How would your group handle this situation?

[Someonelse]

I have been lurking on these forums for years, I just created a screen name so I could post this question.
I already kind of know whats going to happen here, but I'm interested in sharing a D&D anecdote and seeing how people respond to it. And who knows, maybe there is another solution we haven't thought of that could make everything work out with a minimum of amount of butthurt.

our particular gaming group has been playing together every week for about 5 or 6 years now. One player in particular tends to play characters who are unlikable (a-hole would be the most descriptive term) and we always just endure it because he is a good player and we get along well enough out of game. This time though, he has taken it too far.
In this new game we started a few weeks ago this player is running a thief (I forget the class name, it's like a rogue but has some useful spells). I am a Chaotic Good Barbarian Priest and the other players are a LG Paladin and a NG Ranger.
The Thief's (character not player) name is Jay. Jay is constantly stealing things, we have caught him in the act a few times (making spot checks vs his slight of hand), just taking gems or magic items or other things that would normally go into the party loot to be divided later. He is wholly unrepentant and swears (in character) that the times he was caught were the only times it happened even though we as players know it happens constantly, he manages to get away with at least a third of all the loot we would otherwise be splitting, and then expects a fair share of the treasure we do find as a group.
In our last game session we wanted to kill or capture the leader of a gang. He stays on the top floor of a 3 story building. So two of us disguised ourselves as gang members and brought the other two in like prisoners. That got us to the top floor with a face to face confrontation with the bad guy. Things quickly turned from bluff checks to initiative checks and the bad guy, who turned out to be a monk of some sort, ran away and jumped out the third story window, grabbing the ledge of the building across the way. I wasn't about to let the monk (or the DM for that matter) get away with it so my barbarian ran after him, jumped out the window and made a successful touch and grapple to grab the monk and hang on to his waist (he then failed a str check and we both fell and took damage, but I was able to pin him down and tie him up). Meanwhile the paladin and ranger were fighting the thugs on the top floor and trying to figure out how to escape. The thief slipped away from the fight and went into the BBEG's room and found a very significant treasure (would have been the largest haul we have found yet in this game, if we could have gotten away with it). He managed to steal the loot, and although every player at the table watched him do this, none of our characters have any idea. As soon as he was able to Jay went and spent the money on a new magic item for himself, a wand of curing that he is not likely to use on anyone else in the group.

We have talked to the DM and he seems a little apathetic about it, I get the impression that he wants us to play out the scenario and see what happens. One concession is that he told us in advance in front of every player at the table that the next story hook would be given to the paladin and he would decide who he shares that adventure hook with. Since Jay is so secretive we don't know where he lives, we don't even know what he looks like since every time we see him he has a different disguise, which leads to us talking to random strangers near our public rendezvous point thinking it's him in disguise.

I know if the barbarian sees him steal from the party again he will impose some barbarian justice and cut off his left hand. Which might lead to conflict with the paladin who would rather have him locked up.

The frustrating thing is that our hints are less and less subtle and we have become downright direct in telling him that our characters have no reason to be associating with this thief and the only thing keeping us together at this point is the 5 of us wanting to sit around a table and play a game together. He doesn't care. He argues that he is role-playing a character.

If this were a player in your group, who you have been successfully gaming with for years, what would you do?

[Barsoom]

Ah, the "I'm just roleplaying my character" excuse. Haven't seen it for a whole ... twenty minutes, I think.

Just tell him that the four of you are also just roleplaying your characters. Specifically, you are roleplaying characters who have no reason or motivation to associate with a shady thief who steals from them. Make him sit out the next game session. Remind him that this is all completely in character.

