UO Second Age

I see a corpse outside of town. is it stealing to take items??
when is it not????

Also someone put down items on the street in town. Is taking them stealing??

If you open a corpse and get a message something like:
"Looting this corpse will be a criminal act"
then you will go "grey" if you loot an item.

Beware of doing this in town, because you could get killed by the guards.

It's not Stealing, that is a skill (http://wiki.uosecondage.com/Stealing).

You can freely take any item you find on the ground. Just remember that crates/boxes/chests might be trapped!

Criminal actions are taking anything from blue characters, unless they show blue but are indeed perma-grey. In addition to the message Zelek points out, you should also get a gump which says you're about to commit a criminal act. However, when a body becomes "remains" it will go grey, and you can take items from the corpse without turning grey.

A lot of people leave items just laying around on the ground for newer players to gather and use or sell.

As always, using common sense will help you in your quest.

it's never stealing if you need the item!

Here is 2 things happened to me


I was picking up bone armor by brit bank. then all of sudden I was dead. I went to healer to the south. He said I was a criminal and then finally someone healed me.

Then I was by the brit GY saw a corpse took a couple of items some guy followed me into town and then others joined in.

I saw no message to the effect of its a criminal act.

if you see a corpse and the name is blue, looting it will turn you criminal, and attackable by other players or get the guards called on you in town.

The bone armor, idk what you did, but you had to have done something else.

The only explanation I can think of is: if it was inside a "coffin" someone died beside you, and your client opened his body automatically, you looted, and died because you commited a criminal act.

Be sure to open your "Options" in your paper-doll, then click on the tab with a man inside a triangle, and be sure that "Query before performing criminal actions" is checked. That will save you some trouble.

Just to reiterate and add to what some people were saying above:

What you did was not stealing per se, but rather you (from what I can tell) committed a criminal act, namely looting a blue named body. Since you were in town when you performed the criminal act, the guards killed you. Stealing is a specific (usually criminal) act. Criminal acts include attacking a blue player or NPC, stealing from a blue player or NPC, cutting up a blue corpse, and looting a blue corpse (blue corpses become gray once they decay to bones though they will remain blue if cut up into bones).

The one complication to this: There are thieves whose names show as blue but who are in fact not blue. You can only see that they are not blue if they have stolen from you (since they last died). You can also figure out they are not blue (though you will continue to see them as blue) if you steal from them (and you yourself are not in the thieves guild): You will not even be able to attempt to steal if they are truly blue.

Haha when I read the OP i thought it was an ethical question not a game mechanics question