It was an early morning, on a slightly overcast, cool day when Flinnegan
was born. It never ended up raining that day, nor did the sky ever clear
until the next morning. Most of the halflings in the village enjoyed the
break from the glaring sun, without having to trade it for a day of mud and
rain. But to summarize, Flinnegan was born on a dull, dreary day. And he's
pretty sure the gods decided that it was his responsibility to make up for
it through the rest of his life, by making everyone elses life anything but
dull.
His childhood was much the same as most other halfling child's upbringing.
Travel every morning from their village to the nearby city of Seringale, and
spend the morning and afternoon robbing dumb adventurers. Meanwhile his
mother would spend the day at the market, or at the local tavern drinking
with the other halfling moms. Meanwhile Flinnegan's father, and many of the
other male halflings of the village, would spend the day doing odd errands,
like hiding bodies, or burning down houses of people who owed them money.
Flinnegan, and many other children from the village, learned other important
things along the way, like how to read and write, from an elf who owed the
village protection money, and how to use a handful of different weapons from
a dwarf who spent several summers in their village, drinking the towns fine
apple cider, and smoking several barrels of their smooth, earthy tabaac.
Flinnegan became an adult, as any child who doesn't die, is bound to become.
His village placed very few expectations upon their young adults, don't owe
anyone large sums of money, don't offend anyone who is powerful to raze the
village, don't join any cults. This was all and well and good for several
years, as Flinnegan lived out of his parents house, and joined the other
males of the village in their everyday tasks. But as some are prone to do,
and not completely uncommon for people born in their village, he grew a
little squirrely playing it safe, and went on a hard bender. Not a bender
as in someone who goes on a wild drinking spree, no. A hard bender, as in a
common born and bred criminal who goes out of his comfort zone, and robs
people no one with any common sense with, would rob. The sheer thrill of
taking from powerful wizards, knights, shamans, and even city guards, was
like no enjoyment he'd ever had before. He felt like he'd spent the first
twenty years of his life living in a gray and dreary world (much like the
day he was born), but now everything was better! Food and drink tasted
better, the halfling orgies he attended in the village were even MORE fun,
but the sense of satisfaction from knocking out the richest and most
powerful idiots of the realms, gave a sense of euphoria unrivalled.
Oftentimes, he'd just discard their possessions in the river, not having the
patience to fence them, othertimes he'd discreetly place them up for
auction, just to see if the owners were too proud to buy them back or not.
Of course, there's consequences to any action, and not only could he no
longer return to the village to hide out after he'd enraged enough powerful
people, he had to persuade his immediate and extended family to move
somewhere a bit more quiet and discreet. But as halflings are often prone
to wild behaviors that often incite a murderlust in the other folks of
Serin, this went quite smoothly. And while sad he couldn't go visit his
family often, or stay in the village any longer, the knowledge he could now
rob and incite with no real threat of retaliation made up for it by
far(halflings from his village weren't too known to consider their own
mortality). The mere idea of pitting his cunning and reflexes against the
bravest Knight, and the most sinister cunning minds of Legion, made up for
it by far.
And so he began his rampage upon the goodly, and the not-so-goodly folk of
the Realms, instigating many campaigns of promised death upon his body, and
many close investigations of wrong-doing from the lawkeepers of the cities.
The whole time doing whatever it took to get that rush from treading the
razor's edge of promised doom placed upon him. Often this would come in the
form of robberies, other time from cutting remarks to people with thin skin.
Anything short of murder or robbing from the poor, seemed reasonable to him,
in order to achieve that level of nirvana from depriving people of their
pride and possessions.
Description (commended):
Thick and wild, dirty blonde hair is combed back from his eyes hanging up
in the air over the back of his head. Kept at bay only by a generous
application of some oily paste streaked through it, it runs long enough to
shade the back of his neck. The hair on the sides of his head however, is
kept quite short, with only a few long tufts sticking out at the front of
his ears to stand out. His face shows a touch of weathering, with crow's
feet around his blue eyes and worry lines creasing his forehead. Short
enough to mistaken for a human child, he seems fairly thin, though there's
the outline of a potbelly forming above his belt. His hands are massively
disproportionate with his body, sporting wide palms with long slender
fingers. Thick hair runs along the back of them, though it seems to have
been chafed off near the tips of his fingers, which themselves are heavily
callused. His legs, though a touch short for his frame, seem sturdy and
covered in thick curly hair, connecting to the oversized hairy feet that his
people are so well known for.
so how are you able to steal from someone who is awake
Dogran
0 , 0 , 0 .
If you are hidden in the room with someone, you can steal from them. If you are standing in a room with a thief, and they are stepping out of hiding, they are probably stealing from someone.
RIP, probably the best thief ever. Glad you are gone I hated you so much.
Xenyar
0 , 0 , 0 .
I agree, it was a very well played thief. RP'ing the hated, unpopular dude going after the "big pharma" guys(I think that's how's you described it once)... you hit the nail on the head. Fucking annoying. But, that's a thief done well, right?
I was fairly confident going into this character I wasn't going to be winning popularity contests for the style I was planning to play him. I also figured I was going to need to be consistent with my play over 4 or 5 years to even have a chance at HoE based off my long-term plans of antagonizing the central tier of players who made caballed characters. I embraced these truths and trolled consistently in the forums to back up my characters non-apologetic attitude in game. Hopefully people understood I wasn't there to have a go at everybody, just the big fish, whomever they were at any given moment. Unfortunately I was advised I pushed a player to quitting recently. While I realize my style would be frustrating to some players, and that I've made some awkward jokes about people deleting after taking my piece out of them, I never set out with the thought or hope to make people delete or quit the game because of me. I'm not going to apologize for my style of play, but I didn't really see a way forward with him after this incident. I've been advised there's likely to be some thief changes to reduce the impact my style of play had on players, maybe I'll be able to re-roll another halfling thief and try again once people are content with where things are regarding steal and pry.
