Utilizador:Mikekearn/Crime

This article is too long and may contain information that is inaccurate or unverifiable.

There are many illegal activities available to the criminally-minded in Oblivion. If you are caught doing something illegal, however, you are liable to be punished, both by the law (the Imperial Guards) and by any guilds or other factions you have joined. Nevertheless, NPCs will often commit crimes such as stealing or pickpocketing.

Crime

You will encounter many objects during the game with a red action icon. That icon indicates that performing the associated action is considered to be a crime: picking up a red item is theft; opening a red door is trespassing; etc. If you proceed to perform the action, and someone sees you, you are assigned a bounty; in addition, the disposition of any witnesses is likely to be decreased. To avoid being seen, use the Sneak skill.

Even if you are not caught committing a crime, your journal keeps track of all your criminal activities.

The penalties for various criminal activities are summarized in the following table. These values are all determined by settings that could in theory be adjusted by mods (see TESCSWiki for details on these settings).

Crime	Bounty	Disposition*
Assault	40	-10
Jailbreak	50	0
Murder	1000	-50
Pickpocketing	25	-25
Stolen Horse	250	0
Theft	0.5*ItemValue	-0.5*ItemValue
Trespassing	5	-20

* These disposition modifiers are only applied if the witness liked the victim of the crime; if the witness is also the victim, these modifiers are all doubled.

There are specific incidents where these normal bounties do not apply or where different bounties may be assigned. For example, in the Lost Histories quest you need to break someone else out of jail. If caught while doing so this carries a 500 gold bounty rather than the usual 50 gold bounty for breaking yourself out.

Stealing

Stealing occurs when you pick up (or grab) an item with a red icon it, or when you remove an item from a container that had a red icon. The stolen item will be permanently marked in your inventory with a red icon. See the Burglary page for tips on thievery.

Stolen items can not be sold to most merchants. If you are a Thieves Guild member, you can sell stolen goods to the guild's fences. Outside of the guild, your options for selling stolen loot are much more limited. Manheim Maulhand, the merchant at the Inn of Ill Omen, is the only regular merchant who will accept stolen goods (because his responsibility is less than 30). Completing the Dark Brotherhood questline will allow you to fence items with the Dark Brotherhood Murderers. Or you can purchase the Thieves Den official plugin, which provides access to multiple fences. Note that for Thieves Guild members, any items sold to one of these unofficial fences will not count towards the Independent Thievery quest. If the stolen item is one you would like to keep, you can immediately buy it back from the fence (at a higher price than you sold it for if your Mercantile is less than 100); the item will now be considered legitimate. You can also enchant the item to remove the stolen flag.

Viewing the contents of an owned container is not considered theft. However, picking the lock of an owned container is a crime and will result in a bounty of 5 gold if you are caught, even if you did not take anything.

Reading books is not considered theft. Although the book icon will be red when you move it over some books or handbills, you can still activate the item in order to read it. The act of theft does not occur unless you then click the "Take" button on the reading screen. Therefore, it is often not necessary to purchase Skill Books from merchants: you can just browse the book and receive the skill bonuses, although some may consider this cheating.

Some items will never be marked in red, but will still be added to your Stolen Item count in your journal. This appears to occur particularly in cases where later in the game (after completing a related quest) you will legitimately be able to take the item.

Some quests will actually require that you steal as part of them - even for the 'good' aligned guilds (Fighters and Mages Guild). There is no way around this so if you want to play a character that does NOT ever steal, you may have to avoid becoming a member of any guild. For example, in order to obtain your guild recommendations from the Mages Guild, there are no less than three items that will show up in your "stolen items" counter by performing these quests as directed. It is possible to avoid stealing in two of these cases, but not the third. Thus, you can either simply ignore the counter or avoid the guild altogether.

Exact number of items that absolutely must be stolen to complete the entire quest line.

