Difference between revisions of "How to play a thief"

Revision as of 18:30, 8 November 2008

There are all kinds of thieves. Those that sneakily enter buildings when you're not watching, those that steal everything you have and possibly even kill you after they gained your trust and those that steal your only vehicle making them look at you while unable to follow you. This article will help you understand thieves, and how to play them a bit better.

Note that you shouldn't make your thief exactly like explained in this article. Be creative!

Talk like a thief!

Or rather, don't! Thieves are usually smooth talkers that are able to talk themselves out of any situation. Try to blend in with your surroundings. Act like a normal, hard-working villager and when they realized you're not that nice, it's too late.

Stealing

There are a lot of ways to steal, and a lot of things to steal. Varying from vehicles, keys, resources and tools.

• Stealing vehicles
  • Simply trying to enter vehicles to see if they're open can sometimes give interesting results. Note that no one can see you tried to enter the vehicle when it's locked.
  • Gaining a vehicle's owner's trust can be very useful. You can then offer to do a trade far away with that vehicle, for example. Once you got the keys, waved goodbye and are on a good distance you can edit the sign and live on (possibly with another name, as sooner or later they'll find out you stole the vehicle).
  • When you're on a boat of someone who trusts you, and you're in an area without boats that can dock to that boat, you could start some repair projects or other projects on the boat and finish them. Keep working on them while on the boat, untill everyone is off the boat and then simply leave.
  • When working on a boat with a group of people, make sure you started the project and simply go away with it.

Or wait untill everyone is on it and then lock it and kill them. (This won't be as easy to do when they have crowbars or the tools to make one)

• Stealing resources and tools
  • One way of stealing resources with a low risk of getting caught is claiming that your project finished on the ground but announcing a bigger amount than it actually yielded, or not announcing an amount at all and just picking what's on the ground. People don't generally keep track of how much was lying around.
  • Another way is to pick up a pile of resources, then drop a part of it, pretending that was all when you in fact kept the most of it. Combined with suitable roleplaying can help you get away with it.
  • Sometimes you might be able to steal tools by finishing an abbandoned repair project and picking up the tool when it's finished, but this usually works only when no one's watching.
  • Also you might borrow a tool from someone, then keep it for so long that they forget they ever gave it to you. Or just wait that they go inside, then leave town. By the time someone tells them which direction you took, you'll be long gone.

Seizing the moment vs. planning ahead

Perfect timing often separates a good thief from the dead one. If you've spent a while in a town, you might notice that some hours tend to be less busy than others. If you're going to be stealing openly, it's best to do it when most people are asleep to give you a head start. It's also good to see if many people have access to vehicles, since if you're traveling slower than your chasers, you're pretty much doomed to fail.

But there are also moments in which a perfect chance for robbery will present itself and you need to make a fast decision before the chance is lost. If you're the only person awake when someone dies and drops a bunch of keys, there's a good chance one of them is for a vehicle or at least a building.

If you ended up picking keys and none of them are for a vehicle, it might be wise to just claim you grabbed them to keep them safe, since getting away on foot is pretty unlikely. Still if you feel like risking it, check the buildings and if you get lucky, you'll find several ones you have keys for. If you're a good fighter and know the usual online times of the townspeople, you can go out to hit people while they sleep and maybe be able to drag the wounded ones into one of the locked buildings. Having a reserve of healing food is also useful, since if someone manages to hit you and you can't repair the damage, you won't be able to drag anyone or cause them much damage. Then you'll be pretty much trapped until someone breaks through the door.

The more crowbars there are, the smaller the chances of surviving by hiding in buildings. People might also change the lock on one of the buildings you have access to and use it as a trap. Likewise you can trick people into running after you into unlocked buildings, then lock the door after they come inside to trap them in there. However people are likely to learn fast not to follow you into buildings if you do this.

People are also likely to taunt you to make you stop and reply to them. It's better not to fall into this trap. If you have something to say, either drag a note under the door or write what you're going to say in Notepad, wait a while to let everyone think you've stopped running around, then pop out quickly to copypaste your message to the talk to all box and run back to safety.

Trust

When planning to steal important vehicles that have lots of important resources in them, or trying to get access to an important building, you'll need to very lucky or somehow gain the people that have the keys their trust.

It's unlikely that you'll get a chance to just steal a boat in the developed islands of Cantr. But if you are paying a visit to one of the barely developed islands, then you will have a good chance to steal boats and other vehicles.

This combined with being trusted will be definitely worth it. It might take some time for the people to trust you, but once they do your chances will increase. Simply work hard for little pay and be nice and active. You could even lower yourself to nothing but a mere slave of someone, and once your boss isn't looking, use that chance and start sailing away!

You could also seduce the captain of a ship. Once he's stuck in your web, he'll gladly give you the key of his boat. (If roleplayed well, of course. No one likes boring women.)

There are all kinds of possibilities! Be creative and think up your own. Make good use of the chances you'll encounter and never give up! If they don't trust you, show them that you can be trusted! They say you don't work hard enough? Work twice as hard!

One way to rob people is by offering them a ride on your boat, then once you are far away from the coast, threaten to kill your passenger unless (s)he drops everything (s)he's carrying. Most people are likely to choose death since they figure you would kill them anyway if they dropped their shield. You should also keep items off the deck if they can be used on a project on the boat or eaten, since some prisoners tend to use sabotage as a way of getting back at their captors.

Another possibility is to enlist as a crewmember for a lonely sailor who doesn't have very good equipment, again wait until you're far enough from the coast and keep attacking them until they surrender. You should be stocked up with healing food and also a sufficient amount of daily food since things may take a while. Many people with sloops and longboats tend to leave their resources lying around the deck since they can't have cabins, so right before attacking you should pick up all their healing food so that they can't have it. Needless to say, this tactic is doomed to fail if the ship has a cabin, so it should only be applied to small vessels.

If you don't have a boat but do have a building, you can lure people into a lockable back room, for example by hiring them to build an extension, letting them take a look at your trade wares or inviting them to have sex. Once you lock the door, the person will be completely at your mercy unless they have a crowbar. Using a back room ensures that no knocking or note dragging will raise the attention of outsiders. You might be required to store the corpse until it crumbles to dust, unless your townpeople aren't too suspicious about people dying in your house. If you can manage to make a person lose hope so that they have a heart attack, it will look less suspicious than a corpse that was clearly sabered.

A ship cabin can also be used to capture a person, but if you kill the prisoner inside, getting the corpse out may turn out to be impossible for several years due to the small weight and people capacity. So if you have imprisoned someone to cabin and are about to kill them, it's best to do it on the deck so that you can dump the corpse in the sea. If you happen to miss, you should be able to drag the person back inside since they're already in such a weak condition.