UESP Forums

Out of curiosity, I'm here, polling the UESPeeps about how the like playing a stealth character. No, not combat style, but rather, "disease" style. See how you think a certain way compliments your stealthiness.

1) Clean - No need for fancy shmancy transformations or "diseases," we have natural shadows as our allies, and our blades and bows as the only weapons we will ever need.

2)Lycanthropy - Pretty much played as an "clean" character, but when the going gets tough in melee combat, you get swarmed by too many enemies, you get furry and very, very angry. Also a good way to cover up a murder.

3)Vampirism (Normal) - With stealth enhancements and effective powers at your disposal, you become the master of shadows, killing and draining the blood of so many without them ever realizing you're there.

4)Vampirism (Lord) - Same as above, but with the added transformation ability of turning into an ugly bat freak and slinging spells or ripping out throats, all while enjoying being bad.

Stealth characters are my favorite kind -- and definitely "clean" for me. Number 1 sums it up.

Lycanthropy is a tough one for me to pass up. You only have one opportunity to get it as far as I know. When you're a low level, it can be a life saver when facing groups. Later on it just becomes a brutal novelty.

clean here too, for me stealth is a first person experience so the monstro vampire and werewolf modes are not good

I voted clean, because my so far only stealth character has been clean. This is because neither vampirism nor the Companions questline would fit with the personality I've made up for the character.

In general, the terms which come to my mind when I think about werewolves are 'loud' and 'brute force', and I've never considered to incorporate Lycanthropy into a stealth playstyle until now.

I voted clean, but with a small caveat (mentioned below).

My only thief/assassin character is definitely evil enough to be a werewolf or a vampire, but she doesn't like either being out of control (lycanthropy) or in thrall to a thirst (vampirism). She did collect the Ring of Namira for that cool feeding animation, but it's totally at her discretion.

There are times when she has to get through more opponents than she can snipe at one time. Fortunately, she has Sanguine Rose to summon a distracting Dremora. It's effective, but it's hardly "clean."

I voted clean. I've tried out both flavours of vampirism and lycanthropy but they didn't really appeal to me. At the moment my stealth character is a Vampire Lord because she's doing Dawnguard, but it doesn't really seem to add enough to make it worth it. I'm going to cure her once Dawnguard is over.

I voted clean as well. The other three options all have a draw back or two. If you use any of those evil options in a populated area you are the target of every one in town. Both vampire options still have the need to feed and the problem of sunlight tossed in.

Not worth the hassle to me.

I agree with the above and my chararcter is a good guy and feeding doesnt fit in.

The reason I never make vampires is their bonuses are magic oriented and I never make magic users. Otherwise I'd be vampire for sure.

With the Dawnguard add on you get a second option to become a werewolf, from Aela after helping her collect the totems. I thought I had one chance to be a werewolf for a long time. I was a werewolf, then vampire lord, then cured myself, and then spoke to aela one day and realized I had the option again. I stick with werewolf. Power only when I need it and no sun weakness, or creepy character appearance drawback.

Clean. But that applies to all character types, not just the stealthy.

My assassin goes clean, but my Bosmer thief went werewolf. She had a ton of fun with it before giving it up. It helped get her out of some hairy situations.

^Thats a beast of a pun, Dohva.

Anyway, most of my characters become vampires, especially the assassins. It just seems odd that a thief would join the Companions...

Haha, ditto.

Well, my thief joined the Companions because she likes to hunt. And she was too proud to back down when Aela told her she didn't look like she was any good. And the beastform helped her feel closer to nature.

I love playing as both a werewolf and a vampire lord, but since you're specifically asking about stealth play and transformations tend to blow your cover (or I mainly use them when my cover is already blown) I voted clean - 'normal' vampire could be an option too, but although I played a vanilla vampire for a while before Dawnguard came out I don't really remember enough to compare. Also +1 to what mattbott said about first person experience *glowers at Bethesda for apparently forgetting how to do first person lycanthropy after Bloodmoon*.

other - modded option

>.> the Basic vampire option was a must early on when I realized that technically it allowed for self cast spells to get extra bonus through necromage (which also made gear enchantments stronger too) but I honestly don't like any of the superhuman diseases in the base game.

Though any transform effect also granted my overburdened hoarders extra movement at top speed for the duration? So I guess the vampire lord would be my favorite base game choice.