Snooping
Snooping
Snooping is the prerequisite skill for targeted Stealing — without it, a thief can only blindly grab a random item from a target's pack and hope it's valuable. With Snooping, the thief sees into the target's backpack, picks the highest-value piece, and steals it specifically. The skill is also useful in its own right for reconnaissance: see what loot a player is carrying before deciding whether to engage.
Mechanics and rules
To snoop, stand within one tile of the target and double-click their pack. The skill check rolls against the target's awareness:
- Success: the thief sees the contents of the pack as if it were their own (full inventory listing, item icons, stack counts).
- Failure: no peek; gain check still rolls.
Whether the snoop succeeds or fails, there is a chance the target detects the attempt:
- Nearby players receive a chat message that the thief snooped them.
- If the thief is hidden, there is a chance the snoop reveals them.
Higher Snooping skill increases the success rate and decreases the detection rate. At GM, both probabilities are favorable.
What can be snooped
| Target | Snoop allowed |
|---|---|
| NPC backpacks | Yes |
| Pack Horse / Pack Llama (any) | Yes |
| Player Character backpack (Felucca) | Yes |
| Player Character backpack (other facets, non-guildmate) | No |
| Guildmate backpack (any facet) | Yes |
| Player Pet backpack (Felucca) | Yes |
| Player Pet backpack (other facets, non-guildmate) | No |
The Felucca-only restriction for non-guildmate PCs is fundamental — the entire targeted-thievery game is locked to Felucca. Trammel/Malas/Ilshenar/Tokuno/Ter Mur PCs cannot be snooped without prior guild affiliation.
The guildmate exception means a thief can train Snooping (and later Stealing) on cooperating guild members in any facet. Be aware that snooping a guildmate without permission is grounds for immediate expulsion in most guilds.
Karma and consequences
Snooping is not a criminal act — the thief is not flagged as a criminal, cannot be Guard-Whacked for it, and may snoop in city guard zones without immediate consequence.
It does, however, lower Karma with each successful or failed attempt. Repeated snooping drags the thief's Karma into negative territory, making them eligible for Necromancy spells like Vampiric Embrace and certain demonic-faction NPC interactions.
Skill cap and item bonuses
Snooping has no Power Scrolls. The maximum skill is Grandmaster (100) — the only thievery skill capped at 100 in modern UO.
Only one item grants a Snooping bonus: the Burglar's Bandana — drops from various rare event tables and provides a small +Snooping property. Despite the lack of bonus items and Power Scrolls, the skill has no cooldown between use attempts, so gain rolls fire as fast as the player can click — by far the fastest-training thievery skill.
Training
Visit a bank or moongate with high traffic. Locate any pack animal or NPC outside the guard zone:
| Target | Method |
|---|---|
| Unattended pack animals (e.g., Pack Llama left at the bank) | Best — they don't move or interfere. Click pack, success/fail, repeat. |
| NPC backpacks | Open the NPC paperdoll, double-click the backpack icon. Many NPCs in any city work. |
| Tame pets | Same as PC pets — Felucca-only or guildmate. |
A simple last-target macro firing once per second is the conventional training routine. The lack of cooldown means the macro can be left to run for hours unattended; gain rolls accumulate steadily.
Scrolls of Alacrity (single-use temporary skill boost) and Scrolls of Transcendence (permanent skill bump) both exist for Snooping — useful for closing the last few points to GM if random gain stalls.
Strategy notes
- Snooping is the foundation of profitable theft. A thief without Snooping grabs a random item — usually a low-value reagent or a single gold coin. With Snooping, the thief targets the player's most expensive item: a 250-million-gold Soul Seeker, an event drop, a scroll. The skill gap from random-grab to targeted-grab is the entire economic value of the thief role.
- Snooping reveals item-property loaded gear. A thief eyeing a target's Imbued ring before stealing can pick the actual property values, not just guess from the icon. Item-property snooping shows full property text on hover.
- Karma bottoms out fast. A few hours of bank training will drag a fresh character's Karma into Lord-of-Evil territory. This is desirable for Necro/Vampire builds (Vampiric Embrace requires negative Karma) but undesirable for Paladins, who lose Karma-dependent Chivalry damage.
- No cooldown means fast macros. A 1-Hz click loop on a Pack Llama at the West Britain Bank is the most-common Snooping training routine in modern UO. Multiple gain rolls per second.
- Guild snoop trick. Two friends in the same guild can stand next to each other, one snoops the other repeatedly. Trammel-legal training; faster than NPC clicking because the partner can move to refresh the target.
See also
Stealing, Hiding, Stealth, Lockpicking, Burglar's Bandana, Pack Llama, Pack Horse, Karma, Felucca, Vampiric Embrace, Scroll of Alacrity, Scroll of Transcendence, Thief, Bank.