Thief — an All Difficulty Level complete-loot walkthrough (Original Thief and Thief Gold)

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At that time, it was originally meant to be a supplement to the FAQ of The Brigadier, which contained walkthroughs for mission 2 (Bafford) through 7 (Haunted Cathedral). For the other missions, it is a regular walkthrough (since they were not covered in the FAQ). Later, I start writing complete walkthroughs for the missing missions. Before I can finish, Thief Gold is available so I keep revising the walkthrough to incorporate Gold information. As of today, it is a complete walkthrough covering Thief Dark Project (TDP, usually referred to as Original Thief in this walkthrough) and Thief Gold (TG).

At The Spoilers you can find a walkthrough by Brian Smith. His walkthrough is for the normal level (and does not cover all loots). If you want to play the expert level, you simply cannot follow him: you are asked to kill people, and you would not have sufficient loot to complete the game, and you would not be able to collect items or perform actions required by the expert level,

At lower difficulty, you have in general more powerup items to pick up. Note also that the location of some loots are different at different difficulty levels. Finally, the number of pockets to pick varies with difficulty level as well.

Despite your conceived running speed you can actually outrun everything — if you have to place to run to. And if you are not running fast enough, the following should help:

1. stand up! I frequently run and forget I am still crouching.
2. put away your weapon: they are the chief reason why you move slowly
3. jump while running — you can outrun Hammer Haunts and even the flying skulls from Apparitions!

When you run, keep turning corners and they will lose sight of you. And avoid doors because opening doors takes too much time. Soon after you have shaken them loose, they stop chasing and look around for you.

When you run, you can choose where to run to. You are not forced to run out. In some missions, you can run inward. For example, in mission 2, you can run from the factory to the prison to get away from the guards. It does not always work because some guards will pull the alarm and seals your fate.

Climbing. I always find climbing ladders and ropes very difficult. Do not stand too close to the object: walk towards it and press jump when it is getting near. If you have a better method to climb, let me know. System Shock 2, which uses an enhanced version of the Dark Engine, has much improved on this aspect. Walk up to a ladder, look up, continue to walk and find yourself alreayd climbing up the ladder. But in Thief, we have to continue to negotiate with the jump key.

Mantling. Just as difficult at times. I found that it is easier to mantle up when you are looking downwards. Just press and hold the jump key. Most important, do not press the forward key.

To jump down quietly, find something to jump upon: almost anything other than the floor will do. Dropping on a wooden box is also noisy, but if you drop to the edge of the box, you slip down to the floor noiselessly. Or crouch and then jump, which also reduces the damage you take.

Note that all your enemies are not capable of mantling (they walk up stairs, but cannot mantle up higher obstacles like Garrett does) or jumping (they only jump when attacking, not as a means to overcome obstacles). They are not capable of riding elevators, nor use the Rope Arrows you left dangling around. They cannot really swim, but they can walk under water, and some of them can hold their breath for quite some time.

Note that the same applies to you as well. If you are caught unaware, or attacked from behind, you received a deeper damage than otherwise.

• Idle

  Most AIs are idle until you approach their room. You wake them up by arriving at a certain area (not by being seen by one of them). Once you wake them up, they will start wandering around or picking up their patrol path or start talking to each other.

  Therefore, it pays to act fast (quick but not run): especially for Zombie-infested areas. If you get into a place and move fast, you may be able to roam around unhindered.

• Unaware
  They will be doing their routine patrol. They can have more than one patrol path depending on whether certain triggers have been fired. For example, many guards idly wait till you arrive and start talking and patrolling. Some patrol paths have difficult corners or obstacles that Guards and Zombies are especially prone to getting stuck. They end up staying there for a very long time, giving you more freedom elsewhere. But this means that there’s a high densitydensity of enemies at certain spots. For example, some narrow corridors in the Halls of Echoing Repose are clogged with Zombies as the game progresses.
• Think you may be there
  They change their behaviour visibly and some (especially the Hammer Haunts) make new types of noises. For many AIs, you can listen to what they are talking to determine their state. They are aroused but you are safe. You can stay or move quietly away, just do not make new noises.
• Seen or heard something
  They will search for you so you had better stay in deep shadow and stop moving. Many enemies show a different behaviour pattern than in the previous state. They give up after variable lengths of time.
• Spotted you

  You are in deep trouble. Some will scream and run away, others will search real hard. They will become impossible to pickpocket. They will forget about the patrol path and search everywhere. They will find you even if you are in good shadows. However, there are corners that they will never find you — if in deep trouble, press yourself into a corner, crouch and hope for the best.

  The other alternative is to get away. Do not try to hide before they lose sight of you. When you lost them, they will start searching and so you have to hide somewhere still further away.

