you will get a criminal flag and turn gray. If you are in town, the guards may be called on you. If the player you stole from attacks you, you will get a murder count for killing this player, even in self-defence. When your criminal flag wears off, you will be permagray.
3. Failure: You do not succeed in your attempt to steal. You may also go gray, as in a partial failure.

IMPORTANT: Keep the Thieves Guild's Restrictions in mind when attacking other players.

NOTE:

• Getting caught and difficulty when Stealing considers the difficulty of the steal (item weight) And the number of humans that are in your view (from server patch notes 77).
• The stealing skill success rate is affected by the amount of armor the thief is wearing.(from server patch notes 107).

Tricks of the Trade

• The Double Steal: Use the steal skill, but do not target what you want to steal. Leave your targeting cursor up and wait ten seconds. Now steal what you want. Immediately use the steal skill again. If successful, you will have stolen two items in under a second. This is tricky to pull off, as most people will not stand close to you for long.

• Fast Snooping: Set a hotkey for Last Object. When you see a player you would like to snoop, attempt to open his or her back from afar. You will not be able to do it, but now you will be able to move in and open it with a simple press of a button, which will allow you a quick peek before the player moves.

• The Drive By Steal: Set a hotkey (in Razor) for Set Last Target. You can use it to set objects as your Last Target from afar and run in to steal them without snooping again. An easy method of acquiring targets is to snoop a mark's pack. The mark is likely to run away, but if he or she does not go too far you will still be able to view the contents of the pack and use that to set your Last Target macro. Another method of acquiring targets is to set an equipped item as the Last Target and perform a drive by steal when it is unequipped.

• Disguise Kits: Use them often. Keep using it over and over until you get a name that sounds like a name a player would choose. (Common names for NPC such as 'John' or 'Mary' arouse suspicion from thoughtful players.) Dye your hair. New hairstyles are all white. This is an obvious sign of a thief. Hair dye is cheap and effective. Stock plenty of clothes of various style and colors in your bank box to fully pull off the transformation.

• Work with other thieves. Two heads and four hands are better than one head and two hands.

• Steal light items when in town. You are much less likely to be noticed. Avoid stealing crowded areas if at all possible.

• Inevitably, many players will not like you. But if you steal with a little style and class, then some players will take a liking to you. This can be useful. They may decide to help you in a jam or at least not attack you when you're in trouble.

• On the other hand, angry marks are marks that make stupid mistakes. A taunt at the right moment can be the difference between stealing one item and getting all of the loot of a mark you when he or she overreacts.

• Travel light. If you don't, the guards or other players will make your ventures unprofitable. Frequently dying is simply the cost of doing business.

• Weapons skills: Any of the weapon skills are excellent choices for a dexer thief. Macing is the most popular weapon for thieves even though you may not poison any mace weapons. Poison weapons are expensive and most marks are unprepared for the stamina drain that mace weapons deal out. Also, quarterstaves are excellent and cheap weapons.

• Stealing as a PvP Skill: Steal your opponents weapons, reagents, bandages, runes and potions. No matter how good your opponent is, he or she will not be able to kill you or survive long without the proper equipment.

• Trapped pouches are cheap and useful. It is best to carry a few. If you are paralyzed by a mark, do not immediately open your pouch. Let the mark get an initial mana dump off and then flee while healing up. The mark has wasted quite a bit of mana and will suffer for it when put on the defensive.

• Get a gimmick. Novelty routines, macros of conversation, props, etc. Make it interesting and run a con such that your mark doesn't realize you're snooping his pack. Be creative, don't just be annoying at the bank--instead, be entertaining at the bank. Or better yet: Leave the bank for the better loot of the wider world.

How to Not Be a Mark

There are number of things you can do to avoid having your goods stolen (or worse).

• Do not go to the West Britain bank or any other area frequented by thieves.
• Do not let unknown players stand next to you.
• Do not macro with valuable items in your backpack or on your person.
• Carry all of your items in a locked box.
• Figure out who the commonly encountered thieves are (e.g., chumbucket) and avoid them.
• Do not trade or sell items to people unless you are both seated on opposite sides of a table. You cannot steal across tables. Alternately, you might insist all items be sold through a vendor.
• If a thief manages to steal something of little value from you, let it go. Do not attack the thief unless you are prepared to fight a dexer thief of the sort described above.
• Do not carry your house key or runes to your house on you. Keep them either in the bank or in a secure box on the porch of your house.
• Cast reveal before you enter your house. Use the detect hidden skill once you are in your house. (It will reveal everyone in a house you own\co own\ friended to even if you are at zero detect hidden.)
• Beware players with NPC-like names (e.g., 'John', 'Mary'). They are often thieves that have used a disguise kit.