By Grumblebelly
(Additional input for this guide by Buc32)

Members' Skill.

So, you want to explore the dark side of thievery,eh?  I understand, you've spent some time in Ardougne, and drooled over the Gem Merchants stall, but the prices he asks are sheer robbery!  Well my friend, let me offer you a bit of insight.  I may not be the best thief around, but I think I just might be the smartest.  I never get caught unless I want to, and I have found that thieving can actually be the best paid profession in all of Runescape.

I see you don't believe me.  It's all a matter of time versus gold.  (isn't it always?)

Ok first lets get our thieving gear on, dark clothes, gloves to protect your finger prints, and a nice strong weapon to keep those pesky guards off.  Don't worry, we won't be getting into any scuffles just yet.

First there are a couple different ways to go about collecting loot.

1)  Pick pocket the inhabitants of Runescape: Men, Farmers, Guards, Knights, Watchmen, Paladins, Gnomes, and Heros can all be pickpocketed.

2)  Disarm chests in various locations, most of these chests have gold, some have runes, some have other items (steel arrow heads, ores, gems)

3)  Market stalls in Ardougne have plenty of Cakes, Silk, Silver, Furs, Spices, and Gems all laid out and ready for a nimble hand.

This is the real nitty gritty here.  This is what I've learned on my path to being one of the top thieves in Runescape.

Let's start with Picking Pockets.  A simple enough task, even the clumsiest of dolts can slip a few coins from the pouches of the Men wandering about towns.  The nice thing about pickpocketing is, if you mess up, only your target knows, and you just have to deal with him (you have that sword handy right?).  Like everything else in Runescape, practice makes perfect.  Be prepared to set up your haunt for a while, pick a nice place with a couple of marks and go to work.  A favorite of mine is the house in West Ardougne where these two blokes hang out,  Just shut the door on them and they dont know any better, you can be rolling in gold in no time at all.

There are other houses around the world that also have a couple room mates in Heminster, Falador, and don't forget the Jolly Boar in Varrock.

Keep working on the Men for a while, get into the rhythm- this will be good practice later on when you will be wandering all over Ardougne trying to separate the knights from their beer money.

If you decide you want to take a break, and maybe collect some treats for hunting, head over to the Baker's stall in Ardougne, and try a couple of pastries.  I only seem to be able to scamper off with cake, but I have my eyes on the slices of chocolate.

Now there is an art to slipping the goods out of the market stalls.  You might notice as you run your pointer over the stall that it changes descriptions even if you don't do anything.  That's because, while there seems to be an infinite supply of cakes from Pierre, he can only make them so fast.  With all the other hungry thieves in town, the description will frequently change from Baker's stall, to empty stall.

Here's a big fat clue sonny:  DON'T STEAL FROM AN EMPTY STALL!

Keep your eyes peeled, if the merchant is standing right next to you, DON'T STEAL.  Now Pierre is a nice chap, and seems to enjoy sharing cakes with everyone, he just reminds you that the cake you stuck your grubby mitts on is his.  The other merchants aren't so forgiving, they will rant and scream for the Guards to come and deliver you a whomping. 

Now take a look at this little diagram:  this is a merchant's stall and the eight different areas you can stand around it and attempt to load up.  Depending on the stall, there might be a wall to your back (good) or you might be out in the open in front of a picket fence (bad).  So choose your spot wisely.  The stall itself also helps to block the view from what you are doing, so be aware of your danger zones.  If a guard is standing around in the zone, DON'T STEAL.  Again, as the merchandise becomes more valuable (higher level needed to steal it) more of the town's militia pays attention to what's happening.  At the cake stall, you only have to worry about the Guards, the Knights start to listen at the Silk stall, and by the time you are at the Silver stall, the Paladins have their beady eyes on you as well.

Sometimes, even the smartest of thieves doesn't notice when the new paladin shows up in town. 

However, if you are quick of fingers, you can get away with it anyway!

