The amount of time and the number of people the guards talk to should depend on what you stole and from whom you stole. If it's only a few coins from a beggar the guards wouldn't do anything, but if you steal an important artefact from the archmage the whole district would be closed down so you can't just leave that easily.
Would be cool if it sometimes happend random without you stealing anything, so you're not the only thief out there.
First of all, YES to the happening randomly; it always bugged me in Vanilla Oblivion how the player is the only person who does anything, which is why I run stuff like TIE4MODS and Crowded Roads Advanced and all that; they add more people doing different things. It would be awesome if these things could occur randomly. I also agree that it should have to do somewhat with the person from whom it was stolen. I would use the person's gold on-hand and the value of their apparel to determine how seriously the guards take it (and would avoid making scripts that determine specific NPC's as that could easily cause problems with other mods). The idea of closing down a district/city/cell is brilliant, although I don't imagine guards doing that unless it was murder (note that the Gold-on-Hand + Value of Apparel formula could also be used to determine how seriously the guards take a murder if you're caught. although it would have to be calculated immediately as if you kill someone you'll probably take their valuables afterwords).
You're con-games idea is really good too, although I think that would be better implemented as a separate repeatable quest mod.
As always, R4C, you always leave me wishing that stuff like that (that makes perfect sense!) was vanilla workings.
And being able to actually outrun guards would be really neat. With Reneer's on, when a guard chases me, he dialogues me to death. There is no way of getting away short of attacking him (thus increasing my bounty) and then taking off. And the forgotten/remembered bounty thing sounds simply amazing - you never lose the bounty, but you have a chance to keep on going about your business. Stuff like hoods (which should be essential thief gear) would decrease the chance of recognition by a few extra points.
I'm glad you like the "forgotten bounty" thing

Anyway, yeah, making hoods useful would make sense, however here are my thoughts on why that wouldn't work;
If you set a script to run when you have a clothing item in your head slot it will run on any clothing item and no helmets which, as far as I'm concerned, do a better job of masking your identity than a hood.
If you set it to run on all head items it will run on things that don't make sense at all like tiaras
Either way stuff like tail-slot masks and such won't be factored in.
I do agree though that it is a good idea, I just don't see how to implement it without selecting specific items in which case it will only work on vanilla/supported mod items.
The other thing that gets to me is lockpicking. There are no prybars or anything, just apparently extremely weak metal picks that break at the slightest mistake. You can't kick in a door (Like you could in Daggerfall!) or climb through windows (there is a mod or two for that, though). And just about everybody doesn't mind a complete stranger just walking into their house. I can understand country hospitality, but a big city would have nothing to do with a random passerby.
Varied lockpicking tools and locks would be really awesome. Here are my thoughts on how it could possibly be expanded; if you run a script whenever the player successfully unlocks (via lockpick or magic, not key) there is an X% chance that it will have a deadbolt, in which case the only way to open it will be with a prybar tool. The prybar can only open deadbolts, and can result in the following possibilities based on Luck and Security; opens lock, doesn't open lock and you drop the prybar, the lock doesn't open and you injure yourself, or the lock doesn't open and the prybar breaks (small chance of the last three). No matter which happens there will be a noise that alerts NPC's within a very short distance that you opened a lock, and you will of course be in trouble if that lock was to a restricted area or someone elses chest. Players with high enough strength and hand to hand don't need a prybar to do what I just described. Of course I'm not trying to take your idea or anything, but these were just my thoughts in reading what you posted

But we're really only talking about the player's endeavours thus far. How come thieves don't break into the vanilla houses and steal things? I think TIE and Reneers does an interesting job, where some people will steal things and then have to pay a fine/go to jail. As far as I know, there aren't any mods that allow a chance for low-responsibility characters to pickpocket the player. [ On a side thought, that would be cool, where an NPC picks the player's pocket, and the only cue to what happened is a light rustle sound or something. Something a player in the know would learn to hear. ]
I believe there was a mod that made it possible for beggars to pickpocket the player, but I don't recall the name :/ That said, yes, expanding NPC scripts on low responsibility characters in any way to make them more thief-like would be great! I think it could potentially cause problems if we allow them to break into house or anything like that as they could end up in problematic places, but adding pickpocketing or mugging or stuff like that to all characters based on their responsibility as opposed to just making certain AI's built to do this would be great!
And apparently, infamous thieves can buy expensive houses and walk about in any town without issue. I've got a mod that checks fame/infamy at the gates to see whether you can go in or not (making TIE's entrances actually useful) but the house issue is still a bit irritating. It just seems like a crime to be able to buy much more than the IC shack, Bravil's shack, or Leyawiin's shack with a moderate infamy level. And renting inn rooms seems pointless. You can only rent them for a day at a time, and most feature nothing more than a chest and a bed, rarely with a little food provided.
In my mind infamy is about the way you are perceived as opposed to what you've actually been caught doing; I don't think guards should be able to interfere with you if you're debt to society is fulfilled, but they'll still dislike you, and merchants will make you pay more if your infamous because it drops their disposition. I actually am fond if this decision, I mean I can't think of any Real Estate company that would reject a sale in cash just because they think the buyer is a bad person

