Q: IceDice: The rules say there are times I can choose whether to steal or take from the Bank. Does this mean I could steal any time?

Can you clarify again the rules for stealing. I see that if the piece is not in the bank, you MUST steal from opponent’s vault. But what if the piece is in the opponent’s vault AND in the bank?

A: No, you can’t just steal any time. The rules say “If your roll gives you options, it’s ok to make a choice that will require stealing even if the bank contains the other pyramids you can choose.”

This means if you roll one of the size-option faces of the pyramid die, and you could choose, say, a medium blue OR a small blue, and there’s a medium blue in the bank, but not a small blue, you can choose the small blue, necessitating a steal. If what you really want is a medium blue, however, THAT is available in the bank, and you don’t get to steal it, you have to get it from the bank.

The same would apply if you rolled the Atom to make the color wild. As long as you have not already rolled the color you want to choose, you could choose a color of which that size is not in the bank… but is in your opponent’s Vault, again, necessitating a steal. For example, if you rolled Atom, medium, and there were no medium blue in the Bank, but there were in your opponent’s Vault, you could choose to make the Atom blue, necessitating the steal of their medium blue… as long as you have not already rolled blue for that turn.