Knowledge Is Power - A Thieves Guide

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nunnbt473
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Knowledge Is Power - A Thieves Guide

Post by nunnbt473 »

Prelude: A thank you to Darge for nudging me in the right direction and to onebad for greatly speeding up the process by giving me the resources to conduct many of my experiments. Dues also Wolfgang for an alternative (and perhaps more proper) way of testing hide with weapons via gold holding. If I have to walk the journey of a thousand miles, its easier with a map.

Ok, after doing much testing (and still much much more to be done) I have come to certain conclusions. As I find more data or find this data only holds true to a certain extent (ex: gaining a hide bonus at skill 19) I will update this post so it won't be flooded with all the "data". Data will still eventually be added to the previous posts made. All tests were done in alt 1.

Chance to steal = Race bonus + class bonus + skill level*1 + 1*(agil-19) if > 0 - items in hand - enemy exp level + your spells - their spells - their gear + your quirks + party bonus - their quirks - specific item + being hidden

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Most noted spell is aid. Quirks should only apply VS other players for the negative. May be other bonuses to be added after skill level*1 for skill or the 1 itself may be modified at higher skills. Further testing to be done.
Your ability to hide is greatly effected not by the weight in your sack, but rather the weight of the object in hand. A dagger hides the same as a crossbow because the weight is within the same range or threshold.

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Wolfgang initially tested this by holding a weapon and adding coins and seeing when it would reach 1 bar of encumbrance. Thus far I have not adopted the philosophy although it does appear effective and is especially useful for 'testing' your ability to hide with a new weapon in the same dungeon without having to make the journey
Skill training at any skill, but especially lower skills.. if you overpay, that coin is prepaid beyond that 45%. You can pay ahead more than 45% (or whatever the normal max ahead is).

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If you owe your trainer 3454 gold to skill train ahead up to 45% and you give him 1,000,000 then youll like be paid ahead for a few skill levels. Of course once skill begins costing more than 500k a shot, this is of little importance
Assumptions made... a crossbow is a crossbow is a crossbow, they should all hide the same. I used store bought items (except axe, frore mino).

Dagger, SS, Shortbow and Crossbow do not hurt hide.

Staff / Mace / Hammer / Axe / Longbow appear to all hurt hide the same (-5).

LS hurts hide more. (-11)

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Any combination of  2 staff / mace / hammer / axe hurts hide less than 1 LS by 1 agil point
GS hurts hide more yet still. (-15)

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Not as much as Staff + LS
Hally hurts hide the most (-16), however considering you can hit off hex with it, it effectively does not hurt hide anymore than LS.

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Same as staff+LS
Holding two items in hands effectively "stacks" in a negative manner.

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If mace were to give -5 towards hide, two maces would give -10.
With the exception of longbow (bow) and corpses (ma), hide penalty seems connected to the skill the item uses

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Limited testing done, still need to test twigs for example which are staff skill
Low skill testing connects 1 skill level = to 1 agil (20+) = to 1 exp level (2+). This may vary (especially skill =) as the amounts increase...

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Starting at 20 agility, every +1 agil =  +1 bonus to hide. 

19 agil appears to be identical to 18 agil for hide purposes no testing done with pre-18 agil on the account of how easy it is to get agil to 18.

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+1 agil (20+) is the same as +1 exp level (2+) to see (they cancel out) skill 5 thief with 20 agil hides from a level 2 hides the same as a skill 6 with 18 agil from a level 2.

skill 5 24 agil holding axe vs lvl 5 is the same as skill 6 23 agil holding axe vs lvl 5
Hiding at hexes 3/4 is the same as hiding at 2.

Thieves do not appear to 'blink' at 2+ hexes away, you are either seen or you are not. [This actually surprised me]

You will 'blink' at 0/1 hex away if you lack enough skill to hide completely (thus giving you a chance to avoid attack some rounds).

Thieves can remain hidden while in darkness, however area spells will cause hide to break. [Excellent for crossing gaps or doing quick loot jobs in large rooms]

If you are hiding in darkness and it wears off 'naturally', then hide does not break until your next action (even if you move back to a hidable area)

Currently if you are hidden and walk out into the open, hide does not break until your next action/movement (even if you move back to a hidable area).

Hide is checked when you first enter a hex and at the beginning of every round. Ergo: If you click move 3x during 1 round, the NPC has 3 chances to see you.

