Thief Protection Guide

General Protection

The first thing you need to know is how to spot a thief:

• Be wary of people who are not holding a weapon or spellbook in their hands, thieves need their hands empty to steal.
• Be wary of people not participating in a fight.
• Be wary of people trying to get close to your character, thieves need to be directly next to you to steal.
• Be wary of people with the title 'scoundrel' as that's the level that thieves often wind up at.
• Be wary of people with NPC names, or 'default white' hair as they could be wearing a disguise kit.
• Be wary of people without a guild tag, as thieves often try to hide their identities.

If you think there's a thief nearby, you can leave the area or you can take extra steps to ensure that your valuables are not accessible to them. Keep moving, it's hard for them to get next to you if you don't stop and stand still. Keep your weapon equipped. Don't drink potions or cast spells, which cause your weapon to be moved to your backpack. A thief cannot steal from a hidden target, so if you have the ability to hide you can keep your items safe that way. Barring that, you can lean on the added security of a Tinker Trapped Box. If a thief opens one of these, the trap will trigger and kill them. You can safely drop any items inside it knowing that they are generally safe from thievery with the additional annoyance that every time a thief dies to your trap, you will have to leave and go re-trap the box. That said, most thieves will not open trappable containers in a player's backpack. Review the "How They Work" section of the Tinker Trapped Boxes article.

Disarm Thief Protection

A very common misconception is that there is no protection against disarm thieves, and this is not true. Some weapons are too heavy for a thief to steal. If you are concerned about losing your weapon to a disarm thief, choose one of these weapons and they will certainly run along to find a softer target:

• Fencing
  • Lance
  • Pitchfork
• Swordsmanship
  • Pickaxe
  • Halberd
  • Executioner's Halberd
  • Falcon Halberd
  • Royal Halberd
  • Serrated Halberd
  • Reapers Axe
• Macing
  • Mace
  • War Mace
  • Battle Mace
  • Massive War Mace
  • Morning Star
  • War Mallet

If none of these unstealable weapons appeal to you, there are still other ways to protect yourself. As always, if you are in a guard zone you can call for the guards to kill the thief after they've attacked you, and they must attack you to disarm your weapon. You can drop your weapon in a Tinker Trapped Box to give you enough time to escape - a thief cannot disarm you if you have disarmed yourself. Newbie weapons are unstealable, and a fencer or swordsman can carry a Deadly Poisoned newbied dagger or skinning knife to hit the thief either before or after they've attempted to steal their weapon. You can join Militias and sanctify a weapon to make it unstealable for five days, with the added price that the weapon will be destroyed when the five days are up and that you may end up in PvP combat. If that's not to your liking, you can keep a Weapon Diversion in your backpack that triggers when your weapon is disarmed, making five copies of your weapon that will confuse and possibly kill thieves (and their scripts).

Scripts are another way that you can protect yourself. A simple re-equip script, while dependent on your connection speed, will sometimes be able to re-arm your weapon before the thief's script can steal it. Some people use guard-calling scripts to automatically call the guards when they detect that a thief has done something criminal. If you truly, truly despise disarm thieves, you can carry a trapped box and when a thief damages you to disarm your weapon (and they must damage you to disarm your weapon) you can automatically activate your own trapped box. You will die, but the game will attribute that death to the thief, you can give them a murder count, and while thieves have murder counts they are not allowed to steal from other players. You will remove them from the stealing game for a day or so. Fight scripts with scripts.

Last, but not least, is that if a criminal-flagged (gray) player is trying to get you to attack them, you probably should not attack them. After a certain duration, gray players are free to be in guard zones without having the guards called on them, but they still cannot perform new criminal acts (such as attacking you to disarm you) without penalty. A common trick is to bait you into attacking them so that they can freely steal from you without repercussions. After all, their criminal actions were only in self defense.

Champ Protection

The scripts used by the server population are incredibly impressive. They are fast and they will steal items in the blink of the eye. Scripts can automatically search anyone's bag as long as the thief is next to them, detect valuable items, and automatically steal so quickly that the victim doesn't even know they've gotten a reward. Hiding helps, but right before the boss dies, people often use Reveal or Detect Hidden to soften up targets. The best defense is right before the boss dies, run around like a crazy maniac. Remember, you do not need to be right beside the boss to get a PS, but the thief needs to be directly beside you to take it from you. So stay away from any groups of people and stay on the move. Your only goal is to not be beside a thief when you get the PS or Relic. If you get one, immediately run a little further away, pick the item up on your cursor (where thieves can't steal it) and recall using the [recall command or have a friend gate you out safely.

Lastly, if you are doing the champ with a group. Anyone that did not get something should go immediately into defensive mode. Looking to see if thieves are chasing anyone or if anyone is currently grey. Thieves stealing power scrolls will be forcibly dismounted.

Bank Protection

There is nowhere safe in UO. Bankers can be killed, you can be killed in town, and thieves can disarm you right at the bank. 'Automatic' guard whacks are not as 'automatic' as people often think they are. What is happening when a criminal dies instantly is that a nearby NPC (who can see through walls) has spotted the crime and summoned the guards, but if the crime occurs far enough away, NPC's will not automatically call for the guards. A thief can attack freely or steal freely in certain areas, but you can still call for the guards when they do. When doing any valuable transactions at West Britain Bank, make sure you are inside or on top of the bank to trade safely. Never go afk at a bank and remember that even West Britain Bank is not entirely safe as there have been instances when a player has taken advantage of certain game mechanics to grief the "safe" zone at WBB.

Pet Thief Protection

Obviously, your first course would be to either kill or run from the pet thief. If you don't want to fight, then recalling out while calling "all follow me" is your best bet. In town, they will just attack and lure your pet away if afk. (it gets expensive after awhile balling them back, never worth it to afk at a bank)

Dead pets are not safe either, so never leave one around. They will be netted onto a boat and sailed away to a trap. But it is more expensive for a pet to be stolen in this way, due to the net cost.

The final line of defense is the pet summoning ball, which can be charged with powder of translocation and linked to any pet. Using it will immediately pull that pet to your location, freeing it from any nefarious pet traps.

Thief Mindset

If you have a thief standing a few tiles away from you, odds are they are sizing you up (if you have something of value) I.E. a good weapon or a pet. They are waiting for their moment, such as when you recall. Always be aware of your surroundings. If they are lurking around you specifically, you are most likely the target.

Fighting Back

Finally, remember that thieves must dedicate a certain amount of skill points to being able to steal items, and those skill points are only marginally useful in combat. They are often easy to kill because they forego defensive skills like healing or magic resist. You have more skill points dedicated to being able to kill things than they do. If you're comfortable with PvP, a thief is an easy target and killing a thief is its own reward.