Random Idea: Steal from Dead targets

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

1. Is it possible?
2. Is it interesting?

[formerdeathcorps]

1) Anything is "possible", but here, it would involve coding another exception to the dead = untargetable routine.  The only existing exception is Cancel: Dead.
2) Depends on the patch, but I thought this is what treasure boxes were for.  Alternatively, you can rewrite the "spoils" routine to allow for one random piece of gear from each unit killed + the sale cost of all their remaining pieces of gear * X% (to account for in battle "damage").

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Now that the Treasure Box routine is documented, you could rewrite it instead.  I'd really like the Battle Spoils routine to automatically collect all Treasure Boxes upon victory, too.  I mean, they're just sitting there, how hard is it for Ramza to just walk around for two minutes and pick everything up?

As for the interesting part, anything which makes it so you don't have to be overpowered to debuff xyz uber-boss and keep that boss quiet for a few minutes while you go through his pockets is an improvement.  Making everything unmissable is a good stopgap measure, but I'd like something a bit more sublte, something which is applicable to NPC enemies as well as uniques, and something which rewards the player for creating a good killing team instead of a good farming team.

That reward for a good killing team, along with rebalancing to make sure that no one team is good in all circumstances, is what I want - room for greater tactical creativity, with less need for farming and other non-tactical pursuits.

[Choto]

I was thinking about this the other day, so i'm happy to see a thread about it ^_^

I want to put it in my patch that at least steal armor requires the target to be dead.. It would make steal a little conditional so that you can't use it to completely debilitate something. Having conditional requirements for other steals also rewards the player for creating whatever situations the steal requires... which breaks some of the monotony of the game. I plan to take a look at this if I can get back to learning ASM'ing over the summer.

[Neophyte Ronin]

I would fly with this.

Another idea would be to randomize theft with a single ability to steal one or another or another or another.  Then again, I'm not sure if you'd suddenly start resisting each attempt because of the formula (e.g. when multiple status effects are featured, you're immune to a couple, and then it flags the one you're immune to, thus causing a undocumented miss chance).

Capturing dead corpses' gear seems rudimentary.  However, it should happen in reverse: enemy units might pounce if other options are unattractive.  If it doesn't, then we have an ability that's one-sided and favoring the player and not the computer.

Should this go forward, flag it so the AI bandits will pilfer an enemy's gear, providing an incentive to stay alive.  Another issue is Safeguard, or whether you really want to unflag "Stolen" from its immunities.  By extension, would a Knight be able to desecrate a corpse's gear posthumous-like?