Lamentations of the clever sneak - aka HALP! (spoilers).

[Rebelicious]

Hey all. First post. Hope this ends up in the right place. It could probably go as Support, too, but I think it belongs here since it's not really a technical issue.

I'm a clever thief. I steal stuff. Everything that isn't nailed down or too heavy is stolen and then fenced - preferably to the same person I stole it from. My character, initially Lord Arian the virtuous Rebel in Book One, settled down in a small cottage and became Arian Green, the druidic Guardian, content with hunting, fishing, and selling the surplus.

But alas, it was not meant to last and the winds of fate have again blown me towards conflict; and this of course means that I need gear, funds and whatnot. It's not like I'm hurting anyone. Not really. I'm just in the business of redistributing goods of the needy. But I -try- not to kill. I make liberal use of magics or alchemy. But that's all beside the point.

I'm trying to steal the Crux of Fire from the dwarves. These dwarves are in no way evil or otherwise hostile and since I'm the bestest healer in the land, with my newfound druidom in fresh in my mind, I try not to kill them. So I sneak. And I drink potions. And I steal. And I put out torches. For some reason I can't put out candelabras. And I close doors behind me. Oh, how I close those doors behind me. I imagine that if I can do this, people will speak of me in legends. "The Crux of Fire have been taken, without a single guard noticing! Also, the kitchen was empty and someone stole my pants!"

Now. Take care to notice that I close doors behind me. Doors, bars, you name it. If it can look like all that have happened was some missing foodstuffs and that someone took the torches, that's my M.O.

I have just taken the Crux of Fire. Oh, how I gleefully skitter through the darkness after this long, long, long and arduous journey through darkness and spiders and devilmanders and smelly dwarves that I can't kill everywhere, all the juicy experience I forego by not shooting arrows through their thick skulls and all the extra pants I could've stolen.

They will never see me coming. They will never see me leaving. Closed doors everywhere. Portcullises closed from afar, with arrows onto the levers, clever, clever little me.

Now, just out this teleporter and I'm home free.



Oh yeah, I'm so clever!

Godammit!

[Kreador Freeaxe]

hehehehehehehehehehehehehe

[Dragonlady]

Oh dear! snicker, snort..excuse me for laughing its not that funny..snort..ah hum..phew, let me catch my breath!

Not sure if you can but can you throw a rock/knife at the levers? Sometimes you can, or I think you could. I guess its go back to a previous save..you did save didn't you?

[Randomizer]

I'm pretty sure that you can't throw past that obstacle, but you might trigger a lever with an area of effect spell. Otherwise you are doomed to spend the rest of your days trying to get out.

Edit - I forgot. ROFL

[Elwro]

How did you close that one? With an arrow? Would it work again? I guess you must've tried it already...

[Rebelicious]

Yeah, once I had entered, I understood that I was going to teleport away from the area and that there wasn't any readily available way back, so I shot an arrow at the lever and closed the door behind me.

In my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine that I'd be returned the same way after hours in the lower dungeon. My only save before this is about 2.5 hours earlier - not counting reloads and such, which I do a lot (since I was avoiding killing innocent fat pot-bellied smelly violent little dwarves).

And no, you can't throw/shoot stuff through bars. I doubt that there's any AoE effect that reaches far enough, either. I don't really have any AoE magic anyway and Portal is out of the question since I haven't actually found that spell anywhere.

I heard there was a hex edit trick for "teleporting" across squares, so I might try that.

Note for 1.04: Add extra levers. Everywhere.

[silverkitty]

Everything that isn't nailed down or too heavy is stolen and then fenced

Indeed, the Adventurer's Credo starts with "Everything that isn't nailed down is mine to sell. If I can pry up the nails, it isn't nailed down." Been that way since Ultima (before it was Ultima I). Never thought about closing doors behind me, though. Nice.

and, hahaha hahahaha

[Rebelicious]

[...] Never thought about closing doors behind me, though. Nice.

and, hahaha hahahaha

I sorta do it without thinking, now. Of course, if it's a dungeon or somewhere I don't care about, I just leave the doors open. But if it's a house, I try to remember to close them.

Can you imagine how cold it gets up in the mountains, if someone doesn't close the door behind them? Cold winds and snow everywhere? Bhrrr..

Got me a nice chuckle out of it when the Smith (I think it was the smith) in the dwarven town shouted at me to close the door - when I had already closed it.

