Loot from "unconscious" quest/trip partner

[tooh]

Two-cents:

1. Before loot droped bag from a "unconscious" partner, try ask if he will return or abandon the quest/trip;

2. If need potions and stuff (armor, weapons, amulets, rings, etc) for use,  please loot it, but do it IC and RP it;

Else it's more than steal stuff from a char, is steal time, trust and friendship, and those never can be returned.

[Egon the Monkey]

I've looted from bags for helpful reasons before, and even told people about yank_pack because if you've got no "heal other" items, it can be used to rummage in a downed PCs kit for one. I've also been in a party where I reckon I saw someone looting from a pack, but as i think he had "thief mode" on, even though he was right next to me I didn't see anything. And since they were potions, it was impossible to prove a thing even with searching.

Hiowever, I was under the impression that stealing out a pack was frowned upon by DMs, possibly because of how much time working out whodunnit would take and the way it would bog down quests a lot.

[JackOfSwords]

tooh, I can't agree more with this etiquette, especially item #1.  There is nothing more frustrating than respawning into dangerous circumstances (e.g. a quest) and not being able to "/c collect_pack" to quickly start sorting out your gear.  It's very annoying to have someone sloooooowly handing over your gear in a trade window, while the rest of the party continues to engage new targets.  I've permadeathed some of my characters due to this.

Unless you're IC stealing stuff from someone's pack, leave it alone!  Even though it's sitting there on the ground OOC, it's actually still equipped on the person IC, and picking it up would actually require that you're unstrapping belts, etc.  Occassionally I've been told, "it was IC for me to pick it up", which has rarely been the case, as they were treating it as if all my equipment simultaneously and magically disengaged itself from my body.  Leave the pack alone, so that things can stay IC with a simple "/c collect_pack" command.

The exception to this is if they're actually moving your body as well, or if they're only taking items that would be considered "loose" (such as the weapon you were holding, or a shield, etc)  Anything else, and you should be emoting RP about taking it, IMHO.

[erglion]

My favorite was the tell on respawn "sorry, I didn't know if you were coming back"....as he is handing me back my items in the barter window. I was in the fugue 2 min max, and the rest of my party was still standing there.

Then I'm thinking, "Wait, were you looting me IC or OOC?"  If the former, then we RP it, if the latter then...

[I can has fun?]

Tooh has been playing here pretty much since the beginning, and has come a long, long way since then. He deserves every possible bit of respect that other players can afford.

Please, don't mess with tooh. I might have to kill you.

[MisterPAIN]

I was pretty much drylooted twice playing Jessie Justice of everything without much ado.  One was a body glitch that I couldn't respawn and the other was just a environmental death.  If it is frowned on taking stuff from other people's bags in quests and events when not permaed (with the obligatory sharkfest if perma) what makes it such a difference outside of the zone?  Is a courtesy tell out of the question when looting packs in this case?

Even in subdue PvP, is it really necessary to loot that diviner's tarot deck, cauldron, container bags, and crafting equipment to sell to the vendor for 60 gold from Tobar that they have to buy again for 350+ gold from having nothing?

[Denko]

The problem about that is pcs can't always know if someone is looting a dead pc, which is completely illogical. I mean, you just can't rummage through someone's else pack (or monster remains for that matter) without the people standing at 5 feet of you noticing. Even if the thief is on stealth mode, you should see the bag "magically" opening, items being taken out, etc.

[Cruzel]

IMO Drylooting is something that happens, as much as we want to beleive the best in the playerbase, people still do it. IMO some scripted prevention/alert methods couldn't hurt.

 Creating a string and then adding to it the name of the player + the item took for DM reference; (Mostly for packs DMs can't lock during DM events, but with other uses) Which the DM could call and view at any time; thus knowing exactly who took what from a person's pack without it being a pain in the ass.

Adding a speakstring or a combat window message to the pack item, if the player is visible + not in stealth, it speaks "PLayername opens up the pack" if invisible or in stealth, "The pack opens up" etc. This way people know that there is looting going on.

Perhaps even adding a new server rule, that if you are going to steal from a fallen player's pack, you MUST emote it in some way, unless a DM says otherwise?  Just clicking on someone's armor and then running away invisible or stealthed, or just taking it then acting like nothing happened to the rest of your party, is totally lame.  The heavier the armor/plate, the longer it would take to put on/take off to steal.

Maybe even adding a scripted bend down + immobilise for a second or two while they take the stuff, any player who could actually see the person stealing, would have no doubt ICly/OOCly they are looting. The duration could be decided by the item type, with no immbolisation for tiny and small items like potions, (just the bend emote), a second or two for larger items like medium + large weapons, and like four of five seconds to take someone's armor.


The first two would take almost no effort to implement, and would probably be a welcome addition, the last one would take a bit more effort to balance, but overall I think if you take away how easy it is to gain phat loot from drylooting people, it will greatly discourage OOC drylooting, because they will not be able to do it without being called on it ICly by the people who are there.

[Jayde Moon]

First, I'd like to point out that:

Stealth != Invisibility.

While the MECHANICS of Stealth in NWN is presented as what amounts to invisibility, the RP of stealth should be taken to mean that you are not noticed.

