Theft (attack)

See also Stealing from shops

Some monsters have a theft attack. These include nymphs and monkeys, who steal items, and leprechauns, who steal gold. In addition, quest nemeses and the Wizard of Yendor will try to steal the Amulet of Yendor, the Invocation items, or your quest artifact.

You can steal items by attacking a monster of the opposite gender as a foocubus. In addition, striking weaponless as a nymph will attempt to steal from your target, but will not make it hostile. (Both types of monsters will similarily try to steal items if they melee other monsters.)

Magic cancellation does not protect against stealing attacks.

Strategy

Earlier in the game, when you encounter nymphs and leprechauns, it is often a good strategy to stay away from them, as they are generated asleep. You can easily kill them with ranged attacks or let a pet do the work. Give them individual names so you know which monster to chase in case they manage to steal something.

The high-level covetous monsters are quite a different lot. Most strategies how to deal with liches generalize quite well. The Wizard should get priority treatment.

SLASH'EM

SLASH'EM adds a few more stealing monsters, e.g., gnome thieves and pixies. Additionally, there is the #borrow extended command, which lets the player attempt to steal items from monsters, even when in their normal form.

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