This book is simply a hard line approach to dealing with the problems of thieves. It is merely a guideline and is by no means all inclusive. It's not even guaranteed to be current as Batmud changes far to quickly for such a guarantee. However, if you've had problems with thieves, you may find some solutions in this book.
Read onward and decide for yourself.The best way to not be stolen from is to not be around. Areas of frequent travel are no place to idle. Areas where you can be spotted and found quickly with where command are also a bad location.
If a thief can't find you, he can't rob you. Rest in secure places whenever possible, castle rooms are generally secure if you're behind figurines. Rooms that disallow skills are also generally safe. There are other places, discover them.
If you suddenly discover you've a bag in your inventory, be careful. It may contain something dangerous, like a flask with an elemental in it. Would a thief give you a bag just to be nice?
That way you'll be informed when they enter and leave the game and know if they're gone or simply invisible. If you get snooped, you feel someone watching you. It's spell mystic vision I think. You can quit to break the spell. Or spam them with a lot of text. Linkdeath won't break the spell. Brain damage potions work well, buy them from a alchemist that doesn't use thieves.
If you see the thief selling an item on sales, inform the person(s) buying. Worst thing, they'll not care, but hopefully they'll withdraw their bid.
Never sell services to a thief, offer any excuses but just don't give the thief what he or she needs. In particular, don't give them Youth, dying of old age is one of their few vulnerabilitys. Want to anger a thief hunter, let them know you've been youthing a thief they hate.
Scars can be just as hurtful for a thief, tell them you don't know the spell very well. If you austracize a thief it'll be more difficult for him to survive by offering services, you help him to continue to rob day after day.
A lot of people hunt without equipment, this has the advantage of being safe from true steal while killing the thief. Its drawbacks are:
So in my opinion, use equipment, not your best perhaps, and maybe not all, but have something so you can kill the thief.
If you're clever, you can use aliases to switch over commands to hunt a new thief. My commands target thief#, and I alias thief# to the appropriate one.
Use wands, wand of fire can make a quick kill, particularly if you zap several of them at once at a wounded thief, of course commands are essential.
Wands also have the benefit of allowing you to kill a thief in a no combat area. Like the church altar.
Watch out for poisoning thieves, they're the most difficult. The spell fails a lot, and it's easy to resist so there's some hope. One effective way to combat any spell casting character is to move at cast, and kill when they follow. Keep moving and they can't get a spell off, and they'll get frustrated.
If you've a quick skill, move and use skill, move again when your skill goes off.
Know your thief's habits, if your thief always runs to his castle when hurt, know the route, maybe you can catch him and stun him.
As long as thieves can go linkdead to escape it, they're a an advantage. Request that character object remain in game until stun wears off. It's only fair.
Get your friends to help you hunt, a party is very effective, particularly if you can isolate the thief with shelter spells or summon them to confining locations.
Relentlessly swing at every thief you see, don't spend all your time hunting them of course, but if everyone wounds a thief when they see it, the thief won't stay around the city.
A word on the ball of scrying, don't drop them they shatter. They can be bought at the portable shop, the shimmering door one. They use spell points to track people, it can definately make a thief nervous.
Anchor your boat in any dock or harbor and it's unboardable. Extremely useful for avoiding thieves. If you leave the boat unanchored your boat becomes a trap. Kill the thief to stop his true steal and then sail out into the river. At this point the thief has no where to run except linkdeath.
Be sure to complain to any and all available wizards when your thief uses linkdeath to escape death, it's definately a feature abuse.
Look for thieves in castle lots, have a map of castle locations Plenty of thieves have been killed while useing a script to pick somebodys chest.
You've got a good chance of killing the thief and a possible chance of getting him banished or deleted.
Castles are expensive, but a poorly guarded castle is more so. Until you have four figurines of 16th level each. Forget buying a chest.
Why 16th level? At 16th level figurines can see invisible An invisible thief will simply whack lower level figs apart one at a time.
4 actively swinging 16th level figurines gives him little chance.
Put all figurines in one room. Have two blocking one direction and two blocking the way out. Once the thief(s) enter there's only a few possiblitys. Going linkdead till reboot. Dying. Being able to kill two of the figurines that are blocking his way out.
Most castles are robbed on the enter kill a bit and go heal routine. Avoid it, make your castle difficult.
Another option is to purchase door to block the way further into your castle, and have all four figurines blocking out.
Thieves can't pick a lock if they're in combat.
Note these setups are based on a room with two exits. One into your castle, one to your castle entrance.
Don't bother with blocking figurines in a room with out, or exits to town. Those directions can't be blocked.
Have one 1st level blocking fig outside your main figurine room. What this does is prevents low level players testing your figurines. If someone wants to see what your figurines do, make them pay for it with their main character or at least work hard to see what you have.
Another general rule is have at least one figurine per chest. Don't over stack your figurines though, 10 in a room is more than enough. Same with chests, you've heard rumors of errors with too many objects in a castle room, they're true.
Here's another tip, adding a feature to your room resets the room. This will make everything vanish that was on the ground (not sure what it does to chests). It also has the benefit of resetting any figurines. Yes, if one of your figurines died, you can reset it. Teach castle robbers to at least wait until you're not online.
Take the time to mail players if you see their figurines shout, or at least tell them who did it. If you want thieves killed, give them lots of enemys.
There are only two players in regards to thieves. Those that are against thieves and those who support thieves. To think that you can isolate yourself from the situation is naive. If you allow thieves to operate without any interferance one way or another from yourself then you are truely a thieves friend. They've nothing to fear from and can operate without harm in your presense. If you think because you've done nothing to the thieves they will not harm you, you're naive again. They will merely use you, and the services you offer as long as it suits them, when it's worth their while to steal from you they will not hesistate, why are you hesistating now? Take your actions against thieves before they take action against you.
A thief has a hundred opportunitys to steal everyday. As a vigilant citizen your opportunity to take action against a thief happens only occassionally. Use it when you see the opportunity. Don't let the thief operate unharmed.
Don't offer your services to a thief, you're taking stolen money and helping the thief, two evils in one.
Don't buy from thieves, while the price is tempting, you're allowing the thief to establish himself. Don't allow thieving to be a profitable business.
Don't wait until everything that is precious to you is gone before deciding thieves are your enemy, they already are your enemy. Take action now.
I hope the book was worth your time, criticism will be cheerfully disregarded. If you're a thief reading this, realize that I didn't divulge all my secrets. Someday I hope to find myself standing over your corpse.
To the would be thief killers you've all my faith.
I realize the book isn't in artistically perfect form. The main point is to get the idea across, if you've a specific question regarding the wording of the book, feel free to ask.