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Thieves and Thievery: The Guide.

erendor

Wanderer
Thieves and Thievery: The Guide.

I intend this to be a twofold guide: I want to explain some tactics for thieves to use, and some good skills and their benefits, and I also want to talk about the role-playing aspects, and how not to be a ****.

First, a FAQ, for those looking for some quick answers:

How do I join the thieves’ guild? : This one is asked /all/ the time. First, your character must be a week old in real time (7 days), and you must have been logged in for forty hours total. Also, you must have over 60 stealing. Then, go find a ‘Thief Guildmaster’ (Vandoren in Britain is probably the easiest to find) and say “Name join”, where ‘Name’ is their name (“Vandoren join”, for instance). A quick and easy payment of 700 gold, and you’re in!

How do I get/use a disguise kit? :
Personally, I love these things. A one-buy unlimited use incognito (although no sex change) that lasts for two hours instead of two minutes and only costs 500-800gp? Yes please! If you want one of these, go to a thief Guildmaster and say: “Name disguise”. They’ll hook you up for a little cash. But be careful to keep it in the bank, since it isn’t blessed. I’d also recommend changing clothes/mount if you can, to keep up a different image. I carry around about six different coloured and different style outfits, as well as several robes and a wizard hat. Newbied items mean you can take them anywhere and change on the fly.

I keep getting guardwhacked! : Please, please, don’t be a bank thief. Nothing is more degrading. Also, the more people with a 7x7 square of your target, the harder it will be. If any NPCs are in that square and notice, they’ll call the guards instantly. If it’s just people, you might be lucky enough to run away in time (just not towards the NPCs, damn it!). I’ve actually made about five or six thefts where it says: “Guards can now be called on you!” and managed to escape the scene and hide before anyone does. Very exhilarating.

What’s with the criminal status? Permagrey? : Okay, this bit can be sort of confusing, and even I haven’t figured it all out. If anyone can help, please do. My understanding is this: If you steal from someone, regardless of whether or not you’re noticed, you go grey to them, forever (until you die, actually). This is permagrey. They can attack you at any time, and if they do, they go grey to you for two minutes. This means you can actually fight and kill people in town (the basis of a PvP thief) by stealing from them and waiting for them to attack.
If you’re noticed in a theft, you go grey to everyone for two minutes, and guards can be called on you up to fourteen seconds after the crime.
Now, the bit I can never grasp, is that supposedly, if you steal from someone at all (since you last died), you actually become grey to everyone, but your name is blue and you highlight blue. Thus, people can attack you in town at any time (going grey to you), if they know that you're permagrey. They won't get whacked for this, but they will turn grey to you, which is still good. Beware, since this means tamers can use pets on you.

I got kicked out of the thieves guild? :
Yes, a common mistake is to kill someone. You cannot do this!!! If you get a count, the thieves guild remove you. On that note, you cannot join the thieves guild with any counts, you must macro them away. This is one of the big downfalls of being a thief, along with not being able to give counts.

If there are any more questions, please tell me.

Second, skills and stats:
I'll show you my current skill load out (no longer actually current):




I still haven't finished training Evaluate Intelligence or Magery, but I can still work effectively. I'm not sure what's wrong with stealing, though. 99.9 is an odd number for it to stop at. Trian Bardly was changed from a disarm thief (Wrestling+Arms Lore) to a PVP thief (Except I'm a horrible PVPer), since I never could find anyone to disarm, and the lack of meditation hurt my mage-loving self immensely.

Useful thief skills:

Hiding: Obviously one of the big things for a thief. Hiding is useful in many many situations, such as when you're trying to escape a pursuer, or hiding from a monster, or as a prelude to stealth ( where you can sneak up on the target). Definetely GM this, unless you're dead set against it.

Stealth: Love it. It takes FOREVER to train (or macro), and I STRONGLY suggest you buy up to thirty points from a thief guild master. But GM it you should, since you can move up to ten steps while hidden per use, and once every eight seconds. It's a little long, in my opinion, but even so, it has saved me from slow "Wis Quas" ers many a time, and allowed me to escape the old "Bump into the invisible guy" tactic as well. Plus, it's just so cool being able to walk through a town completely undetectable.

Snooping: Some don't bother with it, but I think it's almost a necessity. You can snoop out an enemies pack (If you're a PVP thief), and steal their weapon or reagents specifically, and then they're no threat.

Stealing: Duh. GM it. For those who don't know, the trick is to get a pack llama, a bag, and about six hundred gold. That's all you need (oh, and Razor helps). Gold weighs 1 pound per fifty pieces, I believe, but I found it skewed, unable to steal six hundred + bag from a llama at GM stealing, I believe. Put the gold in the bag, and with a poundage roughly equal to stealing skill/10. Tell the llama 'all guard me' if you want to do it in town, otherwise you might get the guards called on you.

