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Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
"So You Want to be a Thief" FAQ v.03
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by Setsuna
Created 7-7-2001 last modified 9-11-2001

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Best viewed on a text processor with a fixed size font, width of 79 characters.
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MISSION STATEMENT
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"I want to be a thief."

(Say this out loud 10 times every morning)

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E-MAIL POLICY

*******   IMPORTANT! READ THIS BEFORE E-MAILING ME ANYTHING   *******

I welcome comments, suggestions, contributions, and I enjoy the occasional flame. However, if you are to mail me anything I require you to put this in the subject tag:

[Arcanum FAQ]

This will help me sort my mail better. Thanks for your consideration.
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SOME ANNOUNCEMENTS

Sorry if it seems I've been ignoring your e-mails lately. My harddisk crashed and I lost quite a bit of mail that was sent in. Understand that I try to answer everyone who writes in, but there's too much to write and far too little time. Maybe if I quit my day job, hehehe....

Be sure to check out the GameFAQs Arcanum board. Being the thief I am, I'm stealing from it left and right. Any FAQs I write for Arcanum, I owe to the people at the message boards. This one's for you guys.

Now finally, you might have noticed that I changed my name. Don't worry, it's still me. I just felt like changing my name to something that, to me, sounded nice.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  Playing the Thief Way
2.  Building you Character
3.  Thieving Technicalities
4.  Thief Skill Trainers
5.  Thieving Secrets

DISCLAIMER
LEGALESE
ADDENDUM

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1. Playing the Thief Way
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Playing a thief in Arcanum usually means tackling quests in a different way from usual. There are basically 4 ways to play the game: as a brute force fighter, a sly talker, a tech/mage warrior, or a thief. The difference is mainly in the approach you take to solve a quest or problem.

The most common type of problem is getting past a particular point. Many quests require you to talk to person, who gives you a task to do, and you'll only get past after that task is accomplished. Fighters or talkers typically do this in the straightforward fashion by accomplishing the task set out for them. Tech/Mage types typically use a combination of the fight/talk method, the main difference being that instead of swinging a weapon mindlessly they use their intellect skills to augment the fight (such as by using guns or attack magic).

The thief, however, often takes a different approach. Usually being weaker in terms of fighting, and not particularly good at speech, the standard thief method of getting past a problem requires subterfuge.
This usually means bypassing the task altogether and finding another way around.

For instance, take a door that is locked. The guard will open it only once you accomplish some task, say killing a bunch of enemies. A fighter will just kill the enemies, and the guard will open the door.
A talker might try to convince the guard to open it anyway, or get the guard to give him another easier task. The thief, though, will likely steal the key from the guard to open the door.

This is what I mean by the art of subterfuge. To get the best out of your thieving character, you should strive to play the thieving way.
Arcanum is a "role playing" game after all, and I can assure you you will be enjoying yourself more if you "play your role" correctly. As a thief, your role is to use subterfuge; be elegant and precise where others would be bungling and violent. You'll enjoy yourself more. Believe me.

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2. Building your Character
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Important Attributes:
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Dexterity - this is your number one stat. Most of your thiefly activities require this attribute. I suggest you start off with a dexterity of 10 or so. More is better.
Perception - You'll need this for sneaking around. Start off with at least 8.
Intelligence - thieves should be smart too, you know. I consider 5 to be the absolute minimum for a thief's intelligence. You need at least that much to get all the dialogue options needed for a fun thieving experience.

Important Skills:
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Prowl (Per) - for sneaking around leaving enemies unaware
Pick Locks (Dex) - for opening those locked doors and treasure chests
Pick Pockets (Dex) - for making other people's things your own

Make sure that you have lock picking skill at the start of the game. This is because lock picking is easily the most vital skill for you to survive early on. Since you'll be focusing on thief skills, your combat potential will be far weaker, and as such you need to compensate by getting good items from the shops early on. Lock picking is vital to getting these items.

Also, starting out with lockpicks gives you a free set of crude lockpicks at the start. However, you can also either buy a lockpick from the starting shop (not a good idea) or open the crate behind some tarpulin/wing wreckage at the crash site directly to your right for some free lockpicks (better idea).

Setting up your Character:
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MAGIC OR TECHNOLOGY?

I'm not sure which path is the better one for a thief to take. I think the beauty of being a thief is that you can be either magical or technological.
I'll just say this: there's a lot of magical stuff to steal in this game.
More on this later, when I've played more of the game.

WHAT RACE?

