When I started my first character, she wouldn't steal - or maybe I should stay - I wouldn't steal. She was my goody two shoes who would rarely break the law. But ESO encourages stealing. Yes you can get caught and lose all your stolen items to a guard and even be hunted and killed by a guard if your notoriety level reached the level to warrant be stopped.

I made a second character to experience the seedier side of the game. She is my Master Thief, my pickpocketer, my sneaky character. I have another character, my necro, who is doing the Dark Brotherhood line.

Here I will provide information on the thieving system in ESO, what can you do and how to do it. Over time I will explore all the cities in Tamriel showing the good places to go stealing.

How to Steal

To steal you need to crouch, then interact with the item you want to steal. If you don't know what key to use to crouch, press ESC, select Controls, then look for crouch. (Voltan's Keybinder addon will place a search bar in the Control menu, so things are easier to find.) To eliminate the need to crouch, the NoAccidentalStealing will let you steal by double clicking the interaction key.

What's a bounty?

A bounty is what happens when you do something illegal such as a minor crime such as theft, pickpocketing, lockpicking, breaking into a building, trespassing in a restricted area, killing livestock (you get achievements for killing different livestock) aiding a criminal and mischief (mudballs at guards or dignitaries). The “heat” or infamy AND bounty occurs if you do a major crime such as assualt, If someone sees you stealing, then you get a bounty. If you kill someone, you get a bounty. There are different levels of infamy (“heat”) in the game:

• Upstanding - normal level of characters who have not done anything illegal.
• Disreputable – A guard will stop you to pay off the bounty if they see you and they will take all of your stolen items.
• Notorious – The guard will chase you down and will call in other guards to catch you.
• Fugitive – The guard will kill you on sight.

The game shows your bounty and infamy at the bottom right of the screen as a round circle and gold amount. The round circle will be filled in with red depending on your infamy level. You can have infamy with bounty and bounty without infamy. A sword is inside the circle showing if the guard will kill you on sight - if the sword is red, the guards will move to kill you. You can still run if they are trying to kill you. Tables

What Level	Message	Meter
Fugitive with Kill on Sight
Notorious
Disreputable

When a guard stops you in the “Disreputable” and the “Notorious” level you will get a message

You can chose one of the options. Fleeing is always a viable choice, but fleeing is best if you are outside then sprint as fast as you can. If they trap you, when the trap drops, keep running. It increases your bounty when you run and they can't catch you.

How to Reduce the Bounty and infamy

The bounty and infamy will go down over time. Bounty reduces slower than Infamy.

Glenumbra

Daggerfall