How to protect yourselves from the thieves of UO.

[TheScoundrelRico]

As you may know, I was a long time thief in Ultima Online. I retired from the game about 6 months ago now, but have maintained a presence on Stratics in the OT forum. I recently have been perusing the UO forums again and have been helping out some of the players who are interested in joining the ranks of my former in-game profession.

Over the years of posting on Stratics I would see posts here saying how unfair an advantage thieves had. Many of those times, I would comment that people should learn the mechanics of the game. This was a completely honest way of telling the poster that if you knew how the game mechanics worked, you could easily play the game without being stolen from. After my initial run ins with the thief profession early in my playing days (the reason I became a thief, lol), I don’t believe I was ever stolen from when I didn’t want to be. I recently decided that I would help out those of you who for years were tormented by me and/or my brethren. Some may say I have broken the thieves code, and maybe I have, but to those players...I don't play UO anymore, and thus the code does not apply.

So here goes:

Be advised, no matter what you think, if you are in a facet that allows thieving, there is a high probability that a thief that has gone through your pack and you haven’t even known it. There are many of us who will/would only show ourselves when we are in the process of stealing, so by that time, it’s usually too late.

• If you play on a production shard, keep everything you don’t want to have stolen, insured. It’s as simple as that. Keep your insurance in constant renewal, if not, you can bet, if a thief is around, they will attempt to steal something.
  
• Don’t waste your time with a bunch of seeded packs inside your main pack, a good thief can snoop through them all in a matter of seconds, and if your packs are all seeded together, a looter can come by and take everything in on grab.
  
• You may or not know of the thief “feature” which allows a thief to keep a stolen item even after death. The only way you will be able to get this item back if they haven’t insured it is to kill them again. Once the item is stolen, it will stay in their pack. I used to make sure I never took a rez from one of my marks because I knew if they killed me, they could loot the original item I stole from them from my fresh corpse.
  
• Never give a player one of your items for them to look at. You may think “duh”, but too many times have I heard stories of players simply giving a high end item to another player who turns out to be a scammer or a thief.
  
• Stay moving. If a player pops out of stealth or hiding, move in the opposite direction. If a thief is not within a single tile from your pack, they cannot steal anything from you, and will get a message stating so. This causes their stealing timer (8 seconds) to reset and gives you time to get out of the area, or kill the thief.
  
• If you are in an area you plan to hang around for a little while, to prevent a thief from keeping your pack open, use hide or the invis spell to make them re-snoop you. The minute you do, your pack will close on their screen.
  
• If you are shopping at a vendor house that is in Fel, know your surroundings before you buy anything. Know the quickest route to the bank. If you are going to recall out, have your book open and cast the spell as soon as the purchase is made as there is a short timer that won’t allow items recently purchased or traded to be stolen. Also, while shopping, stay hidden. If your pack is hidden, a thief cannot steal from you. When I would see a message on the forum that a specific item was for sale at a specific vendor, I would run there and hide. I would open the vendor and set the item as my last target while it was still on the vendor. Once someone came to buy it, I could do a run by steal of that item after I saw that the sale was made. Again, if the player was not visible, I could not do this.
  
• If you know a thief is in the area, and you know there aren’t any notos around. Kill the thief. Most thieves have used most of their skill points to build up stealing, stealth, hiding and snooping. Most thieves cannot kill a typical fighter or mage without assistance.
  
• Mages: Keep your regs (if you carry them) in multiple piles. A thief can steal a large number of regs, but if they are piled in multiple groups of 10 or so, it doesn’t allow them to take all of a particular type of regent and eliminate the use of a number of different spells.
  
• Fighters and healers: Same thing goes for your band aids keep multiple piles of them so a thief cannot take all of your aids in one foul swoop. This ploy also makes it more difficult for players to dry loot your corpse since they will have to take each pile of band aids or regs separately.

These are just a few of the tips I have and will come back from time to time to add more, but this is a good start for now…Enjoy…la

 

[Tina Small]

Howdy, Rico. Wondered where you've been! Thank you for all the great tips.

