T2 FM: The Drymian Codex (10 Mar, 2013)

[Random_Taffer]

Thanks, Nightshifter. Glad you enjoyed.
Sorry about the wife. A gentle yet firm hand should quiet her.

[Samantha1]

I just finished The Drymian Codex on expert and wow, what an amazing mission! <3 It really has everything from great story to pretty architecture. And hells, I´m already used to the undead appearing whenever it says "go to the crypt of the hammrites" but this one was super creepy! But a positive way of creepy, cause it had the scary factor I like but without ridiculous zombies or haunts Also that little girl, when I saw her before finding her hideout and reading her diary, I thought she was a ghost Definitely gonna replay this one day!

Thanks to the 3 authors for their hard work!!

[Toulomne]

Also just played this for the first time, AMAZING mission! 5/5 stars. Didn't even realize I was getting into a classic when I first started this, but I guess I should have known given I have played and loved quite a few of RandomTaffer's missions and the other authors are familiar to me as well by now. This is hands down the best Hammerite-themed FM I have played so far. I have to say for some reason I particularly enjoy when you have to get into places you need to loot through sewers, and the sewers in this mission were particularly interesting, fun, and well-designed. I always enjoy a good plot twist and this mission definitely had unexpected surprises and wonderful ruins and tombs to explore. The maps...oh the maps, what is there to say, other than I spent a good long while admiring the artwork, I don't know if I've ever seen such nice maps in an FM before, absolutely incredible.

I came SO close to managing to complete this mission playing it blind without any reloading; however I did have one single and stupid death: at the place where the two grates come down and a stream of gas turns on, I had completely anticipated the trap here, I was proceeding forward slowly and carefully and I could smell it. I even took the big piece of rubble from nearby and set off the trap twice so I knew it was here, thought I was safe. I then went diagonally across to the ramp and while trying to lean over to grab the loot inside the trapped area, the gate came down and instantly crushed Garrett. I'm a little mad because when I did it again, it was easy as pie to grab it without dying, all I had to do was set the rubble down squarely in the middle of the trigger to deactivate the trap, and from this point forward and I had no more deaths; very close to my self-awarded successful blind first playthrough with no deaths, but this little moment ruined it for me, alas ; Other than that had some fun close calls such as taking 3 drowning damage as I left the sewers and entered the hammer compound, really close call there; I alerted some spiders and fought them off with swords when I was running low on broadheads but surprisingly managed not to die; I also alerted a bunch of hammers and had to run around covering in the dark, but I prefer to go with my mistakes and still try to complete it rather than reloading in such cases, at least on a first playthrough and it ended up working out.

Managed to complete most optional objectives except the one with the shield. I made my way into the crypt and got to the point where the writing appears, I was trying to stay in a dark spot and listen carefully for anything, then suddenly I think one of the blue torches went dark and Garrett started taking damage out of nowhere so I ran for my life. One of the freakiest and well done spooky moments of any Thief FM I've played, scared the bejesus out of me, and I decided to let that optional objective slide as to not risk more deaths, but I'm going to go load my quicksave before the mission end now and try to get the shield without having a heart attack hopefully. I did manage to find a couple of the secret areas, like Lucy's hideout and the crayman area, which were particularly fun and interesting.

Something I really liked in this mission and I believe I've noticed in other missions by RandomTaffer is how thoughtfully the loot and extra supplies are placed. The locations are logical but fun and interesting; like for example a vase fallen over on the backside of a crypt instead of on top because something must have knocked it over at one point. These little touches add so much to the immersion of a mission and give it life. I also like how pretty much all the equipment given was useful, but also had to be used sparingly. Something that detracts from some missions to me sometimes is when either you get way too much equipment that you're never going to use, or there's no real need ever to actually use it; well this mission certainly was really well done in this regard.

All in all, because of all these reasons and how beautiful the design of the ruins and other locations of the mission, this was really a top notch mission for me, 5/5

Loot: 7944/9359
Secrets: 4/8
Time: 4h, 9m

[Jah]

(Re)playing this mission on Expert, the "don't kill any humans" objective failed as soon as the battle broke out between the Hammers and pagans in the courtyard. Fortunately, it didn't fail the mission, but I'm wondering if this has happened to anyone else?

[Galaer]

(Re)playing this mission on Expert, the "don't kill any humans" objective failed as soon as the battle broke out between the Hammers and pagans in the courtyard. Fortunately, it didn't fail the mission, but I'm wondering if this has happened to anyone else?

Kill objective doesn't fail, it just gets cancelled.

[Jah]

Still, that's not supposed to happen since I didn't kill anyone, correct?

[gamophyte]

Think of it as a "well never mind about that" vs you did anything wrong. It is supposed to happen. Using cancels are a way of story telling.

[Jah]

I'd still like a confirmation from the authors (if they're still reading this thread) that this isn't a bug, as I still don't think this makes any sense. There is already a confrontation where a pagan ends up dead right next to where the Codex is located, so if the idea is that no humans should die in general, the objective should have been cancelled at that point.

[gamophyte]

Yeah they read this, and my replies should alert them with more notification emails to help. I hope they say it's because we don't consider them human hahahaha.

[Random_Taffer]

I don't remember, honestly.

I imagine it was probably our way of saying: "Yeah don't kill anyone, but after the battle breaks out then at that point it's about survival and if someone dies, they're probably not going to trace it back to you anyway since there was a battle after all."

But up until that point, you're not allowed to kill anyone- not that nobody can die, it's just not supposed to be your responsibility.

[Jah]

So does that mean that killing someone before that point will fail the mission, but killing someone after that won't?

[Random_Taffer]

So does that mean that killing someone before that point will fail the mission, but killing someone after that won't?

Just tested it. Yes, that appears to be true. The objective doesn't get failed because it gets cancelled instead at the end. I imagine Garrett plans to do the job with discretion, but has no idea there's going to be a battle at the end- at which point his #1 priority is to escape with his life.

[Jah]

Ok, that makes sense. I guess it just disappoints me to see an objective failed because of something that wasn't my own doing.

Anyway, I did finish the mission, even though I had to resort to a lootlist to fulfill that objective on Expert.

[gamophyte]

No worries, a cancel is not a fail. It's a Thief dev team original mechanism to say, "never mind". i.g. If the story says to escort someone to a manor, but they die per the story, you don't have to escort them anymore, and the objective will be shown as a cancel, not a fail.

[Viktorianets]

Excuse me, where do I find the guest room key?
UPD: found.
Thank you for the great mission!!!