Thieving



Thieving is a members-only skill which allows players to obtain coins and items by stealing from market stalls, chests, or by pickpocketing non-player characters. This skill also allows players to unlock doors and disarm traps.

Pickpocketing
This is the act of walking up to an NPC and right clicking them, then selecting Pickpocket. If successful, you will gain Thieving experience and possibly coins or various items. However, it is possible for the NPC to notice a pickpocket, in which case the NPC will yell "What do you think you're doing?" or some other surprised saying and stun you for four seconds, which will take off a couple of your Hitpoints. Because of the possibility for damage, it is recommended that players bring food. The equipment that a player wears does not affect the success rate, aside from H.A.M. clothing, Dodgy necklace, Ardougne cloak or Gloves of silence. However, equipping a bow without arrows makes it impossible to accidentally attack an NPC.

Contrary to common belief, the player does NOT need to wait until the pickpocket animation is finished before pickpocketing again. The NPC may be pickpocketed as soon as the sound of the item stolen entering your inventory is played. This could effectively double your experience per hour if you were previously waiting for the animation to finish.

A useful trick that allows pickpocket spamming is by going to the Controls (Joystick) settings tab and changing the attack option priority to 'Always right-click', this effectively turns the Attack NPC left-click into pickpocket NPC left-click for most NPCs.

Master Farmer
When pickpocketing a Master Farmer the seed type is rolled first. Once selected, the seed itself is rolled.

Stalls
There are a large number of stalls throughout RuneScape, although many of them are in the Ardougne Market. Unlike pickpocketing NPCs, stealing from stalls have a 100% success rate as long as you are not in the line of sight of the stall owner or any of the nearby guards. It should be noted you may not interact with the stall owner for up to 10 minutes after the last theft from his or her stall.

Chests
There are chests scattered throughout RuneScape. Some chests will have traps on them, to discover what lay inside of them, the trap must be disarmed using the Thieving skill, click on the chest and select "Search for traps" from the drop down menu to allow your character to disarm the trap and obtain the items inside. After a player thieves from a chest, he will need to wait for a short period of time before he can again thieve from the chest. If "Search for traps" is not selected when attempting to thieve from a chest, the player will attempt to open the chest and take damage, this damage scales off of your current health down to a minimum.

Once chests had dual traps: the initial trap disarmed by the Thieving skill, and a secondary trap that released Poison Gas into the air, so lower level players required caution. Poison Gas was removed in an update.

Doors
Certain doors in RuneScape can not be opened by players unless the lock is picked. In order to pick a lock, right-click on a door and select "Pick Lock". If the player has the required Thieving level, the door will then be opened. Some doors will require a lockpick to successfully pick the lock.

Training strategies

 * For levels 1-5, pickpocket men in Edgeville (3 coins/pick).
 * For levels 5-21, steal cakes from the Baker's Stall in Ardougne.
 * For levels 21-55, loot urns at the Pyramid Plunder minigame.
 * For levels 55-91, pickpocket Bandits and Menaphites. or pickpocket ardougne knights.
 * For levels 91-99, return to Pyramid Plunder.
 * For levels 15 and up pickpocketing H.A.M. Members can prove to be profitable because you can get clue scrolls while pickpocketing them; similarly, from level 38, pickpocketing Master Farmers provides a chance to collect valuable seeds.

Random events
There are four different random events that are specific to thieving.
 * Watchman - A watchman may attempt to arrest a player and begin to attack him or her. This event has been discontinued.
 * Poison Gas - When thieving from a chest, a poison cloud may appear, which will poison your character. This event has been discontinued.
 * Pillory - It is possible that your character will be teleported to a pillory in Yanille, Varrock, or Seers' Village, where shapes must be matched in order to pick the lock and return to where your character was thieving. It is possible for players to throw food at the trapped player, although it wont do any damage.
 * When picking pockets in the HAM Dungeon, it is possible to get slightly concussed from the blow (Higher Agility prevents this from happening as often). Get concussed 3 times, and you will be knocked out and thrown out of the dungeon.

Thieving minigames
There are a number of minigames which are based on or include Thieving.
 * Pyramid Plunder - the desert city Sophanem has a pyramid where you can thieve for artefacts. As you get further into the pyramid, higher Thieving is required but it brings increasing amounts of Thieving experience. One of the fastest methods to train Thieving.
 * Blackjack - Another Thieving activity in the desert.
 * Rogues' Den - Traverse a maze with Thieving and Agility obstacles. Modest experience. More interesting for thieves is to open the safes in the dungeon. Good for experience and for the gems that you obtain as loot.
 * Sorceress's Garden - An interesting game where you dodge guards and try to get fruit. Requires patience, a bit of skill, and experience, but yields excellent experience. Has four levels each giving increased experience at levels 1, 25, 45, and 65. Bring empty beer glasses (can be obtained for free at the shelves in the sorcerer's house).

Trivia

 * Thieving is one of the only skills that does not require any items for training (unless you're blackjacking).