New player, need info about thief and merchant gameplay

[Jairash]

Hello everyone! First of all, i apologize for my bad english.
Soon i'll be in game and i was wondering what setup of skill is needed to be:
- a good rogue
- a successfull merchant

What skill should i pick first?
What about stats?
Is trading between players really active on this shard? or everyone craft mainly for himself?

 

[Panik Homerché]

Good Rogue?

Snooping and Stealing, obviously

This leaves 5 skills.

If you like sneaking around, Hiding and Stealth.
If you want to be able to disarm targets to steal their weapon, Arms Lore and Wrestling. (Careful not to get murder counts if you engage to disarm...)
If you want to target and mess with macroers, stealthers and other hidden players, Detect Hidden and Tracking.
If you want to survive, Resist Spells and/or Wrestling.
If you want some versatility, Eval Int, Magery and Meditation.

I could keep going on and on, there are a lot of ways one can play a "thief" character...

Do you have anything in mind?

In any case, a 5xMage (Eval/Mage/Med/Resist/Wrestling) with Stealing and Snooping is very strong, and fun to play if you're into PvP. You can steal from people, then DARE them to fight for what's rightfully theirs...

Stats obviously depend on your template, but unless you're using melee combat skills, it's generally useless to have much more than 25 DEX.

---

Good Merchant?

I'm not much of a crafter, but seems like everyone has a...
Blacksmith
Bowyer
Carpenter
Magery
Tailor
Tinker
...mule character than can craft pretty much everything. You can still set up a vendor and sell to players, but as far as I know, the craftables market is only good for Alchemists (and Tinkers/Carpenters for kegs, I guess) and Tailors (mostly leather armor) and even then, you have to cut on your profit margin to be competitive.

I'd start with Tailoring, but you could also pick up Mining and/or LJing and start with whatever skill you want.

 

[Jairash]

thanks for the answer Panik

I'm not really a fan of pvp, is it possible to steal things without being forced to fight?
Something like snoop, steal, save the trophy while trying to run/hide/whatever?

 

[Panik Homerché]

You don't have to fight if you don't get caught and/or if you GTFO before your marks notice anything and/or if you steal from a *****. I mean, if I steal from you and you notice, you'll fight me, right?

 

[Kraden]

Hey Guys Hope Ya Dont Mind If I Butt In Here. I Am Making My First Thief Ever for the most part and am looking to have a solid template to farm dungeon chests and artis. Dont want to PvP at all with him and all that. Right Now I Am Looking At Hiding/Stealth/Snooping/ Stealing/Lockpicking/Poisoning(Cause I want A Posioner)/and am debating on why the heck ill need Detect Hidden? I mean I know it detects traps and people, dont care about other people, and I know all chests are trapped lol so is it pointless or what? Any other thoughts would be great but keep in mind I am a thief noob, never stole anything unless it was from a dead body, and want to farm chests/arti spawns

 

[Logain]

Kraden,

Hide, Stealth, Stealing, LP, Remove Trap, Poison, 50/50 Detect Hidden/Magery.

If you are just stealing rares you don't need snoop. You need remove trap or chests will kill you if you don't remove the trap. You need 50 detect for remove trap. Magery just to get around.

 

[Jairash]

I want to steal from players too

Hiding, Stealth, Snooping, Stealing, Lockpicking, Remove Trap 100
Detect H/magery 50

Is it viable?

 

[Logain]

As a town thief sure. Meaning you are just stealing from people around the bank hoping for successful steals.

 

[Xonryz]

I don't know that, outside of maybe sort of kind of borderline "scamming," thievery really generates that much cash around town.

But I'm not sure since I don't actually have one. I guess people are just universally bad at times, so maybe there are enough people that haven't learned their lesson yet that it can still be decent.

Either way - merchant or thief - you're looking at some time to build up your skills. As a tradesman you can IMMEDIATELY sell resources you harvest, but this cuts into what you can use to train your skills.

FWIW, Inscription lets you craft magic scrolls, which people eat up, since they allow you to cast more advanced spells with a lower skill level, and don't penalize you for failures. Making them is not as quick as potions or other crafts as you have to actually use mana while crafting them, in addition to the other components - although there is not a huge monetary investment in these components compared to other tradeskills.

The low-skill, very popular scroll, Recall (lets you teleport to various personalized locations) sells for anywhere from 25-40 gold each, and can be produced for about 10 gold each. Decent profit margin, and you can start making them out of the gate. As a new player, you could see if you could line up a bulk buyer on the forums. I've seen a few posts like that that were successful. You'd want to have the scrolls ready to roll before posting though, and hopefully you will get rid of them soon.

