History Main / VideoGameStealing

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* {{Avernum}}, and likewise, {{Geneforge}} avert this. Characters can only steal from [=NPCs=] (and not suffer the consequences) when they are out of those [=NPCs=]' line of sight. Similarly, items can not be stolen in combat and will need to be looted off of corpses: whatever items the characters take, it was likely that their original owners actually had a probable use for them.
* ''ChronoTrigger'' and most ''FinalFantasy'' games are full of this.
** ''FinalFantasyVI'' had an amusing aversion of this: At one point, you had to use the "steal" command to grab the uniform off of a guard -- leaving him in his underwear in mid-battle and [[DefeatByModesty causing him to flee]]. Everywhere else it was played straight.
** In ''FinalFantasyX'', stealing from a robot would destroy the robot, and gain you a grenade. [[HandWave Presumably it was the machine's power source.]]
*** Rikku clearly states that she can dismantle the robots because they're Al-Bhed, meaning her people made them. Using the Steal command to disable them is most likely just done so they wouldn't have to bother writing code for a Trigger command.
** An interesting play on this occurs in the first battle against [[spoiler:Seymour]]. His subordinates have the Auto-(Hi-)Potion skill, which means every time you deal damage to them or the boss, a {{Mook}} will counter with a Hi-Potion, restoring 1000 HP to the target. The only ways to get around this are to use status effects, use attacks that will deal over 1000 damage...or just steal their Hi-Potions so they can't use them.
*** The bribing system, oddly enough, falls into this trope by providing a different set of rare items that may not necessarily be stealable or won through spoils. Enemies now become hidden shops.
*** [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20030404.html Parodied]] in ''{{Adventurers}}!'': Drecker, the resident thief, destroys a robot like this, and notes that all robots are built around a grenade. When Ardam asks if that's dangerous, Drecker replies "Only if you pull the pin". And [[http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/20020419.html earlier than that]], when he steals a sword from someone threatening them with a knife.
--> '''Bandit''': Wait... I had a '''sword'''!? Why was I using '''this''' thing, then?
--> '''Drecker''': Yeah, well, it's '''ours''' now.
*** And [[EightBitTheater Thief]] soundly defeated a zombie dragon by doing what he did best: Stealing. [[spoiler:A few vertebrae.]]
** The Thief class in ''{{Final Fantasy X-2}}'' could steal a whole bunch of stuff; HP, MP, ''time'', ''sanity'' & ''will''. Granted, it cost MP to do it, implying that this was somehow magical.
** ''FinalFantasyXI'' had the things you could steal be things that the enemy could logically have, such as enemy currency from the humanoid and sentient Beastmen, but not from giant pots or worms. Everything else this trope stands for, however, is followed dutifully. At least the Steal ability works better when performed from behind...
** It really gets ludicrous in ''FinalFantasyXII''. You don't get money from most monsters, instead getting loot to sell. While you can get the same loot either by killing or stealing (in most cases), the things you steal suggest that your party is made up of the world's fastest dentists, skinners, and butchers.
*** Stealing a wolf's pelt mid-battle? Priceless. Until that same enemy drops ''two more wolf pelts''.
** In [[FinalFantasyTactics Final Fantasy Tactics]] many of the most powerful items in the game can only be acquired by stealing them from enemies mid-battle. Furthermore, you're allowed to steal helmets off people's heads, weapons out of their hands (which they can't use anymore), and armor and clothes right off of people's backs.
** Stealing is the only way to get [[spoiler: the Darkness augment back]] from Odin in FinalFantasyIV DS.
* ''SlyCooper 2'' allowed pickpocketing valuables from guards -- but valuables included such things as gold watches and diamonds (which most people don't carry in their back pockets) and you couldn't find them by killing the guards. Of course, being a ''Sly Cooper'' game, it provided a [[JustifiedTrope reason]] for why this happened in ''some'' missions (the keys you're after are fragile and will break if the guards are defeated) but not all.
* ''[[BaldursGate Baldur's Gate]]'' was better than most Eastern games, since the objects were part of the enemy's inventory rather than being created when you steal, but there were still some strange parts.
** It was possible to steal a monster's ''head'' while leaving it alive, since you were supposed to kill the monster and take the head from its corpse, but the head was implemented as an inventory item.
** One side quest involves bringing in bandit scalps for gold. A bug means a Thief is able to ''pickpocket their scalps''.
** Stealing from stores was an exception in that the items ''were'' created when you steal. The storekeeper must keep his stock in HammerSpace.
*** Except in stores where the amount of items you can buy is limited.
** Another notable exception in Baldur's Gate 2 is the [[GameBreaker Ring of Gaxx]]. Stealing it in the moment before Kangaxx talks to you will net you a ring and another copy of the ring when he finally kicks the bucket.
*** Similarly, the first game included a wizard wearing the game's only +2 Ring of Protection. You meet him once outside his tower and once inside (where you fight him). Both times you meet him you can pickpocket the ring, and when you kill him he drops another one.

