Oblivion:Burglary

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Contents 1 General Information 2 The Why 3 The Who 3.1 Robbery of an empty house 3.2 Robbery while owner sleeps 3.3 Robbery in a guarded house 4 The When 5 The What 6 The How 6.1 Common part 6.2 Robbery of empty house 6.3 Robbery while owner sleeps 6.4 The owner is present and awake 7 Elements of use

[edit] General Information

Burglary is an optional component of Oblivion, already available in the previous games. In Oblivion, it becomes much more important due to the way the Thieves Guild works. Burglary is the only way to progress in the ongoing Independent Thievery quest and therefore move up ranks in the Thieves Guild. However, being a member of the guild is not required in order to commit a burglary.

Selling stolen goods can easily be done through the Thieves Guild's fences if you are a member. Outside of the guild, your options for selling stolen loot are much more limited. Manheim Maulhand, the merchant at the Inn of Ill Omen, is the only regular merchant who will accept stolen goods. Completing the Dark Brotherhood questline will allow you to fence items with the Dark Brotherhood Murderers. Or you can purchase the Thieves Den official plugin, which provides access to multiple fences. Note that for Thieves Guild members, any items solds to one of these unofficial fences will not count towards the Independent Thievery quest.^{[verification needed -- In which patch levels does this occur - doesn't seem to occur in the fully-patched version]}

[edit] The Why

There are many reasons to commit a burglary in Oblivion. The main one is probably to get money by selling stolen goods, even if only to advance in the Thieves Guild. You can easily earn 500 shiny coins with a single wealthy house, and having a good Speechcraft skill and finding the good house can net you past the thousand.

Another reason is to find specific gear. Spotted a nice chainmail, but someone else is wearing it? Why not steal it? Especially when that gear is known to be magical, burglary can give you access to some interesting equipment options. A Thieves Guild fence can clean the "stolen" status of the item for you for a fee. To do this, first sell the item to the fence, then buy it back. The fence keeps the margin between sale and purchase price, but the item will no longer be marked stolen in your inventory.

[edit] The Who

There are three basic options:

[edit] Robbery of an empty house

In case you don't have a specific target in mind, finding the right house to break into can be a tough job. There are some simple rules to find a house though.

• Find someone who is leaving his/her house. Stalk that person for a couple of hours. The idea is to get their time schedules, as they are basically the same every day. If that person stays outside from 6 pm to 1 am, you know you have those hours to explore his house the next day.
• Find someone wandering in the city. A random person can be just as good as the case above, except you will have to find their house, if they have any.

[edit] Robbery while owner sleeps

• Usually, a locked door is enough of a hint that the house is a target. Mistakes won't be critical. If the owner is outside, all the better. If the owner is inside and awake, politely leave the stealth mode and leave, don't panic, usually the worst thing that happens is that you're asked to leave. Obey, wait for another opportunity, as the owner of such a house often stays awake for the remainder of the night.

[edit] Robbery in a guarded house

If you feel confident enough with your burglary skills, you can try more challenging targets. The Imperial Palace in the centre of the Imperial City (not much to steal, mostly for self esteem), the castles of the various counts and countesses in each city, the headquarters of a guild, are various examples of suitable targets for a master thief.

In these buildings, rules for burglary are different:

• There are guards patrolling, and some of them won't simply ask you to leave, they might demand that you leave, or even attack you.
• There are times when some people are asleep, but due to the large number of people in those buildings, there is no definite safe time to come in.
• There are keys. This might sound insignificant, but if you can steal those keys from their owner, opening most doors becomes much easier. Sometimes, those keys are even necessary.
• Some of the most valuable goods are held by people, while common houses have their prizes in chests and drawers.

[edit] The When

Preferably when the owner of a property is out. If they are out of their house, you know you'll be alone to loot the place to your heart's content. However, you can also do it while they sleep. In this case, it is much harder to know when they sleep, but it comes back to the same plan.

[edit] The What

Steal only what is valuable. Take anything that weighs less than it is worth. In other words, look for items that have a gold/weight ratio above 1, or even better, above 2. SAVE before trying to steal from a sleeping person. If you're a vampire, you can safely drink their blood.

