Steal attack

RokStar · Post by **RokStar** » June 29th, 2007, 8:05 pm

Ok, this thread will not be a great success, but i try anyway...

It would be nice fot outlaw, thief, assassin, bandit etc to have the steal attack.
What does it mean? A 0 HP damage and the regular chance of every attack depending on the terrain that the unit steal something from the enemy, distracting him, having the next attack without defence reply (the has been distracted by the bad guy stealing).
It is somewhat unblancing you say? No, because after the attack, the poor guy will hit for sure the thief taking off half HP.

Ok... let me know what do you think, if i'm totally crazy or just an idiot

hunz · Post by **hunz** » June 29th, 2007, 9:39 pm

I just guess this will never happen in mainline.
The only thing that could be stolen is gold - I won't recruit a unit just to steal gold and die...

Distracting sounds pretty strange. "Sleeping potion" or something like this sounds better..

Anyway I don't see it happening in mainline.

Dragon Master · Post by **Dragon Master** » June 30th, 2007, 12:36 am

don't all attacks steal HP?

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » June 30th, 2007, 12:48 am

A steal ability could be something interesting in a user mod, but I don't think the effect you're describing intuits that well to the name "steal". It sounds more like something that would fall under the title of "taunt", "diversion" or thereabouts.

Dragon Master wrote:don't all attacks steal HP?

I suppose that depends on how you define "steal". I would say that Drain attacks do indeed steal HP though.

Buddy Jimm · Post by **Buddy Jimm** » June 30th, 2007, 12:57 am

The idea of "distracting the enemy" is already the basis for the Backstab ability (used to say so in Help, too, I think). And there's not much on a unit to "steal" but his HP/XP, and attacks.

Come to think of it, what if a unit could steal/copy an attack?

BloodIssyl · Post by **BloodIssyl** » June 30th, 2007, 2:26 am

money would be interesting.

toms · Post by **toms** » June 30th, 2007, 6:18 am

You can already do that with WML...

Post by **Blarumyrran** » June 30th, 2007, 11:21 am

it would be a nice and fitting touch imo, if thief had such "steal" attack:

Code: Select all

"Whenever the unit with this ability attacks a leader, the side controlling the leader loses 3 gold and the side controlling the thief gains 3 gold."

now... i know i know... adding stuff to mainline just because its cool is not right... but it would be like SO UNBELIEVABLY COOL! i think thieves are underused anyway. and just boosting their stats would make them too gruntish.

toms · Post by **toms** » June 30th, 2007, 3:03 pm

Thieves can be very good if you use them well. Even if they are a bit difficult to use.

PingPangQui · Post by **PingPangQui** » June 30th, 2007, 4:22 pm

Hm, just a technical note (I'm indifferent to the idea suggested):

As far as I know, it is currently impossible to deal 0 damage when one attacks. The minimum is 1HP damage per hit, even under the worst conditions.

BuBu · Post by **BuBu** » June 30th, 2007, 7:13 pm

I think this is a interesting ideia STEAL MONEY (thives do this in real life).

If the problem is power hit,. I think that can creat new attack with the name STEAL add 1 point of damage and a very low chance of steal the enemy: always less than 40%. If can do 1 point the damage it can steal X* GOLD.

X* a indeterminate amount of GOLD.

Chris NS · Post by **Chris NS** » June 30th, 2007, 9:48 pm

Bear in mind that "Gold" in Wesnoth is generally used as an abstract concept to represent the amount of resources a side has at its disposal. I suppose you could imagine units specialised in raiding other armies and stealing resources instead of attacking, but you're generally going on the wrong track with "[Preferred cool unit is Wesnoth] does this in real life." That and gameplay and game balance trumps coolness.

Post by **irrevenant** » June 30th, 2007, 10:46 pm

Buddy Jimm wrote:The idea of "distracting the enemy" is already the basis for the Backstab ability (used to say so in Help, too, I think). And there's not much on a unit to "steal" but his HP/XP, and attacks.
Come to think of it, what if a unit could steal/copy an attack?

There's difficulty doing that in WML apparently, though I hope it will be added one day.

It would be very cool IMO for a unique character in a single-player campaign to be able to steal opponents weapons leaving them fighting with their bare fists. (Perhaps by a couple of turns later you could assume they managed to find a replacement weapon).

Angry Andersen · Post by **Angry Andersen** » July 2nd, 2007, 9:01 am

irrevenant wrote:
Buddy Jimm wrote:The idea of "distracting the enemy" is already the basis for the Backstab ability (used to say so in Help, too, I think). And there's not much on a unit to "steal" but his HP/XP, and attacks.
Come to think of it, what if a unit could steal/copy an attack?
There's difficulty doing that in WML apparently, though I hope it will be added one day.

It would be very cool IMO for a unique character in a single-player campaign to be able to steal opponents weapons leaving them fighting with their bare fists. (Perhaps by a couple of turns later you could assume they managed to find a replacement weapon).

Just slow them, that also reduces the damage they do... implementing stealing weapons would also be quite complicated: units would need pictures without weapons. And not all units have weapons that can be stolen (trolls use fists, mage's fire attack,...)

And yes, thieves are not so strong at lvl1, but as lvl3 assassins they are pretty cool: skirmisher, backstab, poison, high defenses, good movement. It's not really like they need more specials!