Main Quest (1; the Mysterium Xarxes)
Fighters Guild (2 Pipes to destroy the Hist Tree)
Mages Guild (1; theft for Bruma Recommendation can be avoided by casting Dispel Other on Jaskar, At Silorn, you can simply enter the ruin and loot Falcar's corpse. However; in order to receive the Cheydinhal Recommendation, you must present Deetsan with at least one of the two Black Soul gems you find in Falcar's room even if you have other Black Soul Gems in your inventory.)
Dark Brotherhood (None)
Daedric Quests (2 for Mephala, 1 for Sheogrorath.)
Master Training (1 coin for Sneak)

Trespassing

If you go through a door with a red icon, you may be guilty of trespassing. In most cases, you will first be told that you are not supposed to be in that area, and then be told to leave. Only if you ignore those warnings will you actually be considered to be trespassing.

NPCs can become very confused by trespassing. If you actually have a legitimate reason to be in the area (i.e., a quest has sent you there to talk to someone), the NPCs can alternate between being friendly (giving the normal quest dialog) and being hostile. So, for example, one moment a NPC might tell you "Stay right there" and the next moment say "You must leave at once".

Trespassing a castle's private quarters will cause any of the residents to attack you upon sight. If you leave the quarters you will be approached by a guard and charged with a 40 gold bounty, even if you do not harm anyone.

Due to a glitch, the front door of the house for sale in Bravil will always have a red icon even after having been purchased, however entering the house never counts as a crime.

PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.

The Trespasses counter in your journal never changes from zero, no matter how many times you are caught trespassing or in what circumstances.

PC Only This bug is fixed by the Unofficial Oblivion Patch.

Pickpocketing

If you walk up to a NPC in Sneak mode, instead of the usual conversation icon, the icon changes to a red hand. If you activate the NPC, you will enter the pickpocket window, where you are shown all the items currently in the NPCs inventory (with the exception of any items currently equipped). Just viewing the inventory contents is considered pickpocketing, and can possibly be detected by the NPC. The chance of being detected while pickpocketing is proportional to the weight of the object stolen (It is more likely that you are detected while stealing armor, than when you are stealing clothes). If you steal two light items, this will count as one heavy item (Stealing two swords of weight 25 is the same as stealing a cuirass of weight 50). While stealing gold, although it weighs nothing, you have a relatively high chance of being detected.

Murder

If you kill a friendly character by initiating combat, it is considered to be murder. Even characters normally hostile to the player may have friendly affiliations (such as Mythic Dawn Assassins). If an NPC attacks you first, it is not considered a murder. If someone witnesses the murder, you will get a bounty. It is impossible to kill a guard without getting a bounty; even sneak attacks using 100% Chameleon with no other witnesses will result in a murder bounty.

Be careful when fighting battles with allies by your side, for example, in The Battle for Castle Kvatch. Your ally NPCs like to get in your way. If they accidentally die at your hand, you are considered to have murdered them. If there are any other guards or Imperial Legion members present, they will immediately 'report' your murder. So even if those guards don't survive the battle, the next time you visit any town you will be arrested.

After your first murder, a message will appear stating that "Your act has been observed by forces unknown." This message signals the start of the Dark Brotherhood questline.

There are no quests in the game (including SI) that requires you to commit murder. This includes the entire Dark Brotherhood questline (although you must commit a murder in order to join).

When murders are not recorded:

If the NPC dies from a physical damage done by a single blow, (Not from the weapon's enchantments or poisons applied to it.) with no other witnesses, and the NPC was never aware of your presence, was struck from the rear, and the amount of lighting around your character is dimmer/darker than where the NPC fell and died.
In case of using poisons, if you remain undetected even after you've struck the NPC, and before he/she dies from the effect of your poison, you fast travel else where.

Note: this is not a Dark Brotherhood tutorial. Poisoned Apples, Reverse-Pickpocketing cursed zero weight hoods/armor, lowering the disposition of a NPC to assault you first etc. are not technically "murders" but are methods that can be used in assassinations.