[edit] The How

[edit] Common part

1. First of all, clear your inventory, and remove anything heavy you know you won't use. Leave them at your house if you have one, sell them if you don't need them at all, or leave them somewhere. Buy some lockpicks if you know where to buy some (usually from Thieves Guild members or Shady Sam). Buy the spells you think can be useful, the scrolls, the potions, etc.
2. The next step is to enter the house. The first obstacle is the door. If it is not locked, there is no problem. However, if it is locked, you must unlock it. For this, you can use a spell (Alteration school of magic) or lockpicks. Using a spell to unlock a door or a chest, even if it doesn't belong to you, isn't illegal, so you don't need to hide in order to do it. However, you must hide if you unlock the door with lockpicks.
3. Once inside, take what you want, check the least obvious places, such as looking in basements for valuable wines.
4. If the owner shows up, don't panic. Just cease your thieving activity and head to the exit. If you meet the person, you may nicely greet them or even chat some, and if asked to leave, politely obey. Trespassing is a crime only if you refuse to leave when asked. It's good to have a quest for the person in question, as they will likely forgive your trespassing once asked for quest matters.
5. Once done, just leave the house. Leaving a house is not illegal, even if the house isn't yours, and even if you illegally unlocked the door. So, when leaving, you don't need to hide.

[edit] Robbery of empty house

• Try to hurry up. The owner will eventually be back.
• Feel free to use any means you wish, unlock spells, running, jumping, pushing to your advantage.
• Don't ponder too long on which items to pick, grab all that looks valuable, then if overencumbered, enter inventory (it pauses game) and drop (shift-click) the least valuable junk. You may do it in a little-used place or near the entrance so you can go back pick to it up later. The owner won't notice the mess unless you pick it in their sight.

[edit] Robbery while owner sleeps

• Remain in sneak mode at all times. Avoid jumping and knocking things.
• You can take your time, but don't overdo it. You should be more picky about what you take (dropping lots of stuff on the floor at once is bound to make noise).
• Don't cry if you can't take something valuable because it's too heavy. You can come back for it the next night.
• If you hear footsteps, stop stealing and head for the exit. The session is over for the night. Don't panic if you're spotted, just leave the sneak mode (nothing worse than accidentially pickpocketing angered owner), then casually leave.
• If stealing items from the room with the bed, keep an eye on the bed. As long as the owner lies down, you're unseen and can steal. If they wake up, just stand up and leave.
• If you want to pickpocket a sleeping person, SAVE! It's very likely they will wake up and call the guards. Sometimes you can't steal certain items from the person unseen, while others are easy. Reload and try other combination.

[edit] The owner is present and awake

• If the owner wants you to leave, just obey. Come back later when the owner is asleep or away.
• You can't rob everything in sight, but if you spotted something you desire, walk to the other end of the house, the owner will follow you, save, run to the other end of the house, enter stealth mode and quickly grab whatever you wanted before the owner arrives.
• If the item is right in the middle, in clear sight, knock it by running against it at high speed, then kick it to some obscure corner by running over it (don't grab/pick), then repeat the "leading away" trick above. Alternatively, you can use a Telekinesis spell to move the object right next to the door, and then release it for a later session.
• If you can get a combined 100% or more chameleon effect (Illusion school) from spells and equipment, you are effectively invisible and that won't break when you take objects. You can walk right in and snatch anything you'd like from nearly any house.
• Alternatively, you can Demoralize the occupant and cause him/her to run away, leaving you free to loot his/her house.

[edit] Elements of use

There are quite a few elements important or useful in the burglary career. Most of them are not essential however.

• Sneak : Obviously, when you unlock the door, you need the sneak skill to be able to do it unseen. Then, if the owner is sleeping, by staying in sneak mode you will avoid waking them up, allowing you to rob the whole house dry. If your Sneak is less than 50, pay attention to your footwear. It's probably best to go barefoot if you have low Sneak skill. Once you become a Journeyman, it doesn't matter any more.
• Security : Needed to unlock the front door of the house, along with any other door and chest inside the house. Alteration spells bypass the need for that skill, as does the Skeleton Key. Also, if you get the hang of the lockpicking minigame, near-null security level is not an obstacle.
• Illusion : Illusion is a useful school of magic, as it allows you to use Chameleon and Invisibility. It also allows you to influence people who guard whatever you are stealing (Charm, Demoralize, etc.)
• Alteration : This school of magic gives you access to the Open spells for unlocking, and to the Feather spells, both of which are very useful.
• Mysticism : Detect Life can be useful to find out who is where in the house. Telekinesis can occasionally be very helpful
• Vampires : The first level of vampire gives you an excellent Detect Life spell (very long range, for a very low cost).
• Crime: Be sure to know the consequences of your crimes, and find out how to avoid punishment.