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Theft as a tradeskill
This could make theft more widespread, but serpent is already one of the most popular classes, and with houses changing to accept any class, I imagine it will be even more popular soon (I've already seen some new Cyrenian serpents appear). Plus tradeskills will be limited, so you'd have to choose between theft and other tradeskills, rather than a large portion of the population getting it by default from their class.
Since the main point of this is the expansion of theft, here are my ideas for that.
Alternatives to the pickpocket ability against denizens, with different advantages/disadvantages/flavour:
- A mugging ability, for those who want to be more upfront about their theft. Mug would depend on strength instead of dexterity, and maybe your level relative to the denizen. It would get larger amounts of gold or better items than pickpocket (for the same denizen), because it's a lot easier to get everything when you aren't worrying about stealth, but on the other hand it will primarily only work against weaker denizens (I don't think anyone is going to be able to intimidate a deathknight into giving up their gold without just killing them), so pickpocket has better targets available. Since mugging is more open and straightforward, it will affect village feelings and maybe trigger attacks from loyal denizens in the same room whether you're successful or not.
- With options for strength (mug) and dexterity (pickpocket), it would be nice if there was also something for intelligence as well. I'm not entirely certain, though, whether the intelligence stat is actually about intelligence or if it's just "magical ability". If the former, then some kind of extortion or blackmail could work. Otherwise, my best idea is either magical pickpocket or magical mugging. I don't have any complete ideas for this.
- While it's not actually theft, a begging ability could be appropriate, functioning similarly to pickpocket (a chance to get gold from denizens non-violently). It could either not depend on stats at all, or it could be more beneficial to have low stats/level (making you seem weaker and more pitiable), and maybe other factors could be considered as well, such as your worn clothing/jewellery (maybe it would be possible to add up the gold value, at least for player-designed clothing? Jewellery repair costs depend on the original cost of the item, so I'd guess this is tracked somehow). Begging wouldn't be nearly as profitable as the other options, but it would be low in the tradeskill (perhaps something newbies could learn for a handful of lessons), have no risk (you aren't likely to be attacked for a failed begging attempt), and wouldn't necessarily have to depend on the strength of the denizen. Another potential advantage could be in the items you receive; maybe you could specifically beg for certain things, such as gold, food, clothes, medicine (curatives), booze, etc. to increase your chance of getting what you need, and more generally, the items could tend towards functional and practical things. The biggest difficulty here is probably determining which denizens are charitable enough. I don't think denizens currently have any sort of "kindness" stat, so deciding which denizens you can successfully beg from and which you can't could be a rather big project.
Expansions to theft against players would be great, but unfortunately I don't have many specific ideas for that. At least not on the side of the thief; I do have ideas for some additional counterplay. For example, someone skilled at theft could reasonably also be good at detecting and preventing theft, and not just against themselves. There could be an ability (or abilities) in the theft skill that allows you to watch for theft attempts in your room, and catch the thief before they're successful, effectively providing antitheft for your allies.
There could also be some entirely new mechanics. One thing that would be interesting is lockpicking. There could be locked containers that you find (from diving, dropped by slain denizens, from mugging or picking pockets, as part of a quest, etc.), and instead of having puzzles to solve or having a key, they could only be opened by someone with the theft skill, revealing the gold/items/talisman pieces inside. Anyone who finds one they can't open would have to take it to a player who can unlock it for them (probably for a fee). I think this would be a pretty big improvement over ordinary gold/talisman/item drops, and it would add a bit more interaction to those things (which primarily come from single-player activities like bashing). Along with locked containers, you could have certain doors with pickable locks. Obviously this shouldn't apply to stockroom doors or player-owned housing, but it could be used as an ordinary part of area design (requiring someone to pick a lock to access part of the area, or just access it more easily), certain quests, maybe even house halls (this is something that could be done as part of the current renaissance, making a few changes and standardising what they can and can't do in terms of security, since there's a huge disparity in how the different house halls work). Locks could also have traps or alarms (both magical and mundane), so there's some risk involved rather than just being skilled enough to pick a lock or not.
Comments
Even if it's only denizens, pickpocketting or begging seems pretty off for a lot of the game population. It's more than an ability to create or harvest items, it's a mindset, so it would be a pretty big shift in what a "tradeskill" is. I guess it doesn't mean it's bad. Please, absolutely no expansions in theft against players however. I don't know why a segment of Achaea is so obsessed with it. I love the idea of more people getting into house halls though, I think, long as it doesn't have awful unforeseen consequences.
"Expansions" doesn't have to mean buffs, if that's your objection. It could involve making theft more difficult to pull off, making it target people more selectively (requiring someone to actively open themselves to theft for example, or primarily targeting more experienced players), making it more rare, adding some sort of additional risk or cost for the thief, and other things that will tend to work out favourably for the victims.
I should also clarify that, in terms of profitability, I think pickpocket is mostly fine where it is. It's a decent way to get gold (more viable than most tradeskills right now), whether you're pickpocketing denizens or players. The problem (for me) is that it's so dull and simple. It doesn't need changes that make it more rewarding, it needs changes that make it more fun, complex, and interesting, it needs to have some more counterplay and risk, even if all those changes make it less profitable.
