Thick As Thieves: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

Introduction — Why I'm Still Playing This Janky Masterpiece

Look, I'm not gonna lie to you: Thick As Thieves has the clunkiest ladder-climbing animation I've seen since Morrowind, the voice acting sounds like they recorded it in a bathroom, and the first time I tried to pickpocket a guard I accidentally punched him in the face and started a city-wide manhunt. And I have 275 hours in this game.

Here's the thing nobody tells you in the reviews: this game isn't about being a slick master thief. It's about being a desperate, starving idiot with a lockpick and a dream, and watching everything go horribly, beautifully wrong. I love it because it doesn't care if you feel powerful. The game wants you to survive, and it will laugh at you while you try.

The maps are so dense with vertical space that I spent my first ten hours never looking up. There's a rooftop garden in the Drowned Quarter that I didn't even know existed until hour 40. That's the kind of game this is. It rewards the obsessive weirdos who try to mantle onto every ledge, even the ones that look like a skybox texture.

So yeah, the controls are stiff. The stealth is janky. The economy is broken in the worst ways. But when you pull off that perfect heist — when you ghost through a manor with three guards in the same room, grab the Baron's sapphire, and vanish into a sewer grate without anyone even going "huh?" — there's nothing like it. I've screamed at my monitor in triumph more times in this game than in any soulslike I've ever played.

This guide is for the new players who are about to get wrecked. I'm going to save you about twenty hours of stupid deaths and wasted coin. Because I already ate those deaths so you don't have to.

Getting Started / First Steps — Don't Do What I Did

So you just finished the tutorial jailbreak and you're standing in the Rat Market, completely broke, wearing a burlap sack. Welcome. Here's the first thing you need to understand: everything you think you know about thieving is wrong.

I spent my first three runs trying to stack poison and got destroyed by the second boss every time. Turns out — and the game does NOT tell you this — poison stacking was nerfed in Patch 1.7. The damage cap is three stacks now, not five. I wasted so much coin on Blight Vials it's embarrassing. Don't be like me.

Your Actual First Steps:

• Do the first three Fence jobs in the Rat Market. They're boring, they pay like garbage (like 15 silver each), but they unlock the Underground Vendor who sells the starter lockpick set for half price. The regular vendor will rob you blind.
• Buy the "Cheap Runner's Boots" immediately. They're 22 silver, they look like trash, but they reduce footstep noise by 18%. The game doesn't tell you this stat exists until you mouse over them. I walked around barefoot for six hours before I figured this out.
• Do not buy weapons yet. Seriously. The starting dagger does 8 damage. The next tier dagger does 11 damage and costs 140 silver. That's not an upgrade, that's a scam. You're not supposed to fight. You're supposed to run and hide. Get that through your skull now.
• Bind your "quick climb" key to something comfortable. Default is Shift+Space. That's horrible. I use Mouse Button 4 (thumb button). You will be climbing constantly. If your fingers hurt after an hour, you're doing it wrong.
• Talk to the drunk in the corner of the Rat Market tavern. His name is Gregor. He gives you a free tip about a hidden stash in the first real mission area. It's not much (a lockpick and 12 silver), but it's a free lesson: talk to everyone who looks useless.

One more thing: turn off the "auto-vault" option in settings. It's in the gameplay tab, third toggle down. This setting has killed me more than any guard. You'll be trying to crouch behind a crate and instead you'll leap over it into plain sight. I lost a perfect ghost run on the Silvercrest job because of this setting. Turn it off. Now.

Core Mechanics & Progression — How the Game Actually Works

The tutorial teaches you the buttons. It does not teach you how the game thinks. Here's the real deal:

Thick As Thieves runs on a three-layer detection system, and it's far more sophisticated than most stealth games. There's the standard "visibility meter" you see on screen, but underneath that, every NPC has a hidden "suspicion score" that builds based on your actions. A guard who sees a shadow flicker might not trigger an alarm immediately, but his suspicion goes up by 15 points. If he finds a door unlocked that he just locked? That's 40 points. If he steps in a puddle of water where no puddle should be? That's 25 points and he starts checking corners.

When suspicion hits 100, the guard goes on alert. That means he starts patrolling differently, checking hiding spots, and if he sees you again? Full alarm. So if you're playing stealth and think "oh, he didn't see me, I'm fine" — no. You're not fine. He's mentally flagging that something is wrong. The game remembers.