50 stealing: 5 pounds = 200 gold + bag.
70 stealing: 7 pounds = 300 gold + bag.
Etc.

Magery: Pretty much a given for almost any class. I find this skill useful all the time. Magic Reflection, some offensive spells (for fighting attacker, more on that later), and Create Food and Bless. Also, Recalling and Gate Travel along with Mark are important ways to get around.

Meditation: Just an associate of Magery, Meditation helps regenerate your precious mana.

Evaluate Intelligence: You do a lot more damage with offensive spells. Useful, since it’s quite a big difference, I understand. Alright, I just checked it out: this page shows you . 100 evaluate intelligence = 4x more damage or so.
At 90 Intelligence, 100 Magery, and 100 evaluate intelligence:
Spell |Base Damage| Your Damage
Magic Arrow |3.1 - 4.1| 13 - 17
Harm* |5.2 - 6.6| 22 - 28
Fireball |6.0 - 7.2| 26 - 31
Lightning |6.9 - 8.0| 30 - 34
Mind Blast |2.0 - 6.0| 40 - 44
Energy Bolt |12.0 - 13.4| 52 - 58
Explosion |12.0 - 13.4| 52 - 58
Flamestrike |15.5 - 16.8| 67 - 73
So yeah, a must have for any spell fighting.

Resisting spells: You sometimes resist certain non-damage offensive spells: Curse, Mana drain, Poison, Clumsy...not all that useful, in my opinion. Here will tell you mroe about it.

Weapon Skill + Tactics: Good for fighting off people. Tactics helps you do more damage.

Arms Lore + Wrestling: Good in two ways – You get defensive + offensive wrestling, which means your spells are interrupted less and you can interrupt more at close range with your fists, and also, you can set a macro (Called Secondary Ability in the “macro options’ page of UO Options) which lets you disarm the weapon of an opponent on your next hit. This uses up stamina though, so keep dexterity and stamina high.

I think that’s about it for useful skills. Tell me if you have any other suggestions.

Stats:

Strength: Useful for just about anyone – More strength = more damage if you hit, and more importantly, more HP to take hits. 100 is normally what you want your strength to be. You get 100 hit points, and if you go much lower, a lot less, and if you go any high, you gain extra ones slower.

Dexterity: Good to have this fairly high, so you aren’t running out of stamina and stopping in mid-run. Also, Disarm thieves (arms lore + wrestling) need the stamina to hit. Also, a higher dexterity (actually stamina) means you hit faster with attacks, and use bandages faster (Stamina, actually. If you have 90 dexterity yet only 3 stamina, you hit quite slowly. Keep the stamina up near the max for the quickest attack rate.) A bit on dex by Skippy: http://www.uogamers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=288714&postcount=12
I didn't actually know this, but now I realise why my stealing often messes up (35 dex).

Intelligence: More intelligence means more mana, delicious mana. Good to keep high, unless you plan to be a primarily melee thief and such. Still, keeping it at 11 is good, which is the minimum mana required to cast Recall (which is almost a necessity).

Personally, I go 100 strength, 35 Dexterity, 90 Intelligence. The Intelligence lets me get off two relatively high level spells or several lower ones, the strength is for precious hit points, and the dexterity ensures I’m not stopping in the middle of fights or anything. I could probably lose 10 of that dexterity and put it into Intelligence, and I still might.

Actual thief strategies:

Now we get to the good stuff. How to be a semi-competent thief. I’ll go over some basic encompassing things first, then more specific things. Firstly:

Stealing in General:
If you want to be a good thief, you need 100 stealing (and possibly 100 Snooping). No questions asked, you’ll fail too often and get caught otherwise. Also, set these macros:
Ctrl+Z = Hiding
Ctrl+X = Stealth
Ctrl+C = Stealing
Alt+C = Last Object
Ctrl+Alt+C = Last Target

I put mine that way to make all of them easily accessible with my left hand, and easy to remember. It’s simple to think: “Okay, Ctrl+Z. Wait a few seconds, Ctrl+X. move a few steps near that guy, snoop him. Use Anatomy on what I want to steal (Alt+A for me), hit Ctrl+C, Alt+C.” I’ve just stolen from him, and now run away. Last Object is an awesome macro, and keeping anatomy nearby so you can set a last object is also a good idea. I also set Ctrl-W to ‘Last Spell’ so I can, say, cast Poison or Energy Bolt away from my target, cancel it, and then have it at my fingertips when needed.