[Callin]

use divination to detect his theft. then meet out justice. imprison him with no hands lol. satisfy you and the paladin

[Deaxsa]

maybe the characters feel so uncomfortable with this klepto and incessant liar that they have decided to leave his company? seriously, that way, either he makes a new character, or plays by himself.

jm2c

[molten_dragon]

I have been lurking on these forums for years, I just created a screen name so I could post this question.
I already kind of know whats going to happen here, but I'm interested in sharing a D&D anecdote and seeing how people respond to it. And who knows, maybe there is another solution we haven't thought of that could make everything work out with a minimum of amount of butthurt.

our particular gaming group has been playing together every week for about 5 or 6 years now. One player in particular tends to play characters who are unlikable (a-hole would be the most descriptive term) and we always just endure it because he is a good player and we get along well enough out of game. This time though, he has taken it too far.
In this new game we started a few weeks ago this player is running a thief (I forget the class name, it's like a rogue but has some useful spells). I am a Chaotic Good Barbarian Priest and the other players are a LG Paladin and a NG Ranger.
The Thief's (character not player) name is Jay. Jay is constantly stealing things, we have caught him in the act a few times (making spot checks vs his slight of hand), just taking gems or magic items or other things that would normally go into the party loot to be divided later. He is wholly unrepentant and swears (in character) that the times he was caught were the only times it happened even though we as players know it happens constantly, he manages to get away with at least a third of all the loot we would otherwise be splitting, and then expects a fair share of the treasure we do find as a group.
In our last game session we wanted to kill or capture the leader of a gang. He stays on the top floor of a 3 story building. So two of us disguised ourselves as gang members and brought the other two in like prisoners. That got us to the top floor with a face to face confrontation with the bad guy. Things quickly turned from bluff checks to initiative checks and the bad guy, who turned out to be a monk of some sort, ran away and jumped out the third story window, grabbing the ledge of the building across the way. I wasn't about to let the monk (or the DM for that matter) get away with it so my barbarian ran after him, jumped out the window and made a successful touch and grapple to grab the monk and hang on to his waist (he then failed a str check and we both fell and took damage, but I was able to pin him down and tie him up). Meanwhile the paladin and ranger were fighting the thugs on the top floor and trying to figure out how to escape. The thief slipped away from the fight and went into the BBEG's room and found a very significant treasure (would have been the largest haul we have found yet in this game, if we could have gotten away with it). He managed to steal the loot, and although every player at the table watched him do this, none of our characters have any idea. As soon as he was able to Jay went and spent the money on a new magic item for himself, a wand of curing that he is not likely to use on anyone else in the group.

We have talked to the DM and he seems a little apathetic about it, I get the impression that he wants us to play out the scenario and see what happens. One concession is that he told us in advance in front of every player at the table that the next story hook would be given to the paladin and he would decide who he shares that adventure hook with. Since Jay is so secretive we don't know where he lives, we don't even know what he looks like since every time we see him he has a different disguise, which leads to us talking to random strangers near our public rendezvous point thinking it's him in disguise.

I know if the barbarian sees him steal from the party again he will impose some barbarian justice and cut off his left hand. Which might lead to conflict with the paladin who would rather have him locked up.

The frustrating thing is that our hints are less and less subtle and we have become downright direct in telling him that our characters have no reason to be associating with this thief and the only thing keeping us together at this point is the 5 of us wanting to sit around a table and play a game together. He doesn't care. He argues that he is role-playing a character.

If this were a player in your group, who you have been successfully gaming with for years, what would you do?

Ideally it would be handled as an out of character issue. Just talk to the player and let him know you don't appreciate it.

If it has to be handled in-character, insist that if the thief is going to continue adventuring with you, he stay with the group at all times, and you be allowed to search him for any stolen items regularly. After all, you've caught him several times so it would be justified. You might even consider paying a high-level NPC spellcaster to put a geas or something on him to enforce good behavior. Otherwise, simply tell that character that he's not welcome with your group any more because he keeps stealing from you and have the player roll up a different character.

[drax75]

Ah, the "I'm just roleplaying my character" excuse. Haven't seen it for a whole ... twenty minutes, I think.

Just tell him that the four of you are also just roleplaying your characters. Specifically, you are roleplaying characters who have no reason or motivation to associate with a shady thief who steals from them. Make him sit out the next game session. Remind him that this is all completely in character.

