I still remember the blog post I made about affording a horse, and being told that stealing is quite profitable. It also felt like a grind. But now I’m stealing while questing. Infact, it’s getting addictive. Everytime I enter a building, I start looking for things to steal.
But so is killing people with the Blade of Woe. Successful kills reward 40g in stolen goodies, and definitely beats the random percentage chance of pickpocketing (and the risk of failing it and receiving an undesired bounty).
Speaking of bounties, they have been really getting under my skin. I’m even getting bounties..without doing a fucking THING to warrant it (while sneaking and not getting caught)! The system is broken, or doesn’t like me.
There was even this one time where I’m coming out of this building, getting ready to complete this quest. I’m outside, and I’m noticing I’m still in a trespass zone which is quite odd (but seeing how I didn’t have a bounty I felt I was OK), yet I didn’t know the guards were still hostile (as if I had a bounty) and one kills me without warning! I was SOOOOOOO furious after that. When I finally made it back, all of my stolen stuff was gone and I had no way to cover the repair cost. The only thing that kept me from ragequitting is actually making a profit (somehow) with a lot of gold.
Oh yeah, I’m now with the Thieves Guild by the way. Killing things literally took a dark turn for me a day ago. It made me really think about how to sneak around (such as to get a set of ‘Night Mother’ gear to help make myself nearly invisible to mobs). Though I haven’t done the second thing yet, as I feel I’ll out-level the set eventually. Though, being part of the Thieves Guild has some pretty awesome (and definitely useful) passive perks (mainly for dealing with failed stealth attempts and having a bounty). One of these will clear a bounty somewhat faster (removing 22g every three minutes, so I won’t have to wait -as- long for it to clear).
I also unlocked a new conversation option to tell a guard not to mess with me (won’t have to pay the bounty/have stolen items taken away) if one catches me (can only do it once per RL day, though). It will also keep other guards from catching me for one minute after using it. So this can be seen as an ’emergency’ if I have a really large bounty and a guard gets me, and I’m not paying attention.
There’s also one that increases the payout of stolen items that I can fence by 2% (goes up to 4% with more skill in the Thieves Guild tree). That’s quite nice.
Who ever said “crime doesn’t pay” never tried this game, or this NPC guild. It pays, quite well. The trick is to be a shadow and never get caught (though IMO, and this is frowned upon in the Thieves Guild, a good quick stab with the Blade of Woe to get rid of the asshole that was dangerously close of seeing me, works quite well). Yet sometimes I can wind up in a room with no one in and just start stealing everything 40g or higher.
Always look for Treasure. It pays off bounties and keeps your coin purse fat (if you can get to a fence while avoiding every guard in the city).