Some basic strategies:
Another good thing to remember about stealing – you can open someone’s paperdoll from a distance, and double click their bag. You won’t be close enough to open it, but it gets set as last target. Saunter casually past them, and hit Last Object as you go. Up comes the bag! Don’t go more then a few steps from them, though, since it will close again. This can be done several times in succession to get further into a pack.
Another good way is to just be talking to someone, and ‘accidentally’ bump into them (this normally happens with people who can’t stop themselves from walking around and clicking when they talk). Hit Last Object as you do, and stand next to them talking, while you sift through their pack.
Yet another happy fun strategy is to simply hide/stealth up to them. Easy.

A particular annoyance of mine is people with names like “not a thief” and “over there” and “omfgnoobihasj00regs”. It’s pointless and stupid, people. Get a real name, and I advise that to allay suspicions and stop people from running away on sight (if you have eight grey corpses of ‘roflcopter’ littering Britain Bank, people will start to suspect you), get a disguise kit and use it. I never steal from people unless I’m disguised, and the bonus is that upon death, your corpse shows up as ‘Fred’, even though your ghost is ‘The Esteemed Lord Whistlewait.” Don’t manifest (show your ghost), or people will know. Try not to let other ghosts see you, either. I recommend growing a healthy paranoia to assist you.

PvP thieves:
Recommended Stats:
100 Hiding
100 Stealth
100 Stealing
100 Snooping
100 Magery
100 Evaluate intelligence
100 Meditation.
You can change up Stealth+Snooping for other PvP skills (like healing and anatomy) if you like, but they’re useful for the thief aspect.


This is what I am, and it’s a /very/ fun thing to play. First, the thrill of stealing from people, and then the thrill of killing their unsuspecting selves when they attack the ‘worthless thief’.

Here’s how it works: First, you find someone (in a guard zone is fun, because then they’re your only worry), and steal from them. You’ll go permanently grey to them. Make sure you’ve got about, say, 10-20 of each reagent with you, and you can afford to lose them due to dying or getting guard whacked. They’ll probably attack you when they notice, and then you strike. Best to have Reactive Armor or Magic Reflection up when you do this, depending on what they look like (carrying a weapon/using it = warrior, etc.) and when they attack you, Poison them, then take them down with offensive spells (mostly Explosion/Energy Bolt). They won’t be expecting this, most likely, and will go down quickly and surprised. Oh, you can always incorporate your own PvP strategy too; I just like to keep them poisoned.

Stealing from a tamer is always a funny thing to do, because they assume their pets will make short work of you. Wait for them to say ‘all kill’ (and have magic reflect up), and run a little bit away (but make sure you’re still in sight). Let the pet attack (magic reflect should keep you safe), and then run off screen and hide. Wait for them to run down after you (the pet will be confused and they’ll probably say ‘all come’), and then pop out and poison/paralyse/whatever them. Watch them die quickly. If they manage to live and ‘all kill’ again, run off and hide. Put up magic reflect again if necessary. Loot them dry of reagents, certainly, but don’t be a **** and steal their hat or a single piece of crappy leather armour (or even their bandages, if you don’t need them). That just breeds contempt. I’ve actually had friendly conversations with people after they failed to beat me in a few attempts, and they’ve all for the most part been admiring and surprised that I wasn’t just a wimpy town thief. Always fun.

Just a quick note on PvP thieving: Steal their regs!!! Or, if they have a weapon that looks fairly deadly and they’re probably going to use, steal that! Black Pearl/Mandrake root are first choices for reg stealing, since it prevents them from using a /lot/ of favourite offensive spells, and makes them have to dig through their spell book for more. Also, if you’ve already nabbed Mandrake Root/Black Pearl, try for their ginseng or garlic, to stop healing, and then Nightshade in case of poison. If you’re lucky, they won’t even notice until you own most of their reagents. This page will tell you what reagents are needed for what spells. Also, the table down the bottom shows a breakdown of the most used reagents. Mandrake root being the most used (blood moss is second most, but not used in that many offensive spells, save for ones it shares with mandrake root and pearl. Going Mandrake/Pearl is probably still best, but learn to change strategy if neccesary)

Another good thing to remember – keep your reagent levels about 20. If you steal 50 reagents from someone, run off to a bank and bank them, before going back for more. This works best when stealing from tamers in Del – the bank is close by. I’ve stolen almost everything from a tamer, and had his mare attack me only for him to die while I get the rest of his regs. (And as I’ve said, I didn’t kill his mare/loot his ONE THOUSAND bandages >_>, because that’s just being lame.)

