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I agree that it would have to be a contested roll.
I disagree that it should be flat out disallowed or discouraged in any way shape or form from the GM or any other player in the group.
Their CHARACTERS might have issues if you are caught.
Reason being, this kind of thing adds an element to the group dynamics. If you are caught but the group values you enough, they let you live and just make sure to watch you more closely, or have you empty your pockets.
I personally would not care if you played your character the way you wanted to. It is entirely possible you as the player wish to play out the thief, but later might have a sudden attack of guilt and decide to confess everything and pay give back what you took... Most of my characters would laugh, the get distracted by something that looks big and mean and fun to kill.
The Avengers don't always play nice with each other. The group "rogue" person is usually the least trusted party member anyway, there is absolutely nothing truly stopping you from having your fun.
Completely agree with this. The way I have always seen it is you have to be able to separate the things that happen in the game from the things that happen in real life, if you are playing with someone you don't like you can't go and kill their character just because you don't like the player. It's like using meta-knowledge, if the party in the case doesn't know the OP is pre-looting the corpses and not telling the party what he found, even if the player's know that it is happening they can't do anything about it.
Personally I would punish players for using meta-knowledge more than the person who is playing out his character and doing what his character would. Also as a GM you should stay out of party interactions, the only time you need to step in and disallow something to happen is if the arguments are leaving the table, and the other thing that people need to understand is that different groups play the game completely differently. Some groups are the...
I also agree with this, but only for an Evil or Chaotic Neutral alignment Character. I wouldn't imagine other alignments would be down for doing that. Maybe an excuse for CG alignment if no one else is around, but not while companions are actively around you. (compelled good or neutral characters though because of some mysterious reason where they get tempted.... like a drawback that sometimes kicks in, maybe. maybe. but that would really be pushing it.) Hilarious for a group of all CN and/or Evil characters. Everyone trying to do it at times... You get caught the other players take an item form you as punishment.
One: Only small type items and no taking 10 or 20 on the SoH check obviously. Like daggers, rings, potions, headband, maybe a short sword or a belt. Belt could be pushing it as the time intensiveness of the nature of trying to get it off (maybe give a bonus to the companions' perception check if allowing that while companions are around when trying to get something like that.) That being for active group around you. If you are alone and find stuff, you could go after bigger things if you are able to put it somewhere, like a bag of holding for instance. But be careful with that as that is a bit more labor intensive(noises being heard.....,) and could increase your chances of being caught by a returning companion. Getting caught while you were by yourself can try to make an excuse with teh DM doing both your Bluff check if you are lying, or Diplomacy check if the item they see you are putting away you were actually going to let them know about, and their Sense Motive check and then the DM saying whether they believe you or not.
Two: If you are doing this in a current and/or ended combat area where others are, they will probably start to wonder why you are staying so far back and not doing anything except huddling over by the dead bodies. Sure, there are ways to get around this. Say you are hurt and are searching the body for a heal potions. That being said because as players you don't have to tell someone how far down you are exactly in hit points (they could do a perception to see how you look,) but exact numbers is technically metagaming. When doing this type of thing there will be opposed perception checks, but honestly according to the written out rules of the books, that roll is to be done in secret by the GM.
Three: If you get caught, something bad may happen to your character by the other players' characters... If that Character ends up being removed from play for some reason because of being caught. Would probably make a consequence be that you had to then play a character with the opposite alignment before you could go back to that alignment again. Gotta be consequences for having got caught......
Four: Completely viable thing to do by a CN or Evil alignment character.
Five: Be far easier if the rest of the group headed on if you were still looking around for hidden rooms (this actually happened in a campaign I was in. A friend, who is quite more duplicitous than I, and I who were both CN alignments stayed back to finish looking around the room. Others went on to the next couple rooms. WE searched, found a secret room. We split everything between ourselves as it fit for the characters... lqtm.) Definite added elements to group dynamics and story within the group.
Six: Already stated this but if they are around, definite perception checks, but done by the GM with penalties, because of all the stuff going on, or bonuses if nothing is going on or another players "Character" is suspicious. etc.
Seven: Most metagaming would be frowned upon. If a player just starts going I am gonna stay with the Thief because the player knows he is stealing, something could happen to the metagaming character.
I say most because probably one would be doing a lot of secret messages with the GM. If you get caught because you are constantly sending secret messages to the DM, that metagaming would be ok to me but that would translate to a bonus on their perception rolls to catch you because that would be in game and only metagaming by the GM, which is ok. lol. But as said if they try to catch you "lifting" the dead body or such because the player thinks you are stealing and not the Character actually suspecting/figuring it out, something would happen to the metagaming character.
If you don't agree with allowing this, One thing you should do as a DM/GM.
One: If you aren't cool with the idea, don't allow evil or chaotic neutral player characters. That would solve everything. As those types of alignments can do just that. Or just don't allow it even if you allow CN or Evil alignments
Just some of my thoughts. and my apologies if it is a bit winded or confusing.