Thieving guide

by: Lightning
Thanks to: Swedemike, Clampion, jammy316, Josh , Jask14, Sholtar, Akumei, Franek2003, Kidgamer, roy, Atom, Cehere, BOPOH, cat1205123, Garla, Andrew012345, Dj mochasins, Mage_burner, Tonyjrman, Purcell364

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The thieving skill is used for a number of different activities. The main uses are pickpocketing, lock picking, trap disarming and stealing from market stalls. First you have to start this skill by pickpocketing men

Pickpocketing

To start this skill, you first need to find a man and right click on him and select the pickpocket option. There is a chance that the man you are stealing from will notice and will attack you. As your thieving level increases, you will get noticed less often. For example the success rate of pickpocketing guards at lvl 66 is around 70% (this was tested by 200 tries to pickpocket them). You can not pickpocket from players, only certain NPC's.

Character
Location
Level
Required
Exp
Fatigue
%
Loot
Man
Al Kharid , Faldor, Varrock, Edgeville, Ardougne and Lumbridge
0
8
0.16
3 coins 
Farmer
Lumbridge
10
14.5
0.29
9 Coins 
Warrior
Al Kharid 
25
26
0.52
18 coins 
Rogue (Lv. 21)
North-East corner of the new wilderness at lvl 54
32
  35.5
0.71
8 air runes (common), lockpick (for the locked house further west containing 3 chests and enough animated axes to make it nearly impossible to move) (more uncommon), wine (uncommon), poisoned iron dagger (rare), coins (25gp or 40gp) (most of the time)
Guard

Faldor, Varrock, Edgeville and Ardougne
40
46.5
0.934
30 coins 
Knight
Ardougne
55
84.5
1.69
50 coins 
Watchman

2 story house on the wall bordering
Yanille
You need to climb the handholds on the side of the house.
65
137.5
2.74
60 gold+1 bread
Paladin
Ardougne
70
152
3.04
1 chaos rune and 80 coins
Gnomes
Gnome Stronghold
75
198
3.56
1 Gold nugget, 1 earth rune, 200-400gp, swamp toad, king worm
Hero
Ardougne
80
274
5.74
200 coins most of time or 100gp, 300gp,fire orb, cut diamond, goldnugget, 2 deathrunes, bloodrune or wine

Stealing from market stalls

To steal from market stalls, you have to go to Ardougne. There are 5 different stalls located there (cake, gems, fur, silver and silk). When you try to steal from these stalls , you could be caught by the stall holders or certain NPC's, like Guards and Knights. Best thing to do is wait until the NPC's are distracted or dead.

To steal from a market stall right click on it and then select the *steal from* option.

Rock Cake Notes: You must have access to the Ogre Marketplace south of Yanille to steal from this stall (meaning you have to be at least half way through, or completed the Watch Tower Quest). 1 click only to steal. After 1 hour of straight clicking, you can get approximately 15,700 experience. by Myron

Stall
Level Required
Exp
Fatigue
%
Loot
Cake Stall
5
16
0.32
 1cake
Rock Cake Stall
15
16
0.32
1 rock cake/useless
Silk Stall
20
24
0.48
 1 silk
Fur Stall
35
36
0.72
 1 grey wolf fur
Silver Stall
50
54
1.08
 1 silver nugget
Spices Stall
65
81
1.62
 1 Pot of Spice
Gems Stall
75
16
0.32
 Any uncut gem: sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds (being the rarest of course.)

Lockpicking

Some doors in Runescape you have to pick their locks to open them. To pick the door right click on it and select the picklock option. As your level increases in pickpocking, you be able to access places you couldn't before.