  The third way is to knock them down. Do not knock the forehead, several blows and you may kill him. Keep running behind the guard and knock from behind. If a maid is running away screaming, you had better run after her and knock her down. Probably others have not yet noticed her.

Warning! This is quite a spoiler. I suggest you do not look up an AI until you have met him in the game.

Animals

Undeads

Beasts

Elementals

Robots

Many types of equipment are weapons. Whichever weapon you use, remember that it doesn’t matter which part of the body it hits. Blackjack on the lower leg is just as effective as on the neck. However, due to many problems of the game engine, some parts of the body are not considered targets. For example, you can shoot arrows through hands or heads, and they may pass through unhindered. You will also notice that guards can frequently stuck their head or their sword into a wall, or through doors. Just remember which parts of the body are ignored in the collision detection. The center (eg the belly) is generally a good target.

Your most important weapon is of course the Blackjack: you are using it more than anything else. It is also your most powerful weapon: beats nearly everything (except small stuff like Spiders, which I have difficult to reach them) — when they are not aware of your presence. And better still it never runs out of ammunition. One useful technique is lean and knock: so that you do not have to catch up that close to your target.

Remember that your ordinary Sword increases your luminosity and gives you away, while the Constantine’s Sword does’t. In case you need to strike at Spiders or Frog Beasts, ready your Sword, release and crouch. You can also use your sword to break (unlock) wooden doors.

You have quite some types of arrows. You need to left click to pull an arrow. Wait for the arrow to zoom in, so that the hit is more effective. You can also use the arrows as a telescope, zooming at places too difficult to see clearly. If you have pulled an arrow and decide not to shoot, press the put-weapon-away key.

Notice that drawing an arrow makes you more visible. Reader Kronic Knight confirmed that pointing an arrow at an AI does not make you more visible.

The first major class of arrows are regular arrows the Hammerites made:

• Broadhead Arrow is just an arrow. But you can use Broadhead Arrows as noisemakers. They are much cheaper. Actually you can usually find something to throw: plates, bottles, or skulls (but corpses do not make much noise).
• Rope Arrows are cute, allowing you to climb up places you otherwise can’t. Sometimes you cannot retrieve the Rope Arrow after you have jumped down. Instead, jump from the rope and right click it when you are in mid air.
• Noisemaker Arrows are seldom useful, since there are plenty substitutes.
• These three types of arrows look very similar to each other. At least I cannot tell one from another. Reader Stefan Dietz pointed out to me that you can tell by looking at the marking at the feathers (the end of the arrow). Noisemaker Arrows have a blue marking, the Rope Arrows have some kind of brown stripes and the Broadhead Arrows are just unicolored. Yet sometimes the engine gave them the wrong color.

The second major class of arrows are the elemental arrows. The four elemental arrows (earth [moss], water, fire, wind [gas]) are actually crystals. Supposedly they are the crystal of the elemental forces, fitted to arrows for specific purposes. And that is why they look like crsytal rods before you pick them up. And they look like crystals in some drawings of Garrett. And are referred to as crystal in the books and scrolls you read in various missions. Supposedly you should attach the crystal to some arrows and shoot them, but it is too troublesome and ends up the way it is.

• Moss Arrows can always be substituted by slow motion, but when you need speed to catch up and backstab your target, Moss Arrow comes in handle.
• Water Arrows are of course useful. You need plenty of them to douse torches and make Holy Water arrows. Yet living things do not mind being showered by Water Arrows.
  
  An interesting use of Water Arrows is to wash bloodstains. If you kill somebody, blood will spill on the ground. It will go away eventually, but if another AI is getting near, you had better wash it away with a Water Arrow or the AI will notice the blood when he arrives.
• Fire Arrows are powerful like a rocket launcher, but not really effective. It easily kills Zombies, and two Fire Arrows is usually good enough to kill an Apparition. Yet you can hardly kill living things like Hammerites or Burricks with Fire Arrows. Most important thing to remember is, when the target is close to you, do not use Fire Arrow: you will kill yourself!
• When a Gas Arrows hits the target, it emits a gas to bring down nearby live forms. Gas Mines are similar in effect but operates like a Land Mine. What’s most important: these Gas only knock out the victim. They are not counted as kills, and therefore can safely be used on human even in Expert levels.

While Flash Bomb can be used to kill the undeads (especially useful when lots of them crawls around you), you can also use it like the SWAT teams. Dropping a Flash Bomb immobilises and blinds your enemy for a few seconds. I used to tell people to throw Flash Bombs, but reader The Potted Plant informed me that you should drop it or else the target may not see it. Therefore, drop for human and throw for undeads. Now you may run away, or run behind them to knock them with a blackjack. In the earlier patch levels, Flash Bomb blinds Garrett as well, but this feature seems to get lost in 1.33 and Thief Gold. In Thief 2, the self-blinding effect comes back and you will need to turn your head when using Flash Bombs in Thief 2.