Thievery is all about the little things, in my opinion. Pennyweighting is pointless (replacing valuable objects with junk things) and most of the time you'll never get caught for it. Burglary in general is a rather safe crime. In the Imperial City, a person could be upstairs alseep, and you're downstairs flinging everything around and the owner of the house won't even roll over for it. And you can carry much more than is humanly possible. It would be interesting if armours started featuring a Fallout-ish scripted weight system - when you're wearing armour, it's weight isn't fully tallied. Meaning, you couldn't carry the armour by itself, but when you wear it you can carry some things but not a terrible lot. That way you could have realistic carry weights (75-200?) and not be a walking armoury.And give backpack mods a real use.
I'm still drooling over R4C's post...:drool:
Everything you just said is true, but I feel the armor thing is too much of a general gameplay change (and potentially framerate eater) to be something I would feel obligate to use as a thief, or at least it's not something I would want as a required feature for a major overhaul if our ideas ever turn into that. It would also be nigh on if not impossible to implement a script that allowed you to wake someone from a different cell, sadly :/
That's all pretty complex stuff. I'd rather see existing places better geared to thieves really.
Better Cities and OOO add more places to break into, and better handplaced loot in some places respectively. SM Combat Hide and Regional Bounty make evading the law possible already by the way. Thievey In the Imperial City and Thieves Arsenal add a few quests, unfinished and slightly buggy as they are. TA in particular always causes problems for me, particularly with the blackjack. Things aren't that bad for a thief.
I am very strongly against hand placed loot in vanilla places as I feel that takes the spontaneity out of the game and causes too many conflicts; for me mods like Item Integration and Armametarium Complete and Runeskulls that work all their objects into the game randomly are the best suited to thieving. It takes all the fun out of the steal if you know exactly where it is from the moment you step out of the sewers imho (I mean I've hardly even glanced at the Vaults of Cyrodiil in my recent saves just because I already know what's there and how to get it; it's less fun for me now

). I agree though; things aren't BAD for a thief, but we're just wanting them to be better

Thievery in the IC is amazing, by the way, I agree, but again, I've done it all before; there's nothing I don't know about acquiring the items, so its boring now :/
The only problem I have is self defense. Bows are criminally underpowered without a pretty big sneak multiplier boost at higher levels. Of course a good thief never gets caught, and on those rare occasions he does, has a backup plan. The flash bombs from the Thief series are probably my most desired item. Non-lethal solutions are vitually ignored in modding.
The thing I'd most like to see with thievery is more of the only thing a thief cares about - treasure. I'd love to see tons of unique but functionally useless treasure items in castles, vaults, ruins and forts I could sell for cash or display in my home. There's already one that does this for a few locations but I'd love more of the same.
I must admit I disagree about the bow being underpowerd, in fact if you use a few archery-geared mods it's quite the opposite; JogX's Stealth Overhaul makes arrows faster and stronger, and lets you set the multiplier (which I keep setting lower and lower because it's too easy), MOBs increases the damage of everything in the game (which helps archers immensely as their whole purpose is burst damage), and something like Conduit Magic or Arcane Archery coupled with the fact that you still have 6 other major skills which could easily include Resto, Illusion, or a melee wep leads me to believe arechery is almost overpowerd, I mean in a full FCOM setup I cleared the first 10-12 IC Arene matches in one sitting at level 2 using just Light Armor, Marksman, and Resto skills

I do, by the way, agree that more unique items would be great, and would think it would be good to implement them in a similar way to the Amber/MAdness MAtrices in that they could randomly occur in any of _____-type chests, but don't want them stuck in specific places if it can be helped.
CC