Stealth could be played out as hiding behind a curtain, losing yourself in a crowd, sticking to the shadows, or otherwise just not drawing notice to yourself.  Moving slowly represents things like crawling (through tall grass, not standing with your upper body all out of it), ducking from cover to cover, and otherwise paying attention to not being spotted at the cost of movement speed.

In terms of stealing from a pack, we must assume that, even though we the player have near 360 vision on our PC and can always plainly see the pack in question, our player character is not standing there with his eyes riveted to the pack, just waiting for it to mystically open, revealing a stealthed character looting from the bag.

And even if we were RPing that very action ("Hey, guard this pack!"), distractions and other events serve to take your eyes, even if for the slightest moment, from what you are watching.

A stealthed character is not 'invisibly' removing things from a bag that you can otherwise tell is being stolen from.  A stealthed character is filching from the bag when no one is paying attention to him.

That said, it is complete and utter CHEESE to exploit this by stealthily removing someone's armor.

In a perfect world where scripting limitations would not apply (such as resources necessary to run a script without laggin the server or actual scriptors willing to do the work), I would try to institute something of the following:

When someone is looting from a pack, check to see if they are, relative to an 'onlooker' within X range of the pack:

• Visible
• Invisible
• Successfully Stealthed

If visible, a DC 10 (Average) spot check sends a message to the viewer that PCName takes ItemType from DeadPCs Bag/Corpse.

If invisible, return the weight of the item being looted.  For items over 10 lbs, DC 10 (Average), items between 5 and 10, DC 15(Tough), and items between 1 and 5 DC 20 (Challenging).  Perhaps every 5 points of the thief's Pickpocket adds 2 to the viewer's spot DC?

Successful spot check returns a message to the viewer that 'Someone' takes ItemType from DeadPCs Bag/Corpse

If successfully stealthed, there is no spot roll, as the game has already rolled spot for the viewer and since it is a stealth action it simply isn't noticed that he takes an item.  HOWEVER, taking any item weighing more than, say 5 pounds immediately pops you out of stealth and makes you subject to the rolls made under visible characters?  Also taking a stack of potions greater than... 3 or 5.  Or after you take X amount of items out of the pack.

If I could, I'd actually force a new stealth roll with every item taken, subtracting 1 from your hide and move silent for every pound you pilfer as well as every item in a stack.  So 7 potions would be hide and move silent at -7.  Stealing half plate is possible, with a -50 to your hide and move silent roll.  Better than arbitrarily popping from stealth at 5 lbs.

But it's not a perfect world and this is probably waaaay too much to script, I only know the theory of scripting and not the actual feasibility of it all.

--------

Now, back on topic, actually:

Yeah, it sucks to loot people's crap, especially ALL of their crap.  Whether you do it in a friendly manner to 'help them out' or you're being a jackass and just taking all their stuff, it sucks.

For everyone who wants to be friendly, you should definitely ask them if they want you to do that.  What seems like a favor to you might just be a nuisance to them.  Also, some people just can't shake the feeling that you are holding out on them when giving their stuff back.

If you want to do some sly looting because, hey, that's what you'd do, I'd say go for it, but don't CHEESE.  Filch that potion of blur that looks useful.  Grab that healing dagger.  But don't yank their entire pack and trudge away.  Don't take that really nice piece of DM loot you didn't earn on a DM quest.  It stinks of griefing and is detrimental to the fun of the game.

I'd like, at the least, to see a rule like Cruzel proposes, that taking from a pack must be emoted, whether you are visible, invisible, or stealthed.

If people can't see you (invis or successfully stealthed) they won't see your emote, but people who CAN see you WILL see your emote.  People who can detect you (invis, but they are close to you so you show up all hazy) will see your emote in case of invis.

I THINK there is already a script that does a spot roll that messages others with "So and so gains Itemtype" or something?

[Letsplayforfun]

I'd add that if you want to loot an unconscious PC, you ought to turn him on hostile as it's a PvP situation. Meaning you have to drop party, too.

Am i wrong?

The only other time i consider looting a pack is when i've checked the owner has logged off. That doesn't happen much in quests.

[The Beggar]

I am so going to make a halfing rogue, all in black, with that little masked up head. And I am going to wait stealthed up behind the buildings as the Orc hordes rush through the wall rubble into the city and crush you adventurers, and when they do, I will ninja loot your bag dry from under the orcish hordes stomping feet.

I will also wait until the biggest baddies are at Near Death and then let loose with sneak attacks so I get all the XP from the kill.

Woah, wait...wrong server.

[JackOfSwords]

Beggar, you forgot to mention your hin has high strength and bags of holding in order to carry all the dwarven mithril plate.

[p00d33m]

Like I always said. Just RP it!

It is frustrating indeed to get back from the fug in, let's say 2 minutes and see that your "party mate" looted you at the same time he was fighting a horde of something then he striped out his armor so quickly that he was able to wear yours.

I say no to ninja loot and second tooh.

Of course you can and should steal/loot but do it IG and with a lot of RP.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

I've been sort of guilty of this, I mean, I wander around the Ziggurat, or in the wilds- and I find a pack In this pack, I find gold and supplies, and I don't check to see if that fellow is still on or not.

Could be simple, honest mistake.

[DangerousDan]

This is a shitty, shitty thing to do. Having died twice on a DM quest and awoken to find all my potions and gold have been stolen (when I was wanted by the law!). There was basically nothing I could do to prevent it IC. I will look extremely harshly on players who dryloot.