I was actually expecting this in Morrowind.. considering you can get the 'LOCK' spell.. here I was actually locking my house after leaving it just to find out it was the most useless spell in the game.

I say yes to all three. it was one thing that has been lacking..

I like the idea of pickpockets and npcs robbing npcs. The burglary idea is kind of iffy though and I'd only agree to it on two conditions:

1. The break-ins only happen as a random event when you're actually IN the house so you get an opportunity to stop them. I like to put any unique items I find on display in my house, including daedric artifacts, and coming back to my house to see it stripped clean would be enough for me to stop playing permanently.

2: When I stop the break-in, there needs to be some way to get rid of the burglar's corpse. I'd rather not have corpses littering my house's floor after it happens two or three times.

I think it's a great idea, and I also think it would be fun if, by reputation gained, your house could become less prone to pilfering due to petty thieves not wanting to get killed by you.

The developers already stated back when Oblivion was being developed that this would never be the case. Some players won't understand why items or gold that they once had is suddenly missing from their character/house and complain about the game being bugged. I personally would LOVE for this to work this way though. Considering a lot of the target audience, they would need a very obvious popup that states that your pockets are lighter and that some items were missing because they had been pickpocketed/burglarized recently.

As part of a quest, yes I have no problem with either. As just a random event that can happy anytime and multiple times... well it seems kind of pointless. Even if there is something the player can do about it, its going to be a chore, and not fun.

Yea, it would be fun to secure your house or another location against thieves, and watch them fall into your traps, but you can't get that effect from a random event. It needs to be a preplanned quest.

screw them comin in my home. i wuld hate to come home and realize someone stole my goldbrand... thats not cool...

You could perform protection spells to attack intruders aswell

I agree with this. There should be limitations though. My ideas:

Pickpocketing You: First things first, no stealing of weapons, clothing or armor. That seems... well impossible, unless you are sleeping. Also, there should be some kind of indicator that always happens (like a sound or a small controller vibration with a message telling you you have been pickpocketed). Otherwise it would svck.

Robbing Houses: Kind of torn here, as houses are supposed to be places to securely store loot. Maybe you can lock the door or something, like mentioned in the quote above. On the reverse, if you pickpocket an NPC and take their key could you lock them out?

NPCs Pickpocketing Each Other: Already was in Oblivion, namely City Swimmer. So yes.

No way do I want anything stolen from me, unless it is a specific item in a scripted quest event.

This is a fantastic idea, in oblivion you never had to watch your own ass, but if this dirty little idea is implemented into the game... those who do not watch their ass will have it stolen.

EDIT: Although I believe there should be unstealable things... having Hermaeus Mora's unread book being stolen would make me want to kill someone who's name starts with a T and ends with a d

i think this would be fine but i don't like the house part. i put all of my collected stuff there. if a thief goes in and steals it i wouldn't notice till i need it, then ill be pissed.if this does happen i think you would need to be able to hire guards for your home or it should only happen when you are in your house. if we are pickpocketed i would mind if its like assassins creed where you are notified and have a marker.

I think they should be able to rob your house, and the cheaper house's you can buy should be more susceptible to thieves, as in oblivion, apart from aesthetic value, you didn't really feel you got huge value for money when buying the most expensive house, but extra protection for thieves might provide that.

You would not see a god thief steal anything. Part of the point is to not being seen.
City Swimmer is a awful thief and get caught all the time.

No I would not like a thief to break into my house he would probably steal some unique collector item or worse something useful, how fun if they stole master alchemy equipment in Oblivion.
Same for robbing you, ok with money less fun if they stole your sword while you was equipping a bow or simply your healing potions.

I've always liked the prospect of NPC's stealing from the player. BUT, I'd like some safeguards to be in place. In other words players should have the ability to trap their house to protect their prized possessions and even use companions/guards to stay in their homes when they are not around. I would love to come back home from a day of questing and find a would-be thief caught in one of my traps. I'd interrogate him, act like was going to forgive him and let him start to leave. Then he/she would catch an poison arrow in the back and die a slow, painful death. Then his/her head would be on a pike to ward off any other thievery.

Either way, I'd like this to be possible in the game BUT I always want the ability to get my stuff back.

