Thieving guide by Wyks

Index

• Introduction
• Jails & the bail feature
• [ 1 ] Player thieving
• [ 2 ] Item shop thieving
• [ 3 ] Shop gold thieving
• [ 4 ] Thieving guild jobs & quests
• [ 5 ] Unlocking locked items
• [ 6 ] Cracking strange chests/combination chests

Introduction

Thieving in Syrnia is the skill that allows you to thieve gold, items and open locked items (players refer to the latter as "lockpicking"). While thieving can be a difficult skill to train early on with very little reward, the improved success rate and options that become available as you level up can make it a very fun skill to train. Lastly, a higher thieving level also adds some amount of protection against other thieves.

Unlike other skills, most thieving features do require your attention on the screen. This means that leveling up thieving will either require a substantial investment of non-afk time or very large amount of gold pieces (lockpicking can be done afk, but locked items are expensive). Also worth mentioning is that while thieving is a legitimate skill, your reputation may suffer if you employ some of the methods described in this guide (they are not against the game rules, however!).

If practiced well, thieving can make you both rich and feared by the rest of the community. In the rest of this guide I will cover all the aspects of thieving including how you can protect yourself from a particular method as well as suggest some strategies to improve your success rate. It is a long guide, but I have tried to make it as detailed as possible to give you an edge over other thieves. You can also use the index to jump to a specific type of thieving you are interested in.

So, are you up to the challenge of becoming a high level thief? Then grab an Elven cocktail, get comfortable and start reading.

Jails & the bail feature

Before we jump into the various ways in which you can practice the thieving skill, first some general information about jails and the bail feature. As you of course know, when you attempt to thief from a player or shop and fail, you will be sent to jail for a certain amount of seconds. Which jail you are sent to depends on your location: almost every map has it's own jail to lock up thieves. If a map has no jail either thieving is not possible there, or you will be sent to a jail on a different map. The latter is the case when you attempt to thieve someone in the Arch. cave system (more about this later).

When you visit a jail town, say Sanfew, you see a list of the thieves that are currently locked up along with the crime they have committed and the jail time they have to 'sit out'. Next to their name it says "pay [x] gold bribe". By paying this fee you can set the criminal free immediately. Be sure to tell him though, or you gold will be wasted. Buying someone's freedom this way is -somewhat inaccurately- called bailing by Syrnians. Bailing costs 1gp per second of jail time.

1. Player thieving (level 1+)

Success gives 20 exp, failing gives 5 exp

The first method of thieving in Syrnia is thieving from other players, sometimes referred to as "Pickpocketing". This method of thieving can be practiced as follows.

How to employ

1. Clicking on a playername under "Players at this location" (right below the citymenu), which will bring up his stats.

2. Click on "Thieve [player X]". You can only thieve from players that are online and at the same location as yourself. Be aware that you cannot attempt to thieve from other players in The Outlands (player versus player area) or if an invasion is taking place at your location.

3. The result of your thief attempt will be shown instantly. If you have succeeded you will receive a portion of the gold pieces a target is carrying (never the total amount) as well as 20 thieving experience. In addition, your target will not be notified of your crime in any way. If you fail however, your target will be notified of your thief attempt via an in game message and you will be sent to jail. You do gain 5 thieving experience for a failed attempt. Be aware that at low thieving levels, the chance of succeeding at this type of thieving are very low. It is not unusual to get your first successful attempt until level 10 thieving. The low experience and success rate make this type of thieving unsuitable for training.

Background information

When attempting to thieve from other players, remember the following general rules:

• The higher your targets thieving level, the lower your success rate when attempting to thieve from him or her (it is useful to train thieving to protect yourself against other thieves).
• The higher your targets thieving level, the lower your jail time if you fail.
• The minimum jail time is 150 seconds. To get the minimum jail time, your target must be at least 10 thieving levels higher than yourself.
• You are sent to jailtown on the map you have attempted to thieve the another player at. Almost every map has their own jail. If fail at thieving someone in the Arch. caves (any layer), you are sent to Heerchey manor. Players often use this to get out of the caves quickly (incubusking calls this the "quick teleport option").
• If your target is not carrying any gold, you will never receive any gold pieces, even if you successfully thieve him! (obviously)

Jail time

Jail time for player thieving is calculated as follows:

• Thieving a player with the same thieving level as you, will give you 225 seconds jail time.
• Thieving a player with a lower thieving level, will add 15 seconds per level lower to the 225 seconds jail time.
• Thieving a player with a higher thieving level, will decrease 15 seconds per level higher, to the 225 seconds jail time.

