Let talk and find what way is the best? For me, I go with high pick pocket (or you can use fate point for...) , some point at prowling, lockpicking key. I try to robbed the Enchantment (magick shop) at Tarant (in center somewhere) sneak inside... there is three or four high lv mage(lv40) guard his safe... but inside if you can steal it ... 555! Scroll ... Enchantment worth lots ! may be you sneak at second gate use charm spell on him and prowl though back door.... watch out for invisble guard... he will change position at a time (try to timing and watch the guard walk...)
through my game time, I never actually killed anyone without a solid reason, or robbed any shops. Call me a paladin but I just feel bad robbing shops in arcanum. The way you do it in the shopkeepersfaces, that sort of stuff just wouldn't fly in the real world. I almost felt like I'm exploiting an npc behaviour bug. I felt so bad I had to kill that trader that had the only liitani need for the god quest. the bugger ignored me since I was a tech. another thing which was stupid was the robers from the boil they attacked me so I ran to the cops. they just stood there, doing notin. They prooved they were in cahoots when I accidently shot one of them and they started attacking me along with the robbers. quickload.
IMHO it isn't exactly the point. I still believe that Arcanum is a RPG, so there are ^many^ ways to play it. The thief way is one of them. But u can also play as a "paladin" like Jinxed said. To answer the topic question, my best way to get money/items is to do the quests :smile: