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As somebody who has spent probably too much time on the PTS robbing the citizens of Tamriel, here are some things I have figured out. Disclaimer: Any of these things are subject to change once 1.6 actually releases, and I might have figured some things out incorrectly.

Bounty and Heat
If you've been caught committing a crime, a little circle with a sword appears in the lower right corner of your screen. At the moment that your crime is discovered, you get bounty and heat.

• Depending on how large the combined arcs for bounty and heat are in the circle, you can be Disreputable, Notorious, or Kill on Sight.
  • You are Upstanding when you have no bounty or heat.
  • If you are Disreputable, guards will only arrest you if you get quite close to them. If you're good at sneaking, it is possible to avoid them entirely.
  • Being Notorious means guards will actively chase you, but they will attempt to arrest you when they catch you.
  • If you are Kill on Sight, guards will chase you, but will not attempt to arrest. They will simply attack you until you escape or die.
• Bounty appears as a white arc in the circle. It decreases over time, but slowly.
• Heat appears as a red arc in the circle. On a per-crime basis, this creates a much bigger arc than bounty does, but it also fades much faster.
• Paying off your bounty clears both your bounty and your heat.

Pickpocketing
Pickpocketing is fairly straightforward--you sneak, you grab, and if all goes well, you end up with a random stolen item. If all does not go well, you gain a bounty of 89 gold (usually) along with some heat. Citizens who detect your attempt may simply complain, or they will yell for a guard or begin attacking you.

• While you are sneaking, marks may be in a variety of states.
  • Aware marks can sense your presence. You cannot pickpocket marks in this state. This is not the same as being detected while sneaking. It usually means you're within the 180 degree arc in front of them. The best thing to do is move away from the target (so that it says "too far") which will reset their state to unaware, assuming you are actually behind them.
  • Suspicious marks also cannot be pickpocketed. Marks enter this state for a while after a previous attempt, whether or not it was successful.
  • Too far marks are too far away to be pickpocketed. Pretty simple.
    • Note: occasionally, you will not see a status of "too far" but your character will still be slightly out of range. This will cause your character to scoot forward before pickpocketing, and can occasionally cause them to be spotted when you thought they were hidden. The best way to avoid this is to get closer than the maximum range at which the pickpocket chance appears.
  • Empty marks have nothing to pickpocket, either because you've stolen it all (3 successful pickpockets on the same NPC) or because they simply never had anything to begin with.
  • Unaware marks can be pickpocketed.
    • Ordinarily, the chance of success will be listed in white.
    • If you are perfectly in position, you will hear a chime and the success % will turn green and increase significantly.
    • If the base chance of success is very low, this increase is only 10%. For most chances of success, the increase is 20%. For very high base rates of success, the increase is 25%.
    • You can enter this green state simply by hiding behind the mark for a while and not moving. Patience is key. If you slip up behind a mark and see that their state is already green, you will frequently miss the narrow window of opportunity if you try to pickpocket them immediately.
• Each time you pickpocket a target successfully, the success rate for subsequent attempts decreases by 5%.
• Your success rate is not affected by whether or not you have a bounty, or whether or not you have previously been caught attempting to pickpocket the mark or one of their friends.
• The success rate that the game tells you is only the chance that the mark themselves will notice your attempt. It says nothing about the chance that other NPCs will spot you.
  • The game will not warn you that you are in the direct line of sight of other NPCs. It is up to you to check for this beforehand.
  • If two NPCs are facing each other at close range, they will both be nearly impossible to pickpocket successfully, regardless of what success % the game may quote you. You may want to look for easier targets.
• Successful pickpocketing will increase your Legerdemain skill. The skill increase depends on the difficulty of the target.
  • Easy targets give 1 point, Medium targets give 2 and Hard targets give 4.
• Pickpocketing doesn't seem to ever give you equipment, but it will give you vendor trash with a good value when fenced (and some of the best flavor text found in the game). Unfortunately, all items are currently bound even after you launder them.
  • Please join me in submitting /feedback asking to make these items un-bound once laundered! Many of them would make terrific gag gifts.
• If a target attacks you, it is a crime for you to fight back. I suggest leading them (without attacking) to a hidden corner where you can murder them unobserved, in order to avoid further bounties.

Stealing from unlocked Containers
This is by far the easiest way to get items to fence or launder. As far as I can tell, it's the only way to get dyeable commoner clothing.