Improve your success rate: target selection

Player thieving can be very lucrative, but only if you know what you are doing. Since most Syrnians will keep their gold pieces safely in their house (where it cannot be thieved), randomly thieving other players is not going to make you rich. Since Syrnians will usually only carry gold when they are using game features that require this, good target selection is key to becoming a successful pickpocket. Three typical tactics of player thieving work as follows:

1. Trade post thieving: when two players are conducting a trade at the trading post, at least one of them is usually carrying gold pieces. Keep an eye on the forums and trade chat to learn about lucrative trades going on. The best trading posts to attempt player thieving at are those on islands where one cannot build houses (players cannot quickly store gold after a trade here). It is of course also possible to have a friend set up a trade, or even to do it yourself, and thieve the target once he is at the trading post (can do this before, after or during the trade). This way you are sure your target is actually carrying gold when you thieve him. Be aware though that thieving your own trades will give you a bad reputation and make other players cautious or even unwilling to trade with you in the future.

2. Thieve at schools and universities: training constructing and trading at a school/university costs gold pieces, so players training these skills will always have some gold on them. To find out which players are currently training one of these skills you can check out our score section (look for players who are currently gaining constructing or trading experience). To find out where the schools and universities of Syrnia are located, use our map section or the constructing and trading guides.

3. Cave of trades-thieving: when an auction in the Cave of trades ends (and received a bid), the final bid will immediately be transported to the player who set up the auction. Especially for large auctions, this can be a lot of gold pieces. If your target is not paying attention and/or does not store his gold pieces quickly, you will have a shot of getting a lot of gold (but remember, you can only thieve a player if he or she is online). Keep an eye on the Cave of Trades (use our Mobile cave of trades or check within the game) to find out which auctions are almost ending.

How to protect yourself

Use the following guidelines to protect yourself from player thieving:

• The higher your own thieving level, the more difficult it will be for other players to thieve from you (their succesrate will be lower).
• Never carry gold on you unless it is absolutely necessary. Store it safely in your house instead, where no thief can ever access it. Any type of house can store an unlimited amount of gold pieces.

2. Item shop thieving (level 10+)

Success exp is based on item price, failing always gives 5 exp

At level 10 thieving you learn the ability to steal items from other players' shops. Since you can only steal relatively low priced items, this way of thieving is not very lucrative.

How to employ

1. Click on "Player Shops" in the citymenu. If the link is not present no shops can be built at this location. Also be aware that shop thieving is not possible when an invasion is going on at your location.

2. Select the shop you wish to thieve from, and click "steal" next to the item you want to thieve.

3. The result of your thief attempt will be shown instantly. If you have succeeded the item you have stolen will appear in your inventory. You can click on "here" to go back to the shop to steal again. If you fail you will be sent to jail.

Jail time

You can calculate your expected jail time by using the formula: Jail time (seconds) = 25 x [Item price]. The maximum jail time is 10800 seconds (3 hours).

Background information

This way of thieving is useful for players who are looking for a cheap way to level up. The downside of this method is that it requires constant attention and a lot of clicks. If you want to train thieving this way, it is best to find yourself a shop with low priced items in a jailtown, to minimize the time that is lost walking. Since you cannot thieve items from your own shop, this method works best if you have a friend or fellow thief to periodically refill their shop for you. Several players also keep shops with only burnt fish (burnt fish are chosen because they are useless) just to help other players to train their thieving.

The amount of experience you gain when successfully thieving an item depends on the price of the item (see the chart below). In general, the higher the price of the item, the more experience you will gain if you successfully thieve it, but the lower your success rate. If your thief attempt fails you always gain 5 experience regardless of the price of the item. When you just start out we recommend training on 2-3gp items, as you will be most successful with those. But do not worry, as your level improves, so will your success rate!

Tip: you can calculate the exp gained for items of a certain price by using the following formula: Exp gained per item = [Item price] divided by 2, rounded down (1gp items do not give any experience).

Tip: try finding low priced items using Syrnia's shop search function. Read more about this function in our trading guide.

How to protect yourself

Protecting yourself from this type of thieving is fairly simple: do not sell low priced items such as wood in your shops. To discourage shop thieving in general, it is recommended that you build your shop far away from a jailtown. Thieves may be discouraged by the long travelling time which comes on top of the jailtime they have to do. Another thing you can do is closing your shop before you go offline, since players cannot thieve from closed shops!

