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Alright, I've just joined the Thieves Guild and am trying to gather my 50 gold worth of stolen goods to turn in to Ongar. I've decided to take up my trade in Bruma. I've broken into Baenlin's home. My chosen hour is around 1:00 AM while they're sleeping. I get past the front doors without a problem, however, when trying to lift items inside, my hand will only turn red for about 1/3 or less of them. The problem with this should be pretty obvious, if I can't steal, then I have nothing to sell off to Ongar. I've tried snagging the items in both "sneak" and "normal" mode, but no change. The hand stays white. The only thing that I can think of is that I got past the front door locks using spells rather than picking them. Though, I'm not entirely certain why that would be a problem.
On a side note, I searched the forums for anything brought up on this in the past, but to no avail. I searched under "red hand", "red icon", "stealing", "unable to steal", "can't steal" and "won't steal".

You are correct about the color of the hand icon. If you pick up something while it's red you get credit with the TG for stealing, you get a bounty if you get caught, and you can only sell it to a fence - honest merchants won't buy it. If you pick up something while it's white, it's fair game - no bounty even if somebody sees you do it, and it won't apply to your independent thievery goals.

I would say you are certainly not a terrible thief if you can get past Baenlin's bodyguard. You'd just be better off picking a different house to burgle. The most likely reason that so many things in Baenlin's house don't count as stealing is that Baenlin and his house are involved in another quest (SPOILER:

Spoiler

it's one of the DB quests, and being able to sneak past Baenlin's bodyguard will come in handy in that one too

).

edit - p.s. be careful stealing in Bruma because several TG members live there and you'll get kicked out of the guild for stealing from them, plus over half of the houses are involved in some way with other quests that might be harder to complete if the owner doesn't like you because he or she caught you stealing. Saving before you burgle any home in Bruma is probably a reasonable precaution.

If there are items you can take that aren't in red, it means that you could actually grab them while they watch you and they wouldn't do anything. This is an unfortunate flaw to the game, considering how poorly bethesda designed it in compensation for the heavy graphics.

I once went into a mages guild, I think Chorrol, I wasn't even a member of the guild and I took some of their alchemical apparatus's, simply because it's not stealing them due to the white hand.

Sneaking doesn't change whether you're stealing or not, just whether people notice you.

It doesn't matter how you get into a room.

It doesn't matter if you steal from members of the TG. It only matters if you get caught stealing from the TG. I stole some stuff from Ongar and then sold it to him and he didn't notice.

The easiest way to build up your fencing total is to wander into the basement of houses and steal the wine there. Lots of people have healthy collections of wine, and it all sells pretty well.

SWC

if youre in bruma, youve got some luck! the mages guild has alchemical apparatuses that remain red even to members and they fetch an VERY nice price-- even 2 of them should get you 50 gp. it gets even better: theres no-one looking at night. those mages are begging to get stolen!

Sometimes the church has some things to steal though I think fransesca's mod makes the silver more valuable in my game??

I think I kind of have a similar problem with at least one of the shops in the Imperial City. (It's a potion shop but I can't remember which.) Anyway it always has the red door icon even during the day but it is not illegal for me to go in, even with guards watching. However, when I am inside everything was legal for me to take and I could subsequently sell it right back to the shop owner.(Which I did ). As far as I know it only effects this one shop in my game so if what you have is similar then simply just try other places and see if the same thing happens or not.

About what you're going to steal.

When you get the independent thievery quest you should really set your base of operations up in the imperial city.

Wait until its 1-2am and then you totally raid the "red diamond jewelry", "the guilded carafe" and the "mystic emporium".

Only steal the light stuff, soul gems, potions, jewelry and scrolls.
Its also a good Idea to aim for the magic stuff for later fences since Ongar cant handle the heavy stuff. But I got up to 800 gold just for selling the simpliest stuff to Ongar =)

Good luck

I got almost all the items I needed for the whole thieves guild quest in the jewelery store in the market district. I just went in at night when nobody was around and took mostly everything. stock up on lockpicks before you go!

i know another nice one: the imperial legion prison district has an office with nice stuff:
fast travel(or enter) the prison district and go left. second door to your left is the hardest but the closest. in there, theres a chest(hard to open, mostly hard or very hard lock) with VERY nice stuff. if you like the stuff too much you can sell em and buy em back from your fence and still count as having fenced it

Thanks....

Thanks for all the replies guy's. I was able to go to the house next door, can't think of the name right off the top of my head at the moment, and get all the items I needed to sell to Ongar and pass that quest!

another good way to get good theiving items is to join the DB and loot the houses/people you kill (in).

iv got the game for xbox 360 and i just went inside the the inn and went to the back room, wait for the butcher to leave
then closed both doors and stole everything even the back room i got caught once but i paid bounty. it gives u about 30 gold in fenced items

(her's a hint for gold. join the arena guild thing then grab a hammer and go f save before u fight then fight if u loose then load the saved game if u when u get 50 gold. keep fighting and winning and after every 3 fights the gold raises by 50)

Spoiler

Spoiler

If you do the quest in the Market District -"Unfair Competition" - you can, after completion, take every item from Agamir's house. After completing the quest in Skingrad - "Paranoia" - you can do the same with Glarthir's house.

end spoiler.

Those two, plus a little pickpocketing from City guards, should get you all the stolen goods you will need to complete all the Thieve's Guild quests.