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So Long and Thanks For All the Gear: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''Tycho''': So , at the end of [[Dragon Age]], I pissed off {{spoiler|Alistair}} somehow and he left. In my '''Warden Commander''' armor from the DLC.
'''Gabe''': Wasn't that like, seven dollars?
'''Tycho''': I know! He fucking robbed me! As I watched him walk away, all I could think was "Please, {{spoiler|Alistair}}. Leave the armor."
|[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]], [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/12/02 December 2, 2009]}}
In [[Video Games]], this is the annoying effect of having potentially great equipment stolen from you because the character wearing them is rendered inaccessible for some part of the game. If and when they come back, their equipment may already have fallen victim to the [[Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness]]. Or they may have found new, better equipment and ditched what they had before, in which case you better hope they didn't have anything unique on them that you might need later. Kinder games will dump this swag back into your inventory.
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Especially a risk with [[Guest Star Party Member]]s who then [[Lost Forever|leave for good]]. A common tactic on a second playthrough, [[New Game+]], or just after you've looked through a [[Strategy Guide]], is to remove all the neat swag of a [[Guest Star Party Member]] just before they leave the party/are [[Killed Off for Real]]. However, many games have an annoying habit of having the theft occur after a difficult [[Boss Battle]] but prior to being allowed to save, so stripping the [[Required Party Member]] puts you at a disadvantage in the fight. May induce [[Narm]] if they leave in a climactic cutscene and end up fighting in their underwear and with bare hands.
Some Meta-Humor is often used here; if you the player know the character is leaving, you'll unequip everything from them. Since "you" the character couldn't
{{Unmarked Spoilers}}
{{examples}}
* A rare
== [[Tabletop
* This can happen in most role playing games. Whether you're buying the NPC decker some new gear to help you in [[Shadowrun]], giving a magical sword to a companion in [[Dungeons
=== Action Adventure ===
* ''[[Beyond Good & Evil (video game)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' has PA-1's, [[Heart Container|heart containers]] you can swap between yourself and your partners. {{spoiler|When Pey'j is kidnapped}}, he takes all of his PA-1's with him, though he has a chance of dropping one... and only one. The rest vanish into the ether, leaving you vulnerable and short in the [[Life Meter]] department. You'll get it back only near the end of the game, and might as well hoard them for yourself since they won't be around for too long.
=== Adventure Game ===
* This happens a lot in ''[[Maniac Mansion]]''. If a character dies with something important in their pocket, you may not be able to get the item again (this happened in the NES version). If they die with something super important, like the old rusty key, and nobody else can access it, someone is going to sit in the dungeon forever.
** On the other hand, some versions place a package on the kid's grave that contains all the items they were hauling around. Considering the lengths you have to go to in order to get the kids killed, it's not nearly as much a problem as it sounds even in versions without packages.
=== First
* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' gently pulls this stunt a couple times; twice, JC will be asked in dialogue to hand the best sidearm he's holding to an [[Non-Player Character|NPC]] in order to trigger marginally improved plot outcomes. These [[Non-Player Character|NPCs]] will have no interest in returning said weapons when they're done with them; this is made worse by the fact that most players will have used rare upgrades on these guns. Fortunately, this can be averted while achieving these plotlines' "good" endings by dropping the "good" weapons on the ground and grabbing an unmodified gun for the [[Non-Player Character|NPCs]] from the level.
** In ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'', you have the option to hand {{spoiler|van Bruggen}} one of your weapons to allow him to escape a Belltower ambush unscathed (he'll die if you don't). It doesn't have to be your ''best'' weapon, just any in your inventory, but if the only weapons you have are customised and upgraded...
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* Both ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' games have this if a player in an online game leaves. Survivor AI cannot use defibrillators or any bomb type items, but if a player who has the said items leaves the game, their bot will carry the items but cannot use them. Since the game does not allow dropping items or giving items to other players outside of pills/shots, you won't be able to take a bot's stuck items unless they get killed, where the items will then fall loose for anyone to pick up.
