How to surely know you are not stealing?

[Siegfriedm]

How to surely know you are not stealing?

Seems odd, but now I'm in the second location, the Castle of Vizima. There are a lot of items in the rooms, but I'm not sure what I can loot.
The hand stealing icon appears only sometimes, not always, also for the same item.
I find it a little bad, that in the loot screen there is anything says if you steal an item or loot.

 

[Vafailelaine]

The hand stealing icon appears only at the moment when the guards are watching you. Save the game before stealing and give it a try. Make sure the guards don't see you.

 

[Randomdrowner2015]

Simple. Roleplay that you are Geralt and behave like you think he would. Don´t take stuff lying around homes etc. Bandits can be looted, as well as bandit camps and monster infested caves. Thats it.

 

[Mogsters73]

Just stick your hand in and look if guards react or not. If they react just cancel.

 

[forum42087]

Just stick your hand in and look if guards react or not. If they react just cancel.

^Exactly, that's what I do as well. Anywhere with Guards in that location its sometimes best to look whats in it then wait 5-10 seconds to see if you get the "your about to steal.." popup and/or guards reacting, as sometimes they can be slow to turn around. face you, notice you etc. so you might not get the notification immediately and think your safe but its not lol. Which also happens to me time to time too, but its fine its more a nuisance than a problem because all you need do is run/swim enough of a distance away that you break combat and then your fine. You can go right back and the same Guards wont even remember just chasing and trying to knock you out, though it does beat reloading and it def beats loosing half my coin; when you have 100k and up that really hurts lol.