A Comprehensive Guide to Looting
Brought to you by the Galads and the Looter's Lair Website

Part I: Starting Out

What is Looting?

Well, very simply put, looting is the acquiring of someone else's possessions off their corpse. That's it in a nutshell. However, for those of us who make it a profession - an art even - it is much, much more! Unlike most other professions in UO, looting takes more than just high skill levels to be successful. It takes creativity, ingenuity and general game smarts. You have to understand most of the game mechanics, be on the defensive against anti-looters, know what to loot and what to leave, know how and when to escape in various situations and scenarios, as well as come up with new methods on the spur of the moment. You also need to avoid making enemies of everyone you meet. Developing more enemies just makes your job harder. But if you can develop friends, or better yet: fans, then your job will be easier, more fun, more profitable, and generally more rewarding.

As a looter, you could actually be roleplaying (yes, roleplaying!) a rogue. Once you have developed the style of your character, stay in that role. Others will come to appreciate you more for it, and may even totally change their view of you as a looter. The Galads are big fans of old swashbuckling movies, and have modeled their characters after heroes like Robin Hood, Zorro, D'Artagnan, and pirates of the high seas. If you think about it, all of these heroes were rogues. Robin Hood was an outlaw - a looter, in fact! He robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. Well, along these lines, we have been known to give away extra loot that won't fit in our bank boxes, or even return loot to a victim if they have the right attitude, and we're feeling generous. Zorro, too, was an outlaw, although he fought political corruption. Yet, you will find some of his style in us as well. D'Artagnan, though one of the Kings Musketeers, became an outlaw by opposing the Cardinal and his men. Once again, he had a certain style about him that made him likable - a character you cared about. And of course, the pirates! That is essentially what we are! Pirates of UO. And who doesn't have a certain admiration for pirates? Role up all these characters, and throw in some additional comic relief, and you have the Galads - looters extraordinaire! ^^

You'll see in upcoming sections that as a looter, you should roleplay a certain style and you will have more fun than you ever dreamed of. You will find in this guide tips for creating your character, tricks for being the best looter you can be, and also how to have the kind of fun you've seen us having in our screenshot episodes. So read on - your UO life is about to change for the better!

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Your Character

Before you begin to make your character, try to decide the type of character you will play. You can get ideas from heroes or villains from movies, books and TV. Your character will be the beginning of your style. Choose an appropriate name, but try to make it unique. Avoid the "Jo3 K3wL L00t3r" type of name. Also, avoid names like: "a corpse"; "I Own Joo"; or "Poopoo Kaka". There are seriously some really STUPID names out there, and yours shouldn't be one of them. Pick a realistic name, even if it takes time to think of one. This is how others will recognize your character, so take pride in it. How you look and dress will be up to you, but again, establish a certain type of character, and go with it. Wherever possible, make him look unique. However, it can sometimes be good NOT to stand out in certain situations. That will be up to you. Carry an extra costume with you and feel free to use incognito to totally change your identity.

Beforehand, you should also consider the type of looter you will play. You can always modify it later if you want to try something else. As a guideline, here are a few types of looters that you can consider...

Basic Looter

The typical looter will rely mostly on hiding (and maybe stealth) as his weapons. He will avoid combat, but will have a lot of fun evading anti-looters. He will be able to avoid detection while gray, and have more opportunities to loot. He will also have a good level of magery, along with high resist. You can also add a few other unique skills (like detect hidden) to spice him up. Overall, the basic looter is a very fun character to play!

Here is a possible skill set for this type of looter (feel free to play around with it!):

Tank Mage/Dex Monkey Looter

This type of character can be fun for those of you who like to PvP. It gives you a chance to fight back against those pesky anti-looters, and maybe even get an extra loot in the process. In either case, you can loot more openly and use the invisibility spell instead of hiding. You can also use this character solely as a looter - being simply survive attacks, if you aren't into PvP. However, if you want to be a looter, you should probably avoid going red - that's an entirely different profession, with far different motivations.

Here are potential skillsets, but you may want to change them slightly, or save some points for hiding...

