Stealing Carried/Used Items

[Gidoza]

I wanted to clarify something about the Thief's ability to steal, because I get the feeling we may have been playing incorrectly with it all this time.

The ability essentially says that a Thief can steal a small item that is carried by another player. Now, all items on the player board are "carried," but some are "carried" but not "used." Is there a distinction here for the Thief's steal?

To put it simply, it would realistically make no sense for me to steal someone's Armor while the person is wearing it, meaning that I'd have the option of stealing things that are either A. unequipped weapons/armor, or B. potions and the like. Is this correct?

(The question came up when all of us observed that Thieves run away with the game too often...as soon as someone is about to win, any Thief that's around steals as much stuff as he wants - potentially from everyone - and the worst that happens to him is that he goes down to Level 1. With lucky rolls, a Thief can totally disarm every other player in the game, and if none of us have Annihilation/Lose Your Class cards on us, there's nothing whatsoever we can do about it. This seems a tad on the strong side.)

[MunchkinMan]

The only Item a Thief can't steal is a Big Item. It doesn't matter a small Item's state on the table, just that it's in play on the table (i.e., carried).

For what it's worth, one-shot Items that have been chucked into a combat are off limits for the theft ability.

[Gidoza]

Wow, that does seem pretty silly. And yeah, I realize that you can't steal items that are already used as one-shots in combat.

[Blazinjsin]

Mental note: if there's a thief in play, people should hold on to things to make them lose their class at some point

[Gidoza]

I agree and I use that as a strategy - however, I think it's a bit silly that "lose a class" cards ought only to be reserved for Thieves, as if there were no other class in the game! That very fact should say something about its power.

[Clipper]

If you think of the Theft as a mugging, stealing something the victim is using doesn't sound quite so absurd. Thieves don't have to be stealthy. . .