* In ''{{Disgaea}}'', enemies never drop their equipment when killed, but what you steal is taken from the equipment: Steal an enemy's weapon, he's now reduced to his fists. The strange part is that you can even steal character stats (by stealing things such as a kiss or [[UnfortunateImplications their innocence]]).
** Some very valuable and useful items can only be gotten by stealing them from enemies in combat. Including a Legendary Equippable HorseWiener.
** The standard Thief units in Disgaea 3 count to some degree, since they can steal ''stats'' from enemies (in the form of "vigure" for attack and so on). Also a subversion in that their StandardStatusEffect abilities claim to be stealing things like "consciousness" and "movement" but the animations show them simply cracking their target over the head and such.
** It does avert one facet of this as it's ''possible'' for anyone on your team to steal items (but not stats), it's just Thief's are much better at it (one thing it's based on when calculating your chance of successfully stealing is level, and when a Thief does it he's treated as having a level twice as high as it actually is).
** Rather amusingly, you can steal "manliness" from [[GenderBender an apparently female character]].
*** Or [[TheRival Axel's]] [[BrainBleach Pounding Bosom]].
* The ''AtelierIris'' series and the subsequent ''ManaKhemia'' series allow you to steal the bones and eyes off dragons, or the underwear off of demons and angels!
* ''FinalFantasyTactics'' works similarly, though you can't steal stats.
** In one special case, a GuestStarPartyMember pulls a FaceHeelTurn and you have to fight him while he's wearing the equipment you put on him. At the end of the battle the game gives you the equipment back as a reward to prevent SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear; unfortunately (or [[GoodBadBugs fortunately]]), it doesn't check to see if you stole the equipment during the battle first. Those who know what's coming can easily duplicate the best equipment they have.
** ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' lets you steal just about anything related to your enemy, including stats, experience and skills. That's one good thief. The one and only thing you can't steal? ''Boots''. Stealing plate mail off someone is trivial, and you can't steal someone's armor if they're unconscious -- but you ''can'' still steal it if they've been ''turned into a [[StandardStatusEffects FROG]]''.
*** Once you've gotten especially strong, the repeatable quests that don't have scaling level enemies are great for extra experience. They'll earn tons of experience for a single attack on you, which you can then steal very easily. And it's always 100 experience points to the next level.
*** ''FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' tones this down [[{{Understatement}} a bit]]. You can only steal Gil, [[ItemCrafting Loot]], Accessories, and Armor (the last one can only be done by a Viking using Pillage, and for some reason he can never steal Ribbons).
** The ''Tactics'' games do subvert at least one part of the standard - afflicting an enemy with Sleep, Stop, or Stone gives you a 100% chance to steal. Paralysis and Don't Move do ''not'', however - they can apparently wiggle just enough to potentially fend off thieves.

* The ''{{Ultima}}'' series usually avoided this trope completely, but ''Ultima VII: Serpent Isle'' introduced the "vibrate" spell, which lets you steal objects from an enemy. However, enemy spellcasters' spells were sometimes implemented as objects, letting you "steal" the spell and gain infinite uses.
** ''UltimaOnline'' lets thieves steal anything a monster or player is carrying but not equipped. This made going to banks during the early part of the game very risky, as thieves would often rob you blind -- including stealing house/boat keys, and thus, everything in them.
** And let's not forget the Pickpocket spell from ''Ultima VI'', which allows you to steal meat from inside a cow.

* ''Wizardry 8'' has two theft options, Pickpocket and Shoplift. However, these can only be performed on a very small number of {{NPC}}s (and only those who already trust you), or in stores, and are typically hard to do. However, storekeepers apparently don't keep money on their person, because even if you rob them blind, [[WeBuyAnything they'll still buy stuff from you]].