When using Land Mines, remember that they are noisy to deploy. If the AI is close, he will be disturbed by the sound, and an alerted Hammer Haunt may survive a Land Mine. Gas Mines are a cross between Gas Arrows and Land Mines and so inherit the benefits of both. It is not after I have written walkthroughs for 14 misssions that it occurred to me there is a better way to use the mines. Instead of using the right mouse button, use the keyboard key you assigned to drop. It makes the same amount of noise (alerting most AIs), but the mine will not fly as far away. Look down and drop, and you can control exactly where to plant the mine (remember not to step on it yourself). To make mine planting (on hard surface) noiseless, use a Moss Arrow.

Hammers! It is a great weapon. Available in many places, although difficult to carry around. Just throw it at AIs (or even locked doors) and they are sometimes more effective than your Sword! Run towards the target when throwing to make an even greater impact. Better still, they are not counted as kills (it is more like a bug than a feature)! That is, you can do it even when the mission requires you not to kill anybody. On the other hand, the boulders are useless. I keep throwing boulders but it seems nobody can be harmed by them.

AIs, why not? AIs fall into groups, and those within the same group won’t fight against one another. However, AIs of different groups go into battle when they meet. It is often not easy to bring them together, but you have a good chance in mission 9 (Lost City) (the in-game tips and the walkthrough will suggest ways). Even among human beings, guards and thieves are against each other; for example, in mission 15 (Thieves’ Guild).

A particular kind of AI weapon came as a big surprise. The Potted Plant taught me an interesting way to kill Archers. A method that works at all Difficulty Levels, even if you are forbidden to kill human beings — you can make an Archer kill himself! First you have to understand how an Archer normally behaves when he attacks. First he walks away from you to a distance, stop and turn towards you. Then he draws his bow. Since that point of time, he would stop turning around. If you think that you can side step to evade his arrow, you are deadly wrong (probably you have been killed many times for this). His arrow is not shooting in his forward direction — his arrow shoots towards you! Now this is the method: you need to let an Archer notice you, wait till he start pulling the arrow, then you run to behind him. If you arrive there fast enough, then his arrow will shoot backwards, into his own body. Astonishing, isn’t it?

Potions are not weapons, but are part of your equipment. In particular, notice that Healing Potion takes time to be effective. After swallowing, it takes a few seconds for your health to increase a few points, one point at a time. Wait till its effect is over before deciding to use another vial.

Sound card and speakers — are not for Garrett, but for you! Sound is the most important sense Garrett needs. In fact, Thief is probably the first game where sound plays an utmost important role. Many missions (especially Return to Cathedral) are impossible without careful listening. And Thief is the game where you should not play without 3D sound card and 4 point surround speakers (better with 5.1 speakers, like the Creative SB DE5.1 and DTT3500 I recently upgraded to). After you installed sound card and speakers, remember to turn on Thief audio hardware support and EAX support from the option menu. BTW notice that 3D sound is actually 2D: the vertical distance seems not to matter at all. So when somebody is above you, you can hear him clearly; and so can he you.

The following is a list of important terms used in the game. Knowing them makes it easier to understand the mission briefings and the storyline.

• Master Builder. Deity worshipped by the Order of the Hammer. God of law, construction, industry and vigilance. The believers build factories and machines. And they uphold the law and despise thiefs.
• Order of the Hammer. Religious order worshipping the Master Builder headed by a High Priest. Under the High Priest are Master Forgers.
• Hammerites. Members of the Order of Hammer, believers of Master Builder.
• Wallbuilder. A term used in the prayers of the Hammerites to express the wish to leave something good behind.
• Trickster. Also called Woodsie Lord, Honey Maker, and Leafman. God of chaos, nature and fear. The arch enemy of the Master Builder.
• Order of the Vine. Obscure organization devoted to magic, opposing the Order of the Hammer.
• Magic. Energies other than those the mechanical ones understood by the Hammerites. Does not necessarily implies it is science or sorcery.
• Keepers. The strange guys who raised Garrett. They are devoted to uphold the balance between rigid laws and forces of chaos through active non-intervention (they should come and rule Hong Kong). They maintain extensive libraries to gather information and knowledge.
• Taffer. A thief. Hammerites used it as pejoritive, but among thieves it is an honorable name.
• Manfool. Name Trickster and his followers used to call (normal) human beings.

