[crossfire] shops and stealing

[Mark Wedel]

  For a long time, the thief skill stealing has been available, but the only use 
was the limited ability to steal from monsters.

  With the addition of new fields in the map header for shops, it'd seem like it 
would not be possible to extend stealing to shops.  Not that the current headers 
are really in any way useful, but in a sense, because they sort of give an 
example of extending the shop attributes.

  What I'd suggest then is fields like:

steal_adjustment:  Represents how hard/easy it is to steal from this shop.  A 
positive value denotes it is easy, negative value means it is hard.

max_steal_value: Maximum value of an object that can be stolen from this store. 
  Thus, if someone drops a 10,000 pp item in a shop easy to steal from (which 
normally has junky stuff), one wouldn't be able to steal it, because this value 
for the shop may be something like 10 pp.

jail_map:  If the theif is caught, map where they are sent.  At least scorn has 
a jail if I recall - not sure if other maps.  But basically, get caught 
stealing, have to sit around for 5 (or more) minutes.  Easier shops would 
probably sentence you to less time.   This could be in the form of mapname at x,y 
to denote coordinates to put the player into.

  If you succeed, you get exp based on the value of the object as well as actual 
difficulty of the attempt.

  For difficulty, I would say it should be based on the weight of the object (we 
don't have a size, but generally these two are somewhat related).  Harder to 
steal a suit of plate armor than a ring.  But the value of the object should 
also have an adjustment - that shopkeeper is going to keep a closer eye on those 
expensive items.

  Also, stealing would only be allowed if some of those fields exist (maybe 
jail_map - allowing stealing on a map with no penalty seems like a bad idea, but 
I could certainly see steal_adjustment being zero and max_steal_value also not 
being set (but probably not on the same map)).

  I'd also add that no matter how good a thief the person is, there should 
always be some chance of being caught (a fumble) - since I think chances are 
percentage based, this could be 1% chance.  Thus, in a sense, a player that 
tries to steal a lot as an alternative to adventuring for exp could do so, but 
is going to get caught now and again and have to spend time in jail.

  As for stealing, it may be easiest to have something like 'steal inventory' 
command, which attempts to steal the unpaid items currently in your inventory. 
If you succeed, the unpaid flag is cleared, if fail, go to jail.  Probably limit 
it to 1 item per try just to reduce rate of stealing.

  thoughts?