I'd be glad to hook you up with some pack animals, you can use these to either haul raw materials or for snooping/stealing practice.

 

[Darkarna]

Okay, for all you budding thieves in here who wish to walk the path of the shadow, here goes :

Ultima Online has quite a few different templates when it comes to stealing. One of the largest issues which new thieves face is where and what do I want to steal? Bank thieves are a common sight in Ultima Online and require just as much luck as they do skill which leads the stealing skill down a rickety road of gambling. This is of course does not take away the fact that you will eventually walk away with something nice in your pack but with more people and NPC's in a given area, the more likely you will be walking away with a halberd stuck in your head.

Town
Town stealing in populated area's will always check the following : Your skill - The weight of the item - How many people are in the area - How many NPC's are in the area - How many people are facing you. NPC's have a super human ability of seeing through walls, so make sure you you can get a general idea which way they are facing before you attempt to steal that ethereal mount in a bag which a complacent individual has failed to notice. Always give yourself an exist route in case you have actually succeeded in stealing an item, there is nothing more frustrating than stealing an item, running for your life and getting stuck in a crowd of people because you misinterpreted the terrain and obstacles you would be guaranteed to face. It can also be worth while *if you are not going for magery or a weapon skill* to add detect hidden and tracking, this will allow you to search an area more efficiently and find the odd Joe soap hiding away in a corner of existence that only he/she considers hidden enough, he or she may also be holding trinkets of wealth to fill your vendor.

Another important thing to know about town stealing is to randomise your locations. It may seem profitable to pitch your tent at Britain bank, I would not disagree with this, but Ultima Online has more than one city to skulk in. Cities such as Nujelm can be as silent as a tomb at the best of times, but people do use the bank there. Not only do they bank there, but it could be considered as one of the safest banks to, well, bank at so people have been noted to have expensive gear in their packs *not for long though *. The benefit of randomising your location should speak for itself really.

Dungeon
Moving forward, the next area of interest would be the wilderness thief / dungeon thief. A thief that wonders the darkened corners of Sosaria, a thief that finds the bowels of a dungeon more homely than a gutter in Britain. Playing a dungeon thief can be more difficult than a town thief, not only do you have to be wary of a dungeons denizens, you also have to be pretty precise when navigating yourself around the treacherous twists, turns and obstacles whose purpose are to confuse and devour the unwary. A thief who has knowledge of the arcane can be very useful here.

Dungeon thieves will also, inevitably, come across the remains of deceased adventurers. Their demise can come from a majority of sources but the usual common ways of their face plant into the dirt are by monsters and the dreaded murderers. You have a choice if you come across a lucrative source of income such as corpse, you can rummage around in the folds of the corpse *grin* or you can move on. Moving on will most likely make you pass upon a chance of riches, not really a thiefish thing to do, but could save you the criminal timer of two minutes allowing you to freely move around without much risk of retaliation, however, looting the corpse dry is more fun and at least you get to top up your rich-meter.

Templates

The next area is mostly copied from a website, do your research about thieves through Google *don't forget to add Ultima Online in the search engine* and you will come across it. There are bits I have added myself however.

The Pure Thief

• GM Stealing
• GM Snooping
• GM Stealth
• GM Hiding

And the last 3 skills are left up to your preference You could stick some healing/anat/mage in, to give you 2 options of healing and a meathod of recalling and such, if you like. To be successful with stealth, however, it is almost a REQUIREMENT to have the ability to ride ethy mounts...

The Mage Thief

• GM Stealing
• GM Snooping
• GM Mage
• GM Meditation
• GM Evaluating Intelligence
• GM Wrestling
• GM Hiding/Resist (note: this determines if you are a thief who packs a punch, or a mage with some stealing, so to speak- obviously if you chose hiding you'll be more thief then mage, and vice versa).

This template is EXTREMELY effective when played right.

The Mage/Stealth Thief

• GM Stealing
• GM Snooping
• GM Mage
• GM Meditation
• GM Stealth
• GM Hiding
• GM Resist

This is my own take on the mage thief, you will of course have to watch yourself against weapon users as you have no wrestling, but stealth and resist can get you out of many a tight corner. This build can be incredibly difficult to play right, but master it and you have another strong mage/thief template.