Until recently, I thought it is not documented anywhere. I now found that they are printed in the small booklet in the CD jewel box (I shelf the booklet as soon as I insert the CD, and forgot about it). Your PF9..PF12 is mapped without your being told. Unless overridden, PF9 is the Compass. PF10 takes a screen shot (saves as a PCX file in the Thief directory). PF11 does a quick save, PF12 does a quick load (can be dangerous!). Use them wisely.

Usually I do not pay attention to the reported time for completing my mission, because I always take more time than most people. The Potted Plant pointed out that on slow machine the reported mission time is shorter than the real time. His machine is very slow, and a mission that took 6 hours was reported to complete in 2!

Read Alastair Gebbie has an unhappy incident with Thief II game guides. He bought a book called “Thief II: Prima’s Official Strategy Guide” from Prima Games. It has the logo of Eidos and Looking Glass, and is called Official Guide. On the front cover the book says “loot locations revealed” leading him to believe it was a complete loot walkthrough. On the back cover it also says “all mission secretes revealed”.

To his utter disappointment, not all loots are listed, and he found secrets not mentioned in the guide. When I go to Prima Games online, I found that they say “Information on getting all the necessary loot”. I suppose that means the book only lists enough loots for you to fulfil the mission objectives. And for the secrets, it says “Secrets for every mission”, no more mentioning of “all”. I haven’t seen the book myself, but from what we can see and learn, it obviously is not a guide comparable to the depth of my walkthrough. So beware when spending money on game guides.

When you save a game, a file is written to the "saves" subdirectory under the Thief directory. If you want to keep more than 15 saved games, just copy them away. One tidy way is to create subdirectories under the saves directory, naming by mission number or mission name (or both). Since saved games are huge (2MB each!), you should consider ZIPping them, reducing the size of a saved game to about 1/5 of its original size.

Notice that saved games are version specific. Games saved by TDP cannot be read by TG — TG will only bring you to the start of the saved mission, not where you are saved.

In many missions, some of the doors are locked. You need to unlock it with a key, or pick it using a lockpick (available starting from Mission 5: Assassins). Either way, you unlock the doors after which you can open the door normally. Once unlocked, you are not capable of locking it back.

If a door is locked, even AIs cannot open it. However, many AIs carry keys with them to unlock doors. Some of their keys are placed on their belt. In those cases, you can steal the key from them (and add towards your total pick count). AIs can also carry their key “inside” them, and you won’t be able to steal (or even see) these keys.

When an AI need to move through a locked door, he first uses his key to unlock the door (you can hear a click sound). Then he opens the door (curiously, they just need to waive their hand and doors will open for them) and walk (another craziness in the game engine: if the door is blocked, you can often see them walk through a partially opened door). Once he is past the doorway, he locks it back (another click sound) and slam shut the door (actually the door will shut itself behind him, from what you can see).

From the above, you can arrive at many important conclusions:

• You can pass through locked doors by tail-gating an AI. Wait till the door is closing behind him, and use the door again to reopen it before it is shut.
• If a door is locked, not all AI can pass through it. By unlocking a door yourself, you are giving the AIs additional scope of movement, allowing them to go to places that they may not be able to arrive before.
• Since AIs can lock back doors you unlocked, you can repeat this process and get an infinite “locks picked” count.
• If you steal a key from the belt of an AI, he may stop being able to open some doors. A good demonstration is at Reuben’s Mini Casino in mission 15 (Thieves’ Guild). There, the guards may stop walking, or they may get trapped within an area where all doors around him are locked.

Many stuff in the game can be read by Garrett. It may be a scroll, a papyrus, a book or a plate. Besides the actual physical form, they also differs by the way they react to you.

Most of the readable material are grabbables. That is, you pick it up and take it into your inventory. You have to select it from your inventory, and use it in order to read it. Then you see a full screen of the paper or book. Sometimes there are more than one pages, and you need to click to paper corner or edge to flip pages.

In particular, two of the grabble books are more interesting. When you first get it, you and read it like a normal book. When you get to the right place, use it again and Garrett will read it alone. Both of the books are prayer books.

The second type is of course the ungrabbables. They behave like the grabbables when reading, except that you cannot take them into your inventory. For example, many of the poster scrolls will stick on the wall or desk. That means you have to read it at where ever it happens to be. If you want to read it again at a later time, you have to come back to the same place (if you still remember where it was).

A third type is what I called HUDs (Head Up Displays). Instead of a full screen of paper, you remain in the 3D space of Garrett, and the words just appear on your screen for a few seconds. This usually happens with plates (for example showing the name of the hall). Notice that unlike the other two types, the world keep on spinning while you read. If you are absorbed in reading, you may be seen or even attacked by AIs around you.