There are two bonus mechanics. Confidence ranges from a penalty to a bonus and is earned currently only by successfully backstabbing. It is lost by getting caught stealing and getting arrested, possibly other failures. It also drifts to an equilibrium level based on your Charisma. Your Charisma also speeds up the regenerate when below your equilibrium level and slows down the loss when above it. This is measured with the line about how confident in your abilities you feel when you SMIRK.

There is also a second, separate, bonus based on the urban level of your location. Any urban level provides a bonus, with the more urban areas providing a larger bonus. When in a neutral or any level of wilderness area you will not receive a bonus, but there will also not be a penalty. I.e. location is at worst a neutral state. This bonus is indicated by the line about how familiar the surroundings are when you SMIRK.

These two bonuses stack, although I'm not sure of the caps on the strength. It's also not an across the board survival boost, but rather only to the thiefly ones excluding evasion.

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Generally I've noticed that being in the street has the largest bonus. Being indoors has none or possibly the lowest level. Inside the guild halls has the highest level. Smaller towns dont reach the highest level. There are many exceptiins to all of this, however, so there doesnt seem to be a hard and fast rule and was likely at the whim of the gm who created the area at the time.

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>Confidence ranges from a penalty to a bonus and is earned currently only by successfully backstabbing.

I thought binning effected confidence?

I want to say successfully stealing from shops also raises confidence, but I don't do it enough to say for sure.

Probably doesn't then.

<<From what I've heard, stealing from shops DOES raise confidence. However, the items need to be an actual challenge and not just "something that teaches"

This would jive with my experience. I tend to steal stuff on the safer side of things.

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Last I knew from my notes, ALL stealth checks affect confidence (and are proportional to the skill check) and are affected by confidence. You notice backstabbing the most because you are performing several actions at once to build confidence quickly. Tank a few stabs though or fail a few hides and see how fast it drops.

To prove it, go to something you can get "top of your game" on. Then walk to a creature that you'd have a hard time hiding on, or load up with armor or something to decrease your chance at a stealth success and watch how fast your confidence drops. It's a two way street.

I usually find it's easier to come out swinging with khri and get confidence up first, because then you are working with added bonus and if khri wear off you have those extra ranks boosting you in their place. Everything is supposed to operate within global caps now, so your max boost is 100 effective ranks IF you've got the stats to back it.

Beast Elec Drister

"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin' command here."
―Jayne Cobb

MM1 (EXW) -USN 1999-present

Perhaps. I don't know. I'm running off of old notes. I was gone for years and with these super sweet message boards the last thing I was going to do was go through and attempt to sift through the posts for info. Last notes I had said 100 ranks, so that's what I regurgitated. Some of my old notes I've been able to test pretty easily and confirm. Some of the other that I never messed with, I have to rely on the info given from GM's. Just trying to help.

Beast Elec Drister

"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin' command here."
―Jayne Cobb

MM1 (EXW) -USN 1999-present