The Disarm Thief

• GM Stealing
• GM Snooping
• GM Wrestling
• GM Arms Lore
• GM Hiding
• GM Healing
• GM Anatomy

Consider dropping a little bit of your healing/anat for some magery, because you will want a meathod of transportation. The disarm thief has almost no abilities to fight back, but his signature move is the ability to snag a warrior's weapon right out of his hands (using disarming which uses arms lore and wrestling), leaving him defenceless.

Which brings us to how to disarm steal:
There is a very fine technique to disarm stealing- firstly, use some sort of skill/item which brings up a target cursor to get the weapon in your opponent's hands on last target (by targeting it). Now, hit a macro to turn "on" disarm (it's a UO in game macro in the options pannel), and hit your stealing macro (assuming you are already attacking them, otherwise, attack them- it is required to disarm... so don't try this in the guardzone, folks). Simply run up to your victim and when you see "You successfully disarm your opponent!" in the lower left corner, hit last target to snag the weapon from their backpack.

The Disarm Thief/Combat

• GM Stealing
• GM Fencing/Swordsman/Macing/Archery (Choose)
• GM Wrestling
• GM Arms Lore
• GM Hiding
• GM Healing
• GM Tactics

A novelty build if anything, but how incredibly humorous it can be to see a fencer chasing this type of thief, the fencer gets disarmed and the thief steals his weapon. The thief then equips the spear and proceeds to hunt the fencer, there is something really satisfying about that .



And there you have it, there are obviously more builds which you can set up and tinker around with, removing traps is really only useful using a faction thief if anything, so stick to the builds that are tried and tested.

 

[Kraden]

Awesome guys thnx for all the info. Yeah it is hard to decide exactly how I wanna go or what I wanna do. First I wanted A PvP their, than I wanted a arti hunter and chest farmer, then I wanted two thiefslol Idk. I will take all this info into consideration and also have been doing ALOT of research. Another question I had would be I understand you need 50 Detect Hidden to train Remove Traps, BUT do you need detect hidden to use the skill remove traps. In other words can I take 50 DH then GM my RT and drop DH and still be able to RT?

 

[Logain]

AI understand you need 50 Detect Hidden to train Remove Traps, BUT do you need detect hidden to use the skill remove traps. In other words can I take 50 DH then GM my RT and drop DH and still be able to RT?

Unfortunately, yes you must have 50 Detect Hidden at all times.

 

[Kraden]

Coo

Unfortunately, yes you must have 50 Detect Hidden at all times.

l thx bud

 

[Jairash]

So, i ve maxed everything possible exception made for Remove Trap
Where/how do you suggest to start making some gold in dungeons?

 

[Jairash]

I have more question
After a week a was able to join the thieves guild and started following people around
Actually i don't know what to steal honestly, i have no clue what is worth and what is not
What should i aim for? How do i recognise a super good weapon from a crap one? Number of stats? Particular stat
Why don't people bring golds with them and why can i only steal around 300 if the have 2k or something like that?

How can i see if something is blessed... yesterday there was a man with an ethereal something statuette (no blessed when i clicked on it), i tried to steal and i got the message "you can't steal that"... 10 sec later he had this ethereal long thing under his ass as a mount.... what i did wrong...?
There was people with clothes with cool colors... Some of them where clearly stated as blessed, some weren't but still i couldn't get them...

What am i supposed to steal for some profit if everything is blessed?

 

[Jairash]

Ethereal llama statuette (no blessed)
"You can't steal that"
oooooook

 

[Kraden]

I have never rolled a thief hardcore but plan on it now. As far as I know you cannot steal anything that is blessed, in case of etherals they are blessed but might not say that they are or they wouldnt be so pricey. As far as the gold goes, you can only steal soo much at a time which is based off of your skill level, I belive with Gm - 100 Stealing you can steal 10 Stones or less at once, so what is happening is you will try and steal the whole stack but you cant steal over ten stones, also not sure if it always goes for the full ten stones when you target a stack. As far as stealing from players the main thing I would go for is weapons, armor, and anything rare that you can actually steal, not sure why you wouldnt be able to steal statues because those are not blessed. One thing I Plane on doing with my thief is sitting outside good shop areas and waiting for people to buy thhings and then steal them as soon as they hit Recall, or following people in dungeons and as soon as they cast and drop their wep steal it and run off lol

 

[Jairash]

Ok, thanks a lot for clarification
Btw, do you know what stats should i look for on weapons?
I'm new and i have no idea what is best (precision, armor, etc)
Is there any site/blog i could read about those suffixes?

 

[Kraden]

Here ya go. Always go for vanqs. http://www.uoguide.com/Item_Identification