Disarm Thief:

I don’t have much experience with these, but I can tell you the basics. A disarm thief is one with at least 80 Wrestling and Arms Lore, and so can disarm weapons. Normally partially a PvP thief. The basic plan of attack is: find them out in the open, attack, hit your “Disarm” macro, hit them with it, disarm weapon, steal weapon from pack, laugh in face. If you find a dexxer or something and can pull this off, they’re normally pretty useless afterwards. Like I said, I don’t have much experience, because I changed from this to full PvP-thief when I noticed that I could never find anyone to disarm.

Melee Thief:
http://www.uogamers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=288665&postcount=9

Stun Thief
http://www.uogamers.com/forum/showpost.php?p=309177&postcount=18

Don’ts:
Just a few things you should steer clear of.

Don’t be an *******, please.
Griefing is one of the most unenjoyable things for people to experience. IF you kill someone, don’t make a point of try looting them and calling them ‘owned’. If they insult you first, by all means return it, but there’s no need to be outright slanderous to someone you’ve never met who made the mistake of attacking you after a theft.

Don’t be a bank sitting thief.
It’s just retarded. There is way too little nowadays that can be stolen and be worth it at a bank – it’s all either blessed or too heavy or they’re being careful about it. Plus, even when you can steal things, you’re very likely going to get guard whacked. Doing this just so people lose things is griefing, and it’s just plain stupid. Having another character or friend stand by to pick up the stuff from your body is lame as well, there’s no skill in getting yourself continuously killed to gain a few regs/statues.
Edit: Okay, so this is just my opinion. Some people find that waiting at the bank for a half-decent mark and using a friend to ensure success is worth it (and possibly fun). I don't bother with it, since I don't see much risk in having a friend ready to pick it from your corpse, and so no fun there for me. You might disagree. Also, you'll more then likely lose a lot of respect (you may not care) from doing this, since I'm sure that the majority agree that bank thieves are much less skillful.

Don’t steal from newbies.
Why?!? Why do people persist in taking the few pieces of nothing that newbies haul about? Is that twenty gold and three carrots /that/ necessary to nab?
------------------------------------


Role-playing:
Yes, you can role-play a thief. I prefer the ‘no one knows’ approach. My thief is a perfectly normal person on the outside – He’s got a normal name, he takes part in little conversations with people, he took part in a play, he has a history, but when the sun goes down…(or he feels in the mood), he dons a disguise and goes out to lighten others of their loads. And does it in character. It’s perfectly acceptable to be living two lives in this way, in my opinion. Just one thing – if you’re role-playing a normal person, please don’t steal while on that character, no matter how tempting. I make it a personal point not to ever have his reputation besmirched.
There are of course, other things you can role-play. You could just be a thief, who lives his entire time under disguise, and who has an easily forgettable name when he’s not, which is rarely.
You could be a Robin Hood type, and donate your newly pilfered things to newbies and the general poor, or you could set up a super-cheap vendor for them to be sold at.
You could restrict yourself to a certain town or dungeon, and role-play as the ‘Protector’ of that dungeon, sworn to cripple those who dare attack its inhabitants.
You could be solely out to steal and humiliate the Orcs (both role-played and NPC).
You could be good, or bad, or neutral to all.

I hope that everyone found this guide useful. If I’m missing anything, please tell me so I can include it.
 

Pepsi_Rox

Knight
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

If this thread said any more about theives, it would hurt...

Great guide...

*makes a theif*
 

ozbb3

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Very nice guide indeed, [e applaud ;)

As u said "if you steal from someone at all (since you last died), you actually become grey to everyone, but your name is blue and you highlight blue. Thus, people can attack you in town at any time (going grey to you), if they know they won’t get whacked for it. And they won’t! (Unsure on this, please help)"
Just the way it works, at least for me, when i steal even if others dont notice they can freely attack me. so thing i, if u steal u are attackable by anyone, even if ure marked as blue to them, untill u die and therefore wait two mins till u go blue again, cuz u been a bad boy. Once u rez and get legit blue again, if someone kills u cuz "-hes a perma grey lets gank him!" well u can actually count them.
I didnt tested this on this shard yet, aye im newcomer, thou wherever i play my main is always a thief and thats how it works for me.

Once again congrats on the guide. Gave me some cool tips on roleplaying.

Peace
 

Judas420

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Pretty good guide although I disagree with a few things. I like my macro setup better although it is quite similar. The main thing I dont agree with is your opinion on town stealing. I guess it depends what your goal is in becoming a thief. Personally, my goal was to make a lot of gold, not to "fool around" or grief people. I specifically targeted people selling unblessed BOD sandals, bulk regs, boards or ingots (in commodity deed form), and any other unblessed items that were given out such as the ultra kill clothing or fallon kilts. Obviously people wont be carrying them outside of town so I would sit at brit or del and watch for people selling them at the bank. It's true that most people are pretty careful but you can find unsuspecting marks if you put forth some effort. Also, I've had friends loot for me or vice versa and do not agree that it's a lame practice. It is just an obvious side effect of town stealing conditions.

