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Anyone else finding stealth to be way overpowered? My character (on Expert difficulty) can sneak up behind everything and just one shot them. Ranging from Falmer to Steam Centurians and even Giants and Mammoths. Just sneak attack, pop invisibility then sneak attack the next guy.

Im only level 36 and using the following items + perks

Mehrunes Razor in right hand (never activated its ability tho, has full charge. And i never use poison)
Invisibility in left hand
Ancient Shrouded Gloves
Expert Robes of Illusion
Nightingale boots + Hood

Perks
Armsman 3/5
Assassin's Blade
Up to expert Illusion + Quiet Casting

Are there warrior and mage builds/hybrids that are just as overpowered? Or is it just stealth.

Just stealth. Even the most OP part of my warrior is the fact that although I'm wearing heavy armor, that I can sneak into bow range, and put multiple shots on target, usually without ever needing to draw my sword. The 400 AR and 112 damage greatsword only matter when I feel like using them/ don't try hard enough to stay undetected.

Semantically, it's sneak attack. o-O But I'm sure everyone knows/is able to figure out that by the content of your post. ^^; Yes-it is Waaaay overpowered in the sense that hypothetically if you were an orc with berserk and using a power attack in sneak mode you could do up to somewhere around (little bit over) 2k damage in a single hit with the appropriate combination of upgrades and those gloves.

I use a nord with capped out 2h feats and enchantments to up his 2h so his ebony warhammer does 227 damage. When I critical rush enemies in ebony/glass armor it still takes two or three hits. If I power sneak attack them, it only takes one, and I have no levels in sneak.

So of course, in lamens terms when one uses even an unupgraded dagger that'd normally do 1/5th the damage of a warhammer-in sneak mode those crazy multipliers stack up.

Well thats kinda a bummer. With the razor, gloves and perk, i think i deal around 720 damage per sneak attack unless theres a damage cap. Gonna start the main quest and see if dragons are more of a challenge. Can anyone suggest some fun builds for my next character to try out?

rpbraley868 wrote: Mehrunes Razor in right hand (never activated its ability tho, has full charge. And i never use poison)

That's an infinite use enchant. It never needs to be recharged, just like those silver weapons.

And btw, you can do a power-sneak attack with 2 daggers at the same time.

But wouldnt the minute the first blade hit break stealth, making the second do normal damage?

Sigh. In my eyes, nothing in this game is overpowered unless you intend it to be so. I won't get into that silly old argument that, if the OP equipment is there, it is meant to be used. However, that's not the bloody case! Some people like being able to one hit with daggers if it's a sneak attack. Makes sense. That doesn't mean you should spam invisibility and use every piece of armour that multiplies your dagger/sneak damage, just because it is the most effective way to play!
It's like 100% chameleon in Oblivion. It exists, it makes the game considerably easier than pie. However, anyone whose brain is still intact tried it, then hastily tossed it in the Niben it some storage container, and went back to their good old regular armour and weapons.

Let's face it. There is a full range of player skills that play Skyrim. On one day back in December, there were two topics open on Skyrim: one complaining about how it is too hard on Novice, one about how easy it is on Master with OP abilities. Dammit! It annoys the hell out of me. Don't use OP stuff, otherwise it's you tha is to blame! If you use a legendary Mehrunes Razor with invisibility and a fistful of damage increasers, as well as ridiculous sneak skill, then complain the game is too easy, that's because you're playing it wrong. Yes, it's TES, there is no right or wrong way to play. But that is just silly. Go ahead! Cripple your character! Level illogically, it will increase the challenge, the fun and the originality of it all.[/rant]

Uh, yeah.

Except I was referring to the fact that I wear Heavy Armor, have some 70 Sneak without Training/ grinding, only took the first 20% Perk so I could get the 3x Bow damage, and have not even used any +x% Sneak Enchantments, and yet NPCs will walk right past me to engage my follower.

That's broken, exploits or not.

rpbraley868 wrote:But wouldnt the minute the first blade hit break stealth, making the second do normal damage?

No, detection is not instant.
If you are lucky, you can sometimes even get 2 sequential backstabs (with the same dagger, same hand) in. That is, if the first one isn't fatal.
Doing a dual-hand power-backstab might even get you 3 hits, but usually nothing lives long enough for that so I'm not sure.

It might look a little OP, but logically, if you know what you are doing, then sneaking up to an opponent who did not detect you and stabbing them, even if they are in armor would mean an instant kill 99% of the time. At least. That said, I wouldn't mind if they could somehow implement the opposite of this, getting backstabbed by a sneaky draugr would kill YOU instantly... but how do you tell the game you detected them or not?

