The Basics of Stealing

From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki

Title: The Basics of Stealing

Author: Shinobi

Anyone can make a thief, train stealing, and start taking items from backpacks. However, if you don't know the basics of stealing, then you will have a long, tough road ahead of you.

The Outcomes Of Stealing

There are four possible outcomes when stealing items:

Unnoticed/Noticed Steal

Unnoticed/Noticed Fail

Of course, the best possible outcome would be the unnoticed steal. This is when you steal an item, and you do not turn "grey". When this happens, neither the victim (nor the surrounding players) receive an alert message saying that you are attempting to steal an item. The only way the player will know that you have stolen the item is if you bring it to their attention, or they have their backpack open and see the item vanish themselves. After making an unnoticed steal, guards cannot be called on you.

So let them spam "GUARDS!" as much as they wish, and if you want to add insult to injury, chime in and help them call for the guards yourself. Also, if the victim (or any player) tries to retaliate against you after an unnoticed steal, you can call guards on them and have them killed. If an unnoticed steal is made in a town, it would be smart to immediately bank the item.

A noticed steal is whenever you successfully steal an item, but you turn criminal. If this occurs in a guard zone, and you are not instantly guard whacked, then run OUTSIDE of the guard zone as fast as possible and hide. If you are killed by a player or guards in a guard zone, while still criminal, then the stolen item is automatically returned to the victim's backpack. Also, if a player retaliates against you when you turn criminal and you try to hide inside a guard zone, if your criminal status ends and you are killed, then the item will drop to your corpse. That is why it is never a good idea to hide inside the guard zone.

An unnoticed fail is the same as an unnoticed steal, except you fail to steal the item.

A noticed fail is the same as a noticed steal, except you fail to steal the item.

NOTE: After successfully stealing an item, unnoticed or noticed, the item becomes "temporarily blessed". This means, if you are killed while still in the two-minute "criminal" period, and you are outside of a guard zone, then the stolen item will remain on your ghost rather than dropping to your corpse. However, instead of killing you, another thief can steal the item from your backpack.

NOTE: The reason I have said "grey" instead of just "criminal", is because all four outcomes of stealing turn you criminal. If you attempt to steal an item, you are not allowed to leave the area for the following two minutes, because you are criminal.

NOTE: If you successfully steal an item, but you are noticed, and you manage to run far enough out of the guard zone before being guard whacked, there is a possibility of keeping the stolen item on your ghost.

NOTE: If you insure an item that you have just stolen, and you are guard whacked or killed in a guard zone while still criminal, the item will still be returned to the victim...but now it will be insured. You then will not be able to try to steal the item again, because you have insured it for them.

How To Steal Unnoticed

Stealing unnoticed is always a random occurrence, but there are factors which affect the chances of getting an unnoticed steal.

One of these factors is the weight of the item you are planning to steal. The weight of items affects the chances of you stealing an item successfully, and the chances of stealing an item unnoticed. The higher the amount of stones an item is, the harder it will be to steal it unnoticed.

Another factor is the speed at which you are moving. Lots of thieves prefer to stealth at all times, steal an item on foot, then run away with animal form. This is a great method of stealing, but it can affect whether or not you steal the item unnoticed. The best method to stealing unnoticed is to be running, while on a mount, when you make the steal. Also, it seems that the longer you are "touching" the victim when making a steal, those split seconds, the higher the chances of you being noticed. This is also a reason why "pushing through" the victim when running to make a steal is not necessarily a good idea.

Therefore, the best way to go about making a steal would be to line yourself up with the victim, run at them while mounted, make the steal the second you touch them, then quickly "jerk" away. It takes a while to get the timing right. I personally have found this to work great over the years. This method is all in theory, of course, but it seems to help very much when attempting unnoticed steals.

The Two Ways To Steal

There are two ways to go about stealing:

Direct Steal

Random Steal

Each has its own advantages. Which you should use just depends on the situation you are in when making a steal.

Direct steal is the way you will be stealing the majority of the time as a thief. A direct steal is whenever you simply choose the item you wish to steal, and you steal it directly by either targeting it (see "Thief Macros" book) or by using the Stealing skill and clicking on the item. This works great for items which weigh 1-12 stones. You can attempt to direct steal items which are 13-15 stones (16 or more stones, single items not stacked items, tell you "This item is too heavy to steal from someone's backpack." when you attempt to steal it), but 99% of the time you will fail.

A random steal is whenever, instead of targeting or stealing a specific item, you target or click to "steal" the player themselves. By clicking their actual character, it allows you to random steal. At first glance, random stealing seems pretty pointless.

When you use a random steal, it randomly selects ANY item in the backpack to steal. This includes runebooks, spellbooks, blessed items, etc. So if the player has a cluttered pack, random stealing might not be such a great idea.

The purpose of random stealing is that it greatly improves your chances of stealing an item successfully. The higher your stealing skill, the better your chances of a successful steal, of course. In a test, we had 3 thieves at 120 Stealing trying to steal a 15 stone tunic directly, failing every single time. At the same time, we had a thief at only 53 Stealing, stealing the tunic randomly, succeeding every attempt.

You should only use random steal in 3 situations. The first is if you are trying to piss someone off by stealing their potions, regs, etc. If their pack is full of these, then random stealing might be your best bet if they're running around too much to snoop them frequently and pick an item. The second is if your stealing is very low, this may be your only chance at success. The third is if the item you are attempting to steal, whether it is a single item or a stack of items, is 13 or more stones.

NOTE: Neither blessed nor insured items can be stolen, direct or random. Thieves are not dead, like many think they are. No matter how bad we are nerfed, there is always a way around. I hope your journey as a thief will be as successful as my own.

-Shinobi