Ultimate Ultima Thief Guide

Ains Ool Gown

Neophyte
First off, this is a viable guide for both beginners and Veterans. Wether you've never played Ultima before, you've had a long break, or you're playing now, this guide will still contain plenty of information. However, it will be geared more towards the Ultima inexperienced.

In this guide I will cover
Maps
Starting out
Types of thief
Macros
Skills and making gains
Good things to steal
How to get away with theft
Where the thief guild master can be found

Maps

These are the maps that I personally prefer, but the wiki version is nice because it shows the locations of moon gates

http://virtualautonomy.com/uof_map/

http://www.uoforum.com/wiki/index.php?title=World_Map

Starting Out
First off, especially if you are a new player, when it asks you with a popup if you would like to go to different places, click on the arrow next to the Newbie Dungeon. (If you're an experienced player then just know a lot of this guide will take place in Brittain around the bank and in the cemetary)
As for class, it depends on the type of thief you will want to be, but regardless of what you want to be, once you are teleported to the Newbie dungeon, depending on your client, everything will be black. If everything is black, then click on the guy in brown robes, and you will be teleported to a grey brick building just outside the dungeon. If you can see everything, exit the dungeon and follow the bloody footprints to the grey brick building with a star like image to the right of it. Outside it, say "bank" and store all your gold in the bank. You should start out with (500 gold I think?). In the bank you will also have pouches of armor or weapons or reagents, depending on the class you chose. Equip yourself with armor and a weapon as well as a healing items, most likely bandages (unless you are a Mage who can cast heal, but bandages are still nice) and head upwards. You will find a jagged road going left. Follow it and you will find a graveyard. Before you can fight you must enter "war mode". Do this by opening your paper doll and hitting the "peace" button. You can now double click enemies to attack them. Then double click their corpse and move the gold or the sets of ten items (called regs, which are used for magic) armor weapons or etc into your bag. Weapons can be sold at that blacksmith shop you passed on yor way to the graveyard, and you can also buy other weapons and armor there. You can also do this farming in the Newbie Dungeon. Your goal is to have a total of 1500 gold including what you have in the bank, and always put your gold into the bank.

Types of Thief

The basic template for a thief is 100 snooping 100 stealing 100 stealth 100 hiding
It's your option to have 120 in one of those skills.
However, the type of thief you are is made by the other skills you make gains in to diversify. You only have a total of 700 skill points though, so you have to choose well. Worst case you can always set skills to level down, and level up the skills of your choice if you change your mind.
The main types of theif are
Tamer thief - who would fight a thief with a massive tamed dragon?
Fighter thief - one of the fighting skills, usually fencing, or sometimes swordsmanship, but whatever you choose. It will allow you to fight back after a steal.
Disarm thief - with 80 arms lore and 80 wrestling, you can disarm opponents and potentially steal their weapon. It's slightly less viable because of blessings, but still has potential because there is no weapon insurance.
Mage thief - a simple stealth Mage, along with magic resist will also give you a good chance of survival.
Archer thief - allows you to stay at a range when you fight back
Alchemist thief - allows you to creat healing, invisibility, and explosion potions, all of which will give you a powerful edge in a fight.

It's useful to have Margery or healing leveled so that way you can have a way to recover your health, but overall these options are just personal preference, and you could just as easily survive with the four base skills and a way to heal yourself.

Macros

Now this macro section will be for Razor, but might still apply for the other main macro programs.
Your main macro will be the hide macro. Most thieves set it to the space bar so it gets trained without even thinking about it. Simply hit "Record" and use your hide skill
Another important macro is a heal macro if you have anything that would heal you. If you use bandages or potions, it's best to keep them in a pouch so that way they aren't moved, and you can use a macro that applies them to yourself.
If you are a fighter thief, you can have armor or a weapon in a bag and make a macro of switching out your thief robes for armor.
The two most important macros however, are your stealing macro and set last target. In razor, make a new macro. Right click and hit (I think it is special configurations) and click "set last target". When you are snooping someone's pack, and you see something you like, set it as your last target. Now when you are making your sealing macro, here is what I did. But a bag on the ground. Put a single gold coin in it. Hit record and steal the coin, the hit stop. Razor recorded three things when you did this action. Use skill steal, wait for target, absolute target. Right click absolute target and hit "exec: last target". This makes it so it will now steal whatever is set as last target. What this now means, is that you don't have to have someone's bag open when you want to steal that item, and even better, you can be moving while you do it, which gives you better odds of successfully stealing.

Skills and making gains

For any non thief skills, look up a good macro set for leveling those skills. I have yet to master all of them, and when you are making something like a fighter thief, you need swordsmanship (or some other fighting skill) and points in tactics and/or anatomy to be dealing competitive amounts of damage. But for most of the skills, simply use them, and over time fight or use harder skills to make gains. These are better explained in guides besides this one.

Stealing should be the last skill you train if you have young player status, because you must lose you young player status to steal. If you wish to lose your young status, say "I renounce my young player status" (I think).
The easier skill to train is snooping. Go up to an npc that doesn't move. Open their paper doll. Hit record on Razor, and double click their bag a few times, then stop the recording. Now hit play and look, and afk for a while. Razor will now open this NPC's bag so much and so fast you will quickly have 100 snooping even if you started with 0.

