Talk:Catch the med thief

Combat is a no

I discovered that if you accidentally activate combat while the thief is in the room, and you Yell to force them out of stealth, they turn hostile - but nobody else in Rail Crossing does. Oddly, they're not hostile to the thief either. At this point you'll have no choice but to kill them. This breaks the quest since it isn't designed to deal with the thief's death, nobody even acknowledges the person now being dead. TL;DR Don't fight the thief. - Klaus (talk) 21:24, 1 November 2019 (CDT)

It's safe to use a trap - if planting one doesn't turn the town hostile. I stealthed and got into the corner beside the medicine store room door entrance, then dropped a bear trap right in front of the door. This guarantees the thief will walk into it, and since they're stuck you'll have plenty of time to stroll up to them and talk to them. The quest will continue and complete normally. There are no negative repercussions afterwards either, either from the town or from the thief if they're still around.

However, if the trap kills the thief - e.g. an Electrokinetic Imprint may oneshot them - the quest remains unchanged and you will be unable to fulfill it. - Klaus (talk) 21:45, 1 November 2019 (CDT)

Found a discussion elsewhere mentioning you need to catch the thief in the act. This doesn't seem to be true; nailing the thief while they're in the doc's main room (i.e. the bear trap method), not having even opened the door to medicine store room yet, still works to continue the quest. If you bump into them OUTSIDE of the doc's place (I tested this) then yes, you'll only get their standard dialog text. So you need to reveal the thief while they're at the doc's. If you find out who they are and reload the quest, simply stealth up then watch them when they're at their normal location (the bar). They will leave the bar and go to opposite street corner, and then activate stealth. They'll take a roundabout route along the north/top edge of the map before going into the doc's place. You'll need to interact with them when they're inside. - Klaus (talk) 21:52, 1 November 2019 (CDT)