An increase in your murder count whether you've gained an infamy and/or a bounty will significantly affect the way NPCs treat you. Regardless of their Disposition being 100. Merchants will suddenly speak to you rudely. Infamy does not seem have this effect if no crimes were recorded on your journal.

Assault

Assault may or may not result in a bounty. Assaulting guards or assaulting an NPC while near a guard (or if they escape and report the crime) will cost 40 gold. Assault will not result in a bounty if there are no guards to observe it (for example, attacking a Necromancer in a cave before they attack you will not result in a bounty). If you don't receive a bounty, you will probably only be aware of your 'assault' if you check your journal.

Accidentally striking an allied NPC is considered an assault. Unless you have installed the version 1.2 patch, this includes striking your horse. This is an annoyance if you come across a wolf or other creature that likes to hide under the horse's legs, making it difficult to attack them without hitting the horse by mistake. Pay attention to the dialogue for warnings when you strike an ally. Friendly NPCs will usually yell "I'm on your side!" the first time you hit them, "That's TWICE you hit me!" the second, then "Hit me once more, and I'll kill you!" the third. After three accidental hits, an ally is likely to turn hostile towards you. If this happens with an NPC, yield to them (hold the blocking button and activate the NPC) and they should back down, as long as their disposition is still high enough.

Sneak attacks against NPCs will be counted as an assault. If you are role-playing a lawful character and wish to not have any criminal record, you may have to avoid taking advantage of sneak attacks.

Punishment

When you commit a crime in sight of a guard or townsperson, a price will be added to your current bounty, and a guard will immediately try to arrest you. You are unable to fast travel while the guards are looking for you.

Getting arrested

If you resist the first arrest and escape to safety, or if you aren't seen committing the crime, then the guards will not try to arrest you on sight unless your bounty is greater than or equal to 500 gold. Engaging in conversation with a guard while you have an unpaid bounty will always result in arrest, meaning that certain quests such as Taking Care of Lex will be impossible to complete until you have paid this bounty.

When you are arrested by a guard you have several options:

Pay your bounty

You will still have to travel to the nearest castle or prison with the guard.
All stolen items in your possession will be seized and placed in the prison's Evidence Chest, where they will remain until you retrieve them.

Go to jail

With this option, you will be sent to jail for an amount of time based on your bounty (1 day for every 100 gold).