=== Hack
* In ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 6: Empires'', you can spend a big chunk of in-game money and resources upgrading one of your officer's weapons, only to have them defect during a battle. Lu Bu is particularly prone to this (although the real Lu Bu did have [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]], so it has to be expected).
===
* Can happen in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' or any other MMORPG which uses guild vaults. Griefers will get themselves invited to a guild, convince their new guildmates to allow them to grab some gear out of the vault, and then leave the guild with their newfound stuff. Fortunately this activity is usually against the game's EULA and [[GMs]] can often help you recover your goods.▼
* The above kind of behavior is NOT against the rules in [[EVE Online]], and is a particularly infamous and widespread profession, making vetting new members and restricting access a lot more of a big deal. If your corporation gets swindled out of your items, tough luck, you should have been more careful about placing your trust in people. Your only option is to swear revenge.▼
=== Real-Time Strategy ===
* Averted in ''[[Warcraft III]]'', where the various hero characters could carry and use items, and would keep them between missions. If, at any point, a hero left, all their items would be on the ground at the start of the next mission. The only exceptions were at the end of each campaign (obviously): if the items weren't there, that character was coming back.
** The only exception is if the Hero you can't use anymore was on a separate journey than the main hero of the campaign. For example, Grom Hellscream during his two missions in the Orc Campaign, Illidan during his own single mission in the Night Elf Campaign and any of Sylvanas' missions during the Frozen Throne Undead campaign. Anything they or any other heroes they met had is [[Lost Forever]]. There is a minor exception though, since {{spoiler|Illidan}} is a usable hero for both the Night Elf and Alliance campaigns in Frozen Throne, he retains any gear he had between campaigns.
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** Potentially inverted in ''Chaos Rising'', when {{spoiler|the traitor in your ranks (assuming he wasn't Martellus) politely drops all the armor, weapons, and gear of yours that he was carrying.}} Unfortunately, though you may get all the items back, instead you lose {{spoiler|the only character who could have used the items with any kind of proficiency (e.g. Avitus' heavy weapons, Cyrus' bombs)}}.
=== Role
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' (the former [[Trope Namer]]) Aerith's [[It Was His Sled|sudden death]] makes you lose all her equipment. Thank God the creators weren't cruel enough to take away all her materia, too... The fact that her equipment is not returned is especially irritating because there is a unique piece of armour (the Edincoat) in the dungeon just before you lose her that you will quite likely equip on her, since she is a [[White Magician Girl]] who is, for that dungeon, a [[Required Party Member]]. Luckily the weapon situation is no problem at all because Aerith is the only one that can equip Staffs in the first place.
** At various points in the game, Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie are all temporarily [[Put on a Bus]] and you lose their equipment as well, but you get their stuff back when they rejoin the group.
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* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' zigzags this in one notable example. When {{spoiler|Gafgarion betrays your party}}, after the battle his gear is dumped back into your inventory, thus being a straight inversion in this case. However, you can make the fight against him ''laughably easy'' if you remove all his gear just before said battle, since without it he is ''hilariously useless''. Bonus points if you removed all of his abilities barring his default {{spoiler|Dark Sword}} skill set, which ''he can't use without the sword you just took from him'', thus reducing him to only using punches which, as everyone knows, are pathetically weak for any class besides a Monk. Sadly, he gets even better gear in his subsequent encounters, which obviously make them [[That One Boss|a lot harder]].
** It's also possible to invert this with the 'invite' skill. You can recruit nearly '''anyone''' into your group, steal their gear, and dump them.
* ''[[
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' returns items equipped by 'specific area' party members, but also unequips all abilities activated on a party member if they are removed and returned (making some boss battles a lot harder until you realize that). The game also makes use of this to add dramatic tension: {{spoiler|It is also done after the scene when Goofy is seriously knocked out and isn't selectable in the party for a period of time, feeding the temporary but dramatic insinuation he actually ''died''. Of course, we know that Disney's [[Like You Would Really Do It|not crazy enough to do that]], but it was still pretty convincing.}}
** {{spoiler|[[Badass Longcoat|King Mickey]] [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|seemed to think]] they'd be crazy enough to do so.}}
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* Used {{spoiler|and then inverted at the end}} in ''[[The World Ends With You]]'', due to Neku {{spoiler|getting a different partner at the start of each week}}. You ''can'' buy some of the clothes again if you want them that desperately. Thankfully, the first time it happens, it's not too much of a loss: {{spoiler|female equipment is useless to Neku and his other two partners after Shiki}} unless you ''really'' powerlevel Bravery. And most of that first person's equipment is likely to be {{spoiler|Shiki-specific}}, anyway. The loss of the money stings a bit, though.