I agree, i had a similiar situation where we had a Frenzied berserker threaten to kill the party if we didn't pay him extra loot. So we simply said "ok we stop asking the Berserker to come on adventures with us"

Sometimes you just need to slap some sense into some people. Like the post above say's not inviting his Rogue is totally in character, hopefully your friend will simply make another character and keep playing, even more hopefully he will say he was sorry but thats unlikely.

[Hyena]

The answer is simple. Kill him. Then explain why you did so to the player in details. If he doesn't learn his lesson, kill the next character as well. All this is completely in character, and you are just roleplaying.

[Amnestic]

Jay's player is choosing to have him act this way. He could always not (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html), while still playing his character (stealing from the party is arguably too risky - if it's discovered again, they could take his hands or worse. Alternatively, the fact that he's traveled with the group might actually cause him to consider them his friends, and friends generally don't steal from friends).

Once that it's established that it's Jay who's choosing to play his character like this, and that you (and the rest of your party, by the sounds of it) has an issue, it becomes an OOC problem and it's time to talk to Jay's player outside of the game to sort it out.

Edit: Added link to Rich Burlew's article which tackles this. :smalltongue:

[eggynack]

Well, if you don't want to kick the player out, and out of game talking isn't working, then you can just stop giving him party treasure. In-game, say, "If we catch you stealing treasure again, we're never giving you any more treasure as reparation". Then, you set your items up so that it's difficult to steal them sight unseen. If you want, you can even set a time limit on the wealth by level loss equal to approximately the stuff he's stolen so far, expressed as extra percentage off the top of what he stole. If he claims to have in character incentives to steal your stuff, then give him in character incentives not to steal your stuff.

Or you could just talk to him. Tell the guy he's being a jerk, but maybe more diplomatically than that. If you can't resolve things through the DM, then resolve things directly. I don't know what solution there is for what he's already stolen, but these are all good preventative measures. I think there are good magic ways to make your stuff effectively impossible to steal.

[Amphetryon]

Stop seeking out Jay's help when the party needs someone of his approximate skill set. Clearly he cannot be trusted by the other party members, and they are aware of this fact in-game. Jay's Player is naturally welcome to create another Character to fulfill a similar role. If the new Character has an identical personality disorder, the problem isn't Jay.

[OzymandiasX]

Stop seeking out Jay's help when the party needs someone of his approximate skill set. Clearly he cannot be trusted by the other party members, and they are aware of this fact in-game. Jay's Player is naturally welcome to create another Character to fulfill a similar role. If the new Character has an identical personality disorder, the problem isn't Jay.
Yup. This exactly.

Since his character is

a) Stealing from the party (Got caught multiple times)
b) Not participating in difficult encounters (looting while others fight)

Why would they keep him around? Years ago I hung out with a guy who was a mooch in general, then once I caught him taking something of mine. He never got invited back to my place again. :P

[Arbane]

OOC: "Dood, stop ninjaing teh lootz. It's annoying, and you're not pulling your weight in fights."

IC: "Hey, are we inviting that thief on this mission?"
"No way, I think he's been skimming the loot. Let's go."

It is vitally important that you try the OOC part _first_.

At the risk of Internet Psychoanalysis, it sounds to me like Jay wants to 'outsmart' the other players. This is either going to annoy all of you who aren't Jay intensely, lead to PvP, or both. Good luck with getting him to stop. :smallsigh:

[Krobar]

My group would kill that character. If Jay were to bring in another ******* character, he'd get killed too.

I as DM wouldn't even have to lift a finger to deal with it.

[Someonelse]

Thanks to everyone for the great and speedy input. It is much appreciated. :)

[Barsoom]

Jay's player is choosing to have him act this way. He could always not (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html)Excellent article, very educational, thanks for the link! Everyone who ever had issue with player [and player character] conflict should read this!

[Lord Vukodlak]

Once the thief has been caught stealing from the party once, he'd have a penalty to his slight of hand from then on. Once you know the character is prone to taking extra loot you'd keep an annoyingly close eye on them.

Funny Story I was not in this campaign myself but a friend was and he related this story to me. The Thief sneaked ahead of the party and managed to steal a sizable gem from a chest and pocket it himself. Due to passing notes this theft was so secret the players didn't even know until after the fact.

