1) I would like to seriously discuss the right of the party to engage a ninja looter if they catch them in the act. While it is not stealing, I certaintly can see IC justification for it being construed as so.
You should always do what your CHARACTER would do, regarding beliefs, alignment, ect. Just because you as a player find ninja looting annoying doesn't mean you PC would commit
murder. Also keep in mind, you shouldn't be attacking people just because they loot an area. If you are in a dungeon, and a looter runs past you and loots to purposefully and knowingly deny you the loot, then that's one thing. But if you come into an area just as a looter is leaving, it'd be in extremely poor taste to try and attack them (and potentially even against the rules, if they're not trying to buy into the conflict at all). The person looting didn't even know you were coming in behind them, how could you fault them for stealing FROM MONSTERS? You literally do the same thing by looting bodies that loot spawns in. Why would it make it any different IC because you also killed every living thing on the map?
2) I would love to see a mechanical changed to ninjalooting. So long as a high portion of loot is in chests I would love to see a system where certain classes (i.e maybe rangers and rogues) can make checks to see when a chest was last opened by the amount of dust, residue, positions of the mechanisms etc. This could lead to a lot of RP when someone in your party can identify its highly likely the ninjalooter is still around and about. I think people also always blame low loot on ninja looting, and that could help to show that some times loot is just low and you need to deal with it.
Considering that when a ninjalooter hits an area, it only stays "looted" for about 15 minutes, I'm not sure how much more specific information you'd want. They were obviously there recently. As far as getting some kind of hint that the chest is looted - considering you'd need to walk up to the chest to see this in the first place, why not just open it and look? If there's stuff in there, it hasn't been looted. Ninjalooters don't take stuff out and put crappier stuff in. And when they take some of the objects, you can tell, because the remaining objects will be out of order, with blank spots in the chest.
3) Rangers being able to track is currently not very useful or existent on the server. A system that creates a DC check to search for footprints while a rogue is moving silently could be another avenue for RP. The party could even spend some time trying to track the looter, which could make the experience a lot more meaningful than an empty chest.
Rangers having expended tracking in some capacity is cool, but as a replacement for listen being rolled against Move Silently doesn't make sense. Why not have it be a separate system entirely, instead of doing exactly what another skill already does? Like checking at transitions to see if someone has passed recently and get a little information about them, rather than looking at a footprint and knowing a sneak is right next to you.
I'll say what I always say when ninjalooting comes up. I've been screwed over by people WAY above the intended level range for an area selfishly soloing dungeons (mainly you cleric/druic/wiz players) many, many, many more times than I've ever had someone loot out in front of me. In all the years I've played here, I've been foiled by a looter less than 5 times. But more than once a month when I'm actively dungeoning, I have to leave an area because a high level cleric comes in and decides he's wrecking the entire ML crypts/terg ruins for a few herbs or some easy loot.