As for the perma grey thing you are correct. That's how it works, except for what borrower said about giving a count. A thief can never give a count no matter if he's blue or w/e. Also, one more detail about perma-grey I didnt see mentioned. Normally it goes away when you are killed but if you are killed by npc guards, you have to be killed again to return to the normal state.

Overall, a great guide for inexperienced thieves out there (except for the "moral" suggestions that could have been left out).
 

erendor

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Made a few changes and things. And don't complain about me giving away secrets - this is the simple stuff. There's other things that we can still keep for the experienced :) .
 

JimBeam

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Melee Thief
100 Anatomy
100 Fighting Skill .. I prefer Fencing for para blow on spears
100 Healing
100 Hiding
100 Snooping
100 Stealing
100 Tactics

Stats
Str: 100
Int: 35
Dex: 90

This is a rather good template if you know how to use it.

*edit*
This is a good template for those type of people who enjoy to pvp and don't mind being attacked, after they've stolen from someone. Pick out a target you want to steal from, and determine what would be best to steal. Walk past them using the last object macro suggestion stated above, while you sift through their pack, then you sift through their things looking for the vital regs (for a mage) or bandages/weapon (for a dexxer).
erendor said:
Some basic strategies:...

Use a knife, dagger, or whatever you have in your pack to bring up a target and target what you want to steal, then walk away out of screen. When you're ready to steal the item, use your stealing skill then run towards them, when you get beside them (timing is critical) hit a last target macro and then you can keep running by, normally they won't realize that you just stole from them, but if they do.. then they will probably chase you, which in turn you have a head start.. so you can hide or turn around and fight.

Being that you are a pvp thief, you should open up their paperdoll and dbl click on their backpack again, so that you can use last object to look in their pack while you fight, stealing more regs and bandages, making them even more easy to kill. Then after you've killed them, you may loot the corpse dry, or leave the corpse on the ground.. moving onto the next victim. :)
 

erendor

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Added it. If you could edit your post to explain how to use it, it'd be a help ;)
 

Thomas Raven

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

It's just that you can't kill anyone with those combat skills, if you want to stay in thieves guild. (except reds, ect.) Sad.
 
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

I've played a thief for a long time. I don't want to add in any little secrets or goodies. But I noticed for some reason it feels like you didn't make Dex the most important stat you can have as a thief.

Dexterity is THE most important stat you can have as a thief anyways. The higher your dex (Useless after 100) the more of a success rate you will have stealing. It also depends upon the targets Dex(The higher their dex, lower your success rate, the lower their dex the higher your success rate), Your Dex (If someone has higher dexterity than you, it will be much more difficult to steal from)and the Dex of those surrounding you on your success rate of stealing. There, I got that little bug off my shoulder. Good Guide. :]

*Jumps into the Air and flies away*
 

Raz-hybrid

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Resisting spells: You sometimes resist certain non-damage offensive spells: Curse, Mana drain, Poison, Clumsy...not all that useful, in my opinion. Here will tell you mroe about it.

Great post, but this is incorrect. That is the AOS+ version of resist. The version on Hybrid resists nearly ALL spells, chance based on circle.
 
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

Hey I'm new here and I'm new to ultima online. I made a thief, got him into the guild got his stats to a decent level etc. this week. I still have to GM some stats but I have a few questions. For stealing peoples weapons, you need 80 arms lore and 80 wrestling? I didn't find that part clear to do 80 wrestling and arms lore could have meant any number of arms lore. Also are those necessities? or is wrestling just if you plan on fighting back bare handed? Thanks for your help and i'm sorry if i sound stupid but i just started playing this game so its all still new to me ^_^
 

Raz-hybrid

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

If you're new you're going to need to learn more than that.

Got AIM or anything? PM me.
 

fluffyrabbit

Wanderer
Re: Thieves and Thievery: The Absolute Guide.

I saw nothing about stun thieves, and they are fucking fun to play, steal, when the guy attacks you stun, steal some more, rinse and repeat. works well against ANYBODY, if a mage is about to cast hurty spells on me, i run up and para him then make off with some gold.

You HAVE GOT to have lots of dex, cuz stuns take stamina

my stun thief template

healing
anat
hiding
snooping
wrestling
stealing
stealth

yea, no magery so i can't get around, but it's a fun build
 
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