Door Location
Level Required
Exp
1 story houses
7
4
Door to nature rune chest
- Ardougne
16
15
2 story houses
21
15
The door of the house next to the bakery stall

14
15
In the mansion the door that leads to stairs
21
15
The locked door just past the church
16
15
The sewers underneath Mansion the door to get to mining rocks
- Ardougne mines
31
25
Door to blood rune chest
- Ardougne
46
37
Door to paladin building
- Ardougne
61
50
In Yanille there's some stairs with a door which you will need a lockpick to open
84
50
Pirate door
39
35

 

Chest Location
Level Required
Exp
Fatigue
%
Loot
Nature rune Chest 2nd Floor
- Ardougne
28
25
0.5
Nature rune + 20 gold
Disarm Chest
18
8
0.16
-
Blood rune Chest
- Ardougne
59
250
5
2 Blood rune and 500 gold
Chest paladine building
- Ardougne
72
500
10
1 shark 1 adam ore and 1 uncut sapp
+ 1.000 Gold
The 3 chests at lvl 54 wild in the house that contains the animated axes. Chest have only 5 sec reloot time.
10
7.5
0.15
10 coins 

4 chests in pirate house lvl 54 wildneress west side of member wilderness
those chests reloot normally like all others (2 min)
-
-
-
2 chests by middle door
??
5
0.1
Nothing
First chest on south wall of house
??
35
0.7
1 nature and 3gp
2nd chest on south wall of house
43
125
2.5
50gp
The chest in the little room in Hemming requires lvl 47 and a lockpick to pick. It takes about 2 minutes to refill.
47
150
3
five steel arrow heads, 20gp

 

In the wilderness there are some places you can't access. You need to pickpocket Rogues (in wilderness), which requires 35 thieving. By pickpocketing the Rogues you will get an item called Lockpick. Right click on the doors and select picklock. If you are high enough in your pickpocketing skills, you will be allowed to enter.

Trap Disarming

Certain objects such as chests and stairs have traps on them. To find a trap right click on the chest and see if there's a option"search for traps". If you don't disarm trap then you receive damage or possibly other penalties. If you have high enough thieving level then you will be able to disarm them. Remember that traps do reset again later.

Skill Training Strategys


Mage_Burner's Guide to thieving:

Level 1:
When starting to thief, you have to pickpocket lvl 9 Men . You can do it at some place with just 1 man spawn, but if you want some extra fast leveling, do it at the house full of men in Edgeville. (or maybe not since you'll only be there for 4 lvls until...)

Level 5:
Ok, you have now looted those poor men clean, time to get moving to the good stuff. Go to Ardougne and start thieving from the cake stand there (yummy). Do so until you reach...

Level 25:
Now you will actually start your thieving career. Go to the castle on the west side of east ardougne. (hard? just look around until you find...) Female Warriors. (You can also try out varrock castle, I liked Ardougne better though, your choice). These are what you'll spend your next 15 levels on. So naturally the next level will be...

Level 40:
Now we're starting to talk thieving skills here. Go to the second floor of Varrock castle (more specifically, the guard quarters, if you don't find any guards (or at least the bones of them if someone is leveling there) then you're at the wrong place. Why here? Well, there are a lot of guards in a small space and beds are really near for quick sleep. (You can alternatively check the guard quarters in the Black Knight castle, but I think it's a more popular leveling place = less exp for you ;-)). Guards are surprisingly fast exp, so keep at it until you are...

Level 70:
And here we are, you can now thieve from paladins (THE place to do that is the paladin tower in Ardougne, up the stairs from the place you used to steal from warriors). Not much to say about these, just keep thieving from them until you are level 99. (If you want to bother that much. ;-) )

THIS IS A LITTLE GUIDE ABOUT WHEN TO THIEVE DIFFERENT THINGS by MOLLERGATA

At level 5 you should thieve from baker stall (15 exp), but as soon as you reach level 15, go for silk.
Silk gives 24 ex, but is guarded by knights and guards. You get silk about 4/5 of the time.
Fur stall, requiring level 35 thieving, is the best thieving place yet. No guards in this area, and a knight is not common. Fur regenerates about 1 every 15-20 sec.
Silver, which requires lvl 50 thieving, is very hard to get. It's right in middle of Ardougne where you can't hide anywhere. Lesson is: fur stall gives good exp and is safest place. It is not wise to pick NPC pockets. Anyhow if you get good experience a stall is always better. And for those who think trap diasarming is good training, you are very wrong. It gives lots of exp, but loot regenerates every 20 sec.

Last updated by Tonyjrman : 11/02/03