Stealthy Characters

[bluewonder]

Sneak into a dungeon...and keep sneaking until you see daylight again.....(you know what i mean)........

 

weapon of choice bows......if enemy has detected my char....and comes within melee range as they often do before i get the archery stagger perk....i conjure up something then run behind it and start shooting arrows again.....

[QuickFox]

Sneak really is the 2nd easiest skill in the game to level, after smithing. If youre ranged it will level faster than your archery skill even if you chose warrior stone, and if youre melee it will level ridiculously fast, assuming you are successful at backstabbing without getting caught.

 

No silly exploits or tricks are necessary to level sneak quickly, and I find that you either invest in the repeatable stealth perk OR stock up on stealth enchantments, but both are unnecessary (in fact I advocate avoiding the base stealth perks because thats more perks you can put elsewhere).

 

If you go melee, remember that a dagger makes no noise when you attack with it, so you can kill everyone in a room without being detected if you are skilled enough, though it gets no benefit from fortify 1-handed weapon damage enchants so you may want to carry a sword or other 1-h weapon as a backup for when you inevitably get caught trying to stick a dagger in someones back.

 

Your effectiveness at sneaking is also halved while outdoors, is particularly terrible during daytime, and always make sure to stand in shadows.

 

You can get by without muffle enchanted boots if you cast the 'muffle' illusion spell; it is more powerful than the enchants anyway, or you can eventually get the armor perk that makes your armor weigh nothing, (50 skill for light, 70 for heavy). Sound is your biggest issue when sneaking in melee, because your sneak skill can be fairly low and you can easily sneak up on someone if you stay in their rear 90 degree arc... high skill is only useful for being able to sneak while someone is facing your direction, or being unseen when they look at you while you are stationary. If you stay perfectly silent and out of sight, you can move at full speed without worrying about being seen.

 

Other illusion spells that are worth taking are calm spells, because they can be boosted to affect high level enemies quite easily with low-level perks, and have the effect of putting an enemy out of combat making it so you can set them up for the perfect backstab in broad daylight. Remember though you cant use illusion spells on undead or atronarchs till you get the level 100 perk, so practically never :P

 

Keep in mind though that as a stealth character you will level your armor skills very slowly, especially if you are good at what you do... which can be a bad thing for fighting dragons or powerful draugr / bandits because (at high difficulties at least) they can often 1-hit-kill you, especially with a power attack. For this reason I recommend shelling out to an armor trainer; you can get trained in heavy armor for free if you complete the companions quests to the end, then take Farkas as your follower and trade back any gold you pay him for training. There is also Nezir in the dark brotherhood, though you will have to pay him... but paid training up to 50 skill is pretty cheap, so I recommend doing that either way.

 

If you are an archer, you might as well wear heavy armor because you dont need to sneak very close to do your thing, so sound isnt going to be an issue for you.

 

If you go melee, consider getting a shield. It will help greatly for fighting after failed backstabs because you can interrupt with it and your blocks wont be pathetic either, plus its one more skill you can level in combat and trust me you will run out of those fast which is an issue for achieving a high level. When paying for armor training starts getting expensive, consider paying to increase your block skill too.

 

Also for melee backstabbing, dont get too close to a target before you make your strike... if you are too close, they will often detect you as you attack, so try to be just in weapon range. Remember, if you are using a dagger there is no penalty for swinging and missing, because it makes zero sound, so the enemy wont notice.

 

The throw voice shout can be useful for getting enemies to face away from you if you dont have a bow & arrows. All 3 words can be learnt at shearpoint, but be warned, there is a dragon there as well as a dragon-priest, but its possible to learn the word and run like hell if you have to. The only issue with using this shout is that it puts enemies on alert, so if you use it you have to capitalise on it quickly, because once they investigate the target of your shout they will be looking for you.

 

Once sneak gets to 100 and you take all the juicy perks, you will find there is little reason to ever use the skill... it makes the game unchallenging because you can practically never be seen, basically you would only use it to maybe sneak up on a dragon-priest or something else equally formidable. Also, once its at 100 you no longer contribute to your level advancement by using it, so it becomes a 'dead skill' in combat because if you use it, you will hardly ever raise your other combat skills (armor, block, weapon, all get fewer uses when sneaking). The best thing to do then is invest in a lot of weapon damage enchants, throw away your dagger and forget you were ever a sneaky character ;)

 

For a real challenge, try this: Hardcore difficulty, no armor or shields (cloth is acceptable), 1 dagger for your only weapon. I did this for about 35 levels, while leveling illusion, restoration & alteration too. I had to stop playing that character because with sneak I was still too powerful! Even without it I could just charm most enemies, but against anything else I was on fairly equal footing due to armor from spells + high magic resistance... some things just took a while to kill, like dragons I would always attack with mehrunes razor and hope for a lucky death-blow, while my ghostly lucien lachance distracted them -because I was dead in one bite, or one full breath if he didnt :P

 

Another fun challenge is to be a sneak attack character that uses 2-handed weapons... your backstab only does 2x damage, and can never be boosted by perks or the backstab enchant, though you can pack a fair wallop with a sneak-power-attack and your damage IS boosted by two-handed damage enchants, you can stack some nice crit bonuses if you use swords, plus you dont suck out of stealth either. The main thing that makes it challenging is that you can only backstab one target per room, and everyone else hears it, so you have to make it count ;)

 

I am liking the sound of playing entirely non-kill though, that sounds like a worthy challenge!

 

One last thing: A simple tactic if you get busted sneaking up on someone, especially (mainly) in a dungeon is this: turn around and run away at top speed. When you think you've run far enough, hide and wait for the eye indicator to close, then have another go. This works particularly well if you are unarmored because you are very fast, also try to be in 3rd person when waiting for your sneak eye to close, that way you can look around a corner to see if your pursuer is close and you have to run away some more.