I remember when I started playing about five years ago, there was an essay here on Stratics about how to set up your backpack to protect your belongings from thieves. You covered that a little bit in your post. Can you go into it in a bit more detail, perhaps? I seem to recall reading something about dragging a cloak or other clothing over stuff, but it's a bit fuzzy in my memory now. Also, does it make any difference if the thief is using the enhanced client and grid view? I thought I read somewhere that thieves can't use grid view for stealing from a mark, but could very easily be mistaken about that.

 

[Nexus]

While I play a thief part of the time I still don't mind giving tips on Thief Protection, most of you won't listen to them anyways.

If your Banking in Fel, and not in T2A do it in Ocllo, Nujel'm, Serps Hold, or Jhelom. These aren't faction towns and have active guard zones. While that doesn't stop thieves, if they flag it's a quick guard wack to get some revenge.

Always remember that area effects don't hit similar flagged toons, if your Blue casting EQ, Reveal, Wither, tossing Conflag pots is doing nadda if the thief is Blue. If your Red and the thief is Red same story. Your wasting mana that might save your tail if your attacked by someone or if the Thief does steal and flag you can use to hit him with a para or other spell. Also consider this some spells take time, make sure you have a way to disrupt your own casting I know many that will follow a mark until they are alone, making outside help impossible, or are casting so they can't give chase right away disrupting your own cast will let you give chase right away.

Elves have passive reveal, most thieves use Shadow Jump to get around this, make not of little "poofs" on the screen that can mean someone shadow jumping. You won't know where they jumped too, but you'll know someone is sneaking about.

Myself, I won't steal Regs, bandages, Pots etc. It's pointless they are cheap and easily replaceable by you, and have no merit for me. Most pure thieves (meaning characters built strictly for stealing) that are non-faction like myself aren't gonna go toe to toe with you in combat anyways, we're built to sneak, snoop, snatch, and get away. If it's not necessary for you to carry don't carry it. You'd be surprised how often I power and stat scrolls in some PvPer's pack, and not only junk one's 115's show up quite often.

Keep an eye on anyone with an overly generic name, if you've seen NPCs with the same or similar names it's a about even odds your looking at a thief having used a disguise kit.

You can't hide anything in your pack anymore, well if the Thief is on 2D you can by layering things under at least 3 black dyed Death Robes, but if they like me can easily swap to the EC grid view will show off all your belongings!

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Howdy, Rico. Wondered where you've been! Thank you for all the great tips.

I remember when I started playing about five years ago, there was an essay here on Stratics about how to set up your backpack to protect your belongings from thieves. You covered that a little bit in your post. Can you go into it in a bit more detail, perhaps? I seem to recall reading something about dragging a cloak or other clothing over stuff, but it's a bit fuzzy in my memory now. Also, does it make any difference if the thief is using the enhanced client and grid view? I thought I read somewhere that thieves can't use grid view for stealing from a mark, but could very easily be mistaken about that.

Not sure about the enhanced client, it came into existance after I left. I know the 3d client pack did allow me to snoop a pack and see all of the items no matter how they were hidden in 2d, but since i couldn't stand the 3d graphics, I only played in 2d.

In regards to the cloak hiding trick, there used to be a way around that in 2d, but that was usually done when players were using dial ups and counting on lag. There really isn't a way to get around it now. Just note, if you have a pack that is covered up, if you open it up or move anything around in it, the pack will come to the top of the stack when the thief is snooping...la

 

[insanepete]

First let me say CODE BREAKER!!! Haha second EC will allow a thief to circumvent at least 3 of your points, of course I wont say which 3 as that gives away the fun. Although any Thief out there best go try EC as it improves your thief macros and also your reaction time.
PS Rico you have made a huge impact on Thieves over the years its sad to see you out of game, did you know MD claimed your spot in front of despise on siege?

 

[Jhym]

You can sometimes tell who has been in the game a long time -- if I'm anywhere, especially out of guard zones, I never let someone hang within 2 tiles of me even in Trammel, unless I know who they are.

I still magic trap pouches now and then, just to see if anyone is snooping.

Above all, though, I don't keep expensive items in my pack for long. If it's a powerscroll, I usually plan to use it almost immediately, if it's deco I either get to the bank or to my house as fast as possible.