He was killed in a later encounter, now they were rather low level and this was 3.0 so it was FIVE THOUSAND gold to bring him back. So raising him from the dead just wasn't practical. So they buried him with honors without even bothering to search him as for all they knew the thief only had mundane equipment.

The DM even asked aren't you going to search him but the living characters reasoned it be wrong to loot the body of a fallen comrade. As it happened the gem was worth over five thousand gold.

[Gildedragon]

This has an easy fix. Have the DM be vague about treasure values and contents. Post rogue stealing have the remaining wealth be a level appropriate reward for the other players, who split it sans rogue (because they know stuff was taken (dust marks, general untrustworthiness)) the rogue's pilfered objects are, coincidentally equivalent to WBL

Or as a more punitive measure. The other players get ipso facto WBL every level (spent consumables are restored to the wealth pool, broken/obsolete items replaced/upgraded at no cost) whereas the rogue's player has to keep track of all the gold earned, wealth appraised, how much an item sells for...

[Zero grim]

As a Player: Once I knew that the thief was stealing from the group I would give them a chance to turn in the stolen items and perhaps explain their behaviour, if the stealing is for a good cause (see Haley for a good example) if the thief did have a reason for stealing then the party could try and resolve it, then the thief has no reason to steal.

If there wasn't a reason for the theft or the thief refuses to give the reason then I would just turn to the party leader/employer/group vote not to continue travelling with the thief.

Only then would I ask OOC, but if it came to that then the player problem cant take a hint.

As a GM: If the stealing caused internal strife between the players I would step in and ask the player to change their ways or change their character, when I run a game I want my players to have a good time, Character to Character conflict can be fun and entertaining as long as everyone is on board but Player to Player conflict just ruins a good night and can lead to more problems if left alone.

[Deophaun]

I am a Chaotic Good Barbarian Priest and the other players are a LG Paladin and a NG Ranger.
It's up to you and the ranger. Knock the thief unconscious, strip him naked, donate everything to charity, make sure he wakes up in a pillory.

Why are your characters trusting their lives to someone who won't trust them with seeing his face, anyway?

[Matticussama]

It's up to you and the ranger. Knock the thief unconscious, strip him naked, donate everything to charity, make sure he wakes up in a pillory.

Why are your characters trusting their lives to someone who won't trust them with seeing his face, anyway?

I don't see how it is only up to the Barbarian and the Ranger; Paladins would probably be the least tolerant to that sort of behavior the Rogue is displaying. The Paladin would (or should) stop the Rogue just as he would stop any other thieving bandit. The Paladin would also have the best "moral authority" to judge him and sentence him to an appropriate punishment; it could be as light as confiscating the stolen goods and kicking the Rogue out of the party, intermediate by confiscating the goods and placing him in jail, or severe by confiscating the goods and cutting off the Rogue's hand(s) for theft. After all, Paladins are Lawful Good and are therefore usually willing to prosecute these people according to the law of the land and/or their religion; Medieval laws didn't treat thieves kindly.

[Deophaun]

I don't see how it is only up to the Barbarian and the Ranger.
Because tolerating the behavior in the past, and then turning around and beating him silly over it later, is not lawful behavior. It's capricious. This means either A) The law the Paladin follows sanctions the thief's behavior under the rule of "Dibs" or B) the party lacks sufficient evidence of the thief's activities to justify such measures. Either way, the Paladin cannot act.

[Yogibear41]

The answer is simple. Kill him. Then explain why you did so to the player in details. If he doesn't learn his lesson, kill the next character as well. All this is completely in character, and you are just roleplaying.

We had almost the exact same problem with a character in a game I played in as well, except instead of stealing he used his magic and attitude to basically make our lives a living hell... fighting in a dried out grass field?!? I'll cast fireball! entire field catches on fire we barely get out alive... for 1 example.

However, in our game killing him would have been an evil act more or less so party members didn't want to do it, as well as out of game people were trying to be nice to him so he could continue to play.

However, eventually push came to shove and I killed him lol. Tottaly worth the CE alignment I got lol.