* While not stealing, the "Find Potion" and "Find Item" barbarian skills in ''{{Diablo}} II'' allow you to find additional items on corpses that are not there when you simply loot the killed enemy.
** Both of these were [[AllThereInTheManual explained in the manual]]. The potions aren't really bottles of potion, but the enemy's internal organs with the same properties as healing or mana potions, concocted into a drinkable form. Ewwww. The Find Item skill was explained as barbarians used to living a hardscrabble life and willing to look a little harder through the carnage to find the good stuff. Considering that, at higher skill levels and on stronger monsters, this can get you hundreds of gold or rare magic items, they must be looking ''really hard''.
** Also, one magical property some items have is to increase the likelihood of random items you find ''happening'' to be magical.

** In ''Fallout 2'', it was possible to short-circuit a very long quest to get an old junk car running again by pickpocketing the needed part from a junk dealer, until the patch [[GoodBadBugs screwed that up]].

*** Also worked in the earlier Fallouts. Leaving a bomb was usually the easiest way to pull off an assassination on otherwise well guarded targets. Also, early in ''Fallout 2'', you could pull a fun variant with the thieving kids. Carrying a bomb in your inventory and setting the timer would result in the kids pickpocketing you, grabbing the bomb, then running off to hand the loot to their boss. [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Which would then blow up and take him with it.]]

* Parodied, like many other tropes, in ''CollegeSaga''. Here, the hero steals several items from his roommate, but he notices and attacks the party... only to be put asleep, pickpocketed and then left alone as the party flees from combat. At least they had the decency not to slaughter him.

* In ''LegendOfZelda: Wind Waker'', it's possible to steal collection items from the monsters that drop them if you use the grappling hook in combat. In the case of Moblin Skull Necklaces, they actually disappear from the monster, and he's actually surprised. You can also steal Chu Jelly from [=ChuChus=] before they die. It's also the best way to get those Golden Feathers off the Kagorocs, given that they tend to die in the air over cliffs, and therefore don't leave drops in convenient places.

* In the ''FireEmblem'' series, most, if not all, of your enemy forces are humans. Thus, it makes sense for an enemy to carry an extra weapon or healing item. More importantly, you can't steal a weapon the enemy target is currently wielding, or any weapon at all in 6, 7, or 8. In ''Fire Emblem 4'', thieves automatically stole an enemy's money (and ''only'' their money) when they hit one in combat (most enemies carried small amounts of money) and were the only units able to give money to any ally at will.
* ''{{Achaea}}'' handles this by having no 'steal' skill as such, meaning players cannot steal from {{NPC}}s but instead use tricks like hypnosis to make other players ''give'' items away. Drama erupted when a powerful one-off item sold by the developers to help protect from theft -- essentially a magic box -- was bought ''by a thief'', and used in a way they hadn't expected to make theft much harder to avoid. It was swiftly confiscated, and replaced with a different item.

** In ''The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall'', you can pickpocket from [=NPCs=] and from monsters, but you could only ever get five coins at a time. This includes from the bats and the rats. Additionally, you could repeatedly pickpocket five coins from said rat or bat until it died ''and'' it could be hostile you while you stole those five coins.
** In ''The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind'', you pickpocket items directly from the target NPC's inventory. Sometimes, it seemed like larger, worn, or held objects were harder to pilfer; sometimes, it didn't seem that way. Due to the way the Sneak skill worked, though, an awesome thief could stand ''in front'' of the target, while quite literally stealing the pants off them, without being caught
** ''The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion'' worked much as ''Morrowind'' did. You could actually kill [=NPCs=] by ''reverse pickpocketing'' poisoned apples into their inventory and waiting for them to eat them. You could do the same with [[GameBreaker lightweight hoods enchanted with continual health damage spells]]. It's also possible that some items won't appear on an enemy until they're killed--usually this is to prevent breaking quests. Finally, some weapons and items are just not meant for player use--you can't normally find them on corpses OR steal them, even if similar items can be stolen from other characters.
*** Another Oblivion example, you can go into someone's house, while they're there move slightly out of their line of sight, rob them blind then when they walk into the room you just pilfered, have a friendly converation with them. They apparently don't seem to notice that all of their possesions are now gone, and the one person who just came in to their house and began sneaking around may be the culprit.