This is the only way to get rid of a bounty (without a Doyen) if you can't afford the fine, or Charm a guard.
All items in your possession (except one lockpick) are removed and placed in the prison's Evidence Chest (including quest items and gold). You will be given sack clothes (shirt, pants, and shoes). These will stay on you after serving your time or escaping. You may need to rebind any item hotkeys; this appears to happen if you attempt to use a hotkey while in jail, but spell hotkeys will stay regardless.
In jail you have the option of trying to escape (using your one lockpick or pickpocketing the guard) or accepting your imprisonment (going to sleep).
- Going to sleep will simulate serving your time, no matter how long you are meant to serve. For each day you "spend" in jail, one skill is chosen at random. If it is Sneak or Security it will increase by one, all others will decrease by one. If you spend multiple days, skills can be chosen more than once and therefore decreased more than once. However, no matter how large your bounty, skills will be decreased no more than ten times on a single trip to jail.
  - Upon completing your jail time, your equipment will be returned to you (other than stolen goods, which remain in the evidence chest) and you are released. If you serve your jail time, quest items will be returned to you (including stolen quest items).
  - This can be exploited to allow your character to level up past your character's maximum level. Each time a major skill is decreased by serving jail time, you have an opportunity to train that skill again. If your major skills are decreased by ten points, you will be able to gain an additional level. You can keep getting sent to jail as many times as you want and continue to gain additional levels.
- To escape from prison, you can try to pick the lock, or you can attempt to pickpocket the Jailor's key through the bars as he passes by. If you open your cell door, the Jailors will try to kill you on sight (Jailors do not accept yields). To successfully escape, you need to make it outside (and presumably then to your Thieves Guild doyen to get rid of your bounty). Optionally, you can try to recover your seized equipment from the Evidence Chest. If you are successful in escaping, you will see a message, "Your jailbreak has increased your bounty," and your bounty will increase by 50 gold.
  - Counter-intuitively, a jailbreak is easier for a mage (since magic is not disabled in jail) than a thief or warrior.
  - To make it easier to escape, you may want to hide lockpicks in the jail cell before committing crimes. Or, even better, obtain the Jailor's key and put it in the cell ahead of time.
  - Even if you cannot lockpick well (difficulty is level-dependent), you can still escape. Simply attempt to pick the lock when you can be seen by one of the guards. The guards will open your cell door - to try to kill you. Since they still go hostile even if you had picked the lock, it is just as easy.
  - Magically strong characters will find it easy to escape from jail if they have access to spells such as Chameleon/Invisibility, and Charm (sufficient to increase a guard's Disposition above 90). Good custom spells are Open Very Hard Lock (unavailable through Spell Merchants), or Fortify Skill: Security to 100 (makes the lock much easier to pick).
  - A very easy jailbreak can be accomplished by casting any summoning spell while locked up, then hitting the summon three times. On the third hit, it will turn hostile; when it does, the helpful guards will open the cell door and defend the player from it. The player can then leave with little difficulty - since the player didn't open the door, guards will not become hostile!
    - (Un)fortunately, one side-effect of this is the Jailors think you are in your cell and do not retaliate. You can speak with them, even punch them in plain view and nothing will happen. This may be the result of "insensitivity" to area-effect spells, coded in to prevent jailbreaks that way. Killing a Jailor like this doesn't even raise your bounty. They become hostile if you pickpocket them, manipulate a red object [in-view], or "activate" a door [in-view or out-of-view].
  - Breaking out of jail has one significant glitch: quest items are not returned by looting the Evidence Chest. They are normally returned when you LEAVE the prison. Any quest items you have in your inventory can potentially be lost permanently if you break out of jail (you cannot drop quest items beforehand, for safekeeping). This may happen to some and not to others. If this happens, the only way to get the quest items back is to go to jail again, and this time serve your sentence; the quest items will then reappear.

Special types of guards, called [City name] Jailors are present in the prisons. In Imperial prisons, there is one "personalized" jailor, who is named [Your character's name]'s Imperial Jailor (Example: Bob's Imperial Jailor).
You can break out of the Skingrad Dungeon by having the jailor attack you and killing him, once you are out of the cell you will see a candle saying "Activate Strange Candle". Activate it, and it will open a secret passage to another passage that takes you to the Skingrad Wine Cellar.

Resist arrest

The guard will attack you.
Any other guards in the area will join in.
If you change your mind, yield to the guard (sheath your weapon, block and talk to the guard). Some guards (e.g., most jailors) will not respond to a yield. In other cases, guards may be more likely to yield if you had previously raised their disposition or if they are guard captains (e.g., named guards). When you yield you will be offered the same options as when they first came after you - Go to Jail, Resist Arrest or Pay the Fine.
Other NPCs may join in the fight. If their disposition towards you is high, they will fight the guards with you. Otherwise, they will fight against you. Yielding to them does not stop the fight, and the NPC will sheath his weapon, then attack again. Beware that many important NPCs may die, such as master trainers.
Don't resist arrest unless you know you're going to get away. Unless you want to avoid cities, you'll eventually have to go to jail or pay the fine.
The guards are scripted to 'find' you even in normally unreachable places or when they cannot see you. However, if you are sneaking and/or hidden by a chameleon effect when you 'resist arrest' the guard may be unable to see you, and thus not attack. At that point you may be able to simply walk away.
Once the guards have sheathed their weapons, they will treat you like a normal person unless you talk to them. If your bounty is greater than 1000, they will attack you upon sight.

