A helpful hint for levelling Thieve's Guild a little faster and easier

dan0311 · April 2018

I've seen forum posts where folks grumble about leveling Thieves Guild and how unpleasant it is to grind it out doing the daily Tip Board quests. I agree. Here is a way to make that part of it easier. (I stole this info from another post, incidentally, but it is presented here in greater detail.)

1. Go to Daggerfall harbor and loot the two boats. They are unguarded. You should only have to do this once...to kickstart this process.

2. Find a fence. Sell the mats, weapons, and armor. Launder everything else and keep it in your inventory. These are the "clean (laundered) household items" you need for step 4.

3. Go to the Tip Board in the Outlaw's Refuge in Abah's Landing.

4. Hit E (to bring a heist up) and Alt to close the board (You may have to do this many times) until you get the tip that begins "Esteemed thieves, I need your help." Accept that one. You will receive the quest called The Covetous Countess.

5. You will most likely already have three items that meet her criteria from looting the two boats. If so, the quest will immediately update to "Deliver Clean Items to Client in <whatever town the Countess is in>.

6. Deliver the items to the Countess.

7. Return to Kari in the Outlaw's Refuge. She will will give you a reward that includes a bag of laundered goods. Open it.

8. DON'T SELL THE LAUNDERED GOODS. Keep them in your inventory. The next time you get this quest, you will once again already have the items she wants and can proceed straight to the Countess, then back to do it all over again. Takes about five minutes. Much quicker and easier than trying to pickpocket 30 townspeople.

There are probably some nuances and details I'm missing, but this is the gist of it. You don't get as many stolen goods to help you level Legerdemain, but you can still loot houses and such to do that. Much easier than navigating through the buggy, inconsistent mechanics of trying to pick pockets.

Enjoy!

DoctorESO · April 2018

Cool.

Another way is to just do the quests where you have to pick lockboxes. Those are quick and easy and predictable.

dan0311 · April 2018

Looting lockboxes became my second favorite method after I figured out the secret: Go to the Mages or Fighters Guild Hall in the smaller towns. Sometimes the lockboxes take a while to respawn in the busier areas after they have been picked. But it still takes longer than doing the Covetous Countess if speed is your goal.

I should also mention that relying on lockboxes or the Covetous Countess has one drawback...if you're trying to level Ledgerdemain to get that sweet sweet "force lock" ability then you will not generate any items to fence by taking the easy path. Of course, if you like looting better than pickpocketing you can still generate tons of stuff just by strolling around town, picking locks, and looting inside.

I should also remind that your Assistant Pirharri the Smuggler (the pocket fence) is account-wide. If you have ever finished the Thieves Guild questline on another toon she is waiting there in Collections-->Assistants. Yeah, she charges a 35% fee but you don't lose items when guards stop you for a bounty. Pay the 92g and go steal more stuff!

Waffennacht · May 2018

Favoriting this thread ty

moo_2021 · June 2021

The tip still works for now, even though more annoying.

It needs to be done in a character at level 50 FIRST, because treasury types are only randomized at level 50, and that's how you can get enough laundered goods for characters below level 50. (check the table in https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Covetous_Countess)

For level 50:

The same as described by OP, except if you run out of laundered goods for a particular category - DO NOT waste time to steal that.

Instead, abandon the quest, pick another which is not The Covetous Countess, and abandon that as well - that resets some sort of internal counter which forces next Countess quest to steal items from the same category. Now check the board again and you should be able to get another.

Just use the steps above to abandon any quest to steal items you don't have. The ratio of Drinkware & Utensils is very high and they're also frequently rewarded, so at worst you can just do that and abandon all others.

DO NOT sell rewards if you want to level other characters.

PS: It's also a very simple way to level CP when enlightened.

For level below 50:

The category of treasury is NOT random and below level 38 those goods are rarely in rewards, so you really need the level 50 character to prepare all the goods, otherwise you'd run out of stock very quickly.

WySoSirius · June 2021

There is also an addon that selects covetous countess quest only on the selection process if the addon still works. Which eliminates the other as you cycle to get the quest. So it makes it much faster

chuckythexii · July 2021

tbh I found the pickpocket quests the easiest. Just rob the poor at any place with a dockside, they are easiest. It also levels legerdemain at the same time. Also really helps to have NB cloak and you can just run past any guards.

Aznarb · August 2021

If you just want to level the line fast, then just go Craglorn, steal every basket of apple, sell/launder them.
You can enter/exit thief den to reset apple or just log out/in.
It reward less money at the end than countess spam but it's way faster if you just want to do you selling& laundering quota once a day.

Extremely fast and easy, just take care of the guard and the other npc (or kill it with blade of woe from DB dlc).

bobdrad · April 24

Aznarb wrote: »

If you just want to level the line fast, then just go Craglorn, steal every basket of apple, sell/launder them.
You can enter/exit thief den to reset apple or just log out/in.

That's indeed a great easy to level Legerdemain, but it doesn't affect Thieves Guild skill line.

Sadly, the Tip Board trick seems to no longer work either. I keep getting the same quest after aborting and picking up again.