I also try to leave torches in habitable areas, so that people won't stumble in the dark, unless it is in my best interest to remove them. In the case of derelict houses or houses where there is no owner, or the owner has been killed (a common occurrence in Eschalon, it seems) I remove all the torches, so that travellers won't think that someone is home.

[Farwalker]

Chuckle...
Most entertaining post I've seen in a while! We do outsmart ourselves don't we...

[Mod.]

Got me a nice chuckle out of it when the Smith (I think it was the smith) in the dwarven town shouted at me to close the door - when I had already closed it.

It happened that that I'm pretty sure that was the only time that i didn't close the door after entering. It was nice that he cleverly reminded me.

I also try to leave torches in habitable areas, so that people won't stumble in the dark, unless it is in my best interest to remove them.

Agreed, it is people like us that the NPCs enjoy having as players.

[Rebelicious]

Alright, I managed to solve it. I used the Savegame Editor for Book II. Even though it *says* right there that editing the X:Y position in the editor has no effect, it does. I have no idea why the creator would lie so. But it's a lie. A stinking, dirty lie.

Also, I want to see a show of hands. Who else took a snow wolf puppy for themselves? C'mon. Be honest. We all know that all of you at least thought about it.



I keep him in my drawer. I've named him Sock.

Because it's my Sock drawer.

[...]

I also try to leave torches in habitable areas, so that people won't stumble in the dark, unless it is in my best interest to remove them.

Agreed, it is people like us that the NPCs enjoy having as players.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I start thinking about "what if" things were real. Somewhere, everything isn't just a game and in their world, our actions have very real consequences. Maybe the characters we control only think that they are truly free, just like we do. Maybe we're all part of some giant "The Sims"-game.

Or maybe, all of you are simply cleverly pre-programmed NPCs and I'm the player character in a roleplaying game, controlled by some snotty 13-yo. Oh, what a dull game it must be. But it would explain the constant consumption of porn.

Real RPGs need to have a function for returning stolen goods. I remember stealing a Teddy Bear from the desk of a little girl in Fallout 3, only to struck by images of how she's just lost her most prized possession and dearest friend in a harsh wasteland in which her parents were brutally murdered, with no greenery whatsoever and all poison is basically neon brown. I immediately returned it and desperately wanted a function to say that I was sorry.

[obiwan]

talking about extinguishing torches.

Anybody else feel it would be incredible nice if you could do that with a ranged weapon?

[Randomizer]

talking about extinguishing torches.

Anybody else feel it would be incredible nice if you could do that with a ranged weapon?

It was originally planned to be able to use water arrows to temporarily extinguish torches, but it got dropped in development. This was after beta testers were trying to figure out what to do with them.

[Rebelicious]

talking about extinguishing torches.

Anybody else feel it would be incredible nice if you could do that with a ranged weapon?

It was originally planned to be able to use water arrows to temporarily extinguish torches, but it got dropped in development. This was after beta testers were trying to figure out what to do with them.

With what? The water arrows?

Seriously? None of the beta testers had played Thief, or were playing a rogue? I was actually trying to put out torches with my bow, but gave up relatively quickly. I had to use invisibility potions just to move up and remove torches at some places.

What annoys me even more, though, are *other* light sources, such as the candelabras. I'd give my left nut (not really) to be able to just extinguish them. As it stands, I can't imagine playing this game as a pure rogue. I had to constantly rely on alchemy and magic. Constantly.

Now, I've "only" got about 16 points in Hide in Shadows, and a bit less in Move Silently (because I've realized that, what's the point, really?) but it's extremely hard to stay hidden. If even a single enemy spots you for whatever reason, it appears that you're out of the shadows forever, to every single other creature, for the remainder of that level (or that enemy's life).

But the ones I really feel for are the healers. Try to get the Healer challenge without being at least part thief. Or, you know, a liberal appliance of massive amounts of invisibility. And thievery.

[xolotl]

Alright, I managed to solve it. I used the Savegame Editor for Book II. Even though it *says* right there that editing the X:Y position in the editor has no effect, it does. I have no idea why the creator would lie so. But it's a lie. A stinking, dirty lie. :x

Ha, awesome. In Book 1, changing those values didn't seem to actually affect the character's position in-game; I didn't actually test it out on Book 2. I'll have to change that text. :)

Awesome thread btw...