Totally agree with you on that! Set up some Ice Spike traps all round your house and coming home to see a thief impaled with Icicles of Ice! :flamethrower:

You should make it so that the poll includes ALL of your questions.

I Don't Want Them Stealing My Important Things... You Should Also Be Able To Catch Them Well There Doing It And PUNISH THEM FOR IT. Like That > bliviongate:

Only if there is something the player can do to prevent the theft, like catching the thief or building/buying traps around their house. Having it as a random event that the player can't affect at all would be really annoying. Having to actually lock the doors when you leave your house, at the risk of theft if you didn't might be interesting. Also, I agree with those who have already mentioned being able to get your stuff back. What if you went to the local merchant and found your super-special-artifact sword for sale, and could get the guards to put a warrent out for the thief? What if NPCs could do it to you if you were a thief? You could sell stolen property to merchants, but you'd have to be careful where to sell your loot, lest the owner recognize it later.

I could totally see this work as a nice feature, on the condition that there are some sensible limitations in place. In my opinion:

1. Players pickpocketing you would only take your purse, thus running off with some gold, and possibly gems at most, and you'd have a chance at noticing and stopping them with a high skill in say security or sneak (whichever would fir best).

2. Break-ins would only happen when you're at home, or as a scripted event starting as you enter your house. Personally I spent loads of time positioning my various valuables throughout my house to get a nice feel to it, and often placing stuff like armor and weapons was tedious work, and I'd hate to have to redo it because some thief had plundered it all. Possibly the same here that they'd steal gold, and possibly one or two of the most valuable items max, with some generated quest to track the thieves down and get it all back. There could be better ways of solving it I'm sure, still, some limitation would have to be in effect for me to find it enjoyable.

3. NPC's pickpocketing other NPC's would have to work better than in Oblivion at least, me being somewhat of a perfectionist and wanting to keep all NPC's alive throughout the game, it was a pain every time someone wanted to pickpocket someone, get caught and subsequently slaughtered. They could just make them pay the fine for once perhaps, and then you could maybe visit them in prison, but having to reload and try to reset the NPC's combat to save them always annoyed me (looking at you Glarthir >.>)

Here is my take on NPC's Thievery:

1. NPC's Need to Walk Closer to You ... it should be just as likely to get something stolen from you as you can steal from others. In order to accomplish this, a setting in the default walk-cycle (pathfinding I mean) of each NPC should be changed, so that almost all NPC's walk very close to the player, often crossing in front of the player from time to time. He should get used to their proximity over time, and then when the thieves come into the game and steal from him, they wont be the "only ones" getting close enough to him to set off warning bells by the oddness of that. Since every NPC walks a bit closer, and many NPC's walk just behind or just in front of you quite often, you won't see anything wrong with the thief's actions of crossing next to you in a crowd.

2. NPC's Can Steal From You ... they have a chance to steal from you and you have a chance to catch them in the act. As an NPC walks by you and attempts to steal from you, there are two options:
.....A: Success! ... the thief gets one item from you and continues walking away safely. Once the thief has gotten away, a message will pop up that "You feel a bit lighter..." to let you know you were stolen from. This is because there would be nothing worse that not understanding why your Inventory is "losing items" without any explanation... it would appear like it was a bug in the game's programming, and generate all sorts of hate mail to Bethesda. But just by letting us know someone got us, that would let us be able to stop, reflect on the stolen item, and try to figure out what should be done about it. If you give chase to some random direction, the thief should be still walking away whatever way he went, and if you choose the right direction and end up running in his proximity, you can spook him, causing him to run for it. This will let you know you've spotted him, and now you know what he/she looks like. If you can catch them, then a battle can occur for which the guards cannot fault you, since you were stolen from you have immunity in this battle, and once the thief is reduced to 0 HP's, they are only knocked out, you can't kill them, because the guards arrive and will arrest them and take them to jail. If you run the wrong way and don't find the thief on your first try, then they truly escape and are gone then.
.....B: Failure ! If the thief fails his theft against you, you are alerted right away, and your character view is rotated instantly to face the culprit who tried to steal from you, alerting you by the surprising change in your orientation and by the "caught" character's "surprise" emote, where his face drops and his eyes widen and he may even jump a bit, startled that you caught them. Now you know what they look like. Since they didn't actually get away with it, you can't start a battle with them without getting in trouble with the guards, since the thief didn't actually take anything. You can however "Call to the Guards" and they will come and arrest the thief for you.