Tip: if you notice that a thief is emptying your shop, we at -TL- always had fun suddenly changing the item price to a large amount. If the thief does not notice, and this will often be the case, he will fail and be sent to jail for a long time.

3. Shop gold thieving (level 10+)

Succes gives 30 experience, failing gives 5

At level 10 thieving you can not only start thieving items from other players' shops, but also their earnings by thieving the shops' gold! With this method of thieving you will not gain a lot of experience, but it is arguably the most lucrative method of thieving. Successfully thieving from a shop always gives you 30 experience, failing always gives 5 experience.

How to employ

1. Click on "Player Shops" in the citymenu. If the link is not present no shops can be built at this location. Also be aware that shop thieving is not possible when an invasion is going on at your location.

2. Select the shop you wish to thieve from, and click on the "Steal from this shop" button.

3. The result of your thief attempt will be shown instantly. If you have succeeded you will receive part of the gold that was in the shop, provided the shop had any (and it was not protected by a safe, read more about this below). If you fail you will be sent to jail.

Jail time

The amount of jail time you get for attempting to thieve a shops' gold depends on the amount of gold in the shop. It is important to understand how this works, because it gives some information about how much gold is in the shop (and so can help you determine if it is a good target):

• The minimum jail time is 900 seconds. This means that there is 0-9,000gp in the shop when you attempted to thieve it.
• Each additional 10 gold pieces in the shop will add 1 second to the timer.
• The maximum jail time is 1800 seconds. This means that there is at minimum 18,000gp in the shop.

Improving your success rate

1. Avoid shops with (high level) safes: safes protect part of the gold in a shop (a different % for each type, upto a maximum amount of gold pieces). Especially the higher level safes will greatly reduce the amount of gold pieces that is 'up for the grabs' and make you lose money. On the other side, having a (low level) safe installed does not mean a shop cannot be an attractive thieving target. Combining the jail time (gives you an idea how much gold is in a shop) and the type of safe someone has installed, you can calculate to a degree how much 'free money' there is left that can be thieved.

Also be aware that some players will advertise that they have one or more safes installed just to scare of potential thieves, while they have not actually gone through the trouble of completing the relatively long Securing your shops quest. Always try to find out if this is really the case (any gold stored in a safe does not count towards the jail timer), because you may lose an attractive target if you do not (for starters, anyone with a trading level of less than 12 can never have safes installed in his shop).

2. Thieving your own money back: this is one of the most important tactics in order to be successful at shop gold thieving, but it requires a large amount of gold pieces to pull off. There is also the investment risk that you may lose some or all of your gold pieces if the heist is unsuccessful. So how does this work? The key to this idea is that you basically create your own targets. First, you have to find an open shop with medium-high leveled items that are sold around their current market value (the closer the price at which the items are sold is to their actual market value, the higher your potential profit).

Secondly, you have to make sure the shop owner is offline (it is best to keep track of his playing times for a few days so you can plan your heist when he has just gone to sleep. This will give you maximum thief attempts before he comes back online.) Once you are ready to go, buy a large amount of items from his shop (make sure there is at least 1 item left in the shop or it will be removed from the shoplist, preventing you from thieving from it!). It is best to spend at least 18,000gp (if only to help you keep track of how much is in the shop from the jailtime), but as a general rule, more is better. Keep in mind however that spending more also increases the investment risk, since you will probably lose your money when the shop owner comes back online unexpectedly. Once you have bought the items, keep thieving the shops' gold until you get (part) of your money back! You can calculate your profit using the following formula: Money thieved back + Market value of bought items - Money spent. Assuming the shop owner sells at exactly market value, any gold you thieve back is pure profit!

Last but not least it is worth mentioning that this tactic works best, or may only work if you work with a group of thieves. Shop gold thieving has a relatively low success rate and long jail time, so you will probably need quite some thief attempts to get any money from the shop. The more players you have trying to thieve from a shop, the higher your successrate. It's that simple. If you do work with a team, be sure to agree beforehand how any profit is distributed to avoid arguments.

3. Jumping the bandwagon: to extend on the previous tactic, a good way to find attractive targets without spending any money is keeping an eye on the various jails around Syrnia. If you see multiple players in jail for thieving the same shop, especially if they are from the same clan, this is a good indication they are busy with a heist as explained above or just found a shop with a lot of money in it. If you find out where the target shop is located you will have a free shot at good money!