No, sorry.
(To clarify, 'theft' is not really what we think of as a tradeskill, though I see where you're coming from. Not at all opposed to creating different ways to generate gold or other resources that are balanced with respect to bashing though.)
I'd argue against the bolded. Although you might have some terminology for what trade skills mean amongst the administration, I think at its most abstract, a trade skill is just a means of resource conversion (whether that involves turning resource X into resource Y, or changing who owns the resource, or (usually) some set of the two), ideally at some cost.
Gathering clay from a river involves changing the owner of that clay from the river to the player. (Technically, it might also involve changing the resource type, since the river might have it as some numeric variable while the gatherer might receive it as an item, but that's all technical and stuff.) The cost here might be the time spent gathering it.
Stealing gold from an NPC involves changing the owner of that gold from the NPC to the player as well. The cost here is that if the NPC becomes aware of this transaction, they will want to call guards or kill the player themself, and the player might even get in trouble with allies of that NPC or (if they're in an organization that disallows theft in general) one of their orgs. In short, the cost of theft is the chance of trouble and terrible things.
But it's still, at heart, a trade skill because you're just doing things with resources. The fact that you gain off of someone else's loss is just an economic principle at play.
(of course you could apply the same logic to health I guess, and then get into a long debate about how you actually profit in combat, but combat is not a very efficient trade, and it's already mostly addressed by classes, although I guess it might be cool to have an IRE MUD that even treated combat as a trade skill)
I was gonna hit the Disagree button to OP, then I realised it was @Sena.
Whatever the case, I agree that the lack of a 'Thievery' class skill makes it perfectly logical to argue that theft should be rolled out to other classes, but I think it would be a thematically weak idea. Serpents are the 'dodgy effers' of Achaea in terms of the hard-coded mechanics. This includes being able to lighten people's purses without killing them. Honestly, if it were up to me there would be less possibility for other classes to steal, not more. Yes, I'm talking to you Monks (yes, I realise that PK stealing is an ENTIRELY different debate, and one that we're not actually having here).
@Nim - really not trying to be offensive here, but I don't see that arguing semantics is terribly constructive in this situation. As you've pointed out yourself, what is and isn't logically a tradeskill is not really relevant.
loved the idea and laughed when I saw the title. Definitely +1
This would fit very well with the coming House changes. In Mhaldor at least we are trying to preserve the Naga as an elite cadre of non-class-specific assassins, thieves, spies, etc. and this would make roleplaying that kind of character more viable for different class types.
Hmmn, actually never thought of this in terms of the renaissance. Okay, +1 OP.
What saddens me is that though this is a great idea, and yes as others have stated this would be a great addition especially now with the changes being applied to houses, im pretty sure something like this, even if liked and accepted by the admin, wont be seen or made. I feel that though several good ideas have been said and even accepted in the past, they seem to just be placed on the laaaaaaaarge pile of 'listed' ideas that will 'probably and eventually' be made. I mean speaking from a realistic perspective here, it'll be yeaaaars before all those plans and ideas are implemented.
If we're just concerned with nomenclature, I have a few suggestions for possible names of a tradeskill that relies on 'low cunning' to generate profit.
Grifting
Racketeering
Opportunism
Deceit
That list will never be completed actually, because it grows faster than it's possible to complete work, but also because many of those ideas are just fairly low priority.
I dislike the concept of pvp theft. I feel that it is a net enjoyment loss in that no matter how good the thief feels from a large score, the victim always feels worse than that.
As for PvE things, I seem to remember either Lusternia or Imperian has a sort of intimidate skill, where instead of killing something you harass it enough that it drops gold and gives you xp, which is sort of like what Sena is suggesting for the pve part.
Yeah, it kinda seems like the whole core of theft still has the same flaws it did before with the risk/reward structure. While you can have a great fight even if you lose (curatives/experience/the fight itself), there isn't really anything engaging about 'leave the room or lose your text-property.'
I think it was Lusternia that had the begging/intimidate skill. They also had a third resource to fuel that called Ego, healed by Bromides potions.
The only way I would even begin to think this could work is after using your Manipulation (working name for me) on the mob, they get a data flag saying "Nope, no gold here!" so that if you kill them, no gold will drop. Though that could be abused by someone sweeping through a popular bashing spot, only manipulating the mobs, and leaving no gold for the bashing group that comes in 10 minutes later.
No to all classes having access to thieving. At least most serpents are squishy and take a huge investment to be survive the encounter. Imagine the new thief being the alt Hulk, the Troll monk with only Tekura, mugging everyone squishier than him. Now imagine 80% of Achaea's new characters are this exact character.
Muggers would be the new harvesters. It works become the get rich quick scheme of Achaea.
However, I do like the variety idea of pickpocketing, if it applied to only serpents:
Begging: might compared to denizen, (evil) aggressive mobs attack.
Mugging: str, npc always attacks
Pickpocket: Dex, npc attacks if you're caught
Intimidate: Con, chance npc drops gold and flees, or attacks.
Deceive: Int, chance npc attacks if insulted.