I used to not insure at all, but started about two years ago after getting rez-killed by a group of liches and losing one of my favorite suits. In any case, if you don't have lots of money the best thing to do is insure your wearables if they aren't blessed, your main weapons, and anything that could be used in an emergency (like a heal wand.) Otherwise I only insure things if they are rare and I won't be near a bank for a while.

Good tips Rico

 

[Harlequin]

First let me say CODE BREAKER!!!

They are more like guidelines...

Kekeke

 

[uoBuoY]

How to protect yourselves from the thieves of UO.
Real simple answer = don't go to fel

 

[Sweeney]

How to protect yourselves from the thieves of UO.
Real simple answer = don't go to fel

Candyland is ----> That way.

 

[Harlequin]

Argh, accidentally lost my second post. Good tips Rico!

I'll help you add a bit more

Be advised, no matter what you think, if you are in a facet that allows thieving, there is a high probability that a thief that has gone through your pack and you haven’t even known it. There are many of us who will/would only show ourselves when we are in the process of stealing, so by that time, it’s usually too late.

Aye, always beware the drive-by stealing! Move a step and hopefully close their view and always followup with hide or invis to force-close the thief's view of your backpack.

Even when you can see someone suspicious walk past, do not think that if you or the thief moved away that their view has closed. Because there are ways to get around it.

If someone suddenly got revealed beside you, even if you didn't see the message that says he stole something, assume that he already has and will likely do it again if you stay around. The reason that he was revealed is mostly because he used the steal skill rather than being passively revealed.

[*]Don’t waste your time with a bunch of seeded packs inside your main pack, a good thief can snoop through them all in a matter of seconds, and if your packs are all seeded together, a looter can come by and take everything in on grab.

Multiple packs within the main pack is still useful, but always remember, it is a delay tactic. Tinker-trapped boxes works great too. Hopefully it will turn away less persistent thieves. But I am not sure if it flags you currently.

Hiding pouches under cloaks etc don't work in EC (due to grid view) or CC (due to items underneath floating up to the top).

If you use multiple pouches, decoy pouches with actual stuff in it will work against less thorough thieves.

[*]You may or not know of the thief “feature” which allows a thief to keep a stolen item even after death. The only way you will be able to get this item back if they haven’t insured it is to kill them again. Once the item is stolen, it will stay in their pack. I used to make sure I never took a rez from one of my marks because I knew if they killed me, they could loot the original item I stole from them from my fresh corpse.

Oh, btw, if thieves are killed in Tram, they are freely lootable as well. So remember their names.

Their defenses against this are mainly disguise kits, and sometimes several suits of blessed newbie clothes to swap between and disguise themselves.

Unfortunately, disguise kits screws up with their macros whenever they relogin. And newbies clothes are quite recognizable (look out for the lack of exceptional/maker's mark).



ps: For those that remember, I hated supersteal...

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Good tips from an honest thief.

Really. Thanks.

However there is cheeseball who likes to stand in a blue robe on atlantic and brag.

How does he steal... joins a guild and kills you in trammel. And then brags.


Where have all the respectable thieves gone. Isnt there a code.

Raven

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

...did you know MD claimed your spot in front of despise on siege?

Not sure who MD is but if they got my loot, they certainly got a boat load of it. LOL, if I ever did reactivate, I would pretty much have my soulstone collection and a few coins. Everything else was in the house when it fell...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Warriors: Always carry a weapon that is over 12 stones. It was too funny to me when I played a disarmer that players would cry and whine that I kept disarm stealing their weapons. If they only knew we couldn't steal 13 stone items, they could have easily carried a weapon they could use to kill a disarm thief...la

 

[the 4th man]

Funny how no one mentioned......."don't shop in Luna"

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Well, since most players play on shards where Luna has a trammy rule set, there really was no reason to state that...la

 

[hen]

Did your new wife make you quit?

 

[altarego]

I think he was being figurative, not literal.

At least that's what *I* thought when I read the topic.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Did your new wife make you quit?

Nope, I quit before we started dating. I do still play EvE Online though...la

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Dont join guilds is a good one.

