sneaky [&@%!]

[zaviers]

Hi everyone, I really want to create a new character, sort of a sneaking/stalking/jack-of-all-trades character, but I'm not too sure of what I should do. I wanted to try this one out :

male Khajiit, acrobatics, light armor, blade, security, sneak, illusion, alchemy OR marksman, birthsign The Thief

So ? What about that ? What are your suggestions ?

[Vook]

Heavy Armour, Blunt, Conjuration, Hand-to-hand, armourer, speechcraft and whatever you're not gonna use. Then train your stealth skills. Stealth characters are entirely [&@%!] up in Oblivion, so first make him a decent fighter or mage and then start training stealth. Or pull the difficulty slider 1/3 the way down. Otherwise your life will be hell.
(simply put, sneaking unseen through halls of an Oblivion citadel is NOT possible, there quite a few obligatory battle scenes and sneak skill is underpowered.)

[i9ub]

male Khajiit, acrobatics, light armor, blade, security, sneak, illusion, alchemy OR marksman, birthsign The Thief

The problem with making those your main skills is that you'll level too quickly. In other words you won't have much control on when you level up, so you will end up with alot of +1 and +2s when leveling as opposed to +4 and +5s. If you don't understand what I'm saying you'll have to read one of the leveling guides around.

[GrayMouser]

I can say with confidence that a 'sneak' character combined with blade skills instead of marksmanship is probably a bad idea. A sneak character does not want to engage anything in a melee (hand to hand combat). If you do, you will likely lose. The perfect attack mode combined with sneak is to fire an arrow from a distance while remaining in sneak mode to get the X3 damage multiplier. Your next arrow will also get the multiplier if you remain unseen and so on. If you are seen, then you can rely upon your acrobatic and speed skills to remain out of reach while you continue to pepper them with arrows.

I am not saying you can't do it. My son actually plays a character similar to what you describe. How he manages to survive in melee is beyond me and a testament to his playing ability.

If you primarily want the blade action, then perhaps a character who is a fighter first with stealth ability is a better combo.

GrayMouser, Thief
sneak extraordinaire

[GenghisJohn]

If you primarily want the blade action, then perhaps a character who is a fighter first with stealth ability is a better combo.

GrayMouser, Thief
sneak extraordinaire

I think this might be the way to go, and I wound up in advertantly doing this. I built a melee fighter and then trained in sneak in my "spare time". By level 4, he could go toe-to-toe with multiple enemies. It took until about level 10, but he turned into a monster, and if he caught someone unawares he usually took little or no damage. At level 18, he is clearing out entire dungeons without combat. A 6x critical attack with the Honorblade of Choral, a 90+ blade skill and a 90+ strength forces a lot of monsters into early retirement.

I didn't figure out how the levelling worked until recently, so his stats aren't as maxxed as they could be at this point.

[i9ub]

I would also recommend The Lover birthsign over The Thief. My reason being that the thief birthsign is only helpful early in the game. Once your stats are maxed at 100 the bonuses it gives no longer help. The paralysis spell from The Lover is always a great help however.

[Ginnyfizz]

It's absolutely 100% possible to have a sneaky character who can also melee fight, my female Breton battlemage cultivated her Sneak, Illusion, Acrobatics and Security whilst dungeon diving, and of course she came packed with Blade and Destruction as majors. Although she does like her bow as well. And she made a mighty fine assassin. I suppose what I am saying is don't sweat it with making the "perfect build" for one type or another, just choose a cahr for the skills you enjoy, and make the effort to build the others.

[Frost Mage]

I played a very similar charcter, same race and pretty much all the same skills. I blazed thourgh the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. I then tried to do the main quest (which was a mistake) and found that there were Flame Atronachs and Daedroths in Kavatch. I was about lvl 18. I had only killed a few creatures in my days and that was mainly because of the DB. During my theives guild days I snuck past pretty much everything in the finaly quest while going the "old way". I found it easier to avoid confrontation but then i lvld so darn quick that enemies began outpacing me and I couldn't even sneak past them. Its sad when you cant take on a clanfear by yourself.