NPCs

NPCs with low responsibility will steal food when they need to eat, either by taking an owned item that is sitting out, or by pickpocketing another NPC. If caught stealing, the guards will attempt to arrest the NPC. However, NPCs do not have the option of being sent to jail: they can either pay their bounty or resist arrest. Generally, NPCs will not have enough money to pay the bounty, which means that getting caught results in the guards killing the NPC, even for a petty crime such as stealing a loaf of bread.

If you want to (or need to) prevent an NPC from being killed by the guards some options are:

Place food near the NPC to make sure he/she has an easily available source of food at mealtimes.
Steal any owned food that is in the area yourself so the NPC does not have any items to possibly steal. However, some NPCs regenerate food at mealtimes, so in some cases it is not possible to remove all food from the area.
Make sure the NPC has more than enough money to pay any bounties, by bribing the NPC repeatedly to give him/her money. Typically, a NPC will need to have 50 gold to cover each crime committed.
- However, a scripting glitch prevents NPC bounties from ever being reset to zero, even when they pay the fine. Therefore, any NPC who is ever caught stealing will need an ongoing supply of gold.

Alternatives to Punishment

As a member of the Thieves Guild, you can get your doyen to bribe the local guards and dismiss your bounty. This will cost you half of the amount of your bounty.
If you have increased the Disposition of the arresting guard to be greater than 90 and your total bounty is less than 1000, the guard will say "Looks like you are in some trouble. Since we are friends, don't worry. I'll look the other way and take care of that fine for you." Your bounty will disappear and he lets you go.

Differences from Morrowind

There are several key differences between the Oblivion system and the Morrowind system.

The action icon turns red for any illegal act. (In fact, there is no action icon in Morrowind, only the crosshair)
If you pay your bounty you will be transported to the nearest castle/prison instead of staying at the place you were.
When you choose to go to jail, you can try a jailbreak.
NPCs will no longer stay in their house when attacked, but instead run away and find a guard. The guard will find you in the house if you stay, and you will have an assault bounty (40 gold) on your head if you escape.
If you attack an NPC in a place like a store, and he runs, but you kill him before he leaves the cell, guards may still come to arrest you.

Crimes against Guilds

If you are a guild member and you are caught stealing from that guild you invariably have to go see the leader for forgiveness, and he gives you some sort of menial task as penance. Once you have completed it you will be able to resume your career in the guild. Some guilds will only allow you to be reinstated a couple times; after that you will be permanently expelled with no chance at redemption (unless you are on the PC and want to cheat using Console commands).

Fighters Guild Penance

After committing a crime against the Fighters Guild, you will have to complete the Expelled from the Fighters Guild mini-quest. You can get reinstated after your first two crimes against the guild; after your third crime you are permanently expelled.

Mages Guild Penance

The Mages Guild also has a mini-quest to complete after committing a crime, and you are allowed at most two crimes against the guild. After the third crime you are permanently expelled.

Thieves Guild Penance

To be accepted back in the Thieves Guild for violating the rules (steal from or kill a guild member, kill target of your "job") you pay "blood price" to the doyen - a kind of fine. It's usually quite high - 300-3000 gold. However, there is no limit on the number of offenses you can commit. As long as you can pay the gold, you will always be reinstated.

Arena Penance

If you try to attack anyone in the Bloodworks you should prepare to get your head handed to you by everyone down there, and possibly some guards. If you enter the arena without your battle raiment, or if you remove it while fighting in the arena you will be disqualified from the match. The first time this happens you will be yelled at by Owyn, and have to redo the fight. The second time you will be irreversibly kicked out of the arena.

Dark Brotherhood Penance

If you break tenets 4 or 5 of the Dark Brotherhood's Five Tenets (it is impossible to break the first three) you are exiled from the brotherhood and will have to defeat the Wrath of Sithis to return. You can offend once more and go through the same process. After the third offense, you are permanently exiled.

Note: If you complete this to get rid of the Blade of Woe, it will not work and remain a quest item, and any quest that requires you to accept a quest from a guild member will remain open.