This is the first time ever that I'm playing elder scrolls. I am absolutely clueless in this game.

After playing 1hr or 2, I decided i got everything all wrong. My khaliit has too much perks on direct combat. I intend to play strictly stealth build. Can anyone enlighten me on how to level up stealth attribute? What type of weapon and armor should I use...? What race should I take? I want to be an assassin/lockpicker/pickpocketer but I'm not sure if I can play all 3 of those. Way too clueless about this game.... It would be better if there's a guide out there.

This is my first Elder Scrolls game as well, and I've already surpassed my friends on their knowledge of the game, and they've played previous ES games .

My current account also started out as a Thief/Assassin, and I'm level 62 now so I'm starting to put some points into direct combat now. But back to stealth. I really recommend using a bow at all times until later on. Maximize your smithing to 100 to create Daedric bows/armor. Getting 100 enchanting and Alchemy is also another great thing to do if you want to deal maximum damage and have the best weapons/armor in the game.

Start putting all of your points into archery, and when you have more perk points than you can spend in archery put a few into sneak. On the left side of the skill tree is a perk that reduces armor noise by 50%, which makes Daedric just as good as any light armor for sneaking around. Also keep your eyes out for the illusion spell, Muffle. This will make sneaking even easier.

With enchanting I reccomend taking the middle route through that skill tree. You can put sneaking and bow damage enchantments on your armor. Look for jewelry/armor that gives you bow damage and sneak enchantments so that you can disenchant them on the arcane enchanter and make your own, more powerful versons.

Here is a link to a video I found that will allow you to max out your bow/sword damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yryev9Fe7tU

Well there IS an official guide.

You can definitely play pickpocket/assasin/sneak. Remember - skills increase as you use them. The more you sneak successfully, the higher your sneak skill will get. The more you pickpocket successfully, the higher that skill gets.

You can start with a Khajit (highest sneak skillat first) then choose the Thief Stone, which allows your thief skills to rise quicker. Then actually practice it. There's a lot of armor that helps. Jointhe Dark Brotherhood and get their armor/boots. Look for amulets/rings that increase skill, too, I have a ring of sneak.

Just go pure sneak/archer, i thought i'd use one handed more.. but i didn't. just stick to the shadows and you will be literally invisible, i've had enemies stand right next to me searching for me looking directly at me, and not see me.

Well I really appreciate the replies here. Skyrim is so open ended (which is good) that I am absolutely lost. For the past hour I was killing old men and women and town guards and ransacking houses and farms haha... Would appreciate links to any guides out there...

Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (Skyrim): http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skyrim

The first time you play an Elder Scrolls game you're bound to be lost.

Is it necessary to do the quests in-game..?
And is it possible to join both the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild...?

Get a hireling, it will make your job much easier. I don't know what difficulty you play on but if you play on Master then you will not survive as a stealth class without a hireling/tank.

If you want easy-mode go sneak archer.

Firstly , you need perks in sneak.Secondly , you NEED to use light armor.Never use the fast sneak mode when you don't have the perk to make it have no difference from the slow mode.Stay in the shadows.

Practice summonning also. Sneaking then summoning something while hidden around a corner then sneaking away until you are hidden again. repeat until you kill all enemies in a room. This works great in dungeons.

I sneak and get sneak multipliers. I have good archery and good one handed. I use light armor. My sneak tree isnt very well invested in yet, but I'm only level 18, so
I love dual wielding and archery I don't care about ultimate stealthyness using all kinds off odd tactics like enchanting and smithing heavy deadric armor and that stuff.. I just play that game with " beeing sneaky" as just a guideline sort of. I pick the perks I feel will benefit me AND be fun in combat and gameplay. I also choose to obtain different powers that fit aswell like invisiblity, maybe lycantropy, maybe a good deadric artifact...

I understand that if I'm going sneak, I'm most likely using bows. However are there any one-handed weapon out there to complement stealth build? And where should I start adding my perks in, stealth or archery/onehanded or light armor?

This x1000. My friend started last night and was playing the same stealth/archer I am. He kept asking about armor perks and raising stamina and what swords to use and what foods to make. I told him, you don't need any of that! In the first 20 levels I used my sword three times and one of those only since I hit the wrong button.