3. Check & Secure Your Items Daily... There should be 4 spots in your inventory from which items can be stolen, only four. Those slots change places every day in the morning, just after breakfast. The idea is that before you head out (the general person, the default) to face your day, you would check your belongings, secure them on your person, and know everything you're bringing along with you. If you don't check your stuff, and secure your stuff, then you could end up losing more valuable items. So you open your inventory, shift a few things around, putting your less valuable items in the 4 slots that are shown to be vulnerable that day. If you forget to shift your items (forget to secure your items), then maybe the 4 new slots moves to one of your most precious items you aren't currently wearing. (Anything equipped is off limits to this system).... And if it moved there, but you didn't secure your items, then the thief can steal that precious item because you failed to "secure it." That approach would help to mirror that reality.

4. Talk to the Guards About Missing Items .... First you have to Report Stolen Items to guards in the town where this occured. The moment you Report this, the item previously stolen goes into the Guard's Recovery Queue. Then you can begin to Talk to the Guards About Missing Items. This would be a new feature in the dialogue menu between you and guards. The guards only remember the description of the items you give them in the same one town you give it in. They are not pschic guards across all cities. If you have an item stolen in Vivic, for example, you can't ask a gaurd in Balmora about it. (I'm just using MW for quick reference, I don't know Skyrim cities yet) ... Guards only remember items for one week, after which all items are lost forever. Every day there is a small but random chance that the item is recovered. You can check once a day, every day, and if the item is recovered, the guard will give it back to you. To increase your chance that the guards have good luck finding your lost item, you can volunteer to help them once per day on an odd task. Once the task is completed, you can then ask about your missing item. The chance that they recovered it would now be higher since you did something for them, they also work harder for you in finding it. But after 7 tries, in 7 days, if it wasn't found, then the thief got away with it and you're all out of luck.

So if the item was minor, and you don't care, you don't have to report it, and don't have to check up on it. But say you were careless one day (which is how most thievery is allowed to happen, which are by and large, crimes of opportunity) and your most precious item is stolen, then you will have a means to recover it if you are lucky. And feel like there is a sense of justice in the world.

RECIPROCATION:
In the same way, however, NPC's can report thefts you made against them. They can also go and check with the guards for 7 days. If, inside of 7 days, you are caught by the authorities for the crime, or if your items are known to be stolen, and if they reported it, then you will permanently lose that item as it goes back to the citizen who reported it.

Then you can go and steal it again just to make them suffer for messing with you. Y-you pultritudinous d-dirty thief y-you. Hahahaha!

No, No, No. That would be lame if they could steal from you. If they could and I saw it I would kill them on the spot.

Very well written, I could see this working quite well..
I'm a little sketchy on the first point though.. as someone walking too close too you could notify perceptive players, while those why aren't paying attention could miss it altogether.
Crossing paths, sure, but I doubt the streets would be crowded enough to warrant everyone basically rubbing shoulders with each other.

Other then the point stated above.. I think this could work quite nicely.

Brings back good memories of slipping the DM various notes, sureptitious dice rolls, strange looks from other players, and sound thrashings for me and my chaotic greedy thief :rofl:

NPC's stole in oblivion,just not from us.
I remember that sheperd guy outside skingrad,hahaha.....on alot of my playthroughs he always stole something off other NPC's,and 90% of the time he'd wind up dead.

But i would love it if NPC's could rob us too,and break in houses etc.
Would make the game more immersive,and would also lead to funny moments too.
I'm all for this,good call :thumbsup:

i also want bandits robbing other NPCs on the road. have them approach travelling NPCs, demand money and let them go if they pay. otherwise combat starts. If the NPC is important or essential have them just knocked unconscious (or give even normal NPCs a chance to just be knocked out instead of killed). then the bandit robs them (like in Gothic where NPCs rob those they kill or knock out). upon waking, the NPC runs screaming, arms flailing to the nearest town/city/village/other safe haven. normal npcs will start bawling and telling their friends (good gossip/rumors idea). important npcs will gather a posse to take the bandits out...