The Thieves FAQ.

[Oaks]

The Thieves FAQ.

()-------------------this is still a work in progress------------------()

I'll try to make these posts as short as possible so you can find your answer(s) quick and easy. Do note I am not really familiar with thieving in PvP situations so you won't find many comments on that. To get more information on that, Sly has written a PvP thief guide here; http://www.uodemise.com/forum/showthread.php?t=119130

1. Character Creation - Race, Stats, Skills, Templates.

2. Stealables - Town Shops, Doom, Fan Dancers Dojo, Yomotsu Mines.

3. Tactics - Useful Tips.

4. (to be added later).

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1. Character Creation

- Race

Elf or Human; it doesn't matter which one you pick so go with what you prefer or which racial traits you like.

Human racial traits; http://www.uoguide.com/Humans
Elf racial traits; http://www.uoguide.com/Elves

- Stats

Again, it depends on what you prefer. I'd suggest however to max out strength so you can take more damage before you die and are able to carry more stuff. Dexterity I'd leave at 10 as it has no impact on stealing and the rest of the stat points I'd put in intelligence to have a large pool of mana to cast spells with. Obviously, if you are able to get your hands on a stat scroll (stolen ofcourse) you can tinker around with these numbers even more.

My suggestion is 125 STR, 10 DEX, 90 INT.

- Skills

Once again, the skills you want to utilise depend on your playstyle and your intention with the character, so I will only make some suggestions here. Note: Some items give bonuses to certain skills so you do not have to spend valuable skillpoints, check the tactics subsection to find out more about these items.

Stealing - Core skill, get it. No use in eyeballing shiny stuff if you do not have the means to legally transfer ownership of it. 120 stealing is a must if you go for stealables, otherwise you spend way too much time failing to steal the item.
Hiding - Always useful to get out of sticky situations. I'd suggest to GM this skill.
Stealth - Compliments hiding, also useful to get into sticky situations. Also good to put this at GM.
Ninjitsu - Has a few useful spells to make your life easier. Some animal forms the ninjitsu spellbook provides allow you to run around on foot with the same speed as someone who is mounted (it uses up stamina quickly though when at just 10 dex). It also has the Mirror Image" spell which is useful to lure monsters away from stealables/certain spots and the "Shadow Jump" spell allows you to teleport across the screen while hidden, just like batman. GM skill will be fine, I prefer 110 to stop fizzling casting animal form.
Magery - Always handy on any template. So many useful spells I wouldn't leave home without it. Put it at GM to fully benefit this skill.
Snooping - I personally don't bother with this one, however it would be a good idea to have it in Fellucca to see what someone else is carrying so you can specifically target it with stealing.
Detect Hidden / Tracking - Good to annoy people, letting you know who is around without being surprised and to get rid of other competing thieves who only have the hiding/stealth skill. Just imagine Benny Hill when you reveal another thief and they are being chased by a monster.

Tips on how to train these skills and others, visit http://www.uodemise.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92568 or search for the skill with a forum search within the cartographer subforum. Most likely it has been covered and debated to death.

- Templates

Completely depends on what you want to do so I'll just post mine for the time being. Used to "collect" stealables, find out who else is hidden at idocs, stealth around in events while everyone else is busy with the monsters, scouting ahead and provide back up for the guild/other characters. Works fine.

Stealing - 120
Stealth - 120
Ninjitsu - 110
Hiding - 100
Magery - 100
Detect Hidden - 100
Tracking - 100

 

[Oaks]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

2. Stealables

Note: Daily stealables (fruitbasket etc.) are currently not spawning on Demise, do not bother looking for them. Likewise, monster stealables are not implemented (yet) so don't go nuts trying to get them.

Town Shops

Stealing from town shops is easy;

- locate a container inside a shop,
- unlock it with the "magic unlock" spell from your magery spellbook,
- use telekinesis on the container to set off the trap without injuring yourself (keep some distance though),
- double click the container and use the stealing skill on any objects you find.

