Stealing

Stealing is a critical skill throughout all the Disgaea games, and is seen in many Nippon Ichi titles.

By using a Stealing Hand one can take an item from another unit. This can be quite helpful in disarming opponents, as well as getting rare equipment. In the Disgaea games, it is usually the only way to receive Rank 40 weapons and armor.

Any character can steal items from another, including a player's own character. Luckily, the player will never have to worry about their own items getting stolen by enemies, since enemies can't use Stealing Hands.

General Formula
This is the steal chance formula used for most classes(Thieves work differently). Note that its final value is capped at 50% maximum chance.

Chance = (yourLevel*directionMult + handHIT/2) - (enemyLevel + itemRank*3 + rarityMod)


 * directionMult is 1 from the front, 1.1 from the side, and 1.2 from behind. This value doesn't exist in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness or its rereleases.
 * rarityMod is 0 for Common items, 10 for Rare items, 30 for most Legendary items, and 100 for Legendary items of Rarity value 0.

Thieves' Formula
The Thief class is known for having a higher stealing chance than normal. This works differently from game to game. In all cases, their chance has a minimum of 1% and maximum of 99%.

In the first Disgaea:

Chance = (yourLevel*2 + handHIT + 25) - (enemyLevel + itemRank*3 + rarityMod)

In Disgaea 2:

Chance = (yourLevel*(directionMult + Lovers/50) + handHIT + 25) - (enemyLevel + itemRank*3 + rarityMod)

From Disgaea 3 onwards there's no different formula. Instead, Thieves's main Evility doubles the result of the standard formula.

Stealing Stats
Stat stealing is only available naturally to Thieves and Thursday. Since Disgaea 3, anyone with the Heart Steal Evility can do it, though it's naturally learned only by Thieves.

Thief's chance = (yourLevel*2 + handHIT + 25) - enemyLevel

Others' chance = (yourLevel + handHIT) - (enemyLevel + 30)

You keep stolen stats after a battle, and they're only lost upon Reincarnating.

Phantom Brave
Stealing simply meant taking the item the target currently had equipped away from them to use yourself. Stealing was entirely dependent on a character's steal percentage and level vs. the enemy's level. Also, because of this, enemies can steal items away from player's characters in this game.

In order to actually take a stolen item home, it required Marona to confine a Phantom into the item while it is on the ground, and the Phantom to then disappear and take the item with it.

Makai Kingdom
Stealing is done by a thief using the UFO item's skill 'Crane Catcher'. The item being stolen is completely random, and the steal percentage is dependent on the TEC stat. The item being stolen would also be dropped on the ground in the field of battle, and required an ally to pick it up and place it in their inventory.

If an enemy thief had a UFO equipped, they could use the 'Crane Catcher' ability on a player's character to steal an item from them and drop it on the ground. It would then require that the player's character picked up that item again and placed it back into their inventory, or they would risk losing it.

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters
Stealing came in two different ways. The first way is using the Gig Edict 'Steal', which would steal a decor item away from an enemy squad (The better the 'Steal' edict, the further away the player could steal from, and the better steal chance the player would have). However, it requires that the player's squad be far higher leveled than the enemy to have any sort of decent chance at stealing them.

The second way was using the Gig Edict 'Kidnap', which would allow the player to kidnap an enemy unit from an opposing squad. (The better the 'Kidnap' edict, the further away the player's squad could steal from, and the better steal chance the player's squad would have). Again, however, it requires that you be far higher leveled than the enemy to have any sort of decent chance at kidnapping them, and it also requires that the squad doing the kidnapping have an open space in the room they are assigned to.

It is currently unknown if the 'Bandit' unit has a better chance of stealing from enemies or not.

The player also never has to worry about the enemies stealing from them or kidnapping units from them, as enemies cannot use 'Gig Edicts'.

Both edicts of 'Steal' and 'Kidnap' can also be used on NPC's in towns. While 'Steal' may allow the player to steal money and decors (though the player runs the risk of getting caught and having to pay huge sums of money), Kidnap can only be used after you Fight and beat the NPC. Throughout much of the game, however, the NPC's that you will fight will be far lower leveled than the player's squads, so it usually advised against doing this.