Steal treasure from an enemy.
Description
Steal is a Thief command ability in Final Fantasy V. It provides a 40% chance to steal an item or piece of equipment from an enemy. Among the many items are rare pieces of equipment that can only be obtained by stealing, making the ability very useful in some circumstances. Though its low success rate makes the ability unreliable, the Thief's Gloves accessory doubles its success rate.
The similar Mug ability can be learned by leveling up Thief further. The Thief Knife weapon also has an innate stealing property when used for attacking.
Obtained[]
Steal is an innate ability to Thief, and characters with the job can use the ability automatically. Upon reaching job level 4 as Thief, which requires 110 AP, the Steal ability is learned by that character and can then be equipped by any job.
Mechanics[]
When a character uses Steal, they have a 40% chance for a steal to succeed. If they have the Thief's Glove accessory, this is doubled to an 80% success rate. After landing a successful steal, most often, they will steal a common item, but there is a slight chance of stealing a rare one; if the enemy has a rare item, there is a 5/128 chance of stealing it.
If an item has already been stolen from the target, the ability misses.
In the Pixel Remaster release, if the player already has 99 of the item stolen, Steal will report "Nothing to steal" rather than a successful steal.
Use[]
Against most normal enemies, Steal will simply retrieve basic recovery items. This use has slight utility when stealing items that can recover from status effects, but in most case is inefficient turn use given the low success rate of Steal, unless the player is amid a dungeon-crawl and is running low on stock. With Thief's Gloves, steal can be more reliable, although Thief's Gloves can only be equipped by Thief, Freelancer, and Mime.
The most notable use of Steal is when stealing rare items from some important enemies, notably bosses. Several such items can only be obtained through stealing, most notably the Dragon Lance (useful against superboss Shinryu), making Steal an essential ability to use in these circumstances. It is also worth stealing from Gilgamesh after the first encounter with him, as he has the Genji equipment pieces up for grabs: Genji Gloves, Genji Helm, Genji Shield, and Genji Armor.