There are some items ingame which can only be obtained through this method. They are listed below (probably not complete):

Blacksmith shops

- Iron, copper, gold, silver wires
- Horseshoes
- Forged metal

Provisioner shops

- Bunch of dates
- Coconut (two versions which are cut open)
- Lemons
- Limes
- Bananas (a bunch, single versions can be bought from npc's)
- Wedge of cheese (single slice)

Mage shops

- Dried flowers (two versions)
- Dried herbs
- Dried garlic

Carpentry shops

- Chisels

For pictures of these stealables, follow this link: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=117789 (warning, lots of images)

However, do take note that these items will not always be present. To increase the chance of getting them to spawn, steal all the items inside the containers and come back later. Still no guarantee they will be there as they are not guaranteed to spawn, but chances are you will find them sooner or later by doing this.

Doom

For the stealables in Doom on Demise I have made my own map as the location of some of them seem to be different from the ones I found on maps posted elsewhere on the internet. The map can be found below. There are no tactics involved, just have a run around to see if an item has spawned. If it has, just steal it and go looking for the next item. Some of these are located in the gauntlet so you will need a gold skull to cross the river. I personally don't bother with the gauntlet ones (although the ruined painting is the most valuable item to steal) so you could park a second thief there and quickly log in/out to check for those. Do note that the respawn timer for the stealables is randomised on Demise. If an item has a 1 hour respawn timer it does not necessarily mean it will actually be there exactly 1 hour after you stole it. Higher rarity rating means an increased period of time added to the respawn timer. Check runuo scripts for more clarification on this. This also applies to the stealables in the Fan Dancers Dojo and Yomotsu Mines.

Fan Dancers Dojo & Yomotsu Mines

Same story as with the stealables in Doom. Run up, grab, run off. Easy does it. Map for them and the location of the stealables can be found here; http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=117789

Note that you will still occasionally get hit by spells and melee attacks from monsters while running for these. This is quite annoying in the Dojo where the fan dancers can quickly drain your stamina if you only have 10 dex. Keep a few food items in your backpack to counter this.

 

[Oaks]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

3. Tactics

This section is under construction.

Some useful tips for thieves.

Saving skillpoints:

The following items are useful in saving skillpoints so they can be spend elsewhere, and reduce the time for you to train up these skills.

Jewelry (ring/bracelet) with + skillpoints to stealing, magery, ninjitsu etc.

http://www.uoguide.com/Burglar's_Bandana (cheap to buy)

http://www.uoguide.com/Shadow_Dancer_Leggings (fairly cheap to buy, probably out of range if you just started out though)

A suit:

Good thing about thieves it is all about hit and run so if you are not bothered about resists you won't have to spend ages trying to put together a decent suit. I'd suggest a 100% LRC suit, with some fc/fcr jewelry, some LMC and some HPR. However, you'll be perfectly fine with just a 100% lrc suit though unless you venture into Fel.

Skill Icons:

If you open up your skill list (alt+k), you can click and drag a skill away from it so you get a grey button which represents the skill. Always handy to have on screen somewhere.

Keyboard Macros:

Obviously, it is even faster to assign keys to certain actions. Go to the macros tab in the configuration screen (located on your paperdoll) and make a key macro for "last object", "last target", "stealing" and "hiding". Go through the rest to see what else you could use.

Smoke Bombs:

These work just like the hiding skill, but have the added benefit you can use them in face of danger (requires 50 ninjitsu skill)http://www.uoguide.com/Egg_Bomb

A mount:

I would suggest to be mounted on a veteran ethy mount / polar bear (the latter is overused but it's fun to cruise doom on a polar bear) all the time when going through doom/fan dancers dojo/yomotsu mines. It allows you to outrun any monsters before they have even noticed you and allows for a hit and run on the stealables. If you fail stealing, just run away to somewhere safe, wait for the stealing timer to be up and go back. Also handy for if you died and need to recover your body quickly.