Also got the added benfit of some easy XP :smallsmile: muahahahha

[Matticussama]

Because tolerating the behavior in the past, and then turning around and beating him silly over it later, is not lawful behavior. It's capricious. This means either A) The law the Paladin follows sanctions the thief's behavior under the rule of "Dibs" or B) the party lacks sufficient evidence of the thief's activities to justify such measures. Either way, the Paladin cannot act.

Finding hard evidence to prove the Rogue's crimes to the Paladin sounds like a fun min-quest. If they sneak behind the Paladin's back, then the Paladin may feel honor-bound to defend his compatriot; then you split the party in half, which is never good. By bringing hard evidence to the Paladin's attention and having him be duty-bound to intervene keeps a united front against the offending Rogue. Party unity in this sort of thing is key to maintaining some form of group cohesion.

[Deophaun]

Finding hard evidence to prove the Rogue's crimes to the Paladin sounds like a fun min-quest.
It's still up to the Barbarian and Ranger in your scenario.

[Barsoom]

Because tolerating the behavior in the past, and then turning around and beating him silly over it later, is not lawful behavior. It's capricious. No, it's called, "I've given it a good doze of thought, meditated about it, asked my temple elders and decided to change my mind about allowing a thief in our midst". In the wonderful fabric of Real Life (TM) people do it all the time - they change their mind after thinking long and hard about something. Fictional characters in published fiction do it too. No reason the paladin can't do it.


Either way, the Paladin cannot act.
The heck he can. By the way, you are making the same mistake that started off this thread - the mistake of assuming a player is a slave to his character. Read the "choose to act differently" article linked above.

[Ace Nex]

Finding evidence could become a whole session itself. The simple solution, stop asking for his help. The paladin knows he's a crook, the barbarian know's he's a crook, everyone knows. It leaves a strong impact on the player that what he is doing isn't OK and he has to make a choice of either giving up on the group or reforming. You could also search him, simple math, if the store rooms are empty, and the theifs pockets are bursting with cash, you can probably put 2 and 2 together. When this happens, the Paladin code FORBIDS him from working with the theif. Either he is FORCED to turn him in or attack him. Work that code in your favor. As for the barbarian, be careful about who you attack and don't burn too many bridges. It's clear you're loosing fun from the circumstance, and while Jay may enjoy himself, I doubt he'd enjoy playing alone.

The longer solution, use divination, track him down, turn him in or kill him. This would remove his character from the game, something I don't think he'd be happy with either. There is no ideal solution where everything comes out good, but the fewer people hurt in RL the better.

[Yael]

Kaboom, just do it.

DestrOOOOOOY him, teach him a lesson.

Also, talk with him, maybe he is just ''roleplaying his character,'' but he is taking things too far. Stealing the loot that every party member could have had was really wrong and not ethical.

Speak, if that doesn't work, give him a scroll of Kaboom disguised as a scroll of CL10's Fireball, it works~~ :P

[prufock]

You've caught him stealing on several occasions. He's abandoned the party in the middle of a fight at least once. You don't know what he looks like. Yeah, I have to side with others who've asked "Why are you adventuring with this guy?"

Okay, maybe you need someone with his skill set - stealth, trapfinding, etc. Then again, maybe not. You can deal with traps "the barbarian way" or using dispel magic on the magical ones.

You can stop including him. Tell the DM "We have no reason to trust this character, we don't really need him, so we're not going to include him in further quests." Jay's player should be free to make a new character if he wants, and make it clear that the issue is with Jay, not the player.

You can first tell the player that this is your plan if he doesn't stop being a dillhole. Maybe he'll shape up.

If you're high enough level, the Paladin could mark of justice his ass with some particularly nasty curse for a rogue.

Anecdote time: In the campaign I'm in now, our very first session, we got a mission to deliver an item to a group in another town, knowing that there was competition to retrieve this item. In one of our very first encounters the gnome wizard in our group (who was pretty new to our group, and our game style, and played a general crap-disturber brothel-owning greedy illusionist) tried to sell us out, told the bandit that we had the item and offered to give it to him for a profit.

