Pthief Survival Guide

[12345]

Moving this to its own thread...

I've debated publishing a pthief survival guide. I never seem to get to it. One of the things that I know got fixed was jail. If you jail a pthief, they're done, barring someone letting them out. You can only drop link while jailed, so they cannot bring on another char to thief with without becoming wipable. Given that a good number of imms will use almost any excuse to give a thief a bad day, it will effectly shut them down for a while. Webbing them in the street and waiting for the patrol to come by will do the trick. If you can charm the patrol leader, even better.

They like to hide in safe areas. The easiest/safest way to give them a bad day is with a 40 Avatar Druid. Piasa can walk into any safe area and 'capture pthief' to excellent effect. Spells like acid shower can do the trick... careful of where you are though. Casting at the junk dealer or similar will get you dead very quickly. Some people like to play with charming agros, which is also somewhat dangerous.

A common pthief trap is to have a large container in inventory with a couple filled water barrels in it. Assuming that it's not a th/wa pthief, the odds of them having decent strength without eq is pretty low. When the thief tries to snag the bag, he won't be able to lift it and automatically fails and becomes wanted, giving you a chance to pummel him. It also makes for a semi-safe place to keep items in inventory that you don't want to get snagged. I hear that buying the personal robes in the drach shop, like the cloak of specialization, makes for a good inventory container that can't be stolen... haven't tried that one though.

Dealing with pthiefs can be dangerous. If you decide to actively hunt one, they may experiment with client-rape. If you don't know what that is, you're much more likely to fall victim to it. Be prepared for the pthief to figure out how to force you to remove all your equipment and give it to them.. or similar. Writing good scripts is important, or you might wish to turn them off altogether.

Pthieves will also try to decieve you in any number of ways. They will emote that they have stolen from you, left the room, left the game, or any number of things. These are designed to slow you down, move you into a vulnerable area or let them escape.

Pthieves make liberal use of the quit! command. Just when you think you have them, they'll be back at the west gate and running somewhere you're not.

Pthieves know each other. If you manage to get a pthief into a bad position, he may enlist help to escape from jail, make you think they are multi-playing, and generally be a pain.

Pthieves LOVE places like the BH auction house and scribe. These are commonly thought to be safe areas and are not, so you can be pushed out of them and be vulnerable to theft. If you do change equipment in these places, rest first, so that you can't be pushed out.

Pthieves love to take advantage of small things. Like the fact you can't buy a raft on BH. It makes hiding in places like Crystal Falls much safer for them since you can't web, blind or blast them there and if you haven't got a raft, you'll have to figure out how to get one to persue them.

Pthieves love to misdirect you. If a thief quits! and shows up at the west gate with a JJD being held, you might spend a lot of time wondering how he's allowed to do that. He's not. It's a cleverly crafted description designed to mislead you. So when you finally kill him and wonder why there's not a JJD on him... that's why.

Pthieves love to flaunt their existance. Even if the thief sits in the inn for 4 hours and doesn't manage to steal anything at all, they'll talk a big show. Let them talk. Its easy to tell when a pthief actually manages to get something, because they'll immediately log out and then log on another character to negotiate a price for the return of the item.

A pthief will sell your item back to you in most cases. They will offer you a price, and you either pay it or you don't. If you don't, your item will be sold or given to someone else, or shipped to someone else who will either keep it or allow it to become unclaimed.

Insulting a pthief isn't really practical. They already know and have been told everything you can possibly think of. Trying to taunt them simply won't work, you'll never suceed in provoking them because they are scum and have long since become comfortable with it. Really.

The regen room in Treasures and Dreams is not safe in anyway, use at your own risk.

Lower level characters are protected from theft for a while. Sloth protects newbies, and this is one of the things they are protected from. I don't know what level the protection expires, but it is less than 20.

Coins are MUCH easier to steal than items. Sleeping people are much easier to steal from.

Your corpse is sacred. Any pthief stealing anything from your corpse is wipable. Multiplaying is wipable. Stealing from someone in a group is legal... I think anyway... but they can't do anything to intentionally cluster your group, like web or recall your tank, or put the healo to sleep.

I'm sure other can add more, but that's a decent start.

[quote="Vixn":2u06j8ju]1. they could give you lots of junk to screw up your redress alias. you find yourself sitting with full set of eq in your inverntory and next moment you'll be pwned.
2. they will hide in dark places without light source. so when you gate in you will be kicked by Demo or someone like that.
3. it's hard to steal from someone (even sleeping) if there is another person in the same room who don't sleep.

just my 2 cents.[/quote:2u06j8ju]

[12345]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the most basic pthief rule. They can't steal anything that's not in your inventory. Keep your inventory clean and the the worst they can really do to you is make you thirsty.

[Assirian]

Use 'where' command. It shows all players (even hidden, as I know) in area. So, it is needed to get more care if there is some pthief-like char in the same area with you.

[Assirian]

I applogise for wrong advice, hidden players are visible only on 'where char_name' command. Thats useful only for known pthiefs..