House looting 101

Hobbes

From the thieves board, but it's a good article and worth "stealing"

House looting 101 by Gargoyle of VBN (Cats) posted 9/21/99 3:11:41 PM
Here is the best technique for house looting.

Rule #1: Most thieves think Rune + Key = LOOT!
While this is true, it is the most difficult method of acquiring the location of someones house. Most people are, despite their nature, smart enough to either not carry runes to their house, label their house rune or key, or carry the two on themselves simultaneously. The best rule to remember is that Key + House Location = LOOT.

Rule #2: People are creatures of Habit. Study thier habits. Know their patterns. Get to know them even. A kind deed or casual conversation will get you that one step closer to your mark while you are in town or in a dungeon.

Disguise your self someday and go wandering. Head out into the wilds and look for people in thier houses. You can easily discover where some of these people bank by stepping on their porch and then going behind the house. Expand your circle of Transparency and look for locked down runes in view. These are the most common banking locations this person visits. Start going to that bank and looking for the person. Take copious notes on who are good marks and who are not. Take notes on guilds, stones, house setup, and do your homework. Check the persons stats on the OWO guilds page if you can. These are tools. Use them. Do your homework.

Have a plan and be patient. You will learn when action needs to be quick. Have your thief buddies on call when you get that key and know the location of the house. Get them there and fast in most cases. Sometimes though its best to be patient and wait. Wait until the person may not be on. You can sometimes decide this through studying their habits. Then when the time is right strike and loot and empty the place clean.

Hide while you loot. This is an extra precaution. If they arrive home they may eject you right away or bang your dead. If you hide, you have that extra few seconds of time to loot before being revealed.

Wear "magic reflection" spell... before going to loot. or an item that has many reflect charges. WHAT A GREAT TOOL. It buy s you that extra second. It may mean the difference between getting away with Something, and dying with nothing to show for your efforts.

One thing that you should do, is study the prices of things. A good thief knows what is worth cash. Be picky but dont be greedy. Pick out the most valuable light stuff. Gems, Tattered Maps, Boats, magical weapons, and rare items are all good things to loot. One of the best hauls I made involved a LOT of ingots. About 5000 colored ingots of various sorts. Heavy... yes... but that brings me to my next topic.

Boats. Steal a boat... or if you cant buy one (if forced). This may make all the difference in your looting. If you have a band of thieves looting keep one person on the boat with the key. If the home team arrives, that person should sail off. This bring me to my final topic.

As in the mainstream of UO... usually Greed is the biggest killer. How many times has your fighter / mage been killed by that last orc mage, or been whacked by a pk while you waited for that last monster spawn before banking? The same goes for thieving and looting houses. Dont hang out to gloat or chat at the house. Wait till you Get the job done and get away ... then party till the lights go out.

Well... that is a brief lesson on house looting. Thieves are the slyest people when it comes to playing the game. Be that and you will find yourself successful.

Enjoy....!

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Rev Hellfire

Thats a pretty good article alright.

Think I'm going to give it a try, I've spend the last we while sucking up to people giving away the odd 'valuable' thing or two.

Hobbes

Well I mark all guild houses on my UOAM and if I come across an intresting house I also mark them as well.

But I'll start doing a list on well known people. I stole a key from a GRD person while in thier town, only he was busy trying to kill me when I had it.