Using the Bow in Thief Gold

[m0wlwurf]

Hello dear Thief Community,
I recently bought the new Installement of Thief (which I liked very much - shame on me), and after finishing I bought the older games, too.
Now my question is: how do I properly use the bow in the first thief (Thief Gold). In Thief Deadly Shadows, one shot with the bow is enough to kill unaware enemies. In Thief gold, this doesn't seem to work for me! They survive the shot and come after me and call me a Taffer :(
So what do I do wrong? I also tried hitting the head, the torso... nothing makes a difference. Bow is pulled to maxmimum too. Any ideas?

Best regards from Germany
m0wlwurf

[constancejill]

That probably means that they actually were aware.

[istvan_v]

It depends on the enemy, some simply have too much health to get killed by a single arrow. An arrow from a fully drawn bow deals 3-4 points of damage, which becomes 15-20 with a stealth attack on an unaware enemy. Most Bafford guards only have 10 health (but a few tougher ones much more), Ramirez guards may have 16, Hammerites 20, and assassins and bug beasts 28, for example. Those with 16-20 HP may or may not survive a stealth attack with the bow. Also, the undead have increased resistance to arrow hits, and only take a single point of damage.

[m0wlwurf]

Thanks for your answer. I tried it in the 1st and 2nd missions of the game - on 2nd hardest difficulty. Can this affect the damage/hp? I also installed an inofficial patch. Maybe that is the problem. In any case I know now that there is something odd :)

[A Daft Punk]

Yes difficulty increases the hits they can take, not all enemies even on normal can be killed in one hit and that is how it always is patched or no it is a part of the game.

[istvan_v]

Originally posted by A Daft Punk:

Yes difficulty increases the hits they can take

Actually, it does not, unless a newer "unofficial" patch changed this for some reason. On expert difficulty, 5 quick slashes with the sword (10 points of damage total) should still kill a Bafford guard, just like on normal. What changes is the maximum health of the player. Also, in Metal Age, damage taken by the player is slightly scaled down on lower difficulties, and Normal makes healing twice as effective.

Other than that, the difficulty setting affects object placement on the map, and the mission objectives. However, sometimes a tougher enemy may only be present at a high difficulty, or replace a weaker one.

[istvan_v]

Originally posted by m0wlwurf:

Thanks for your answer. I tried it in the 1st and 2nd missions of the game - on 2nd hardest difficulty.

Can you kill the two guards near the well house in Lord Bafford's Manor with one arrow ? This should be possible if they are really unaware and unalerted. The three guards at the front gate have 30 health, and easily survive the attack. The Hammerites in Cragscleft Prison have 20, and will randomly die or survive the hit. If there are no bugs or patch/mod related issues, the most common reasons why you cannot kill with a single arrow are:
- the enemy has too much health, or increased resistance to arrows (e.g. undead, fire elementals)
- you are attacking an already alerted enemy; once they are at high alertness, they may take a while to return to a low level, even after they are no longer searching (new players often get caught because of this)
- non-hostile guards and NPCs may remember seeing you for some time (up to about a minute at full awareness), and if you draw a weapon or try to pickpocket them too soon, they become enemies and their awareness turns into alertness
Stealth attacks are still possible when enemies are at alertness level 1, but in this case they will die loudly.

[m0wlwurf]

Dear Istvan,
you kind of nailed it here: Of course I tried it with the three guards guarding the front gate in bafford's manor. Before that I tried it on a Hammerite in Cragscleft. I guess I chose a bad sample for my experiment and drew all the wrong conclusions.
Thanks to everybody for their replies
-m0wlwurf

[A Daft Punk]

Originally posted by istvan_v:

Originally posted by A Daft Punk:

Yes difficulty increases the hits they can take

Actually, it does not, unless a newer "unofficial" patch changed this for some reason. On expert difficulty, 5 quick slashes with the sword (10 points of damage total) should still kill a Bafford guard, just like on normal. What changes is the maximum health of the player. Also, in Metal Age, damage taken by the player is slightly scaled down on lower difficulties, and Normal makes healing twice as effective.

Other than that, the difficulty setting affects object placement on the map, and the mission objectives. However, sometimes a tougher enemy may only be present at a high difficulty, or replace a weaker one.

Yeah I was misremembering things again my bad.

[jle30303]

All this talk about killing guards? Amateurs. A true professional thief does not kill living people. (Undead creatures and beasts are fair game.) Sneak up on them, whack them with your blackjack from behind when they have not detected you, or if you have a Gas Arrow on later difficulty levels, shoot it at them, and drag their bodies off into a dark corner where they won't be found by other patrolling guards (who will go on alert at once) or civilians (who will panic, run away and alert other guards). They'll wake up tomorrow with a bruised head but nothing worse, but you'll be long gone and on to your next mission by then (they don't wake up again during the mission). A single hit is enough.

Doing it on harder difficulties makes this clearer: you fail the mission if you actually kill a person, AND there will be more people around anyway. So it almost doesn't matter that they have higher hit points and are more difficult to kill, since this is actually rather a help than a hindrance since it prevents you killing them by accident.

In some cases, if a human dies from environmental damage - e.g. they follow you into water and die of drowning - you can get away with it. But if you pushed them into water, or did any damage to them, or even dropped an unconscious corpse into water, then it counts as a murder and fails the mission.

Not, of course, that this stops me dropping the unconscious Lord Ramirez and his hired assassins (you know, the ones who have just murdered your fence and were aiming at you) in the Burrick pit in Ramirez's own basement. The burricks won't attack them during the mission, so they remain technically unconscious...

And in Thief 3, you can pass by the graveyard and it contains the grave of Lord Ramirez, who "loved his Burricks" according to his epitaph. I suspect enough actual players of the game did exactly this to Ramirez after whacking him in his own basement, that it became standard canon :-)

[dunbaratu]

I think some people don't realize that the amount of damage the bow does varies with how long you draw it back. Holding the arrow back until the game does the "zoom in" view gets it up to its max damage. Doing it for less time than that means you are dealing less damage than you could.

I think this is a great mechanic for a stealth game because it rewards slow sniper activity over fast rapid action combat. Of course, trying to operate without killing is even better, but if you *are* going to kill, then a system that penalizes you for trying to be too rushed about it is a good thing.

[Ithurtswhen_ipee]

in thief 2, a shot above the legs on unaware enemies will kill them, i feel you might just be spotted? idk i havent played thief 1 yet.

Try holding the bow all the way back till it zooms in but not before Garret starts to shake his aim from the stress.

[m0wlwurf]

I very much appreciate the timeley answers.. please look at the date of the original post :D

[dj onion sprout]

u arent suppose to use the bow u use your hands

[ddaymace]

There are some weaker guards you can one-shot, but generally they made this difficult because they didn't want people playing it like a shooter. It's a pure stealth game, not a stealth-lite or stealth-when-I-feel-like-it game.

[ULTRA]

Thank goodness we got an answer after all these years