If someone deleted because they got some gear stolen, they didn’t really belong here. Thieves having steal and hide isn’t new.
Dogran
0 , 0 , 0 .
Anytime we lose a player it is something to be sad about, not something to say 'they didn't really belong here.' At this rate, there will be no one here at all with that attitude.
I don't know the exact circumstances, but I doubt having some stuff stolen will make a player quit. There's gotta be something more to the story here.
BlackWidow
0 , 0 , 0 .
There are certainly other possibilities... Feeling harassed and not having fun is certainly enough reason to quit playing. The whole point of playing AR is to have fun (it is entertainment after all)... Though doing it at everyone else's expense or even griefing people isn't a nice thing to do.
With that said, there IS a thief class... What else do thieves do? Stealing and taking what is not theirs is a core part of their identity, and some people have suggested we remove steal... Removing steal from thieves would be like removing animate dead from the necromancer's repertoire: it takes away a core part of their identity... Anyway I'm starting to ramble here.
My points are twofold: first, there probably was something going on besides simple theft which caused somebody to quit; second, the thief class wouldn't be what it is without its rather annoying skill set (which may or may not need fixing).
So, hang out in Serin, blackjack and steal someone's shit then run to Shadun entrance, quaff recall, run other way and hide.
How is this a challenging or fun gameplay, especially for the victim? You grind days for your consumables only to have it removed in 2 minutes and there's NOTHING you can do about it, especially after thieves got lag immunity. Which means they just need to strike every 24 ticks to be able to gtfo freely.
There is very little challenge here to be had. I could literally roll the same character, as could anyone else with half a clue in AR and do the exact same thing. Flinnegan would never try to steal when there was a threat of dying. E.g. if there was more than 1 person in group or there was another thief/shadow with detect hidden online. So dont give me this "skill" shit. It literally takes none. Just be cautious of the who list and where and quit out when shit may be dangerous, otherwise rinse and repeat the same cheese.
Kalist19
1 , 0 , 0 .
Check out this thief thread in the forum I started back in May to chat about how thief class is anti-fun for everyone except for the thief and how I thought it might decrease players’ desire to log in and play. There were some neat ideas in there to make this play style more difficult/impossible for the thief. Ultimately it didn’t go anywhere but might be a good time to revisit.
I totally agree that it’s dumb that a thief can log in and spend a couple minutes to destroy 10 hours worth of grinding someone did just to be a troll.
Dogran 
0 , 0 , 0 . If you are hidden in the room with someone, you can steal from them. If you are standing in a room with a thief, and they are stepping out of hiding, they are probably stealing from someone.
[reply to Ozaru]Xenyar 
0 , 0 , 0 . I agree, it was a very well played thief. RP'ing the hated, unpopular dude going after the "big pharma" guys(I think that's how's you described it once)... you hit the nail on the head. Fucking annoying. But, that's a thief done well, right?
[reply to tayyah][reply to Flinnegan]
Dogran 
0 , 0 , 0 . Anytime we lose a player it is something to be sad about, not something to say 'they didn't really belong here.' At this rate, there will be no one here at all with that attitude.
[reply to Stiehl26]BlackWidow 
0 , 0 , 0 . There are certainly other possibilities... Feeling harassed and not having fun is certainly enough reason to quit playing. The whole point of playing AR is to have fun (it is entertainment after all)... Though doing it at everyone else's expense or even griefing people isn't a nice thing to do.
Davairus 0 , 0 , 0 . Nothing to see here.
[reply to Xenyar]With that said, there IS a thief class... What else do thieves do? Stealing and taking what is not theirs is a core part of their identity, and some people have suggested we remove steal... Removing steal from thieves would be like removing animate dead from the necromancer's repertoire: it takes away a core part of their identity... Anyway I'm starting to ramble here.
My points are twofold: first, there probably was something going on besides simple theft which caused somebody to quit; second, the thief class wouldn't be what it is without its rather annoying skill set (which may or may not need fixing).
How is this a challenging or fun gameplay, especially for the victim? You grind days for your consumables only to have it removed in 2 minutes and there's NOTHING you can do about it, especially after thieves got lag immunity. Which means they just need to strike every 24 ticks to be able to gtfo freely.
There is very little challenge here to be had. I could literally roll the same character, as could anyone else with half a clue in AR and do the exact same thing. Flinnegan would never try to steal when there was a threat of dying. E.g. if there was more than 1 person in group or there was another thief/shadow with detect hidden online. So dont give me this "skill" shit. It literally takes none. Just be cautious of the who list and where and quit out when shit may be dangerous, otherwise rinse and repeat the same cheese.
Kalist19 
1 , 0 , 0 . Check out this thief thread in the forum I started back in May to chat about how thief class is anti-fun for everyone except for the thief and how I thought it might decrease players’ desire to log in and play. There were some neat ideas in there to make this play style more difficult/impossible for the thief. Ultimately it didn’t go anywhere but might be a good time to revisit.
Davairus 1 , 0 , 1 . b-
[reply to twerpalina]I totally agree that it’s dumb that a thief can log in and spend a couple minutes to destroy 10 hours worth of grinding someone did just to be a troll.
https://abandonedrealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13463