* Rather realistically inverted in the ''[[Siege of Avalon]]'' anthology, where most party members have at least some equipment that cannot be unequipped, but can be taken from them if they die. (Naturally, you don't want the new kid taking the armor that's served you well for months of siege, even if he is the war hero's younger brother.) Unfortunately, it's mostly just standard mid-level armor with a distinct coloration (rare, but not unique) or even non-unique, non-enchanted, basic clothing, and it also means that you can't upgrade their armor at any point. And you'll want to. However, all but one of them will only die (permanently; every death [[Killed Off for Real|is real]]) if you're badly outnumbered and you don't or can't heal them in time to save them, or get a magician in your party and set him to do it for you.
* Played obnoxiously straight in the ''[[Gold Box]]'' series of ''[[Dungeons
* Rather strangely done in ''[[Live a Live]]'' due to the fact that the Final Chapter only uses the main characters from each chapter. Not stripping Taro of his item-gained specials before completing Akira's chapter means you lose some equipment for Cube later on.
* When someone dies in Interplay's ''Lord of the Rings'', you are instantly given the task of transferring inventory to another party member. If your inventory is already full, that stuff is gone. If the One Ring is gone, you're screwed, and the game ends.
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* Happens ''constantly'' in ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'', because only the four main characters stay in the party the whole game; all the others join temporarily, and then return for the final battle when you have to pick one, except Alys {{spoiler|who dies}}. Hahn, Alys, Rune, and Raja can be un-equipped before they leave the party, and you can sell their stuff to help pay for better armor and weapons later on, but if you want to do that with Gryz, Demi, or Kyra, you have to be gutsy enough to go through a boss battle with them naked because they leave in the cutscenes following the victory.
* ''[[SaGa Frontier 2]]'' averts this by allowing you to access the inventories of characters not in your current party, and you can even equip techniques that they've learned. (This is, in fact, how you can pick up a technique that would otherwise be [[Lost Forever]].)
* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' is pretty obvious with which party members will stay with you and which won't (hint: look for an approval bar), so it's easy to tell when you should strip your [[Guest Star Party Member|buddies]] in the pre-initiation mission. It's just [[Vendor Trash]], but hey. As a bonus, the usually dramatic initiation cutscene gets an [[Naked People Are Funny|added dose of hilarity]]. However, even the "permanent" party members will leave if you cross their personal [[Moral Event Horizon]]—though if they decide to attack you first, you can then kill them and take your stuff back. Thanks to the game having equippable [[Game Breaker]] rewards from purchased [[Downloadable Content]], it's entirely possible for them to walk off with equipment you paid ''real life money'' for. Granted, you could get the armor in a new game, as the DLC quests stay once you've bought them, but it still feels like the game literally robbing you blind. ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' makes note of it [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/12/2/ in this strip].
** It's averted with the guys in the pre-initiation mission. Their stuff automatically goes into your inventory after the inevitable occurs. It is played annoyingly straight with the random guys you get in the Tower of Ishal.
*** [https://web.archive.org/web/20140124080209/http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/6831-Stolen-Pixels-147-Naked-Greed This "Stolen Pixels" strip] illustrates the reaction of [[Genre Savvy]] players.
*** On the bright side, regarding the Tower of Ishal guys, if you just leave them in default gear you don't actually ''lose'' anything, and if you strip them you can get some bonus vendor trash as well as one of the only robes that'll be available for a while- normally trash too, but potentially useful if you're playing as a mage ''and'' plan to use Morrigan in your party early.
* ''[[Paladin's Quest]]'' can have this happen, but the worst example is the mercenary who will only join you when you buy her her full equipment set. Of course, if she leaves, you don't get the items back.