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Hide is also checked when an enemy moves, if you move 3x and the enemy moves 2x in 1 round, there are 5 chances for you to be seen
Being encumbered does not appear to hurt hide.

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Tested using 1000k in sack and a +1 agil ring at the 'breaking' point of a hiding with a weapon. Holding a corpses weighs you down a lot, especially if not searched... but because it is in hand I cannot count that.
Thieves cannot hide with less than 50% HP until high skill level (over 30).

The number of obstacles which block view (allow hide) increase the % chance of finding a shadow.

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Still needs to be retested
Level 1 characters cant see for crap, they dont see to follow the 'standard formula'.

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Not sure why this matters.. only thing things I can remember that are that small are betty and Jord.
You can backstab creatures that see you as long as you are not targeted, this works best with on-hex melee creatures and is near impossible to 'get the drop on' an archer or psi user without leaving the screen and coming back just as a round begins.

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Assuming you cannot hide at 2+.
Throw skill cannot be used for backstabbing, but bow can.

Attacking / backstabbing with lockpicks yields no / no extra thievery skill. Opening / Attempting to open a door you have a chance to open with a lockpick does yield skill though.

Going into hide gives a tiny amount of skill, as does most actions while hidden, however it is so little its barely worth mentioning.

Mummy Robes and Mummy King robes do not help hide. The king robe may help find shadows, more testing needs to be done. Regular robes do not appear to have any effect.

Items on belt, sack, pouch do not effect hide + or -

Items on person do not effect hide + or -

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except for ...
+agil from camo, bnr, rings, alerian neutral helm boosts hide
tarak evil robe makes it easier to see through hide
If a thief uses +ep items (psi slith, EP ring..etc) he can build up mentalist and healer skill using things like poison, sense, respirate, infravision..etc.

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Mentalist / Healer skill is 2x as effective as the thief's same spell. A skill 20 thief will transmute the same as a skill 10 ment
A thief can use the on-contact EC disc from excally, but since it takes 100 HP it is almost impossible to get enough EP to use its psi counterpart.

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Would need +40 EP helm or better, +EP rings, ep slith..etc, in which case it becomes impractical to hunt with, not to mention the hide penalty.
Backstabbing splits skill gains between weapon and thievery.

The use of traps can also be an effective way at lower skills to gain thievery skill. With traps you can set them to go off at lower than current skill levels (useful for making neutrals red to you) or when holding / not holding certain items.

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I do not believe you can disguise them as actual items anymore.
Mug is primarily used to remove IHs from lairs, however can also be used for things like alerian townie nuggets and SirHaldans purple gem (worthless AFAIK)..etc. Mug usually gives better skill gains than steal.

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Most lairs are no longer stealable / mugable for anything other than IH.
Higher agility helps the effectiveness of steal.

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+1 agil (at 20+) is worth +1 point to steal
Hiding while stealing will give you +5 points to steal.

You have a 50% chance of stealing an item from sack or gold. If there is no item, it will always be gold stolen for a successful attempt. If there is no gold it will always be an item for a successful attempt.

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If you steal gold there is a chance youll get 20%, 25%, 33%, 50%, 66% or 100% of their gold up to the 500k limit.
Steal GOLD from (as opposed to steal from) will attempt to take 100% gold every time.

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Stealing a specific item or gold will add -3 points against the chance to succeed to the formula
You can only steal from a person / NPCs sack, not pouch / belt.

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You can steal a twig to other alts off of people, but it will shock you and destroy twig if you are not subscribed. Stealing a twig from an alt you are subscribed to will also shock you and destroy the twig.
If you can hide @ 2 hex from a creature with axe / mace / staff / longbow, you should be able to steal 100% of the time undetected and without fail while hidden.

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With -1 point (-1 skill, agil or weapon mods..etc) you can fail to steal but not be detected. Still in testing..
Stealing from a persons sack will always take the last item in the sack.

Darkness only allows you to hide in open areas, it does not give you a boost to hide or steal.

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IV doesn't give you a boost to see hidden creatures either
Things still to be tested:
Dungeons / Lairs in exacting amounts.
The difference in likelyhood to obtain an item with mug VS steal.
The effect of liminv on hide.
The effect of aid on hide. (I know AID both helps boost hide and boosts chance to see through hide)
The effect of race on hide.
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Just say no to fate cards.

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