Tank Mage:

Dex Monkey:

Thief Looter

This is a type of looter that I have never played, but would if I had the time. The thief looter will be a pure thief, but use his skills towards looting. He will also try to avoid combat at all costs. He will excel in hiding and stealthing, and also be able to steal anti-looters' regs, weapons and runes. He will also steal loot off live critters that others are fighting, especially if the critter looted its last victim! Stealing regs when someone is trapped or low on health can speed up their demise. And just in case one of those anti-looters get frustrated and attacks you, you should be able to disarm him and steal his weapon if it's not insured or blessed. Having anatomy in combination with wrestling will let you pull off a stun punch, rendering your victim helpless while you steal another item or two. Really, the possibilities are endless! When not looting in Felucca, you'll be able to take a character like this to Dungeon Doom and steal the new artifacts and sell them for extremely high prices. Using Powerscrolls on this character may also be the way to go.

Here's a sample skill set for this type of looter, but feel free to play around with the numbers:

Bard Looter

This can also be a very effective character to play. With this character, you will have the basic looter skills, as well as provoke and peacemaking. With this character you will be able to avoid getting killed in high critter scenarios, especially when they are hovering around a corpse. Getting critters to attack each other will help you survive. But you can also lead critters toward unsuspecting players, use peacemaking so that they no longer target you, then hide so that they will attack someone else. Again, you are playing a defensive looter, so you will have no need for combat skills. Your barding skills can be powerful weapons though! Hmmm...a bard looter...looting with a lute...

Try this skill set options on for size:

Once again, these are all just general guidelines. You can play around with them and hopefully create your own perfect looter. If you have any other template suggestions, be sure to let me know.

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Stats and Skills to Choose

The stats and skills you choose will depend on the type of looter you want to be. Here is a general description of how your stats and skills will be used to accomplish looting. You may even come up with your own type of looter!

Stats

Depending on the skills you use, you must try to find the optimal balance of stats for you. Here are some things to keep in mind...

Strength: High strength is vital for looting for two main reasons. The most obvious is that you will be able to sustain more damage and survive longer. But just as importantly, you will be able to carry more loot. To determine how much you can carry, simply multiply multiply your strength by 3.5 and add 40. (ie; STR = 100...100 x 3.5 = 350...350 + 40 = 390...with 100 STR you can carry 390 stones worth of loot!) For the most part, you will want to get your strength as close to 100 as possible. This may require training some combat skills (like wreslting or maces) initially and maybe dropping them later, but it's worth any extra effort.

Intelligence: This will depend on the type of looter you choose. If you want to be a tank mage, or use magic frequently, you will want high intelligence.

Dexterity: High dexterity is perfect for the majority of looters. Dexers will obviously choose high dexterity, as will thieves and bards. It's also important if you use a lot of hiding or stealth.

Skills

Below is a description of how various skills can be used effectively in looting...

Hiding: This has got to be one of the best skills to have as a looter, even if you can't afford to GM it. If possible, get it up towards 90 or more for maximum benefit. At this level you will be able to hide most times if not in line of sight. You'll really want to practice your time with this skill, being able to judge when you will be able to use this skill again. When you master this, you will be able to open a corpse, hide, grab a choice piece of loot, then hide again immediately. Using perfect timing, you will also be able to evade anti's by ducking around a corner and hiding, tele-hiding, and being able to hide each time you are revealed. You can also taunt them, then hide again before they can attack. By far, this is one of the most fun and useful skills for a looter! Other uses can include hiding in doorways, or tight locations to block your victim (discussed more below in the section on blocking), and hiding after you have lead a dangerous critter near a potential victim. Know this skill well and look for new and varying ways to use it. It can save your life and earn you lots of gold!

Stealth: Used in conjunction with hiding, this skill can be a lot of fun to use. After looting you can stealth away while the anti-looters try vainly to reveal you or firefield you. Meanwhile, you will be laughing into a tissue because you are a dozen tiles away. Primarily, you will use this skill for getaways and remaining hidden until you are blue again. You can also use it to stealth up to a victim for a perfect block, stealth up to a corpse to avoid critter entanglement, and generally to just toy with anti-looters. If you GM this skill you will be able to take 10 steps while hidden before having to use the skill again. In AoS, they added Stealth powerscrolls! If you manage to make it 120 in this skill, I assume you'd be able to take uo to 12 steps, meaning by the time you moved all those tiles, you'd be ready to use the skill again. Perpetual hidden walking!

