I've previously played fighter-type characters in Daggerfall, but I'm having fun in Oblivion right now with an assassin... so I figured I'd try a stealth character in DF as well.

My question is related to stealth skill failure. Inside a town, is it possible to have a steal/lockpick/pickpocket attempt fail WITHOUT alerting all the guards in a 100-mile radius? I hate pulling the save-reload method every time something fails, but otherwise it seems like it will be very difficult to train up these skills early on. I get that a failure at shoplifting or pickpocket would more likely than not catch someone's attention, but will lockpicking in the dead of night and failing really have this same effect?

The thought occurs to me that I could find a "throwaway" province to wander around in and just spend my time failing and running. That almost seems like as much of a game mechanics hack as save-reload, though.

Is there anything available in houses to steal, from the furniture/shelves, or is it just a matter of pickpocketing the inhabitants? I seem to recall being able to do this when I first played a long time ago, but maybe I'm just misremembering...

Thanks for any tips. Apparently my ninjutsu needs some fine-tuning.

they are easiest to train in a dungeon. you can pickpocket monsters, to hilarious effect.

most skills are a chore to raise early on, and it's easier to just pay for training up to 50%.

Some general advice. Don't worry about being detected and having the law on you, but choose to pursue your illegal actives in a kingdom other than Daggerfall, Sentinel or Wayrest if you plan on doing the main quest.

If you are wanted by the law, climb the city walls at night and wait until there is no one in the streets. The chance of being detected is much lower.