I do think the stealing animation needs to be gotten rid of, though. For success or failure. For failure, the intended target just gets a notification. Even bad thieves don't usually molest their target.
Yes, I very much agree. Though it could be an exclusive feature of the thief profession.
Without animation one could actually fall for Nyan's "/e lick" trick, heheh...
I also like the idea with recovering reputation over time.
Finally, as much as I hate fixed prices on items, but since they're already there, we could use them to scale the reputation drop accordingly. Petty thieves would be tolerated in a town for longer.
rep_drop = item_value / 100
then, for each unsuccesful attempt, we would have:
-300 rep for 30000 caps
-200 rep for a plasma rifle
-80 for a super sledge
-7 rep for a leather jacket
-2 (1,8) rep for a 10mm pistol
if we would want to flatten it a bit:
rep_drop = item_value^(0,8) / 15
-255 rep for 30000 caps
-184 rep for a plasma rifle
-89 for a super sledge
-13 rep for a leather jacket
-5 rep for a 10mm pistol
Just examples. It's all a matter of what we want.