Progression works on a strange loop: You do jobs to earn reputation (not just coin). Reputation unlocks better job contracts. Better jobs give better loot. But here's the kicker: reputation decays if you don't do jobs for a few in-game days. I took a break to grind crafting materials once and lost 2 reputation tiers. That locked me out of the "Nightshade Heist" contract, which has the best stealth gear in the game. I was furious.

The key stats you want to invest in early:

• Agility (to 15): Unlocks the "Silent Drop" passive. Without it, landing from a 10-foot fall sounds like a cannon shot. This is non-negotiable.
• Perception (to 10): Lets you see guard patrol routes on the minimap. It's a game-changer for planning routes.
• Sleight of Hand (to 8): Speeds up lockpicking by 40%. The minigame is tedious at low levels; this saves your sanity.
• Ignore Strength completely. Unless you're doing a "brute force" build (which I don't recommend for beginners), strength is useless. It only affects carry weight and melee damage. You shouldn't be carrying that much, and you shouldn't be meleeing.

Gear upgrades follow a weird pattern: Don't upgrade everything evenly. Pick one or two critical items and pour resources into them. My recommendation? Rush the "Shadow's Grip" gloves to level +3 as soon as possible. At +3, they reduce climbing stamina drain by 60%. That lets you scale the tallest buildings without needing to rest on ledges. It's the single best QoL upgrade in the game.

Expert Tips & Tricks — Stuff You Only Learn After 50 Hours

Alright, you've got the basics down. Now I'm going to tell you the things that separate a successful heist from a "I just reloaded my save for the 14th time" disaster.

• The Flamethrower's secret: The Hand Cannon (which everyone calls the Flamethrower) does 45 base DPS but ramps to 120 DPS after 3 seconds of continuous fire. That ramping is not mentioned anywhere in the tooltip. I only discovered this because I accidentally held the trigger while trying to aim and noticed the damage numbers climbing. This weapon destroys the spider swarms in the Catacombs job, but it's useless against human enemies because it's too slow to draw and too loud.
• Vertical hiding spots break AI: Most enemies have a limited vertical awareness range of about 20 feet. If you climb to a chandelier or a beam that's 25 feet up, guards will literally walk underneath you and never look up. This is how I completed the "Ghost in the Machine" achievement. I spent 12 minutes on a single beam while three guards searched for me below. They never found me.
• The "crowbar" is a key item, not just a weapon: Use it on the wooden floorboards in the Docks area. There are about 6 hidden floor stashes that only the crowbar can open. They contain rare crafting materials. I missed all of them for my first 30 hours because I assumed the crowbar was just a worse melee weapon.
• Listen for guard conversations. They drop hints about loot locations and shortcuts. In the Ravensworth Estate job, two guards in the kitchen will talk about a "loose brick in the pantry." That brick hides a gold ring worth 240 silver. If you just kill them or sneak past without listening, you'll never know it's there.
• Bottled water is more useful than health potions. Throw a bottle of water at a torch to extinguish it permanently (until a guard relights it, which takes about 15 seconds). That creates a permanent shadow patch on the floor. You can also throw it at oil spills to clean them up, preventing slip sounds. Health potions are expensive and heal slowly — just avoid getting hit.
• The "Distraction Whistle" is a trap half the time. It makes a specific sound that players think hides your location, but the game's AI actually triangulates the sound source if you're within 30 feet. Guards will investigate the exact spot you whistled from, not a random area. I've been caught twice because I whistled while hiding behind a curtain, and the guard walked directly to me. Use it from across the room, not the hiding spot you're in.

Common Mistakes to Avoid — Where I Got Stabbed, Exploded, and Humiliated

I'm going to admit some painful truths here. These are mistakes I made, repeatedly, because the game doesn't handhold and I'm stubborn.

