General

For many, Stealing is an Art. Some have even have taken this art to new levels of notoriety. Crazy Joe of Napa Valley and Poison Ivy on Great Lakes are two notable examples. Thieves that have learned this skill have the ability to acquire objects from the packs of NPCs, monsters, and other players.

To be able to steal from other players a young thief must join the Thieves Guild. Your character must be over 48 hours old (in game time), have 60 real skill stealing, and no murder counts to join the thieves guild.

Finding the Thief Guildmaster is a chore. Usually if you can find a single NPC thief the guildmaster is somewhere nearby. If you hit your allnames key (you do have an allnames key right?) a yellow name with no title should appear nearby. That's probably the guildmaster. Buccaneers Den, Cove, Moonglow, and Skara Brae tend to be the easiest places to find them, as they are relatively small towns.

There are two types of stealing, target based and random. Random stealing is easier but does not allow you to select what you want to steal. Target stealing involves opening a pack, using the stealing skill, and targeting the object you wish to steal. Target based stealing will give you better gains.

Thieves are the only 'class' in Ultima Online that can change their appearance and name. This is done with a Disguise Kit. In order to get a Disguise Kit, you have to be in the Thieves' Guild, go to a Thief Guildmaster and say: "npc's-name disguise". The NPC will charge you 700 Gold Pieces (make sure you have the gold on you) and give you the kit.

Since Publish 16 (Summer 2002), Stealing is no longer considered an aggressive act.

Also Since Publish 16, OSI has changed the way stealing works. As per their statements, it's now an intended feature whereby a thief that dies within two minutes stealing an item off a player will resurrect with the stolen item. This does NOT include getting guardwhacked. If you are killed by a Brittanian Guard within the time limit, the item is returned to the person it was stolen from.

Since Age of Shadows and the introduction of Item Insurance, the only things Thieves are good for are: stealing from stupid players that don't insure their items or do not use trapped chests, stealing powerscrolls at Champion Spawns, and stealing items in Doom.

Maximum Stealing Weight Table

The proficiency a thief has in the stealing skill is proportional to the maximum object weight he/she can successfully steal. The formula is quite simple:

Skill Training

From XvekeZ:

0-30 Buy
30-120 Take your skill, round up at 5 (for instance 45 or higher round to 50) take the 0 off, and steal that amount of stones. 74 skill would be 7 stones.

The best method for gaining stealing involves the use of a packhorse in Felucca near as many people (PC's or NPCs) as possible. In order to initiate stealing from your packhorse you must be in Felucca and you must say, "All guard me" or "packyname guard me." If you are not in Felucca then the packhorse will "block your attempt to steal." If you do not have it guard you then you will get guard-whacked on your first steal attempt. Not only is this a waste of time but it also gets you looted and laughed at.

The items that you attempt to steal are also of great importance. Put some piles of gold, bandages, kindling, and/or bottles on your packhorse.

To gain you need different targets. To do this use a stackable, such as gold, or empty bottles. After you steal them, combine with a pile of 2 or greater and then seperate them again (and steal) to get new targets. Gold weighs 1 stone per 50gp, and bottles are 1 a pop.

Tips & Tricks

• If you do not gain off any of your items it's time to find new ones.



• Some people swear by stealing the same pile of gold (1000+) off the packhorse and then recycling the gold pile between steals to reset its "itemid." This either leads to a severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome or to unattended macroing. Both of these things are bad and one of them can cost you your account.
  
  
• Some favorite locations for stealing practice are the Skara Brae Bank and the Serpents Hold Bank. Each of these locations has a large population of NPCs, along with a stable close to the bank. Very convenient.
  
  
• When stealing from other players try to steal something of value!!! If you spend all your time stealing little stuff (bandages, regs, gold, etc…) then you'll have a bad reputation and you'll reflect poorly on the rest of the thief community. Also, the time you spend criminal from stealing useless items is time you won't necessarily have available to find and steal valuable things.
  
  
• Gaining stealing while you wait for access into the Thieves guild should be a priority. There is nothing like attempting to steal an expensive item and failing, as this will often get you noticed and attacked.
  
  
• A great way to make gold (and alleviate boredom) is by walking NPC escorts to different towns. When you're out of guardzone snoop the escort and steal everything they have. You'll gain both skill and wealth. Try not to do this around other players as it may get you dead.
  
  
• Stealing is required to steal items (artifacts) located in the Malas dungeon of Doom.
  
  
• Per XvekeZ: Theives can be looted in Trammel, Ilshenar, Malas.
  
  
• To avoid being stolen from: 1) Stay in Trammel, Ilshenar and Malas; 2) Insure your items; 3) Use a trapped chest.
  
  

-------------

Version 1.0: 04/10/03 -Initial Draft.

Information Gathered and formulated by: Regulus and XvekeZ.