[Quest Idea] - Thieves Guild - The Thick Yellow Line

[Tondollari]

For use in a Hlaalu town, possibly Andothren.

An apparently skilled thief has been burgling the city's homes. This would be all well and good if they were a guild member, but they aren't. The guild isn't getting a cut, and the House guard is blaming them to boot. The thief needs to be identified.

There has been a certain pattern in the burglaries, and the guild has a suspect, but they need the player to serve as a witness. The player must hide in a corner of a certain house between specific hours, waiting for the thief.

The player waits. Time goes by. No sign of the thief. Then, a House guardsman knocks on the door. He tells the resident that they're looking for a thief. There's been a string of burglaries in the area, he says.

The player waits. The guardsman walks up the stairs, into the bedroom, where the player is. He walks up to a dresser and steals some jewelry. He walks up to a chest and steals some gold. He leaves. No sign of activity here, says the guardsman.

The player reports what was seen to the guild. It turns out that bringing this information to the Hlaalu might be a bigger headache than letting the burglaries continue, but the player gets a reward anyway.

If the player is caught hiding by the guard, the guard will frame the player for trespassing. The guild will give money to pay for the bounty (or jail time), but admonish the player for the failure.

[Terrifying Daedric Foe]

I like the idea, but it sounds like it'll be tricky to script using Morrowind AI. I can imagine it working very well in Oblivion or Skyrim.

[Gnomey]

This could work with [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:AIActivate]AIActivate[/url], but I'm not sure how reliable an AI package it is.

I like the quest idea, but the Thieves Guild will not have a guildhall in Andothren, at least not at the start of the game. It might work better for Kragenmoor, which is more likely to have a guildhall due to its large outlander presence.

[arvisrend]

+1 for Kragenmoor. This place needs some life breathed into it, and this does well.

Yes, the AI will be a piece of work. This needs tons of chained AITravels and PlaySound3Ds (I don't see much need for AIActivate, but it's been a while since I laid my hands on a script).

[Haplo]

The behavior sounds pretty similar to the Tribunal quest where you hide in Barenziah's chambers for the assassin.

[rot]

Also mechanically similar to at least two quests in TR (on waiting for a thief), but the guard operating under cover of his own crimes is the more interesting part of it.

AIActivate is fortunately not necessary (rarely ever is, and I'd recommend it be resorted to as little as possible) - for such a sequence just have scripted to-be-stolen items placed (in the open, not in containers) and fail it if the player already grabbed them all by the time the NPC gets there.

[klep]

Interestin quest idea. Makes me think of the TR book [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Tes3Mod:Tamriel_Rebuilt/The_Locked_Cellar]The Locked Cellar[/url] with a similar plot. Might be interesting to read; the thieving guard in that story has a backstory and a reason to do as he does. Maybe the guard in this quest has his reasons as well?