How to protect yourself

• Frequently remove your shop earnings and store them safely in a house (obviously)
• Close your shop when you go offline (players cannot thieve from closed shops)
• Install one or more safes in your shops. Safes in Syrnia protected a part of the gold in your shop. Since safes are closely linked to both the thieving and the trading skill, we have chosen to cover everything about safes in the trading guide. We highly recommend any shop owner and thief to read it.
• Protecting a friend: if there are only a few items left in the shop, buy all of them (we call this 'buying out'). This way players will no longer be able to thieve from the shop, as it will be removed from the shoplist.

4. Thieving guild jobs & quests (level 3+)

Before you can do thieving guild jobs, you will need become a member of the Thieving guild. You can do this by completing the Thieving guild trail. You can start this quest at Mentan on Mezno island, where the thieving guild is located. Once you have completed the quest you will be accepted into the Thieving guild. From then on you can ask them for a 'job'.

After completing the Thieving guild trail you can start the Got to love locks quest, which is well worth because of the thieving experience reward. I recommend doing both thieving quests as soon as you have the required level for them, as they give a significant experience/level (and therefore success rate) boost at low thieving levels.

When you ask the Thieving guild for a job you will be given the assignment to thieve a random (online) player within a certain time limit. They will also tell you where he or she was last seen (if you forget, click on "Quests" in the left menu). Once you have attempted to thieve him or her (you do not need to be successful) return to the thieving guild to collect your reward. You will gain some thieving experience as well as some gold pieces. The faster your complete the job, the more thieving experience and gold pieces you get! (see the chart below). For more information about how you can move around Syrnia faster, read our speed guide.

For information about jail time and success rate, see the section about Player thieving.

NB: if your target goes offline, you can return to the thieving guild and ask them for a new job (since you cannot thieve offline players).

5. Unlocking locked items (level 1+)

Experience depends on type of container

An important part of thieving consists of so called lockpicking. Unlike other types of thieving, this can be done afk and does not involve other players. Each locked item has a different level requirement and gives a different amount of experience (see the chart below). While this is a very easy way to train thieving, locked items are expensive to come by.

Locked items can be obtained in various ways. They are dropped by a lot of creatures (see our creaturelist) and can be obtained while fishing and woodcutting at certain locations. At Arch. cave N you can even dig for locked items, but this action itself does not give any experience. Locked items can also be obtained by cracking strange chests (read more about this below), and they can be picked up at Arch. cave 2, where they randomly spawn on the ground (other players will compete with you for these though).

NB: while spawns occur at all locations in the Arch. caves 2, spawns tend to occur more frequently at Arch. caves 2.17, 2.18 and 2.19.

How to employ

• Equip a lockpick.
• Click on the locked container in your inventory you want to open.
• Once the timer has counted down an unlocked version of the item will appear in your inventory. You can open this item by clicking on it. To find out the contents of unlocked items, use our item list.

Lockpicks

Img	Req level	Item
		Lockpick
	40	Bone lockpick

Types of locked items

Img	Req level	Item	Req items	Thieving exp
	1	Toolbox	x1	50
	1	Wooden egg	x1	100
	1	Christmas present	x1	100
	1	Spectre chest	x1	100
	1	Birthday present	x1	100
	1	Pirate chest	x1	100
	1	Valentines chest	x1	100
	10	Small chest	x1	75
	15	Moldy chest	x1	125
	25	Ancient chest	x1	200
	30	Large wooden egg	x1	300
	30	Calmere chest	x1	300
	40	Sarcophagus	x1	500

6. Cracking strange chests/combination chests (level 1+)

Each failed attempt gives 4 experience. Successful attempt gives no exp but chest contents

The last method by which you can gain some extra thieving experience is cracking strange chests (or combination chests as they are sometimes called). These chests contain items and are available for anyone to try open (in other words: all players at a location work on the same chest). Each strange chest has a combination lock (the chests come in various sizes), and the first to guess the correct combination number receives the contents of the chest.

The size of the combination will be shown after a 20 second counter. A combination number can be entered by players every 20 seconds. For each failed attempt, you will receive 4 thieving experience. If a player opens a strange chest, the following will be displayed at the location, "The last strange chest was opened by (players name)".

Strange chests can appear two ways; during Syrnia game events (the event moderator can make them appear at any location) and by spawning in the Arch. caves 2, 4 and 5. Below you can see the contents of strange chest based on where they spawn.

Strange chest spawn contents

NB: While contents can vary per game event, you can generally say that the larger the combination lock, the more valuable the contents of the strange chest.