Pickpocket Skill Idea, related to finding Burglars.

[Fool]

After reading:

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38615.0.html

and

http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,38606.0.html

I was thinking it would be interesting if there was a skill that let you 'find' people in a city, and that it would be cool if Pickpockets got it.

The basic idea started with the idea that a character with "Streetwise" could go to a given city room use the skill and get a list of who had been through the area in the last few days. Kind of like a city based version of track. The idea being the character is talking to various VNPCs in the street to get the information.

At the moment I'm thinking that hoods and facewraps block the Streetwise skill, but then you can code Shop NPCs so that they won't deal with someone who's all hooded up. You could even code guard NPCs to randomly stop PCs in the street if they are hooded and make them lower their hoods. It is pretty suspicious.

After further thought I don't really think by itself "Streetwise" would be that great for finding burglars, but it would be a interesting addition to the Pickpocket guild making them valued as spies, informants, etc. There are many scenarios where useful to be able to know that last night so-and-so was at a certain bar and so was another person, or even just to be able to get an idea of individuals habits.

To make it more useful in tracking down burglars, it might require something like NPC shopkeepers to be able to be bribed using streetwise to list who has sold them what in the last few days. (The NPCs memory duration affected by the size of the sale). Burglars would then be required to sit on their stolen goods for a while until they thought no one was still looking, or sell only the more common pieces, or take more extravagant measures to avoid being discovered.

You could then have actual PC fences who purchase at cut rates from Burglars and either have enough stock to be able to Sell to NPCs without raising suspicion due to only selling the stolen goods, or have the resources to transport the stolen goods to another population centre, or can afford to bribe Templars to look the other way.

Crime gangs would be interested also in finding out whos been operating freelance and this would open an avenue of finding this out.

Anyway, the idea has had about 2-3 days of stewing in my head. Enjoy.

[hyzhenhok]

No.

In a big city, it should be very difficult to be spotted in a crowd. It should be difficult to be singled out, even if you're not actively sneaking and hiding.
In a sandstorm-blasted city, people keep their hoods up.
In a big city, it should not be difficult to fence off goods without drawing attention.

There's already a city-based track.

In short, unnecessary and unrealistic.

[mansa]

hunt

?

I've used hunt to find people, and then murder them.  In the city.

[Fool]

Doh. Brain fail.

This is a problem with playing multiple muds, I was sure you couldn't hunt in cities in Arm. My bad.