Alright, you've managed to stock pile enough cake to make Marie Antoinette proud, and want to go back to making wallets lighter all over Runescape.  Head up to the farmers in the windmill, there are a couple of straw chewers that seem to have flour in their ears and eyes.  Quickly shut the door behind you, and pick their pockets dry.  I usually put my weapon away on these guys, after all, they are only farmers!  Let them blow off some steam, and swing at you a couple times, then back off and try for that shiney gold piece again.

When you get tired of the farmers, and are chock full of guam leaves, head over to Al Kharid.  The barracks house a couple of sleepy headed guards in silly pink silk shirts.  Keep the doors closed so they don't wander off and get hurt. There are a bunch of them here, and they have weapons, I personally am not above using steel against steel, but its your choice if you want to dish out your own personal justice on them or not.  After a couple afternoons spent in the barracks, you should be ready for the big time.   Oh before heading back to Ardougne, load up on silk from that vender, you can buy them for 3 gold and sell them for 60 gold to the silk merchant (assuming you haven't stolen silk in the past 24 hours) a nice tidy profit since you are headed over anyways.

Guards

Guards are a great way to double train.  There is no delay between when you can retry after a successful pick.  My current record is 58 pickpockets in a row.  Now you may be thinking what a waste of time!  Listen lively my chum, and do the math:  58 x 30 gold = 1740 gold.  That's right, I made over 1500 gold in about 2 minutes, by repetitive thefts as fast as I could get my fingers to move.  When Officer friendly figures out what you are doing, just whip out the old rune longsword and let him have it, and you can build up your combat levels as well.

Character	Level to pickpocket	Experience Gained
Man	0	8
Farmer	10	14
Warrior	25	26
Rogue	32	35
Guard	40	46
Knight	55	84
Yanille Watchmen	65	137.5
Paladin	70	151
Gnome Locals	75	198
Hero	80	273

Knights, Paladins, and Heros are problematic.  The thing with these guys is they aren't lazy like the Guards.  They wander all over the place snooping about and keeping an eye on the Silver and Spice merchants, and just putting on the miles.  The Guards, these guys just hang out, making your job of hiding in the shadows and making their pouches lighter much easier. 

The Knights, Paladins and Heros also have a built in delay (5, 15, 30 seconds) before you can attempt to retry that last action, successful (pick pocketing) or not (failed stall theft).  I have yet to successfully get that pot of spice or gem after the local Paladin spots me, but as you see above, the 5 second delay is not enough for the nimble to grab the loot prior to duking it out with the Knights.

You can also try your hand at the Gnome locals (lev 3 and lev 9). Their loot: 198 exp, and one of the following: (gold nugget, swamp toad, king worm, 1 earth rune, 300 gold, lemon, orange, lime). These guys have a high failure rate however, and are so wimpy I ended up killing them more than looting.

And with the new WatchTower Quest, you can climb up the watchtower wall (Level 42 Agility required) and pickpocket Yanile Watchman (4 appearing)
combat level 33, 22 hitpoints, 88 total exp (22 -> hitpoints, 66 to rest)
Their loot: 60 gold, loaf of bread

The different stalls replenish at different rates:

	Item	Respawn Rate	Level To Thieve	Experience Gained
	Cake	5 seconds	5	16
	Silk	12 seconds	20	24
	Furs	15 seconds	35	36
	Silver	30 seconds	50	54
	Spice	60 seconds	65	81
	Gems	180 seconds	75	16

Now, for those of you who are irked about the slow refresh of the hard Silver rocks (60 seconds) notice that the Silver stall is twice as fast.  If you aren't concerned about working on your mining skill, you can load up on Silver almost twice as fast by thievery.  Actually when you factor in fatigue, it's a lot faster.

The Gem stall in Ardougne: Gives an uncut gem--usually saphire, sometimes others. I stole 28 gems, got 19 saphire, 6 emerald, 2 ruby, 1 diamond. Respawns in 3 (three!!!!!) minutes.

Alright, your sitting there counting out all the money thats going to be rolling your way from all those wallets and purses you're going to be lifting, and aren't really satisfied.  I understand.  I did say that thieving was possibly the most profitable skill, and I stand by that.  Do you want to know the secret?

