[Kameron8]

Around the time it was first released, Spell Snatch would steal spells from an opponent and then remove it from the list of possible skills that can be stolen. At some point as bugs were fixed and the class was revised, this functionality was changed to allow duplicates to be stolen.

In practice, this means that if a Spellthief is trying to deny a caster a particular spell, it's infinitely more difficult simply because the 'fodder' never goes away. You have to sift through 20+ spells and roll the dice each time, without ever improving your odds. I'd like to suggest this be reverted, so that duplicates can not be stolen once again. Because of the RNG limitation this iteration imposes on the Spellthief, Snatch Spell is really only good for acquiring spells you want to use yourself, instead of denying the opponent theirs. In my mind, that was one of the major allures of the class.

I know some people will think this change would allow Spellthieves to auto-win fights with mages by stealing all their spells. But given the fact that Snatch Spell (The passive, steal what's cast on you variety) does not work against AoE or line targeted spells, and that the entire process would take far more turns than anyone has any right to be surviving against a mage, I genuinely doubt this would be an issue.

[Trexmaster]

I would support this, because as said, it used to function this way.

That, and it makes sense to not be able to steal something they don't even have anymore.

The OP brings up just about every point I'd make here. Unless Spell Snatch is intended to be that unreliable in an actual fight.

[Grandpa]

Aside from the points that were made here, given how many skills/spells you can equip now with everyone easily getting at least 15 or more skillslots (plus another 5 if you're using a tome) I think this would be fine.

[Soapy]

Definitely needs to happen, yeah.

[Neus]

Snatch works against spells that target AoE, but probably not against spells that target an area of tiles (like Sear).

[Kameron8]

That's a good thing to know, but do you think we can see duplicate theft protection reimplemented?

[Esther]

I was always under the impression that the target of Spell Snatch ~lost~ the spell that was snatched, for the duration of the battle. However, I have stolen the same spell twice from the same person in one battle before, so clearly there's some kind of problem with the way that's implemented.

I am A-OK with being able to steal Wind Slasher from a person when I already brought a Wind Slasher copy spell into battle. It should remove their Wind Slasher, and overwrite my Wind Slasher copy with the new Wind Slasher copy (because overwriting the oldest when you have the spell being stolen is stupid and nonsensical).

I am not okay with what seems to be the case right now, where I can walk up to someone and steal their spell, and then we ~both~ have that spell. That's not how the skill is supposed to work, and it reduces the spell denial that really makes Spellthieves shine as a class.

[Kameron8]

I was always under the impression that the target of Spell Snatch ~lost~ the spell that was snatched, for the duration of the battle. However, I have stolen the same spell twice from the same person in one battle before, so clearly there's some kind of problem with the way that's implemented.

I am A-OK with being able to steal Wind Slasher from a person when I already brought a Wind Slasher copy spell into battle. It should remove their Wind Slasher, and overwrite my Wind Slasher copy with the new Wind Slasher copy (because overwriting the oldest when you have the spell being stolen is stupid and nonsensical).

I am not okay with what seems to be the case right now, where I can walk up to someone and steal their spell, and then we ~both~ have that spell. That's not how the skill is supposed to work, and it reduces the spell denial that really makes Spellthieves shine as a class.

This isn't quite correct. To clarify for you, it doesn't fail to steal the spell from them. What it does do is continue to treat the spell you've just taken -- we'll say Wind Slasher, like you said -- as a spell they have available to steal. So you can walk up to someone with thirty spells available, steal Wind Slasher, then immediately steal Wind Slasher again the next turn despite them not having access to it. This prevents Spellthief from reliably using the skill to shut down spellcasters, because they have an enormous buffer of RNG to help them.

[Neus]

This seems like a bug report more than a balance topic. Anyway, I've changed it to where if you steal a spell from a target, you can't re-steal that spell again.

[Soapy]

This seems like a bug report more than a balance topic.

Stealing duplicates can happen, it's not a bug.

uh