* ''MetalGearSolid'' soldiers in later games have dog tags that the player can only receive by holding soldiers at gunpoint and shaking them down. For some reason you couldn't collect them by stunning them, sneaking up on them while asleep, or killing them. This for an item that was designed to be removed from soldiers when they died!

** In ''Dragon Quest VIII'', the ability is available to Yangus if you put points into his Scythe skill. It first becomes usable as "Steal Sickle", then with more skill points upgrades to "[[{{Pun}} Stainless Steal Sickle]]".
* A {{MUD}} based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld [[http://discworld.atuin.net/lpc/ exists]], with its own Thieves' Guild and the fun 'steal' command for things that are carried, like coins or miscellaneous items. Anyone else can learn to 'steal' too. But thieves also learn how to 'filch', which takes things that are worn or held. Ever experience the joy of stealing a sword out of the hands of an unsuspecting victim? How about his armour?
** Or somebody else's underwear?

* In {{Might and Magic}} VII you could steal from creatures, good or bad. However if good creatures caught you, they would immediately become hostile and attack you. This could also be done in stores, but you run the risk of being caught, kicked out, and not being allowed back inside. Kinda sucks, right? Well don't get caught next time.

<<|VideoGameTropes|>>

May or may not be one of the AcceptableBreaksFromReality, depending on [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief your tolerance for such things]]. See also ImpossibleThief.

** Colette's animation for stealing is tripping near the enemy, complete with a "Whoops!", while still managing to gt the bear's pelt from his [[NightmareFuel still living body]]. Since she [[DualWielding uses two huge chakrams]], fans like to joke about how she's just pretending to be a klutz. Considering her constant tripping on things is a RunningGag, one has to wonder how terrifying she must be in a fight to foes ''and friends'' alike...

** In ''Dragon Quest VIII'', the ability is available to Yangus if you put points into his Scythe skill. It first becomes usable as "Steal Sickle", then with more skill points upgrades to "[[IncrediblyLamePun Stainless Steal Sickle]]".

* {{Avernum}}, and likewise, {{Geneforge}} avert this. Characters can only steal from NPCS (and not suffer the consequences) when they are out of those NPCs' line of sight. Similarly, items can not be stolen in combat and will need to be looted off of corpses: whatever items the characters take, it was likely that their original owners actually had a probable use for them.

*** Or [[TheRival Axel's]] [[BrainBleach Pounding Bosom]]. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer No, really.]]

** The ''Tactics'' games do subvert at least one part of the standard - afflicting an enemy with Sleep or Stop gives you a 100% chance to steal. Paralysis and Don't Move do ''not'', however - they can apparently wiggle just enough to potentially fend off thieves.

* ''KingdomOfLoathing'' had some items, like Frigid Mote, only available by stealing. You could even steal a gold ring off a Gold Ring and body parts off monsters.

*** [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20030404.html Parodied]] in ''{{Adventurers}}!'': Drecker, the resident thief, destroys a robot like this, and notes that all robots are built around a grenade. When Ardam asks if that's dangerous, Drecker replies "Only if you pull the pin".

** At one point, this troper managed to pickpocket a named ogre in the Butcherblock Mountains, and looted his head. Ogres are apparently not that smart, because he didn't notice.
*** CMOA? I think so.
** This troper stole an Orc Eye from an Orc. This implies one of two NightmareFuel situations: Either they can't feel pain and [[AndIMustScream just keep fighting 'till they die]], or they're [[TooDumbtoLive just too stupid to notice.]]
*** Or the eye belonged to a different orc.

*** ''FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' tones this down [[{{Understatement}} a bit]]. You can only steal Gil, [[ItemCrafting Loot]], Accessories, and Armor (the last one can only be done by a Viking using Pillage).

** In ''Dragon Quest VIII'', the ability is available to Yangus if you put points into his Scythe skill. It first becomes useable as "Steal Sickle", then with more skill points upgrades to "[[IncrediblyLamePun Stainless Steal Sickle]]".

<<|VideoGameTropes|>>

* In ''{{Disgaea}}'', monsters can use the items you steal, but they still don't appear when you kill the monster, and you can even steal character stats (by stealing things such as a kiss or [[UnfortunateImplications their innocence]]).

** Stealing is the only way to get the Darkness augment [[spoiler: back]] from Odin in FinalFantasyIV DS.

** Stealing is the only way to get the Darkness augment [[spoiler: back]] from Odin FinalFantasyIV DS.