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* Krobelus in ''[[Summoner]] 2''. Luckily he's not allowed any armour in the first place, but he has other equipment. Make sure you have a wooden staff in the inventory that you can replace his rod with, because you aren't allowed to just take his weapon.
* Can be done in ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, although it generally has to be on purpose; by releasing a Pokémon holding an item. However, accidents are possible if, say, you actually raised that Shuckle in GSC and gave it a held item before returning it. Or traded that Spearow you were raising in FRLG for Farfetch'd on an impulse trade. Still not very likely, as useful items like the Master Ball or one-of-a-kind TMs have no reason to be given to your Pokémon in the first place, unless you're abusing the Pokémon/item duplication [[Good Bad Bugs|glitch]], in which case this is a moot point. Alternately, though, people do sometimes trade items like Master Balls to friends by giving them to mons to hold during trade, and you can be screwed if you forget to remove said item before trading the mon yourself or trade it by mistake.
* Can rarely occur in ''[[
* ''[[Grandia]]'':
** In ''[[Grandia II]]'' one member of your party dies, which appears to be a Wutai Thief moment when it comes to the coins spent on his abilities. However, the designers were nice enough to plan ahead, as there's an item that gives you all his Skill coins back.
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* At the end of [[Beyond Divinity]], the Death Knight who has been your unwilling companion through the whole game turns out to be Damien himself and fights you. If he's got all of your good stuff, he can be nearly impossible to beat. If you remove all of his stuff just before the final boss fight right before the big reveal and manage to keep him alive, he's incredibly easy to beat.
=== Simulation Game ===
* Toyed with and reversed somewhat in ''X2: The Threat''. During one early mission you are loaned a personnel transport ship armed with some decent equipment—including some expensive shields. After the mission is finished you are given an old cargo transport, but its hull integrity will be greatly reduced if you decided to sell off the shields in the other ship for personnel gain.
=== Stealth
* Happens about two
▲* Happens about two thirds of the way through ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'', wherein Snake recovers all of his equipment after a [[No-Gear Level]] sequence, except for all of his previously captured animals and collected food (including the pricelessly valuable Tsuchinoko, if you were lucky enough to find it - fortunately you can catch it again just after getting your gear back). Humorously, you can call EVA about this, and she will confess that she rifled through your pack for instant noodles, but the rest of Snake's pack was emptied by Ocelot because "[[Ho Yay|he wanted to eat the same things Snake did]]".
== Survival Horror ==▼
▲=== Survival Horror ===
* ''[[The Thing (video game)|The Thing]]'' does this practically every level. This game isn't an RPG but is filled with [[Guest Star Party Member]]s. It's a [[Survival Horror]] game, so ammunition and weaponry are limited. Your party members seem to desert you after each load screen for a new level and take the weapons with them. They apparently think that they have a better chance without the guy who gave them their guns.
** [[Fridge Brilliance]] here: ''Anyone'' could be The Thing, and if it turns out to be 'the guy who gave them their guns', the giving of the guns could be some sort of elaborate setup. ''The Player'' knows this isn't true, but the [[Guest Star Party Member]]s don't and would therefore feel that they'd be safer away from him... and by extension away from each other as well. Paranoia does weird things to people.
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*** Players may be severely hampered later on if they equipped Claire with the more powerful weapons like the grenade launcher for the battle with Nosferatu. Which you're [[Sniping Mission|supposed to use the sniper rifle for]].
=== Turn
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' subverts this; [[Guest Star Party Member]]s leave their equipment. Due to a [[Good Bad Bug]], you can even take advantage of this fact when {{spoiler|Gafgarion}} pulls a [[Face Heel Turn]]; steal {{spoiler|his}} equipment, and you'll get the stolen copy PLUS the copy he leaves behind for leaving your team! Too bad if a character meets [[Final Death]], though...