Looting chests filled with valuable runes.  There are a couple of locked buildings in Ardougne that once you pick the door locks, and climb upstairs, you will find a couple of chests.  Don't get too eager and open the chests, or you will be in for a nasty surprise.  They are trapped.  I have seen more than one eager wannabe thief lose their lives to these nasty brutes of a trap.  The chests in East Ardougne respawn with a Nature rune about every 20 seconds.  If one is fast and lively, and lucky to not be sharing the loot with another thief (it's true what they say about honor and all that) it is possible to collect 180 Nature runes in an hour of diligent work.  The market value for these runes varies, but I have seen mages practicing their High Level Alchemy spells pay upwards of 400 gold each for Natures in bulk.  Now I am not saying you will be able to get that all the time, but even at 250 gold which is on the low side admittedly, but still rather favorable.

180 natures x 250 gold = 45,000 gold an hour.

180 natures x 400 gold = 72,000 gold an hour.

I challenge you fisherfolk out there to catch 360 lobsters in an hour.  Or for the gritty folk, try mining 360 lumps of coal when it refreshes once in 30 seconds in each rock.  Oh and don't forget to take a nap.......

OK, I digressed just a bit there.

Let us return to the looting of chests.  The Nature chests are relatively easy to get to level wise, but if you are wily, determined, and truly miserly, you will be of high enough level to hit the more difficult chests.  The one I am purloining in that photo may not have much of value inside, but it is rich with experience (125 points), and while it is faster than the Nature rune chests for experience, at a respawn of 60 seconds, it is still much slower than what a good thief can pull off of Guards.

Another chest to loot is on the top floor of King Lathas castle (commonly called the Paladin chest)

You need to be Level 72 to loot, but it gives: 1000 gold, 1 raw shark, 1 uncut saphire, 1 adamantite ore

If you happen to have come across the Rogues out in the wilderness, you might have been lucky enough to get a set of lockpicks.  If you have any fletching friends, you can help them out by hitting the chest in Heminster next to the anvil, its a slow respawner too, at just under two minutes, but if you are going to head over there to do some smithing, you might as well hit the chest before and after for a quick shot of thieving experience (not to mention 5 steel arrow heads each time).  This chest needs the lockpick to open.

And if you are just too big and burly to be wasting your time laying the smack down on the guards as you relieve them of beer money, the infamous Blood rune chests lurk under the Chaos druids tower outside of town on the west side.

Beware though!  The tower is rather persnickety, taking a great deal of effort to actually pick the lock, and then once you delve down the ladder, the pair of chests are guarded by half a dozen angry Ogres.  The chests are a delightful treat for the skilled thief though.  Inside are a pair of Blood runes, 500 gold, and a side helping of 250 experience.  The do have a downside (besides the Ogres), there is a secondary trap on them that teleports you out to a house by Elena.  This can be a mixed blessing, depending on how well you are doing in combat at the moment.  Don't rely on them for a hasty get away, there is a 3 minute refresh on the chests, and even though there are a pair to choose from, their popularity and the danger of having an Ogre jump on you does not make them reliable.

So, you've managed to persevere, you've been diligent and consistent in your manipulations of illegality and have attained the high levels of thievery that make others say "Wow." when you tell them your level.  You tire of the Gem merchant, and want something more.  You have two options:

Head over to the gnome village and try your hand on the little dexterous denizens.  The loot is a mixed bag, but when they turn on you, it's like being attacked by an angry chicken.  Kinda fun and harmless.

Or sneak up to the Castle- the Paladins hang out with a number of chests that have a fine selection of nice loot inside.  They don't refresh very fast, but you can also try your hand at relieving the Paladins from their Milk money (I don't think Paladins drink beer, being holy warriors and all) while you are waiting for the 2 minute refresh on the chests.  Say hello to Duck Man, she seems to spend a great deal of time there.

Well, that's my take on thieving. I felt that there was a great deal of misinformation out there on this particular skill, and that hopefully this insight will help you have a bit of fun and profit.

And say, did you drop this watch?  I seem to have picked it up some how......