• Owned containers do not have the same loot as unowned containers. While they frequently have the usual provisioning ingredients and racial stones, etc, they will also drop the same sorts of items you'd get from pickpocketing.
• White equipment stolen from furniture (such as dressers) will have a sale value of zero, but equipment stolen from backpacks and armor stands sells for the usual value. This is likely a bug.
• As long as you're fully hidden (according to the reticle) when you hover over a container to steal from it, you will not be spotted.
• The theft itself gives no Legerdemain skill.
• Checking the contents of an unlocked container incurs no bounty and is not a crime.
• For the purposes of the Justice System, stealing from the corpse of a person you have murdered is about the same as stealing from an unlocked container.

Safe Boxes
Safe boxes are little metal chests found in shops and some other public spaces such as guild halls. They normally contain a bit of gold and a couple of green+ quality fenceable items.

• If you are completely hidden while unlocking the box, you will not be spotted and will gain no bounty.
• The act of unlocking the box is a crime, as is the act of stealing from it. These are two separate things that will both raise your bounty and heat.
  • If you are spotted while unlocking a safe box, you may as well finish unlocking it, but then do not take the contents. The box will remain unlocked, allowing you to wait until you are hidden again.
• Successful unlocking a safe box will increase your Legerdemain skill. The skill increase depends on the difficulty of the lock.
  • Easy locks give 1 point, Intermediate locks give 2 and Advanced locks give 4. The few times I unlocked Master level locks, I forgot to check my skill before and after, but I assume it will be higher than 4.
• Unowned treasure chests also give Legerdemain skill when unlocked. Unlocking them or taking their contents is not a crime.

Guards
Ahh, the bane of every sneak-thief. Learning to avoid them is key to being a successful criminal.

• Guards are un-killable. Don't bother trying.
• Guards can be pickpocketed. The difficulty is no different than usual Hard targets. They have the same quality of loot, too.
  • But, if they catch you, you will immediately be considered Kill on Sight, as if you had tried to attack the guard.
• Guards either stay at one point or have a fixed patrol route. Time spent learning the movement patterns of the guards in your favorite city is well-spent.
• If you are attempting to escape them, they use a variety of crowd-controlling skills, such as the DK talons and chains skills, and escaping them will eat through your stamina in a hurry. Stamina potions and medium armor are extremely helpful.
• While fleeing guards, you can use the door to a hideout, but no other doors.
  • This means that buildings with indoor guards, such as the Sister of the Sands Inn in Sentinel, can become a death trap.
• When a guard attempts to arrest you, they will give you the option to pay your bounty and surrender any stolen goods.
  • Alternatively, you can attempt to flee (if you respond within 15 seconds), but then you immediately become Kill on Sight.

Breaking and Entering
Picking door locks is much like breaking into a safe box.

• Trespassing is a crime, but it takes some effort to actually get a bounty for doing so. If you hide, the NPCs who spot you seem to forget about you.
• There is no way to pick a door lock without going through the door.
• Door locks don't seem to vary in difficulty each time you unlock them. A door that is Intermediate to unlock will always be Intermediate.
• As usual, you get more Legerdemain skill the more difficult the lock is.

Hideouts, Fencing and Laundering

• Each zone has a hideout, usually found in the zone's main city.
• Each hideout has two entrances, one inside the city, and out outside of it.
• Each hideout has two fences, a regular merchant who sells bait and lockpicks, and a guild trader.
• You cannot steal or assault or commit any crimes whatsoever inside a hideout. No containers can be looted.
• While you cannot be caught by guards inside of a hideout, be careful when logging out while inside of one. When you log back in, you will find yourself at the entrance to the hideout, which may place you in view of a guard.
• Fences allow you to pay off your bounty. Paying it off will also clear any heat, and afterwards you will always be Upstanding.
• Fencing goods (i.e. selling them to a fence) means the fence will pay you for the item's value. You are unable to buy back items you have fenced.
• Laundering items means you pay the fence the value of the item in order to clear the stolen flag from the item. This allows you to sell things such as gear and motifs. However, vendor trash-style items will still be bound to you (regretfully).
• Until you launder a stolen item, you cannot trade it or place it in your bank. If a guard arrests you or kills you, un-laundered items will be confiscated from you.
• Both fencing and laundering goods increase your Legerdemain skill by 1 per item. Fencing a stack of items counts each item individually.

Nice summary! Have you noticed a difference in guard behaviour between Disreputable and Notorious? I know the popup help states there is a difference, but for me, they don't seem to do anything more while Notorious, and still only try to arrest you if you get too close. Vendors also don't talk to you while you are a Fugitive (Kill on Sight), but the popup suggests they will refuse to deal with you at Notorious. How have you found vendor interactions?

Deandra,

Thanks for the post. It is most informative. I've only logged onto the PTS a few times now and this post now makes my experience make a little more sense. Thanks again!

There's now a thread about unbinding laundered items so they can be traded on the official forum here: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en ... ered-items