thealtkey wrote:basleijser wrote:I shouldn't take Mercantile and Armorer. You can just work a bit harder to earn the same amount of money and take two more cooler skills. What about this:
Custom class: Ranger
Attributes: Agility, Intelligence
Major skills: Marksman**, Alchemy*, Sneak, Blade***, Conjuration****, Mysticism*****, Restoration******
Specialization: Stealth
Race: Dark Elf Male
Birthsign: Mage/Apprentice/Atronach *******
* Alchemy levels-up quite fast, but it's a handy tool. And as a thief you need those poisons.
** An assassin/mage is mostly low on health, so close combat is quite risky. With marksman, you can just run away and hit your enemies all over again.
*** You need a high combat skill to attack enemies from behind.
**** When you're in trouble, summon a creature. The bound bow/sword spells are also very useful.
***** With the soul trap spells, you can fill your soul gems. And with filled soul gems, you can make cool Restoration/Mysticism/Conjuration spells.
****** Even the best thief gets hit sometimes. With Restoration, you can heal yourself and boost your skills.
******* I should go for the Atronach. You've got Alchemy, so you can make lots of 'Restore Magicka' potions. And those +150 Magicka points are sooo cool.
Just a word of warning: the Atronach birthsign makes it dangerous to cast "utility" spells like those under the Mysticism school, since they eat up mana needed for combat spells like Restoration or Conjuration. Keeping lots of magicka potions on-hand will be absolutely critical for this character, which may or may not be more risky than one would like.
And as a general response:
People keep recommending Marksman. I agree that it's a pretty powerful skill, but not for a thief. A thief primarily works indoors in close-quarters, so having the ability to hold your own in a fight will prove to be far more valuable than sniping out enemies you should just be sneaking past anyway. Of course, it's inevitable that you will have to fight something you'd really not have anywhere near you, but Illusion and Conjuration will keep you out of combat far more than Marksman, and Alchemy and Restoration go a long way to enhance survivability as well
Just my $0.02.
Actually, even indoors I find that Marksmanship is better for Thieves. A few things to bear in mind:
1. It relies on a good Thiefy attribute, Agility. Thieves should have high Agility, by their very nature, which makes them naturally better with bows than with melee weapons.
2. If you want to avoid enemys, avoid enemys. Thieves aren't cut out for close quarters combat- the best they can manage with a melee weapon is a single sneak attack, which can be great, but may not be enough. Unless you're a super stealth character who can instantly hide not three feet away from your latest target, getting stabby will quickly put you at a disadvantage.
3. Snipers stay hidden! A halfway competent stealth character can launch at least three arrows before the enemy knows what's hitting him, sometimes more. Each of these attacks will count as sneak attacks, and on the offchance the enemy figures out where you are, he'll still have to brave a barrage of pointy death before he can catch you and punish you for wearing barely any armor. Plus, you'll usually only tip off ONE enemy at a time- it's very common, particularly in dungeons, to find rooms with two, three, even five monsters in close proximity. A melee thief can get one free stab on a single monster, then be surrounded by five beasties and die. A sniper thief can get three or four free headshots on a single monster, lure him away without alerting his buddies, rinse, repeat.
4. You always have room to use Marksman outdoors and in dungeons. The only time where it's impractical is inside houses, but what are you going to be doing inside houses? Stealing, not fighting. And running away if you get caught. Even if you do want to branch out a bit into assassin territory, innocents are generally so weak that even an untrained melee sneak attack can take them down.