• Not checking the "Wanted Level" before accepting a job. The game has a persistent world system. If you caused a scene in the Market District yesterday, your wanted level is still high today. Accepting a job in that district means guards are on edge and more perceptive (suspicion gains are increased by 50%). I once walked into a job with a level 4 wanted status and the very first guard spotted me from 60 feet away. I died in 8 seconds. Wait out the wanted level by doing jobs in other districts or sleeping at the inn.
• Hoarder mentality. I used to collect every single item I found — forks, cups, random books. You know what those sell for? 1-3 silver each. And they take up inventory slots. Your inventory has a hard cap of 24 slots. Filling it with junk means you leave behind real loot. Only pick up items worth at least 50 silver or rare crafting materials. Everything else can stay. I lost a 500 silver painting once because my inventory was full of spoons.
• Fighting the tutorial boss. The game shows you a big guard in the tutorial area and somewhat implies you can fight him. You can't. He has 450 HP, your starting dagger does 8 damage, and he two-shots you. I died to him 6 times because I thought I was supposed to learn parrying. You are not. You are supposed to sneak past him. The parry tutorial comes in a different mission. This boss is a trap for aggressive players.
• Ignoring the weather system. Rain completely changes stealth. Footstep noise increases by 75% on wet surfaces, but guard hearing range is also reduced by 40%. It's a trade-off. But more importantly, rain puts out your torch instantly and makes climbing surfaces slippery — your stamina drains 30% faster. I planned a rooftop route during a storm and fell to my death because I ran out of stamina three stories up.
• Selling lockpicks. This seems obvious, but I was desperate for coin early on. Lockpicks are the only way to get into "Priority Loot" caches, which often contain the best gear. Selling even one set of lockpicks can lock you out of a treasure room later. They only sell for 8 silver. That's a robbery. Keep every lockpick you find until you have at least 20 in storage.
• Not using your "escape route" markers. You can set up to 3 markers on the map for planned escape routes. The game tells you this, but I never used them because I thought I'd remember. You won't. When a guard spots you and you're panicking, you'll run into a dead end. I've done this at least 15 times. Mark your escape path before you start the mission. It's a 5-second setup that saves you 10 minutes of frustration.

FAQ

Q: Can I actually play this as a combat-focused build?
A: Technically yes, but you'll hate it. Combat is clunky, enemies have huge HP pools, and the game actively punishes you for killing people (wanted level, reputation loss with the Thieves' Guild). I tried a "murder hobo" run for YouTube content. I abandoned it at hour 8 because I couldn't afford the bribes to clear my wanted status. Stealth is the intended path. Accept it.

Q: Why does the game run like garbage on my PC?
A: Because it's optimized like a wet newspaper. Turn off "Volumetric Fog" and "Screen Space Reflections" — those two settings eat FPS more than everything else combined. I get a stable 60 fps on a mid-tier rig with those off and everything else on medium. Also, the game has a memory leak issue in the Drowned Quarter; restart the game every 2 hours if you're there.

Q: What's the best early-game gear set?
A: The "Stitchwork Set." Buy the gloves and boots from the Rat Market vendor (total: 95 silver). They give a combined 25% noise reduction and 15% faster lockpicking. The chest piece is garbage, but you won't find a good chest piece until you do the "Silk Road" contract at reputation level 5. Don't waste money on the early chest pieces — they all have terrible stats.

Q: Is there a way to reset my skill points without restarting?
A: Yes, but it's hidden. Go to the Abandoned Cathedral in the Old Quarter (northwest corner, behind the collapsed archway). There's a confessional booth. Kneel at it with 500 silver in your inventory and hold the interact key for 10 seconds. It will consume the money and refund all your skill points. The game never, ever tells you this. I found it in a forum post from a Russian player. It works, trust me.

Q: Why do I keep failing the "No Touching" optional objective?
A: "No Touching" means you cannot physically contact any NPC. That includes bumping into them, which is easy to do in tight corridors. Also, if you pickpocket someone, that counts as "touching" even if you're not detected. The only way to complete this objective consistently is to never get within 3 feet of any person. I used the "Breeze" smoke bomb (craftable, not purchasable) to disorient guards and keep my distance. It's a pain, but it's doable.

Q: I'm stuck on the "Thieves' Market Heist" boss fight. Help?
A: That boss (the armored merchant) is a gear check, not a skill check. You need a weapon that does at least 35 damage per hit or enough oil flasks to burn him. I used the "Ember Blade" from the Watermill side job — it's free, does 38 damage, and sets him on fire for 4 seconds of additional damage. Don't try to parry his attacks; his animations are buggy. Just dodge and throw things. He's weak to fire, so bring 5 oil flasks and a torch. He'll die in under a minute.

Q: Is there multiplayer?
A: Not officially, but there's a mod called "Two-Headed Serpent" that enables co-op. It's surprisingly stable — I played through an entire heist with a friend and we only desynced once. The game's AI actually handles two players okay, though stealth is harder because guards have more eyes to spot. Turn off friendly fire in the mod settings unless you want to get team-killed by a stray firebomb. Speaking from experience.

That's all I've got for now. Go rob some rich people, make terrible decisions, and remember: if you haven't accidentally fallen off a roof and landed in a guard patrol's dinner, are you even playing Thick As Thieves?