Try just hunting to raise your stealth. Go out in the plains west of Whiterun and hunt deer. You'll get tons of stealth increases from all the wolves and deer. Archery raises from hunting. Light Armor from the occasional wolf attack. Stealth from just being there.

An assassin/pickpocketer/lockpicker are all basically part of being a thief, so yes, you can be all 3 if you balance out your perks well

You dont need to create a new character if you want to change classes, it's actually very easy, just start putting your perks into a different tree.

Also, you may want to revisit the guardian stones (if you chose warrior) and change it to thief

khajiit are very agile and sneaky, while argonians are nice lockpickers

use light armor, the light armor doesnt clank as much and they wont detect you as easily if you sneak

to level up your stealth just put 1 perk on your stealth tree, once you have light armor and 1 perk, you should be able to do basic stealthing quite easily, once you can basically stealth, you just have to stealth a lot in caves, or quests, and not be spotted, this will help level up your stealth skill, to level up pickpocket and lockpick, just do the same, put 1 perk in the tree (the first available perk) and just start doing it. Also, you might want to consider joining up with the thieves guild and the dark brotherhood, some of their quests require stealth, which can help level it up.

As for the weapons you use, if your stealthing, then I recommending dual wielding 1 handed weapons, you wont need a shield if they dont see you, but I like to keep a shield in my favorites in case they spot me, also, it is a good idea to use archery a lot, probably more than 1 handed, because archery will take your enemies from afar, plus dealing extra sneak damage.

First off .. you should start lvling sneak skill with archry, too starr your sneak skill will be low and unable too sneak up and 1 shot kill stuff. Once you get your sneak to 40 + then swtich to meele weapons. I strongly recommend Dagger in your Off-hand and Sword in your Main hand. This is why. Use the Dagger in your off hand too backstab / slit throats .. with the sword being in your Main hand when you get into a fight .. ppl tend too use the main hand alot more then the off hand .. swords do more dmg when it comes too face to face combat.

Your main skill ass A assassin is Sneak .. so make sure you are always using it .. however this weill lead to, 2x problems. 1) your onehand skill will be low because you one-shot so many mobs 2) your light armor will be low because you one-shot so many mobs (non use). Spend the money you have on skill trainers too lvl these ass need. (can buy 5 skills per lvl , best to do this right after you lvl .. because theese will bought skills count toward your lvling also).

1) Stay Away from lock-picking Perks .. waste, I am lv 80 in lockpick 0 perks .. master locks take maybe 15picks.
2) Pick Pocket perks are useful for some of the thevies guild quest.
3) The Sneak Roll Perk is A MUST for seting up backstabs ect...
4) 15x Daggers is nice .. will be 30x when you get glvoes that double your back stabs... However later on you will not need too double backstabs do to how much dmg you do and 15x is more then enough .. you can then use +30 % to 1hd and that way you get more dmg when fighting draogns or any other face 2 face.
5) Smithhing. I do recomend 2x perks the frist one and Arcane Smighting (so you can upgrade magic weapons ) .. HOWEVER , I do not recomend lvling smighthing past this , if you just make weapons armor .. all the loot you find is pointless, this makes the game less fun ... I am lvl 48 & have still not found Deadric anything (other then arrows) so i still have more to look for.
6) Theives Guild and Dark Brotherhood will give some nice quest rewards that will help this spec, however since some of the items are base off of the lvl you get them .. would not start these till 18 or So.
7) guarding stones .. need too swtich from theif and warror off and on .. Archry and onehand is under Warror ... sneak & lightarmor under thife.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/821/crits.png/

Sneaky archer/ thief/ opportunist is pretty much all I ever play. It lends itself well to a glass-cannon build so the most important thing is don't be seen, second only to when you do hit them, make sure you kill them.