I was selling halloween costume last night. And the same schlub that dresses in a blue robe was in a old brown robe.

He said i have a guildmate that wants to buy.
He wants to trade items.
Would you mind joining my guild to talk to him?

He's like please help me out and talk to him.

I laughed at him.

Is that a theif? You be the judge.

Bottom line dont join trammel guilds till you do some research.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

I did do that for awhile. It was amusing (to me). I'd hang out in Trammel WBB and spam guild recruiting information. I would guild someone, snoop them, then steal an item or two, then kick them out of the guild. ROFL.

I guess that wasn't the way the system was designed...but it certainly provided me with a few laughs...la

 

[Mook Chessy]

I play Siege and trust me stealing is alive ane well, not by me or course, but we have many active thieves.

Two quick points, first it is total crap that if i kill the toon who nicked my gear he keeps it. That is near the top of my FUBAR list. Second, what is with the Johnny Jr. thieves that steal one potion or a rune, do they really enjoy the mental masterbation of the act?

I do take my hat off to a true master...la!

 

[Cruxshadow]

I play Siege and trust me stealing is alive ane well, not by me or course, but we have many active thieves.

Two quick points, first it is total crap that if i kill the toon who nicked my gear he keeps it. That is near the top of my FUBAR list. Second, what is with the Johnny Jr. thieves that steal one potion or a rune, do they really enjoy the mental masterbation of the act?

I do take my hat off to a true master...la!

the pot stealers are just workin up thier nerves lol. its not every day someone rides in carrying a bag of powerscrolls, so the new thieves just practice on whatever they can snag. lol especially in the beginning, it doesnt matter what you steal, you still get the rush. plus, most people probably dont realize what has been stolen from them so they will chase anyways = double the fun.

As for the keep what you steal? well, it does suck (for yall) but we do have to make some sacrafices for it as well. Obviously, most thieves will be naked when stealing at a bank, so if they fail the steal, you keep your item, but you dont get anything off them. but if they do succeed in town, then die, you get your item back (i believe it pops into your pack). so i dont see a real imbalance here. Out in the wilderness, if we steal something from you, it gets a two minute bless, so even if you kill us, you dont get your item back... that sucks for you. BUT, if you do kill us somewhere not at the bank, chances are we actually have some stuff on (unless its me, then all you get are some arcane boots ) and will get to loot out suits... sounds decent. so, just because there is a two minute bless on items stolen outside of guard zone, doesnt mean it takes the risk out. so about 80% of the time, the thief is still gonna try to escape without being killed because they have something to lose.

 

[Belmarduk]

Nope, I quit before we started dating. I do still play EvE Online though...la

I havent seen you online for quite a while - Have you in my adressbook.
But then I am not online often myself atm.
Greetings Belmarduk

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Second, what is with the Johnny Jr. thieves that steal one potion or a rune, do they really enjoy the mental masterbation of the act?

Actually, I used to steal marked runes all of the time. I found some nice IDOCs that way. I also was able to find where some players farmed. People come to Siege and wonder where the palyers are because the towns are empty...I used to find the people by stealing runes...la

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Here's a good tip:

Once you are stolen from. Learn to deal with it or at least learn how not to type in your anger into UO text. There is nothing funnier than hanging around the mark to be able to screen shot them posting a memorable quote.

If you can't kill the thief, say quiet, leave the area, and maintain your cool. The thief will lose interest if you ignore them, and you have nothing for them to steal...la

 

[Storm]

The best protection against thieves hands down is to not go into fell or pvp areas...

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

The best protection against thieves hands down is to not go into fell or pvp areas...

Wow, I would have never thought of that. *facepalm*

Maybe some people don't want to hide or be limited to the areas they can play in. This is more for them than those who hide in Trammel...la

 

[Storm]

Wow, I would have never thought of that. *facepalm*

Maybe some people don't want to hide or be limited to the areas they can play in. This is more for them than those who hide in Trammel...la

I actually meant that to be funny

as a side note though I play on a less than perfect connection and my ping times can be high 200ms or more while this is still playable in pvm or in a thieves environment it is far from good especially when opponent is 50 ms or less this is the main reason for me not to participate!

