Thievery

[Lysen]

This is my very first thread at Obsidian forums, yay! I am so excited about Project Eternity, so please forgive my enthusiasm. There is one thing though that worries me a bit. In the glorious old Infinity games like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, thievery were handled pretty badly. Of course, you could play as a thief and even run a thieves guild, it was awesome. But when you actually play a thief, you mostly use your skills to disarm traps or sometimes for ambushes and reconnaissance. This is cool, but you actually were role-playing a military scout, not a thief. There wasn't much to STEAL. No big houses stuffed with angry guards and unfathomable riches, no arrogant nobles with full pockets, no merchant ships in the port that you could rob in the dead of night... Well, Baldur's Gate 2 had some of those, and Arcanum too, but there were hardly anything like that in PST or Icewind Dale. On the other hand, recently I have played a great German RPG called Drakensang 2 and it handled thievery pretty well, for example, it had some cool quests that you have to complete to become a member of the local thieves guild. I would be very happy if Project Eternity have some stuff like that: a thieves underground, specific quests like stealing a sacred artefact from a well-protected fortress instead of fighting your way in, interesting places in the cities to rob etc.

[Playgu]

The main problem with thievery (or sneakyness in general) in most RPGs can be summed up like this: "Why would I sneak past these guys and steal from them when I can just murder them and get all their rewards + XP". The solution to this is to implement specific rewards for thievery, and make sure that killing stuff is not the primary way to get XP.

[Badmojo]

Yea, thief/assassin, would like to actually have missions like this. I also would like to do some freelance work and find more than simple 12 gold in a nobles house. My dream is to have the freedom to rob anybody, anywhere, anytime. Just make it really hard for rich people. If there is a bank, I want the OPTION to rob it, I do not care if its really, really, really hard. That is the point, only a master thief could rob it, but I don't want it to only have something pathetic like 5000 gold, this is the BANK, it should be up the shazoo with money, robbing it should allow your characters to retire and buy an island or two. The point is, that I should be able to attept it anytime, but until I get the necessary skills, I will not get to it. I also want multiple options to get in. From lockpicking the safes, to blackmailing/seducing the keys/codes from a manager, to bribing the gaurds to get away, to finding hidden passageways..etc. It always bugs me that I could be a theif, but I could not break into a bank in games. Or as an assassin, I actually don't assassinate many people.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

Not only give unique rewards for thiever, but also consequences for murdering random people guarding a gate.

[Shaewaros]

Thievery should be emphasized more that in the BG titles. I agree that there were very little interesting and unique items to steal in those games and I would really enjoy finding new and unique items by pickpocketting them from random NPCs.

[Ravinous]

I would have to agree to this thread! It would be great to impliment a class line of quests or secret unlockable quests for Thief/Assassians.

If you chose to play a thief you gain 1/4 xp from encounters (killing) but gain x4 xp for sneaking past guards and turning all the lights out. whats this... more xp for unlocking the doors... HI GROUP! come in! I have disabled the traps... knocked out the guards... blacked out the lights...

 

No one outside will see what is going on.... yay bonus XP for the PC!

 

same thing for a Raging Barbarian though... x2 xp for raging and killing the group in front of you when the thief is outside looking for the back door!

 

Not sure if there is time for this but setting this up would actually give bonus to playing the class the way the class was meant.