Sneak everywhere and when you're going down the hill to the first town you might want to stop off at the guardian stones and activate the Thief stone. It's not necessary but it'll help early on. Get yourself a bow and practice. Pick a few pockets and go for the lightweight and cheap stuff. That's not as likely to be detected. The lockpicking is a little bit stats, a little bit player skill and just a touch of luck. Test a few points on a lock to see where the sweet spot is and keep narrowing it down until you get it. If you back out of the lockpicking screen the lock resets so just keep at it no matter how many picks you break. They're pretty easy to come by and you'd be surprised how many upstanding citizens have one in their pockets.

You might want to look into illusion to boost your sneaky skills. Frenzy is a great way to thin the crowd a bit and the last man standing gets an arrow to the head. Calm is very helpful because you can get your target to stand still while you pepper them with arrows or stab them with a dagger. Invisibility is expensive but occasionally extremely helpful. Alchemy helps a lot as potions will be a lot more accessible at lower levels than either finding the spells or having enough mana to pull them off. Just as a personal thing, I don't find the magic casting works as easily with two handed weapons like a bow as it did in Oblivion so I don't rely on it nearly as much as I used to. You can spend as long as you like in the menu right in the middle of battle so it's pretty easy to load your first arrow with a weakness to poison or magic and follow up with the appropriate poison laced arrow or magically charged weapon.

Get your crafting skills up because you're going to need to make the very best armor you possibly can. If you're doing it right, you won't have a chance to level up armor much since you won't be getting hit. Get yourself a companion to help soak up some damage and take the focus off of you. Or use conjuration to summon a meat shield. Have a plan B just in case the bad guys do manage to close on you, maybe a destruction spell or a paralyze potion. And save often.

As a sneaky character I find it takes me probably about twice as long to clear a dungeon as it would if I just ran in there, dual wielding giant warhammers or whatever. It's all about patience and waiting for an opportune moment to get the right shot.

Not so, and I find the lack of non-archery-focused builds here disappointing.

I'm playing a sneak thief character. Dark Elf. This is my second character, so I had some experience under my belt of what I wanted to do. Immediately out of Helgen, I went to Whiterun. Sneaking everywhere, pickpocketing everyone. Within 6 hours (with a few breaks, a few quests here and there) I had my pickpocketing up to 100 and Sneak in the mid-40s. I decided to try my hand at a dagger-wielding assassin, no archery whatsoever. And let me tell you.. it's the greatest! Immediately get the x15 dagger sneak attack perk. As soon as possible, join the Thieves Guild and get the gloves that give you double backstab or double sneak attack bonus, which brings your sneak attack critical with a dagger up to x30. At low levels, you'll be doing anywhere between 300-600 points of damage, instantly killing pretty much anything.

To get your sneak up, go raid a few bandit places at night. Sneak at all times. Save often. When you find an enemy, sneak up on him and get that x30 critical with your dagger. Dead! By sneaking near your enemies and getting sneak attacks, your Sneak skill will shoot up pretty quickly. Don't worry about trying to power-level your One Handed either. Mine was in the 30s and I was still able to one-hit nearly everything.

As for perks- get every rank of the first sneak perk as soon as possible. They're tremendously helpful. For a sneak character, getting every perk on the Sneak tree is helpful and worthwhile. You don't really need to look at any other perks in the One Handed tree.

To give you an idea of what is possible with this kind of character.. I've got a few sneak boosting items (a necklace, a ring, and a helmet), plus the 45%(?) with all 5 ranks of the first Sneak perk. I'm able to essentially sneak in clear sight of anyone, kill them, and not get noticed. I can run entire dungeons without getting noticed once by the enemy, while still killing everyone and everything in it. The only thing you really need to be cautious about is sneaking in clear sight of human enemies in direct light. That is, don't walk past a fire or torch or whatever when they have a line of sight on you. Other than that, have fun killing everything in one hit. (With 30-40 One Handed, Draugr Deathlords are 2 hit, as was a Centurion Master. Both times I still got 2 sneak attacks on them, since neither noticed me after the first hit).

Also, my character doesn't wear armor. Not for stealth reasons, but because I never get hit. But I do get the added stealth of not having armor noise, plus the additional carrying capacity that not having armor frees up.

I hope you actually read that. Just want you and anyone else to know that sneak builds do not have to rely on archery.