I can still remember in the old days when all was fell and trying to play with a 28k connect ohhh the nightmares!

 

[Cruxshadow]

the best thief defense... be a thief!

 

[altarego]

the best thief defense... be a thief!

That would be an interesting twist:

If a thief attempts to steal from another thief, add a chance to auto-steal the item back, plus something else...along the lines of the smuggler's edge behavior.

 

[Spree]

You may or not know of the thief “feature” which allows a thief to keep a stolen item even after death. The only way you will be able to get this item back if they haven’t insured it is to kill them again. Once the item is stolen, it will stay in their pack. I used to make sure I never took a rez from one of my marks because I knew if they killed me, they could loot the original item I stole from them from my fresh corpse.

Trammie

 

[DaveSP!]

As you may know, I was a long time thief in Ultima Online. I retired from the game about 6 months ago now, but have maintained a presence on Stratics in the OT forum. I recently have been perusing the UO forums again and have been helping out some of the players who are interested in joining the ranks of my former in-game profession.

Over the years of posting on Stratics I would see posts here saying how unfair an advantage thieves had. Many of those times, I would comment that people should learn the mechanics of the game. This was a completely honest way of telling the poster that if you knew how the game mechanics worked, you could easily play the game without being stolen from. After my initial run ins with the thief profession early in my playing days (the reason I became a thief, lol), I don’t believe I was ever stolen from when I didn’t want to be. I recently decided that I would help out those of you who for years were tormented by me and/or my brethren. Some may say I have broken the thieves code, and maybe I have, but to those players...I don't play UO anymore, and thus the code does not apply.

So here goes:

Be advised, no matter what you think, if you are in a facet that allows thieving, there is a high probability that a thief that has gone through your pack and you haven’t even known it. There are many of us who will/would only show ourselves when we are in the process of stealing, so by that time, it’s usually too late.

• If you play on a production shard, keep everything you don’t want to have stolen, insured. It’s as simple as that. Keep your insurance in constant renewal, if not, you can bet, if a thief is around, they will attempt to steal something.
  
• Don’t waste your time with a bunch of seeded packs inside your main pack, a good thief can snoop through them all in a matter of seconds, and if your packs are all seeded together, a looter can come by and take everything in on grab.
  
• You may or not know of the thief “feature” which allows a thief to keep a stolen item even after death. The only way you will be able to get this item back if they haven’t insured it is to kill them again. Once the item is stolen, it will stay in their pack. I used to make sure I never took a rez from one of my marks because I knew if they killed me, they could loot the original item I stole from them from my fresh corpse.
  
• Never give a player one of your items for them to look at. You may think “duh”, but too many times have I heard stories of players simply giving a high end item to another player who turns out to be a scammer or a thief.
  
• Stay moving. If a player pops out of stealth or hiding, move in the opposite direction. If a thief is not within a single tile from your pack, they cannot steal anything from you, and will get a message stating so. This causes their stealing timer (8 seconds) to reset and gives you time to get out of the area, or kill the thief.
  
• If you are in an area you plan to hang around for a little while, to prevent a thief from keeping your pack open, use hide or the invis spell to make them re-snoop you. The minute you do, your pack will close on their screen.
  
• If you are shopping at a vendor house that is in Fel, know your surroundings before you buy anything. Know the quickest route to the bank. If you are going to recall out, have your book open and cast the spell as soon as the purchase is made as there is a short timer that won’t allow items recently purchased or traded to be stolen. Also, while shopping, stay hidden. If your pack is hidden, a thief cannot steal from you. When I would see a message on the forum that a specific item was for sale at a specific vendor, I would run there and hide. I would open the vendor and set the item as my last target while it was still on the vendor. Once someone came to buy it, I could do a run by steal of that item after I saw that the sale was made. Again, if the player was not visible, I could not do this.
  
• If you know a thief is in the area, and you know there aren’t any notos around. Kill the thief. Most thieves have used most of their skill points to build up stealing, stealth, hiding and snooping. Most thieves cannot kill a typical fighter or mage without assistance.
  
