Question regarding sneaking skill and level balance

[draedic]

I read somewhere about how one can get to 100 sneak at the beginning of the game. I tried this and yes I did get to 100 sneak but I also got to level 14 without even adventuring yet! Does this create problems for me when I start fighting stuff? The way I understand it is that the mobs I encounter increase with my level. My first character is like level 9 with a sneak of maybe 20 but he has gear, weapons, experience and such. Opinions please?

[Tropxe]

I think it will, yes. I think that's what happened to me relatively early on. You'll be fighting enemies that are suitable for a level 14 person, and it seems to assume you've got most of those levels from your armour and combat skills. On the other hand, you'll be pretty damn good at sneaking, and if you've got perks like the one that allows for silent movement, you should have an advantage, particularly if you're using daggers and have the x15 backstab perk. The one thing with sneak characters is, it's pretty hard to level up your armour skill. You'll generally never get hit, or will only get hit a few times and then die, so when you're in a situation where you can't really sneak, it can be unusually difficult. All that said, that's from my experience playing it on Master, if you're playing on Adept all the problems won't quite be as obvious as that. Also, enemies' gear doesn't get better at the ridiculous rate that it did in Oblivion. I'm level 36 and I've only seen one person wearing glass armour so far, and nothing better than that.

[Iv000]

Not really.

The enemies will be more difficult to fight, but because of your sneak skill you don't have to fight them at all.

Find a good dagger, and sneak up on an enemy and attack it. Sneak attacks in Skyrim are definitely over powered.

[draedic]

This whole thing got me wondering something. At the beginning of the game, we walk by those 3 stones and you select one right? So let's assume for a moment that I select magic. Now using magic based skills mean that I level 25% faster when using those skills. This can actually work as a disadvantage if your goal is to obtain a wider range of skills, ie pickpocket, sneak, etc. The reason I say this is because if I primarily use magic skills it will make me level all the faster when what I really want to do is keep from leveling fast. Does this make sense? I think I remember something like this in Morrowind also. The goal was to obtain high skills without going up in level to quickly. I am thinking that this may work the same way. So if I am wanting to be a mage, what I actually want to do is choose the warrior stone so that I will not increase my level as quickly. Before I go on and make more of an ass out of myself, maybe someone who knows more can tell me how this all works. Thanks.

[Tropxe]

Yeah draedic, that's true. In previous games, your Major skills would make you level up sooner than your other skills. However, the more skills you levelled up before your character levels up, the more your attributes would go up by. For example, if you levelled up Heavy Armour a lot before you level up, your Endurance (or whatever it was) would have a x5 multiplier when you put a point into it. So actually, if you put the skills you'd always use as Major skills, you'd level up like crazy, not have levelled up much else, and get pitiful multipliers on your attributes and end up being really weak. It would actually pay you to put your useful skills as lesser skills so you'd get a ton of multipliers before you level up.

[Morilibus]

I initially chose the thief stone, but found that all my stealth skills were progressing extremely fast compared to my others.

 

Particularly my One-Handed did not seem to progress very fast. Nore did my Light Armor. For the reason mentioned above. Playing as an assassin I was sneaking up on pretty much everything and backstabing. I rarely got hit, and if I did it usually meant dying. So my Light Armor skill very rarely increases(even though it is part of the their skill set I believe). Would be nice if LA progressed just by wearing it in dungeons or combat and not only by getting hit. Getting hit goes against most assassins. I usually just wear robes now unless I know I'll have to go toe to toe. The conjuration skill increases just by having a bound sword in your hand with enemies around. You don't even have to use it, something similar for LA would be nice.

 

However most skills seem to progress way to fast. I got sneak to 100 pretty quickly, and not on purpose, just by creapin through dungeons. I do find my guy to be pretty fragile as most of my levels did come from none combat skills(pickpocketing, enchanting, smithing, alchemy) so most things can 1 or 2 hit me. Makes for a very tactical play style though. Sneaking up behind someone while invisible and slitting the throat never gets old. The cut scene just shows your shimmering body behind the guy and as soon as your blade makes contact with their throat you reapear. Beautiful.

 

Lockpicking seems to be slow(although I have no perks invested, don't think that changes progression speed though) especially when compared to picklocketing which increases quite fast even with the Theif stone. Although I'm cheap and usually reload if I fail. Would probably be harder if you lived with getting arrested or trying to fight/flee.

 

Just sneaking around dungeons will progress your sneak skill really fast, even without the Theif Stone. I set my stone to the warrior, just to try and offset the 1H skills slow progression with this type of build.

 

I also use magic, conjuration and illusion. Both seem to level quite fast if you use them regularly. I was using conjured swords and bow. And illusions muffle in order to gain access to Invisibility, and higher level Jedi Mind tricks. Which has pretty much made me unstoppable. Exept dragons they seem to have heat vision.

Edited November 20, 2011 by Morilibus

[WarKirby3333]

light armor is a thief skill btw.

As a thief, you level your armor skill by paying trainers, using all the loot you stole with your awesome sneaking, and the high prices you sold it for with your awesome speech skill.