yea, that kinda pissed me off in oblivion. if my character steals things, he steals them to SELL them!
WTF is the point of stealing if i can't SELL it?!? seriously.

There needs to be an ingame mechanism so that stealing and selling the loot is not the path to easy guilt free money. There shold be repurcussions for stealing. To make it game worthy:


1. Merchants should always know if you steal from them if you try to sell the item back.
2. Merchants should not buy any of the same items as what you stole (steal a dagger, all daggers will be suspect)
3. Merchants in other towns or shops may or may not be able to reconginize stolen loot.
4. Some merchants will buy stolen loot but at greatly reduced prices
5. You can make amends with a merchant through some mechanism in the game.
6. Fences will be availible to sell to, but while at reduced prices, not as low as the shady merchants.
7. The honest merchants may or may not do business with you if they know you stole from another merchant, until you make amends or gain trust somehow. They would not know this if you did not try to pass off stolen loot to them.
8. Your security, sneak and mercantile skills can have an effect on whether some or all merchants will buy the stolen loot. Say they think it is stolen, but you can sweet talk them into buying it.

This way you have merchants that are honest and some that are not. You can steal things if you can get away with it, but you will have a harder time selling the stuff later on, but not impossible. The threshold for recognizing or reacting to stolen loot could be set by the merchants security skill

These are really good... but Sneak, Security, and even Mercantile, don't seem to apply to sweet talk/convincing of a jaded merchant; (not that there are any alternatives ~this is a stat issue and they replaced most stats with perks ).

Why would all (daggers) be suspect?
and why should they restrict a guilt free theft spree, and quick sale ~that's what thieving is; but there should be repercussions, and making amends should not be trivial.

To an extent. I'm really hoping they try to make each select item more individual, like two swords of the same material shouldn't look exactly the same, more so when they are made of a rarer material, and a merchant should recognize this, especially if he's just had something stolen off him.

will merchants be killable or just get K.O and stand up again its just that when dragons or other beasts come what will they do

Sneak and Security for the Merchant would be to detect thieving and stolen items, for the PC to be able to steal. Mercantile would be to convince the merchant to buy, Speech should be thrown into the mix too. Or however skills are going to be dealt with in the game.

As for the Daggers, I am thinking the game mechanics. If an Ornate Dagger is stolen, then all Ornate Daggers will be considered stolen, but not an Ebony Dagger. This way the game is not creating potentially hundreds or thousands of unique items to keep track of in the save files.

The guilt I am refering to is the ingame repercussions or lack there of for stealing. Stealing should not be easy, and should not be easilly rewarded through normal channels. Just like real life.

They should only know if each item has a unique serial number that is entered into an electronic database, which they can report missing during inventory checks. At this point, an electronic warning will be sent to all other merchants, so that when they scan that item (if it is being sold to them) they can alert the guards by hollering as loud as they can.

No. Definitely not. I think sneaking... heck the entire "theif" gameplay should be entirely redone.. I didn't like the gaurds and merchants who magically knew you did something wrong.. the locks were laughably easy to pick, and something should be changed about fences, not every merchant is going to magically know its hot property. But you should be somewhat pushed towards selling the stolen goods at a much lower price.

Well owner must recognize his stolen items on sight so character will not cell items back to him, or wear stolen items on his sight,
also knowing about stolen item must be tied to it price thats much better then permanent magical stolen mark on all items so cheap clutter will not take attention but crown of jewels will be,
in such way stolen mark on cheap clutter will clean self after few hours and but stolen mark on stolen valuables will not removed for long time or even not removed at all, all remember Rajhin who stole Ring of the Khajiiti, so stealing an artifact will really make you known for history found better way to achieve infamy, as well such stolen mark can be also merged with illegal flag on item so some things will be illegal also and no need to create additional scripting for them, so need to have item price as base value for time when item will be marked with illegal flag.

Guards will perform check on sight to detect criminal versus character sneak and speechcraft or try to arrest if see equipped stolen items, guards in certain places can check player inventory also,
shoopkeepers can perform also check for detecting stolen items mark in dependency on their Disposition, Mercantile level, Responsibility and Confidence versus character speechcraft and sneak so thief with silver tongue can sell stolen items to friendly merchants thats have low Mercantile and Responsibility and Confidence while beginner rogues must use service of thieves guild fences who have high Mercantile and Speechcraft so will not be easy money suppliers and rise value of Thieves Guild in game, since lame minigame was out there is no 100 charm on 1 second exploit increasing disposition can be done with quests from such shady persons, so great thieves quest can be done.
If player will fail the checks guard will try arrest him or make alarm in dependency on power check versus character or bounty level (such check thats take in account level and cost of equipment can be usable for highway mans also so they will not try rob all known Champion or make suicidal propositions for enemy who more powerful then they, as well can be used for changing initial disposition of NPC and adding new lines to dialogues),
Shoopkeepers will or refuse to make illegal deal(if have enough disposition to not call guards but not enough to allow illegal deal as well moderate level of responsibility), call the guards (complete fail) purpose lower price for stolen item (skilled in Mercantile and have low responsibility) and agree for deal at success.
In such cases sneak can be actually useful in public places since guards will not have on board scum-detector as before and will try deduct crime unless there can be witness who can say thats PC was a criminal.
Certain items can enhance or decrease chances to be not detected also for example wearing clothing of hostile factions, having unsheathed weapon, do hostile actions even if they wast make harm to actors will increase chances be detected by guards as well as wearing of stolen items on their sight.
but disguises can reduce such chances wearing appropriate clothing in public places, using masks and hoods, blend with crowd and don't make actions thats will draw attention will reduce chances be detected by guards.
As well there can be some other ways thats can make RPG mechanic even more usable, like beverage and charm spell can reduce responsibility so drunken or charmed actor will be much easer to be convinced but need have some speechcraft to take info from them, thats add even more roleplay to rogue characters

Bounty must reduce overtime if not have certain level so infamous criminals must use their links in the thieves guild, bribe guard captains and government superiors or make donations to temples or do guild quests to reduce bounty, certain bounty stages must attract bounty hunters special agents and assassins as well bring more powerful and elite guards to large towns if character was detected.by them in city, so mange to find some sneaky ways into the city and not be detected.

Bounty must be regional, guards of other regions cannot recognize criminals until they have large bounty or infamy as well guards of oppose fractions more likely will not having claims at last will not try kill on sight just arrest.

Fractions must be aware about level of bounty and infamy of character, certain will not appreciate such things and can expel from guild or lower rank of character certain can appreciate such things well like thieves guild and assassins guilds (1 kill of beggar and you draw attention of DB to be their member? Better to have large infamy and bounty from assassinating famous person or be serial killer to draw their attention)

i guess if they don know about it,would be too easy to get money?since its quite easy to steal

+1

No, they should not magically know! Then again it would probably be easy to steal the entire store's inventory if its going to be as easy as stealing stuff in Oblivion was.