Stealing is a critical skill throughout all the Disgaea games, and is seen in virtually all Nippon Ichi titles.
In the Disgaea games, it is the only way to receive Rank 40 weapons and armor, and it is the way in which a player will receive most of their weapons and equipment, as the Bonus Gauge will often be far below what weapons and armor the player will have on their characters at any given time.
Any character can steal items from another, including a player's own character. Luckily, the player will never have to worry about his own items getting stolen by enemies, because a Stealing Hand is needed in order to be able to steal to begin with.
Stealing weapons and armor
The formula for stealing items is noted below:
C: The percentage chance to steal (Cap of 50% for normal characters, and 99% for Thieves) [Thieves always have a minimum 1% chance to steal any item from anybody)
H: The Hit of the stealing hand being used
T: The level of the character trying to steal
E: The level of the target unit
R: The Rank of the target item
A: Rarity variable. 0 if the item is normal rarity, 10 if the item is rare, 30 if the item is legendary, or 100 if the item has rarity 0.
It's almost impossible for any normal character to steal anything from a target unless the stealing character has a far greater level than it, however, Thieves run off of a different formula:
Stealing Stats
Stat stealing is only available to Thieves and Thursday. Below is the formula for a Thief stealing stats:
While the formula for Thursday is:
Stolen stats do not transfer over during Transmigration, and are not added to Masters as a Pupil benefit.
Differences in Disgaea
Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories
Certain things changed in Disgaea 2 concerning thieves and theft. One of them was the direction from which the item was being stolen, which affected any character trying to steal items; the other is a specialist called a Lover, and the special effect it had with thieves stealing items.
For Thieves, stealing an item from behind the target gives an additional 20% chance of stealing, and stealing an item from the side of the target gives an additional 10% chance of stealing. This does not apply when thieves steal stats.
Also, Lovers add 2% to thieves on a chance to steal items, up to an additional 50%. This lovers bonus is not applied to stealing stats.
For non-thieves, stealing an item from behind or the side gives a far less percentage chance of successful stealing, though the percentage of chance is entirely dependent on the level of the character.
In Disgaea 2, the formula for stealing depend on what she is trying to steal: (The "-" character stands for subtraction in the formulas. "Next" means Enemy's amount of experience closest to their next Level Up. "Direction" refers to how she is facing the enemy. This number is to be 1 if stealing from the front, 1.1 if from the side, and 1.2 if stealing from behind. Only Thieves can steal HL, EXP, and Stats.) Note that these formulas are strictly for those that intend to crunch numbers to gain the best results. Others should simply ignore these algorithms and focus on maintaining a high Level and HIT Statistic with their stealing character..
If Items are the target: Thief Level*(Direction she is stealing from + 2 * Her Lover Specialist Power/100) + 25 + The Hand's HIT stat - The Enemy's Level - Item's Rank*3 -The Item's Rarity
If a Non-Thief is stealing Items: Character Level * "Direction" + Hand's HIT stat/2 - Enemy Level - Item Rank * 3 - Item's Rarity.
If Stats are the target: Thief Level * 2+ Hand's HIT stat - Enemy Level
If EXP Points are the Target: ("Next" *(5/Enemy's EXP Points Modifier Number) * 0.02 * Enemy's Yield Modifier + 6) /2
If HL is the target: (((Enemy Level + 2) ^ 2 + Enemy Level + 2) * Enemy's EXP Points Modifier Number/10) /2
Stealing in other Nippon Ichi titles
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.