Detect Hidden: This one of the most hilarious skills you can add to your arsenal. You will use this skill to reveal hidden players when dangerous critters are near. For instance, there are always players luring deadly monsters around, then hiding so that it will attack others. Well, you can remain hidden and use this skill to reveal them time and again, just when they think they are safe! And they'll never know it's you...too, too, too funny! You can also reveal other looters who are gray to take the heat off you, or so that you can loot them after the get killed and not need to go gray.

Stealing: Any thief can tell you how good this skill (and it's sister, snooping) can be for a looter. You can steal loot of critters while others fight them - especially critters who looted their last victim! You can steal vital regs and weapons off anti's to deter them from attacking you, or off blocked victims to prevent them from escaping. There are so many possibilities and so much potential with this skill!

Magery: Magery in some form is vital! You need to be able to recall to your looting grounds, as well as to the bank, even if you only have enough skill just to use a scroll. If you're hitting dungeons, Night Sight can really brighten things up. Using the teleport-hide trick can often save your life as well. I will discuss the spells you can use for looting in more detail later, but take your magery as high as you can. Fizzling in tight situations is not acceptable!

Resist: Changed during the Age of Shadows update, though everyone swears you still need this skill to survive in magical combat. Decide for yourself.

Wrestling/Eval/Anatomy: It is still said that wrestling, in combination with Eval Int and Anatomy effects how often your spells are interupted. So, if you plan on casting a lot of spells while in close quarters with angry anti's or critters, you'll want high wrestling so that your chances of being interupted are lessened. Anatomy will also help if you have the Healing skill, and Eval with give you a slight damage bonus to your spells.

Melee Skills: If you want to fight back, or make money fighting critters, grab one or more of these (along with tactics). The new special weapon skills alone make you want to GM them all.

Other: You can pick whatever skills you want. Some good skills to look at depending on the type of looter you play are: evaluate intelligence (at high levels you can see how much mana a mage might have left, and also deal more damage with your offensive spells), meditation (for faster mana rejuvenation), healing (bandages can save your life time and again!), etc...whatever you like. But watch how your skills effect your stats.

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Equipment

When preparing to go out for a night of looting, you want to be well stocked, and yet not carry too much. You want to free up as much weight to tote more loot to the bank. Also, keep in mind that this is a dangerous profession, so you are bound to die from time to time. Don't carry all of your Greater Heal potions, or your best weapons and armor if you don't want to risk losing them. And if you are out fighting critters, but aren't prepared to loot, be careful if a corpse appears. There's nothing worse than wasting an hour fighting critters for gold and items only to lose it all, and a phat lewt to some anti's because you were unprepared! Always remember that whatever you are holding when you are out looting (including previous loots) is in danger of being lost. Loot safe and you'll be richer, and a lot less frustrated!

Armor: Since AoS, armor is now a must for survival. Where you are looting will determine what to where. Enjoy looting in the Fire Dungeon? Make sure you wear armor with high fire resist. If you're going to PvM while you wait for looting opportunities, you may want to wear some gold armor which will boost your luck making the monster loot a bit more desireable. Having high physical resist is also a must for when the anti-looters decide it's time to Noto.

Potions: Always carry a variety of potions! Greater heals are vital and can save your life in tough situations. How many you carry will depend on how often you bank. Keep track of how many you use so that you aren't caught short in a pinch. Don't carry so many that it hurts to lose them if you die. Total refresh can help a lot if a damned anti is whacking away your stamina. It also helps if YOU get blocked - chug it and run through the offending blocker. Carry a couple of these at all times. Poison is now a big deal within UO, so always have a few Greater Cures on hand to rid yourself of any toxins you come in contact with. You MUST carry at least two strength potions for those wonderful ocassions when you are overloaded with loot. Chugging this (or using the spell) will keep you from being overloaded long enough to make your escape and trip to the bank. Dungeon looters should carry some night sight potions to use in a pinch. Depending on your looting style, you may also use agility and explosion potions.