* Subverted in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]''. {{spoiler|When Adelle leaves the clan, she doesn't take with her any of the items you had equipped to her. Eventually she re-joins the clan, so it doesn't matter anyway.}}
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** Then there's the part in one of the later chapters where {{spoiler|Jennifer}} leaves the team {{spoiler|(and gets subsequently [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] by Kurtis)}}—you lose any equipment you had on {{spoiler|her}} until {{spoiler|Kurtis does a [[Heel Face Turn]] [[Redemption Equals Death|and commits his]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}}, bringing her back to the team (equipment intact, thankfully).
** Additionally, {{spoiler|[[Magikarp Power|Flonne]] }}is taken out of commission for the final boss fight via {{spoiler|getting turned into a flower}}. She'll come back with her stuff on a [[New Game+]], of course, but the stuff on her, which is likely to be good stuff, since she's one of the best story characters in the game, is locked away from you until then.
** After beating the aforementioned final boss, if you choose to start in [[Another Side, Another Story|Etna Mode]] instead of a traditional [[New Game+]], {{spoiler|Laharl will die in the opening cutscene}}, leaving you without ''his'' equipment, as well. Etna Mode is significantly more difficult than the normal story, and you probably ''needed'' him fully equipped to handle the final boss without access to {{spoiler|Flonne}}, making it nothing short of annoying.
* Every single team member in ''[[Odium]]'', since they all leave without warning. Especially ridiculous when one of your teammates departs through {{spoiler|dying an unavoidable death on the street. You'd think you could just collect the stuff off the teammate's corpse, but no dice}}.
* Averted quite nicely in the ''[[Jagged Alliance]]'' series: mercs whose contract is up will leave behind their equipment. In fact, one of the strategies in ''Jagged Alliance 2'' involves creating an IMP merc (widely considered to be your chance to make an [[Author Avatar]], and will stay on the party permanently), hiring one of the super-expensive mercs for one day with their equipment, taking the first two towns, and then—when the AIM merc's contract is up—equipping his assault rifle and expensive gear on your IMP merc.
* The [[Warhammer
* The ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' series tends to do this, especially with storyline deaths. A very early one occurs in ''[[Super Robot Wars 3]]'' where [[Zeta Gundam|Reccoa]] disappears to go spy on the bad guys and takes the Mobile Suit you put her in with you. Here's hoping you shoved her into a mook unit before hand and not one of your special Gundams.
** A stupid one happens in ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]] 3'' - if you chose to start with Touya's route, you get to play out the beginning of the second half of ''[[GaoGaiGar]]''. Sadly, because of this, when [[GaoGaiGar]] gets wrecked, it (and Guy) go through a [[Ten-Minute Retirement]] and all of [[GaoGaiGar]]'s upgrades are rendered moot.
▲* Can happen in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' or any other MMORPG which uses guild vaults. Griefers will get themselves invited to a guild, convince their new guildmates to allow them to grab some gear out of the vault, and then leave the guild with their newfound stuff. Fortunately this activity is usually against the game's EULA and [[GMs]] can often help you recover your goods.
▲* The above kind of behavior is NOT against the rules in [[EVE Online]], and is a particularly infamous and widespread profession, making vetting new members and restricting access a lot more of a big deal. If your corporation gets swindled out of your items, tough luck, you should have been more careful about placing your trust in people. Your only option is to swear revenge.
▲== Anime and Manga ==
▲* A rare '''non''' video game example, this is [[Lampshaded]] in a side omake by Natsuki Takaya in a ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' volume.
▲== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
▲* This can happen in most role playing games. Whether you're buying the NPC decker some new gear to help you in [[Shadowrun]], giving a magical sword to a companion in [[Dungeons and Dragons]], or working your money and black market ties to get your trusty ghoul bodyguard an SMG and some shooting classes in [[Vampire: The Masquerade]], there's a chance that character will leave the game. They may die with the gear beyond salvage, be bought out or turned by your enemies, become a [[Damsel in Distress]], have been [[The Mole]] all along, or just decide they've had it with you being a [[Jerkass]] (as so many players are.) When that NPC was entrusted with essential equipment, this can become a great complication for a fun night of gaming (either saving the NPC, winning them back, or at least getting back the goods) or a reason to grumble at the player who angered the party's allies until they just stormed off.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Player Party]]
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:CRPG Tropes]]
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