The Life of Crime

In addition to wooing the ladies, you can also spend your downtime in the cities of Albion by looting and stealing. Most of these activities are considered to be evil, so you won’t want to repeatedly do them if you’re trying to get your golden halo, but even good characters can engage in some petty larceny without too many adverse effects on their alignment. Murder, however, is a bit less easy to get away with, morally speaking.

In addition to the small evil shifts from these acts, you’ll also have to worry about the constabulary. Each city has numerous guards wandering around, who are just itching to bust you for breaking the law. They even wander into homes when the door is open, so don’t think that you’re safe from the sheriff inside a house! If a guard or a civilian spots you committing a crime, then you’ll have to pay a fine before the guards will let you go; if you refuse to pay up, then all of the guards in that town will be hostile to you, making it difficult to get any business done. You can, of course, kill the guards, but they’ll respawn almost instantly.

There are a few different crimes that you can commit, with varying amount of fines. If you want to avoid a fine, then you should be careful not to commit crimes when your eye meter is open (which means someone is looking at you). If the eye meter is blank, you can loot away without any consequences; if it is only open a small crack, you’re probably just as safe.

Brandishing A Weapon: If you draw a weapon in a town that lets you keep them on your person, you’ll get hit with a 40 gold fine. If you did it by accident, hit the button again quickly to holster it again, and they’ll probably let you slide.

Picklocking: If you get your Guile skill up to level six, you’ll be able to pick locks. It’s much easier just to break a door down, and the difference in fines is very small: Picklocking costs 200 gold if someone sees you, while Vandalism costs 250 more.

Vandalism: Busting out windows is fun, but knocking down doors will let you access their interior. Destroying barrels will also let you pick up whatever contents they held. You’ll get fined 250 gold for each act of Vandalism, though.

Assault: You can punch most civilians by targeting them with your right trigger, but there’s little point to it. Expect a 500 gold fine.

Burglary: Now we’re talking! Townsfolk have plenty of stuff in their cabinets and furniture, and some of it’s actually decent. All you need to do to burgle (which may be the greatest word in the English language, by the way) is to walk up to an interior container and interact with it. Again, if you get spotted by a civilian or guard, you’ll get a fine (of 750 Gold).

Steal: This is similar to Burglary, save for the fact that it targets display items in shops, which are not normally burglarable (which is not the greatest word in the English language, and may not be a word at all). When you spot something you like (display items are chosen at random from the store’s stock when you enter a zone), sidle up to it, check your eye meter, and hit the Steal interaction when you think you’re safe. This has the benefit of letting you be sure of what you’re getting before you take the plunge, unlike Burglary. You can only Steal items if you have a Guile rank of three or more, but you’ll probably need as much as possible if you want to remain undetected while you steal. The length of time it takes to Steal depends on the quality of the item; if you get spotted while doing it, you’ll net a 750 Gold fine.

Murder: How much is a man’s life worth? 2,000 Gold. You’ll also get kicked out of town, but you’ll be able to come right back.

Note that murdering all the inhabitants of a home (which is easier at night) will immediately put the house up for sale. The same is true of shops, but buying homes and paying the fines for your death sprees will put a dent in even the most robust moneybag.