Hello, everyone! I'm new to this forum, and am a longtime fan of the Elder Scrolls Series. I love Oblivion, and think that it is the best RPG of all time (that I know of). Now to get to the point:

I play on the 360, so I unfortunately don't get to enjoy all the great mods you PCers have, and am stuck with having pretty much every quest completed. However, I came up with a few neat ideas while I was playing, and was wondering what you mod playing people would think of them. My one and only character is a powerful, blood red Dark Elf Explorer/ assassin. He's kind and honorable, but get on his bad side and you'll find just how ruthless he can be. He is almost always wearing Morag Tong armor and a black hood, because it looks rugged and well traveled. In his travels, he's picked up quite a collection of rare items from across Cyrodiil and the Isles, and puts them all on display in Rosethorn Hall. Because my character is constantly on the road, he stationed a Knight of the Nine on the lower level and Brotherhood Follower in the shadows of the second floor to watch over his house while he's gone. Unfortunately, I know this is all aesthetic, as there's no real threat to my stuff.

Here's my preposed mod: There is a chance that an NPC thief will break into your house and steal some of your stuff. It would begin as soon as you own a house, and effect all of your houses. There are several ways this could play out, I'll try to convey this as best I can:

(S)he is successful:
The thief enters your house while you are sleeping or away and steals anything (s)he can carry that is in sight or, depending on his/her (random or set) skill level, locked away.
The next time you enter your house, either a) you get a journal update stating that something is wrong, and you've noticed some items are missing, or B) notice on your own that Sheogorath's staff (etc.) is missing.
You must now investigate who took your stuff and hunt him/her down. I'm a little sketchy on how, I guess it could depend on what guilds you're in and who your friends are.
Once you find the thief (s)he could either be scared, defiant, guilty, or impressed you found him/her, which will have an effect on your options: a) call the guards, B) intimidate him/her into giving your stuff back, c) kindly ask for your stuff back, d) take pity and tell him/her it's ok, have a few coins, and don't do it again, or e) plug an arrow through each eye :shifty: . If you're high ranking in the thieves guild, you could even say job well done and recruit him/her as a companion, or even pull on the Grey Cowl and make him/her stutter in amazement that (s)he just robbed the Grey Fox! As an example of the effect of the thief's feelings, a defiant thief would say something along the lines of "Pfft, you're weak!" at the pity option while a scared thief would be ever so thankful, and comply with every option.

You are like me, and have guards posted, and (s)he wasn't skilled enough to get past them:
You come home or wake up to find a dead thief on the dining room floor. Maybe a few things were knocked around in the struggle. Pity, you'll have to reorganize. Do what you will with the body, you can call the guards to report it and remove the body. Or, you know... :hubbahubba: :facepalm: :rolleyes:

You catch him/ her in your house.
Depending on settings, (s)he could be hostile or scared s***less. When confronted, (s)he could attack you on sight or react depending on if (s)he feels guilty, scared, or defiant. ((S)he could say things like "Please, No! I'm just trying to get some food!" "Please don't hurt me!, I promise I won't do it again" or straight up "FU!" etc.) You'd have all of the options from hunting her down, with some changes: a) call the guards, B) intimidate him/her into giving your stuff back and leaving, c) kindly ask for your stuff back and get out, d) take pity and tell him/her it's ok, have a few coins, and don't do it again, or e) stuff them in the fireplace (outright kill them). :shifty: . If you're high ranking in the thieves guild, you could say "nice try, but I can make you better" and recruit him/her as a companion, or even pull on the Grey Cowl and make him/her stutter in amazement that (s)he just attempted to rob the Grey Fox!

All of these outcomes will get your stuff back, unless you're an incompetent investigator and can't hunt him/her down. If this is the case, talk to a guard captain and the thief has a chance of being in jail within a few game weeks and your stuff will be in the ol' evidence chest.

Also, there can be more than one thief, resulting in more chances in your house getting robbed even if you stopped one of them.

And, as a side side note; I'm sick of fighting Minotaur Lords, wish I could fight more gladiators. Or there was an arena in each city.

So, what do you think of my idea? Feel free to expand or improve it!

Those are some great ideas :clap:

Thanks! I only wish I had a PC to play it on! :banghead: Don't suppose Oblivion works for MacBooks.

I'd imagine there would be at least one instance where the thief breaks in while you're next to the door. Such intelligent AI. :nope:

Great ideas, but reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaly difficult to implement, with voice acting. Also Im not sure if you would be able to make it look like there had been a struggle. It would be brilliant if you could though.

Any way you could set an Lighting spell with a AOE effect to go off in a random place in the room? With an area of about 10, you could probably knock some stuff around.

Ravin

This is the only way I would be happy about losing items.

In Daggerfall, IIRC once in a rare while when you went to ask to a random townsfolk (the type who dies in one hit automatically if you attack) for directions they would scream for the guards, something about a thief. With sufficient investigation (and avoidance of law enforcement) you could discover that someone had framed you for gem theft, and you were now a wanted man until you could uncover the true culprit. The thieves guild would help as the gem theft in question was not a guild job.
I'm not sure if the quest would only come up if you had certain types of reputation or not.

Not as cool as it sounds due to Daggerfalls flat quest mechanics and general buggyness, but still pretty cool.

I'm not even close to comprehending how mods are made, but that would actually work pretty well. It would svck if you had rings or keys on display.

I was thinking the NPC would just fight with any guards in the house, but because you aren't there, it can't process it? Is that right? I am never sure what happens when I leave an area, do all the NPCs just stop doing things?

Cool. I always felt that once you've beaten all the major quests in Oblivion, there's no longer any real threat to your character. Oblivion needs something like that.