Now, my bard/marshal with his +ridiculous number to bluff managed to talk our way out of it, but the gnome later kept insisting he was going to make a deal for the item as soon as he got the chance.

So we stripped him down, gagged him, and tied him up in a sack. My character normally would not treat anyone like this, but it was the only way to keep him from screwing us over, since talking to him didn't get the point across.

Both the player and the character were pretty much put on the sidelines for a large part of that session. Now this wouldn't work with all groups, but both the player and the character learned from this that you do not screw over the party, and he's become much more reliable (though still somewhat of a pot-stirrer).

[Seharvepernfan]

Well, personally, I'd cut off his damn hand, and make him pay for the regeneration spell. Or, you could make a DC 20 sense motive check and get the feeling that he's dishonest, then take that a step further and beat him up to "steal" back your treasure.

Put things on even terms; if he's going to steal, you're going to punish him for it. The game seems to lead in the "whatever happens, happens" direction, so go for it.

It's not that I would be angry at that player in that situation, it's just that that's what my characters would do. (actually, I'd probably kill him when the rest of the party wasn't around, but hey)

I don't think that it's something you need to deal with out of game, especially not quit over.

[Deophaun]

No, it's called, "I've given it a good doze of thought, meditated about it, asked my temple elders and decided to change my mind about allowing a thief in our midst". In the wonderful fabric of Real Life (TM) people do it all the time
And then they get sued and Mr. Law steps in and says "Uh-uh, you had a tacit agreement. Now pay alimony."

Great, you meditated about it. You asked your temple elders about it. You changed your mind. You still can't just go and knock the offender unconscious and take his (ill-gotten) gear. "I changed my mind" is the hallmark of caprice, not the excuse.

The heck he can. By the way, you are making the same mistake that started off this thread - the mistake of assuming a player is a slave to his character.
Nope. The player chose to allow the thief to continue, and he chose a class that has requirements for how he is to act. Thus, the player has chosen to put himself in a condition where he cannot act against the thief. See that? The choice is the player's. It is always the player's. If you can show me where I have "absolved" the player of responsibility for this (because this isn't really a disruptive choice on the player's part, and so hardly in need of forgiveness), I'd be very interested.

If you had read that article, you would have also seen that the paladin's player has chosen to play the character so that it gets along with the thief, and not go full Miko. This is the player's choice, but like all choices, it has consequences. That consequence is: something dramatic needs to happen before he can change the dynamic IC, and the Paladin is in the worst position to affect that change.

[Foeofthelance]

Ahhh, I remember this dilemma. We ended up purposefully selling the thief's soul to Tiamat by accident when a cursed sword took a bluff check too literally.

If the player blames the character, then remove the character. Whether that involves throwing him in prison, killing him, or mind wiping him is up to you guys.

[Togo]

Nope. The player chose to allow the thief to continue, and he chose a class that has requirements for how he is to act..

Nonsense. Being lawful does not mean being stupid. There's nothing in either lawful or paladin codes of conduct that says you can't change tactics when your first approach turns out not to work.

You really need to work out what the problem is. The basic problem seems to be that the player is playing in a way that is not fun. You need to talk to him about that.

It may be that it's simply a style conflict. You're playing a cooperative game, he's playing a game where you can get away with anything unless someone stops you. If you want to resolve things by changing your style to match his, then you need to arrest/kill/rob/other the character. If you want to resolve things by changing his style to match yours, then just don't adventure with him any more until he plays a character that you'd want to associate with.

Personally, I'd blame the GM, but maybe that's just me.

[Tsriel]

Why are you still traveling/adventuring with this character? I'm even more disappointed that your DM is completely apathetic. That's just terrible gamemastery work. Personally, I would be so brazen to show him/her this thread. Stealing from others is one thing, but it's a big no-no to "**** where you sleep". In this crude metaphore, it applies to stealing from the party.

Given your group comp, this should've been resolved the first time it happened. Pally would've placed rogue under arrest and the rest of you would've escorted him right to a jail cell. Now that you have witnessed several instances, you are more than justified to dole out some past due justice.