Traditionally, the best thieves are halflings. They have bonuses for your prime requisite -- dexterity -- and they are small and tiny, making prowling and picking pockets easier. Myself, though, I didn't want to be some half-pint so I decided to play a human. (I would have chosen elf, but
I was playing a techno-thief. In the future I'll choose elf for magic thief).

Someone suggested to me that a Dwarf would make a good thief because the trade off is that you get 2 points in tech skills for the dexterity penalty.
I thought this was good, but I realized the tech skill bonus was not equal to one dexterity penalty in terms of skill points. For some reason a skill bonus is only like 1/4th of a normal skill point. So nevermind. Never liked playing dwarves anyway. ^_^

WHAT BACKGROUND?

The best backgrounds for a Thief character would likely be Arsonist, Feral
Child, or maybe Pit Fighter. I think you can also be very effective as a pretty or charismatic thief, in which case Model/Lady's Man or Charlatan would be great choices. I was also planning to use Sold My Soul but that's for magicians, and I wanted to be a techie.

HOW TO DISTRIBUTE POINTS

I would suggest putting points into your dexterity and perception, but not too much. I think you should concentrate on the more important stats to make your life easier: Pick Pockets and Lock Picking. Be sure to put maybe a point or two into Melee -- the reason is that in combat experience is given according to how much you hit your enemy, and if you don't have melee skill it will be tough to hit enemies, thus giving you less experience points.
Invest in some fighting skills early so you can level up faster.

Alright, that should get you started off in the world of Arcanum. Now, I will discuss some things about the thieving profession.

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3. Thieving Technicalities
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PROWLING
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When you activate the prowling skill, all NPCs on the screen will have an awareness level of your presence. The levels are: Safe, Risky, Dangerous,
Perilous, and Aware. You can basically get away with sneaking around a person if it is Safe or Risky. If it becomes Dangerous, chances are the person will shift to Aware in a few seconds, especially if your prowl skill is low. Perilous, you should only get this close if the NPC is asleep.

If an NPC is sleeping, apparently the NPC will not wake-up unless you try to do a pick pocket and fail. This is especially useful when sneaking into shops at night to steal some goodies.

The higher your Prowl skill, the closer you can get to an NPC without him becoming aware. Most NPCs also have less visibility in darkness, so try to do your sneaking at night.

Q: How do I douse a torch or lantern?
A: You can attack inanimate objects and other parts of the scenery by holding down ALT while attacking. If you do this on a light source, it will extinguish it, putting you in the dark. This I believe lets you sneak easier, although I have not verified this yet.

Also, what you wear has a big effect on your prowling percentage. Noise is a factor in prowling, and most armors have an NP (Noise Penalty) rating which impairs or aids your skulking around. For instance, Bronze Plate has a NP of -50%, which really makes it unsuitable for thieves prowling around. Leather Armor is only -10%. Some items actually help you sneak, like the Elven Boots which give a +10% chance.

Take note that, depending on whether you are tech or magical, some items may or may not give you their bonuses. For instance, if you are highly technical, Elven Boots (which are magical) will not give you the sneak bonus.

By the way, take note that magic items will not give you a bonus if you are not magically-inclined enough.

PICKING LOCKS
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Picking a lock can result in three things: you are successful, in which case the lock will open, you fail, and the lock is as is, or you mess up, in which case the lock is jammed and it cannot be opened. Also attempting to pick locked objects under guard will result in the guard getting angry at you. See Breaking In.

Q: If I jam a lock can I open it later?
A: I've tested it out, and it seems that if you jam a lock now, you can come back later and it will revert to normal Locked status. I have not determined whether this is true for all locks, though.

BREAKING-IN
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I define "breaking-in" as getting into a room that you're not supposed to be in. This usually refers to locked houses or establishments at night, the backroom of a merchant shop (where the goodies are usually kept), and similar areas.

Now, as far as I can tell, there is no specific area designation for a room that is off-limits. The only way NPCs check where you can or can't go, is through the entrance to that room -- a door or window. If you try to enter a backroom for instance, you will likely try to go through the locked door. If you hack, fiddle, pick the lock, or otherwise try to gain unlawful entry, anyone who sees you will get mad, and their reaction towards you will go down (probably to Suspicious) and they will tell you to leave it alone (or else).

If you are in Prowl mode, however, and the guard is not aware of you
(Safe or Risky or Perilous, but not AWARE!!) you can attempt to pick the lock without them reprimanding you. Once you are inside the house or whatever room you were trying to get into, no one will reprimand