• Mages: Keep your regs (if you carry them) in multiple piles. A thief can steal a large number of regs, but if they are piled in multiple groups of 10 or so, it doesn’t allow them to take all of a particular type of regent and eliminate the use of a number of different spells.
  
• Fighters and healers: Same thing goes for your band aids keep multiple piles of them so a thief cannot take all of your aids in one foul swoop. This ploy also makes it more difficult for players to dry loot your corpse since they will have to take each pile of band aids or regs separately.

These are just a few of the tips I have and will come back from time to time to add more, but this is a good start for now…Enjoy…la

they could have just kept their shizzle in a locked box


I guess whining about being robbed was easier than taking 2 seconds to prevent it

 

[northwoodschopper]

since thieves are generally unarmored, they die really fast nowadays. many times it's 1-2 hit kill. i killed many thieves in 1 hit with a double strike. if you're a warrior with DCI, thieves can't hit you back with much success, even with 120 wrestling. mages have even an easier time killing thieves. hell, thieves don't even run with magic resist that's worthwhile anyways, or carry countermeasures to begin with.

i do think snooping should flag grey though, it originally did when UO was first released. hell, i think thieves should be perma-grey like reds are perma-red. though i also think that disguise kits and incognito should turn a player blue for the duration until the player flags otherwise, or forensic'd. not like it's hard to spot a disguised or incognito character due to the names.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Then those are sucky thieves. Hell, I usually ran around in 70's armor when out of the guardzone, and this was on Siege with no insurance. If I was a thief on a trammy shard, I would have been unstoppable, lol. A thief with fighting skills. The ultimate thug thief...la

 

[northwoodschopper]

Then those are sucky thieves. Hell, I usually ran around in 70's armor when out of the guardzone, and this was on Siege with no insurance. If I was a thief on a trammy shard, I would have been unstoppable, lol. A thief with fighting skills. The ultimate thug thief...la

yeah, those are your standard deathrobe/newb clothes throw-away thieves. i don't think i've ran across any serious thieves on a prodo shard in years, or any thief on siege in at least a year, at least not unfactioned anyways.

in the olden days, just having hiding on your template made you thief-proof, since there was no stealth movement. if anyone got within 2 tiles of your character, just hide and they leave frustrated. even funnier was when we could still talk while hidden.

 

[insanepete]

Where on Siege are you hiding there is at least 8 active daily thieves and prolly about 15 more people with it on a soulstone for busy fridays and events And thats only counting North American Siege players not Asian and Euro timezone players.

 

[Lefty]

Heck UO:R = Thief Genocide

 

[Viper09]

Heck UO:R = Thief Genocide

Nah, UO: AOS = Thief genocide.

Thieving wasn't hit too hard because of tram, people still carried stuff in fel, even if just for a visit.

Insurance is what hit us hard.

 

[Lefty]

Heck UO:R = Thief Genocide

Nah, UO: AOS = Thief genocide.

Thieving wasn't hit too hard because of tram, people still carried stuff in fel, even if just for a visit.

Insurance is what hit us hard.

When UO:R launched started the big exodus to tram. Town thieves died.

 

[KalVasTENKI]

As you may know, I was a long time thief in Ultima Online. I retired from the game about 6 months ago now, but have maintained a presence on Stratics in the OT forum. I recently have been perusing the UO forums again and have been helping out some of the players who are interested in joining the ranks of my former in-game profession.

Over the years of posting on Stratics I would see posts here saying how unfair an advantage thieves had. Many of those times, I would comment that people should learn the mechanics of the game. This was a completely honest way of telling the poster that if you knew how the game mechanics worked, you could easily play the game without being stolen from. After my initial run ins with the thief profession early in my playing days (the reason I became a thief, lol), I don’t believe I was ever stolen from when I didn’t want to be. I recently decided that I would help out those of you who for years were tormented by me and/or my brethren. Some may say I have broken the thieves code, and maybe I have, but to those players...I don't play UO anymore, and thus the code does not apply.

So here goes:

Be advised, no matter what you think, if you are in a facet that allows thieving, there is a high probability that a thief that has gone through your pack and you haven’t even known it. There are many of us who will/would only show ourselves when we are in the process of stealing, so by that time, it’s usually too late.