Stealth can't be leveled until you have 80 hiding. Make a macro for leveling hiding by making a macro of you using the hiding skill, and add a "wait 10000 milliseconds command to the macro, because you must wait 10 seconds between using skills. As you level up the skill, add pieces of leather armor. One you get 80 skill, you can begin to level stealth. For me it was easiest to wait ten seconds, use hiding, wait 10 seconds and use stealth, then walk a few steps until I had about 30 stealth. Make sure you're just in a robe when you begin to level stealth and you can pile on more armor as it gains. Make sure to do this around players or NPCs to help you gain.

For stealing, you can steal items that weigh as many stones as your skill/10 (unless you are random stealing, but that's another story). Make the macro by putting a bag on the ground. (We will call this bag 1). Put another bag (bag 2) inside bag 1. Now for the macro, steal bag 2, put bag 2 back into bag 1, and put bag 1 into your backpack, and then back on the ground in front of you. If you don't do this, bag 1 will decay and disappear after a certain amount of time. Also, add a 10 second wait before you use the steal skill, and a 1 second wait before you put bag 1 into your backpack.
If you have under ten stealing skill, the bag you are stealing should weigh 1 stone. If it's from 0-15 skill, it should be 1 stone. 15-30 is 2 stones. 30-40 is 3 stones, 40-50 is 4 stones. The trend continues. If you have a stack of bottles or bandages, they should be separated into stacks of 1 to make each individual item a stone. A stack of 50 bandages however is not 50 stones. You can use almost anything that is 1 stone (or more as you get more skill) in a few sets of 1 inside bag 2 to train your skill. A confusing mouthful I know but you should get the general idea.

Good things to steal

Skill or power scrolls, statuettes, magic weapons, some potions, some armor, or if you are really running dry, magic reagents can all be alright options. As you get more used to the game, you will figure out what will be worth potential death. If it js bless however, you cannot steal it. (Unless it is in a pouch and the pouch is light enough for you to steal)

How to get away with theft

The basics to getting away are to try and make sure that when you try to make a steal, you are in a secluded area and you bump into them when you make the steal. What this means is, don't be standing next to them when you steal an item. Set something as last target, move away, and then walk towards them. As you're walking towards them, once you are within one tile, hit your steal macro, and run like hell. It takes you 10 seconds to be able to hide again, and you are free game to whoever you stole from and the guards. If you want to defend yourself without getting a murder count, they are fair game once they go grey on your screen. Otherwise, run like hell and hide. (You might have to walk behind a building to help do so) another good option is to have a get away horse or llama, and to tell them to stay somewhere with the "all stay" command. They will go wild if you are gone too long however. If you have Margery, you can recall after 30 seconds im fairly sure. Hopefully you made it out alive and with the loot. Store it in a bank, and before you log off put everything away and kill your character, because to some people you will be perma grey until you die, which makes you really stand out. (needs to be confirmed)

Disguise kits are really helpful, and you can only steal from players once you have joined the thieves guild. Which brings me too

Where to find the thief guild master

The thief guildmaster can be found in Buccaneer Bay. You can get there by choosing it as the place you wish to warp to at a moon gate. The thief guoldmastee will be in an upside down T shaped building, up and across the bridge from the moongate. Say the name of the guildmaster and join to join. ex: "Bob join" when the name of the guoldmaster is bob. It costs 500 gold, and you need 48 in game hours, 60 stealing skill, and I think a week since player creation, but I'm not entirely sure on that one. You can then say their name and disguise kit to buy a disguise kit. The disguise kit gives you a random hairstyle and the name of an NPC. You can keep randomizing it until you get something you like. It does dye your hair pure white which is a dead give away, so buy some dye from your hair from a vendor.

Hopefully with all this, you will be able to find your way into the shadows. I wish you happy hunting, and may you line your pockets with gold.
~Ains Ool Gown

P.S if you want some tails of old thiefdom, chad sexington was a name know across servers for his online stories of his thieving escapades. He makes a very good source of research and experience, even if it is a bit outdated.
 
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Beaver Burgler

Apprentice
Need to remove the reference to ninjitsu. It's not an available skill. Not sure about permanent grey either but I don't believe that's the case here.

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_n0x

Master
Need to remove the reference to ninjitsu. It's not an available skill. Not sure about permanent grey either but I don't believe that's the case here.
Perma grey is a thing. Also, there are no powerscrolls for snooping, stealing, hiding, or stealth. Also, there are no invis potions.

Thanks for contributing content, though! Good guide.
 

Beaver Burgler

Apprentice
Perma grey is a thing. Also, there are no powerscrolls for snooping, stealing, hiding, or stealth. Also, there are no invis potions.

Thanks for contributing content, though! Good guide.
Good to know. I know I had people steal from me and recall elsewhere and I'd run into them two minutes later and they're blue. Guess they had died though.

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Keltonator

Grandmaster
Good to know. I know I had people steal from me and recall elsewhere and I'd run into them two minutes later and they're blue. Guess they had died though.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Yeah, once a player steals from you, they will be grey to you until they die. Also keep in mind that if a thief steals from another player (and before they die), even though they are blue to you, you can still attack them. You will still get the 'committing this act may be a criminal offense' prompt if you have that turned on; but if you are 100% certain that they are perma grey to another player, once you attack they will turn grey to you and be unable to can guards or anything, and you will not turn grey.
 

Rikket_The_Rogue

Grandmaster
You forgot the duel client Brit crafting area thief.

One char with magery - reveal .
Second char - attempt to steal

And that is why I think players should be limited to one account online at a time.

Well, that and reds using a 2nd character to retrieve their head, negating the bounty system. And many other work-ah-rounds that cancel out rules by using 2 accounts at once.
 
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