What to steal of all the stealables, and what kind of money I can expect for these liberated treasures:

As you might have noticed on player vendors, some stealables are common and hardly sell for anything. My suggestion is, unless you want to run a shop which sells all the stealables, is to ignore all the lower rarity ones (baskets, brazier, bowls, egg case, rocks, etc). Instead save yourself time and go for the big ones, like the weapons from Doom and the big sword displays from the Dojo.

This is not a price guide but for over a year now I have sold the following stealables for these prices, on forum and on my vendor. They sell well (some go quickly) so this is a nice little side earner if you have thief and it is not your main character.

Cocoon - ~75k
Hanging Tunics (different versions) - ~100-150k
Skinned Deer - ~75k
Dojo Flower - ~100k
Fish Sculpture - ~45k
Big white paintings from lvl 3 Dojo - ~200k
Sword display:
- single sword standing version - ~100k
- big double sword display version (black & red versions) - ~175k/200k
Macer Sculptures - ~200-250k

The Thieves Guild

You only need to join this guild if you wish to steal from other people in Fel. So if you have no intention in doing so, you can skip joining them. Guildmasters can be found in most towns and wander around, so you will have to scout around to find one. http://www.uoguide.com/Thieves_Guild

Dead in the middle of nowhere

If you don't need to get to your corpse (you had nothing on you for example), you are a ghost in the middle of bloody nowhere and can't be bothered walking miles to the nearest healer, do like me and open your paperdoll > go to help > file a "help i'm stuck" page > pick Cove. Within a minute or two you will be teleported to your chosen city so you can get ressed quickly. Cove is just convenient as it is the smallest town out of the available towns, meaning the healer building is usually only a screen or two away.

 

[gugutz]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Sir, i can't think of a way to thank you enough for this. =]]]]]

Just when i was thiking of making a thief.

 

[4thwisemonkey]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

TYVM. Now waiting for some comments from Sly to have as comprehensive a guide as possible.

 

[Enlightener]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

I recomend using wrestle instead of tracking, magery is a must.
Sometime the monsters agro you and if you dont have sone kind of defense you are going down very fast.

Now, with the new champ arties, you will need some kind of pvp survival skills.
With 115 wrestle and 45 dci you should have some chance of runing away alive.
And if you can put Magic resist , even better.

And i must say, Excelent Guide.

 

[Sly-demise]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Great job Oaks! If it interests you, I'd love to help you out with a PvP section for your guide as that is the kind of stealing I am the most familiar with. Please let me know if you're interested and I'll put together a nice little guide including some tips and tricks.

 

[Maltim]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Note: Daily stealables (fruitbasket etc.) are currently not spawning on Demise, do not bother looking for them.

...doh...

 

[Maltim]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Some small little tidbits for pvp thievery.

Patience is the name of the game if you are a fragile thief. A lot of new people like to run in and steal little shit. Thats ok for moongates etc, but if you're camping some spawners, you don't want them on high alert before the good stuff starts dropping into their packs.

Fortunately a lot of people here seem to afk spawn...

It should be noted that wrestling does NOT require tactics to use wrestling's special moves. (At least it should be that way, haven't checked on this server). Wrestling can and will save your life, I highly recommend either it for fencing/swords.

I say fencing/swords because infectious strike requires poisoning, shadow strike requires stealth...both are fun as hell...but I wouldn't say are complete lifesavers. a level 5 poison may make *some* people panic but most vets will just chug or eat some petals. Shadowstrike though...thats just slick. Can immediately go into stealth and shadowstep.

Alchemy is amazing with some enhance potions items and such...and potions are easy to steal...80% enhance potions is cap between gm alchemy and 50% from items.

Magery is probably the most flexible skill in the game. Pvp thieving is about flexibility...pretty good idea to have it usually.

