How important is Snooping?

[Lord Raven]

As I read the FAQ and review the templates I see many that don't use snooping. I've never had a fully functional thief so I'm wondering what is needed to set one up. I thought you needed snooping to look into backpacks (packy) to select which item to steal.

 

[Kellgory]

If you're just going to be stealing items from dungeons or monsters then you don't need snooping. If you're planning on stealing from other people, then yes it is handy to snoop their pack to see if they have anything worth stealing.

 

[Black Sun]

As Kellgory said, snooping is a must if you want to steal from other players. You can random steal from them if you don't/can't snoop, but your odds of getting a good item are much lower.

Stealing from monsters/crates/dungeons, snooping is a waste of points in my opinion. You could go the soulstone route. My thief keeps it on a stone in the bank in case I decide to swap his template around and go PvP thieving for a bit.

 

[Taylor]

. . .snooping is a must if you want to steal from other players . . .

Stealing from monsters/crates/dungeons, snooping is a waste of points . . .

This.

 

[Lord Raven]

I was thinking of building a thief so I could get the item for the distillery that UO says will require thieving skill.

However, since this skill doesn't really benefit my character in other ways (unless, of course that character is a professional PvP thief) then this would be a huge waste of time just to get one item.

BTW, I've got nothing against professional PvP thieves... I just don't want to put that much work into a template/character that, for my purposes, would only be created to get one item.