Reagents: How many and what regeants you carry is up to you. Be sure to carry enough recall, teleport and heal regs. Invisibility and night sight regs are important too. If you are new, or have little magery skill, carry less than 20 of each that you need. If you are a more experienced mage, carry as many as you feel comfortable with. Regs can always be replaced, but it's a pain to die with 200 of each on you. Also, keep in mind how many you should make while looting. You'll learn this through experience and knowing your looting grounds well.

Runebooks: I would have to say that this is perhaps the most essential piece of equipment to have. (Carry more than one if necessary - I carry 15!) It will enable you to carry runes to your different looting grounds, different locations within each looting area, and your house and bank - and if you die, you won't lose them! Also, if you die and can't get any regs to recall out, you can use the charges in your book to get you to a bank so that you can get re-equipped and return to looting as quickly as possible. Be sure to check creature corpses for recall scrolls and keep the charges in your book at maximum. Running out of regs, or having a theif steal your black pearl, will not be such a worry if you do this.

Bags of Sending: A fairly new item, these have saved me valuable time on many occasions. Recieved as a reward for doing a Solen quest, these babies will magically teleport items from your backpack directly to your bank box! It's perfect for that situation when you're overloaded, grey, and being surrounded by Anti-Looters, or when you're already overloaded and there are still corpses to be had! Anything can be sent through the bag with the exception of containers. Though, keep in mind that the bag has a limited number of charges. Each use consumes one charge and the Bag can be recharged with Powder of Translocation.

Magic Rings/Bracelets: Since AoS made the game more item based than skill based, magical bonuses started popping up on rings and bracelets which are commonly found as monster loot. Some aren't worth looking at twice, some are overlooked completely, and some are downright godlike. These little items can really help you get the jump on other looters, and help you survive in tough situations. Some of the better bonuses include Enhance Potions %: which is perfect for when you're down to 5 hp and you have only one greater heal left, Night Sight: No more worrying about the lights going out in the dungeons at inopportune times, and Spell Damage Increase %.
Others have attributes which will raise your strength, intelligence, or dexterity, and many have bonuses to certain skills while worn. This is where the huge advantage comes in. Say you're training stealth. Your skill level is 75. Pop on a +7 Stealth ring, and a +8 stealth bracelet and your seven steps just turned into nine!
Other skills this becomes extremely useful for includes Magery, Provocation, Healing, and Meditation. Just be sure if you come across a really nice item that you use Item Insurance on it so you don't lose it to a nasty anti-looter. And that leads us to...

Item Insurance: So it isn't really equipment, but it's worth mentioning. While Item Insurance can be a looter's worst enemy, we can also profit greatly from it. By single clicking your player you can toggle insurance on items. When you die, 600 gold for each insured item will be taken from your bank box, but when you rez, you'll still have those items. This works well if you're deep in a dungeon, just picked up that awesome weapon with killer bonuses, but Ancient Wyrms have surrounded you, leaving little chance for escaping alive. Simply insure, and throw yourself to the wolves...er...wyrms. Keep in mind you can insure up to 11 items!

Savage Paint/Orc Mask: If you plan to be looting in locations containing Savages or Orcs, be sure to grab the corresponding item. Wearing these will make you invisible to the critters. Let them make the kill, and you take the loot. Savage paint is made from tribal berries by GM Chefs, and the Masks of Orcish Kin can be found as loot on savages and orcs. A couple of notes on these items: When wearing these items, be sure not to attack the type of creature you are pretending to be. Your item will explode causing around 50 points of damage, and the critters will then target you! Also, when wearing the orc mask, Ettins will still attack you, so be prepared for that.

Supplies: Other supplies will include some food for replenishing stamina and keeping your character happy, an extra pack or two for organizing your loot, trapped pouches for escaping paralyze (though you will recieve damage!), weapons (if used), and maybe a book with your signature to leave on your victim's corpse or hand to them personally. Again, carry what you need, but don't weigh yourself down needlessly.

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Part II