Stealthing through others will reveal you. This includes other stealthers. If you can squeeze it in, enough necro to wraith form makes a noticable difference, especially if you're running without magery and need to recall. The 20% from JOAT only gives you a 1% chance to cast it.

Shuriken/darts will/should poison with whatever they were poisoned with, regardless of the user's poisoning. So if another character poisoned them with Deadly, and you use it with 0 poisoning, it will still be deadly. And leather ninja belts can be blessed with a clothing bless deed. Handy!

And you may laugh, but herding actually has practical application in stealing. You can use it to clear a path through a thick spawn...or the more interesting applications are pulling the larger monsters on the edges of the spawns into the middle to see if you can take any spawners by surprise (usually no, but sometimes...). And the amount of ancient wyrms chilling in Felucca from unfinished (it's not finished til spawn is cleared) tmaps is absolutely hilarious...herd a couple to the bridge south of brit gate sometime...para blow and loot away. (OK, maybe not specifically related to stealing, but still funny)

By the way I am currently running

115 stealing (no 120 scroll yet)
115 stealth (no 120 scroll yet)
110 fencing
100 poisoning
100 hiding
100 snooping
110 ninjitsu

Eventually with wrestling+magery+Alchemy soulstoned for swapping with fencing/poisoning...

for the moment I am just having fun.

 

[4thwisemonkey]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Tyvm. (=

 

[Oaks]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Great job Oaks! If it interests you, I'd love to help you out with a PvP section for your guide as that is the kind of stealing I am the most familiar with. Please let me know if you're interested and I'll put together a nice little guide including some tips and tricks.

Post whatever you can, no need for my permission. I'll just add/edit it somewhere in my posts so people can go to it directly within the same thread. Same goes for anyone else, though going by my own experience I think people just read the entire thread anyway on this kind of stuff.

 

[Maltim]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Oh, I dunno if they're implemented here, haven't checked...town stealable: standing tinker tools from tinker shops.

I thought all these things only spawned in specific mage/smith shops (moonglow/serp's hold)...I may be wrong? Or maybe thats how it is implemented here? It's been a while since I've done the town thief thing

 

[Oaks]

Re: The Thieves FAQ.

Shop specific stealables spawn within any town inside the related shop.

The tinker tools I'm not sure about as I do not recall ever seeing one or stealing one myself in my newbie days.

 

[Star_Jewel]

*An Corp*
The forum migration has broken a lot of links. Does anybody still have the modified Doom stealables map?

Very helpful FAQ, Oaks. It's been helping me get my first ever thief off the ground.

 

[Oaks]

Your welcome. On stratics forums, in the thief or rares collector section there is a map in one of the stickies I think. It's the one I used but some of the stealables are depicted in a location different from Demise.

Too bad some forum thief yoinked my copy.

 

[Star_Jewel]

Mm, yeah, I had taken a look at the Doom Map on Stratics, but never having set foot in Doom before, the mention of inconsistencies made me all paranoid. So I just dug through the script and identified the coordinates on Demise.
Turns out we're pretty accurate except for the Zyronic Blade, Titan Hammer and Bamboo Stool.

 

[Oaks]

The bamboo stool isn't available on Demise. Inquis and the lamp post have been added since the creation of this thread.

 

[KarmannMarco]

Back from the dead.

If

i did run a thief it would have...

120 archery
90 tactics
115 stealing
100 snooping
60 stealth
100 hiding
108 ninjitsu
115 resist spells

I know its way over 720 but i have about 90 points of skill within my suit/jewelry

Suit : All 70s Resists / 17 HP Regen / 40 LMC / HPI 20 / FC 2 / 45 HCI

Stats:

125 ( 135)
25 ( 36 )
80 (90)



The reward of playing this template is purely for fun , not profit. With the exeption of snatching up an inquis with my gf.
I used to run doom and fan dancers for arties but i grew bored of it from doing it on OSI for years and years.


Does Sly play at all anymore?