• If you play on a production shard, keep everything you don’t want to have stolen, insured. It’s as simple as that. Keep your insurance in constant renewal, if not, you can bet, if a thief is around, they will attempt to steal something.
  
• Don’t waste your time with a bunch of seeded packs inside your main pack, a good thief can snoop through them all in a matter of seconds, and if your packs are all seeded together, a looter can come by and take everything in on grab.
  
• You may or not know of the thief “feature” which allows a thief to keep a stolen item even after death. The only way you will be able to get this item back if they haven’t insured it is to kill them again. Once the item is stolen, it will stay in their pack. I used to make sure I never took a rez from one of my marks because I knew if they killed me, they could loot the original item I stole from them from my fresh corpse.
  
• Never give a player one of your items for them to look at. You may think “duh”, but too many times have I heard stories of players simply giving a high end item to another player who turns out to be a scammer or a thief.
  
• Stay moving. If a player pops out of stealth or hiding, move in the opposite direction. If a thief is not within a single tile from your pack, they cannot steal anything from you, and will get a message stating so. This causes their stealing timer (8 seconds) to reset and gives you time to get out of the area, or kill the thief.
  
• If you are in an area you plan to hang around for a little while, to prevent a thief from keeping your pack open, use hide or the invis spell to make them re-snoop you. The minute you do, your pack will close on their screen.
  
• If you are shopping at a vendor house that is in Fel, know your surroundings before you buy anything. Know the quickest route to the bank. If you are going to recall out, have your book open and cast the spell as soon as the purchase is made as there is a short timer that won’t allow items recently purchased or traded to be stolen. Also, while shopping, stay hidden. If your pack is hidden, a thief cannot steal from you. When I would see a message on the forum that a specific item was for sale at a specific vendor, I would run there and hide. I would open the vendor and set the item as my last target while it was still on the vendor. Once someone came to buy it, I could do a run by steal of that item after I saw that the sale was made. Again, if the player was not visible, I could not do this.
  
• If you know a thief is in the area, and you know there aren’t any notos around. Kill the thief. Most thieves have used most of their skill points to build up stealing, stealth, hiding and snooping. Most thieves cannot kill a typical fighter or mage without assistance.
  
• Mages: Keep your regs (if you carry them) in multiple piles. A thief can steal a large number of regs, but if they are piled in multiple groups of 10 or so, it doesn’t allow them to take all of a particular type of regent and eliminate the use of a number of different spells.
  
• Fighters and healers: Same thing goes for your band aids keep multiple piles of them so a thief cannot take all of your aids in one foul swoop. This ploy also makes it more difficult for players to dry loot your corpse since they will have to take each pile of band aids or regs separately.

These are just a few of the tips I have and will come back from time to time to add more, but this is a good start for now…Enjoy…la

This is great information. 10/10 Post.

 

[Taylor]

The best way to protect against thieves is to spend some time as a thief. Learn everything about being a thief. Buy Shinobi's books. Read Chad's stories. Find a mentor (Tony Emerald, for me). Train up your thief and practice, practice, practice. Once you become a good thief, yourself, you will be able to easily spot thieves, you'll be familiar with their tactics, and you'll know their limitations.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Heck UO:R = Thief Genocide

Actually publish 16 was the biggest of all of the thief nerfing releases...la

 

[Cruxshadow]

its funny though, even with all the nerfs, being a Thief is still the funnest thing i have ever done on UO.

northwoodchopper- you are right about most thieves not runnin much armor (in town atleast) although we will run with armor sometimes outside of GZ. I used to, until i put some resist on my char for the free armor. as far as killing us, lol, yeah, it depends on the thief. some of us are slippery, some not so much, and then again, sometimes we just want you to kill us haha. Thats the funnest part of the steal, the chase!

 

[JC the Builder]

How to protect yourself from thieves in one sentence:

Don't go to Felucca.

 

[Cruxshadow]

lol im glad you think so. thats gonna make it alot easier for some of the crafty infiltrators to get their hands on your hard earned loot.