I kind of wish for a hard mode where every hit is much more powerful (from opponents), but their HP doesn't go up, that would be the best for realism I think. Also, if an opponent finds one of their peers dead or gets an arrow in the whatever and did not detect you, they should remain alert for hours in game, going through ALL of their territory in search for you.

Yeah, when the Creation Kit is released a good difficulty mod should arrive soon.

In the mean time I'm having fun with playing in cloth, no resistances and 100 health on master difficulty.
I can still instantly kill everything with the dagger, but I throw in some frenzy, archery and conjuration in to spice it up.
But I need to be careful. A bear takes 95% of my health in one hit...

I dont get this, is not stealth about doing one hit kills?
Weird.

Eltee wrote: It's like 100% chameleon in Oblivion. It exists, it makes the game considerably easier than pie. However, anyone whose brain is still intact tried it, then hastily tossed it in the Niben it some storage container, and went back to their good old regular armour and weapons.

Kind of like that girl with an avvy of herself? I still remember that topic . However, I can not remember her name . Does anyone remember?

@Eltee

So I the only way to have fun is to cripple yourself on purpose. Hmm, I thought rpgs were about growing your character, but evidently that is wrong. If you have to remove parts of the game just to keep from roflstomping everyone and everything while playing normally, what is the point of having it in the first place? Oh wait this is Tes, it's perfect in every way and Bethesda don't make mistakes. /sarcasm

There are all types of players, without a doubt. There are people who like, quote unquote 'roflstomping.' However, anything overpowered makes me twitch. I understand. There are OP things in the game for those who like being OP. However, I don't understand complaining about OP things because they make things too easy. Just... Don't use it. Simple as that.

Looking back, I worded that badly. My point was, it's easy to play the game without using OP stuff. If you like OP stuff, that's one thing.
However, if you don't like things being OP enough to make a topic about it... Well, don't use OP perks or weapons.

Penguin _Overlord wrote:@Eltee

So I the only way to have fun is to cripple yourself on purpose. Hmm, I thought rpgs were about growing your character, but evidently that is wrong. If you have to remove parts of the game just to keep from roflstomping everyone and everything while playing normally, what is the point of having it in the first place? Oh wait this is Tes, it's perfect in every way and Bethesda don't make mistakes. /sarcasm

The point of RPGs is to play your character in a way that feels natural. Whatever way that is is completely personal and dependant on the role you've picked. There are less limitations to make this accessible to as many people as possible.
If you feel okay setting up an Alchemy/Smithing loop for weapons with 1k damage: Do it. If it kills your immersion then don't.
Just because it's there, though, doesn't mean you need to use it? It's there for other people who play the game, and who want to use it.

Quite frankly, I love using stealth. I have my sneak at 94 currently, and my Archery at about 74. I sneak through dungeons and what-not, and I can easily one shot anyone except for Draughr Wight and above. Every now and then I go in regular for a good fight!

The Dog Whisperer wrote:

Penguin _Overlord wrote:@Eltee

So I the only way to have fun is to cripple yourself on purpose. Hmm, I thought rpgs were about growing your character, but evidently that is wrong. If you have to remove parts of the game just to keep from roflstomping everyone and everything while playing normally, what is the point of having it in the first place? Oh wait this is Tes, it's perfect in every way and Bethesda don't make mistakes. /sarcasm

The point of RPGs is to play your character in a way that feels natural. Whatever way that is is completely personal and dependant on the role you've picked. There are less limitations to make this accessible to as many people as possible.
If you feel okay setting up an Alchemy/Smithing loop for weapons with 1k damage: Do it. If it kills your immersion then don't.
Just because it's there, though, doesn't mean you need to use it? It's there for other people who play the game, and who want to use it.

If all you're going to do is focus entirely on a specific attribute then what do you expect will happen? - you're going to get very good at it at the expense of everything else. My second character is adept in the ways of stealth. I saw that there was a perk that could give me 15x damage for every stealth strike with a dagger. All very good, but I did not choose it because I did not want to spend the rest of the game confined to on one very particular tactic.

With the breadth of options made available in games like those of the TES series, it is unsurprising that some exploits exist. If you want to take advantage of them to further your advancement, that's fine, there's no 'right way' of doing it. However, if you appreciate that doing so may not be entirely in the spirit of the way you want to play the game then just steer clear of it. Anyway, its fun to vary things up a bit; e.g. a stealthy character doesn't just have to be a backstabber, there's archery, surprise attacks, pickpocketing etc.