Back to real life, there's only three ways this can work out. Basically, it's ultimatum time.

1) He atones for past transgressions, returning all stolen loot and vowing never to steal from the group again (and mean it). This would allow him to keep his character and keeps everyone happy.

2) The rogue is removed via RP or death. Player would have to reroll a new character.

3) Player agrees to neither option and is barred from the game henceforth as a result. It doesn't matter how good of a friend this player is, there's no reason to allow a d-bag at the table to ruin everyone else's fun.

[Ace Nex]

I already commented on this earlier, but I really hope it works out between you all and Karma runs him over with a cinder-block filled freight train... that being said, please tell us about it afterwards? I find myself rather interested in the outcome.

[Someonelse]

update: A couple people asked that I follow up and tell you all how it turned out.

Jay is still with the group. The DM used a character from Jay's backstory, who came to him as a ghost and basically explained that he was being a ****.

In game, we were about to ditch him, but things were going on that made that difficult, so we decided to keep him around for the moment with the intention of losing touch with him after the heat died down. Unfortunatly, when the heat died down we took out some bad guys and thought their place looked nice, so we moved in and he pretty much moved into the master suite before we could even say WTF.

Still being douchey, but I think he is getting better. I'm still ready to cut his hand off if I catch him stealing, but if I don't catch him there nothing much I can do. In character I've decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and give him one more chance, but the next screw up I catch is the last. I'm a Chaotic GOOD Cleric, so the chaotic part of me will totally cut his hand off, but the good part of me needs to give him just one more chance.

In other news, the LG paladin converted to Chaotic Good! He became a Paladin of Freedom (Unearthed Arcana) and I'd like to think I had something to do with it. He was a paladin of Kord and I was a cleric of Kord so we had a bond but constantly debated law v chaos. In today's session he decided he was convinced and the DM let him slightly alter his class abilities, since he didn't actually change deities.

[Ace Nex]

That's great! Always nice when people can solve problems without killing each other. Still, keep him under wraps, fool you once, shame on him, fool you twice, shame on you.

[illyrus]

First of all clear this with the GM. This idea hinges on the thief being a prick, if he plays nice then nothing ill happens to his character, if he tries to screw you over again then the fun happens.

Buy/Make a cursed item that the thief would want if he didn't know about the curse. Ideally something that a replacement would be easy to find (MW dagger etc). Do all this without the thief player knowing about it. I'd suggest storing the item in a box so you don't have to touch it yourself.

When the thief player is around take the cursed item back to your shared home and place it in your room, explain to the rest of the party it is a gift for x. Extra bonus points if you say it when the thief character couldn't possibly hear it but the player could. So only through meta-game knowledge would he have a way to know about it. Sadly for him this would also preclude him from being able to roll a sense motive versus your bluff as his character was never there to hear the bluff in the first place. At some point leave the place and item unattended for several hours giving the thief the chance to do the old switch-a-roo.

Congrats, you now have a cursed thief. Extra bonus points if the effects are obvious like his hair color or gender changing. If the party notices he's been tagged then you can grab him, take all or at least half his stuff to help even things out, and do whatever with him.

[Rhynn]

Just tell him that the four of you are also just roleplaying your characters. Specifically, you are roleplaying characters who have no reason or motivation to associate with a shady thief who steals from them. Make him sit out the next game session. Remind him that this is all completely in character.

This. Why would a bunch of adventurers adventure with someone who steals from them?

Pirates Adventurers have rules for this:
"Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes, because over and above their proper share, they are allowed a shift of clothes. But if they defraud the company to the value of even one dollar in plate, jewels or money, they shall be marooned. If any man rob another he shall have his nose and ears slit, and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships."

That's for the first offense, and it's the only reasonable response.
(Also why adventurers should form companies with charters more often.) Do you think Walmart will give an employee who is caught stealing second and third chances? And Walmart employees don't have to rely on each other in deadly dungeons and while fighting dragons.

So, to be clear: the first time any PC is caught stealing from the party, they should be kicked out for good. The player gets to make a new character (unless it's a game that accommodates PCs who aren't a single party).