Sander said:
That has to be a fake. Simply because there probably isn't a Master sprite lacking its miniguns.
Any modders that can confirm this?
I swear to god I did this when I originally played Fallout 1 in 1999. I am sure that I didn't apply any patches to the game back then so maybe it was a bug that was fixed in a patched version.
I distinctly remember getting the steal interface up from the Master and seeing that he had two miniguns. I took them and was able to beat him easily because he couldn't fight back.
I don't recall exactly how I did it. I think it was some kind of 'fluke' because I can vaguely recall trying to get the steal interface up on him again and never succeeding after that one time.
I thought about doing it again in my recent play through (the only other time I've played Fallout since 1999), but I didn't bother, I found it pretty easy to just smash him with super sledge criticals.
But I can say for sure that stealing from the Master can be done.
Oh - and one more thing: the NPC doesn't have to have gun-less animation frames to allow stealing from them. You can steal guns from NPCs and their graphic will still show them holding the gun, but the won't really have it any more and won't be able to fire it. I *think* that was the case in Fallout 1, and I *know* it's the case in Fallout 2, where my unarmed combat character often knocks groups of opponents out with criticals to the head, then steals their weapons before they wake up. They wake up and come back at me with their normal weapon animations, but can only punch me (ineffectively).
