Playing an assassin now, was playing a Paladin before. Sword and Board on my Paladin was much simpler to use, plus with Heavy Armor I was less vulnerable, just with less offense.

my main is a dual-katana melee with heavy armor leanings and some summon magic for extra troops

Playing a Assassin in heavy armor love the ebony mail, with the stead stone my heavy works just as good as when I wore light armor.

I started as a warrior nord but was looking for more of a challenge so now I am playing through master with a pure mage and no companions. It's really hard but it makes the game alot funner for me.

Edit: I do summon creatures to use as companions however.

My assassin/thief only uses 1 dagger and illusion spells.

No!

Sneak is the only thing I haven't really gotten into.

My Orc is currently Level 55, focusing heavily in Conjuration, Alchemy, Smithing, Enchanting, Two Handed, Heavy Armour and Illusion with some Speech, then Archery's at 90 but without any perks. So, he's an aright all rounder I guess, but quite frankly Sneak hasn't really interested me, going through a dungeon picking off enemies one by one just seems incredibly time consuming compared to simply running in guns blazing.

I usually play a Mystic Archer (Archery+Conjuration), although I rarely need to actually summon anything. My next character will be a Thief type, though, for two reasons: 1) a bow is rather clunky at close range and 2) since I take almost the entire Sneak tree anyway, I might as well take that last perk and have a weapon I can use well in melee. As a side bonus it will simplify the build; I won't have to worry about whether or not I should bother raising magicka, since in the long run I'd be using -cost enchantments, and the lack of need for said enchantments means I have more flexibility in what to apply.

Hmmm... I can't help not playing thief, assassin, archer. It does seem like a ninjas wonderland.

My first character was a heavy armor wearer dual wielding war axes, very little sneak skill - would instead rush into rooms with an unrelenting force shout, then dive into the resulting heap of bodies with power attacks. Second character was a sneaky pure archer, except for DB assassinations which were usually dagger kills while the target was asleep. Current character is a destruction/conjuration mage, heavy armor, but uses the muffle spell and invisibility potions to take down whatever he can via dagger before sending in the dremoras, atronachs and fireballs.

I think my closest character to the topic title would be my Vampiric arcane duelist - doesn't duel wield daggers and isn't an archer. Is sneaky, isn't a thief. Will happily do things to scum (minions) that might seem dishonorable like back stab, but will always, always step into the light to face worthy foes and bosses.

Because being a duelist is about skill and demonstrating it in combat with equals or at the least worthy adversaries, not lowering yourself to cross blades with every Tom, dike and Harry (the character would say, a sneer curling their lip slightly and showing a little bit of fang at the thought). The character actually started as a kind of Syrio Forel inspired light warrior, but took a darker turn.

My "cannon" character (for the time being) - if you will, isn't any of those things (they are magic to the hilt).

Nor is my good but eccentric philanthropist character - a saner Don Quixote-esque figure, seemingly a career bureaucrat of the Empire whose brush with the chopping block and a dragon sent them careening into the world of adventure on a total nag of a horse - so pretty much warrior skills (heavy armor, an axe, shield) crossed with speechcraft and other diplomatic/clerical seeming abilities.

My Thalmor sympathizer/deep cover agent character (newest one and currently least played) is a reasonably good archer and is kind of "in plain sight" sneaky. Yeah they can creep around and open a lock if need be, but they are more operating in the light and never being suspected type of spy.

Play on master and have 3 characters, all orcs. What can I say I <3 the orcs.

My favorite is a 2-hand sword heavy armor. Perks: two-handed, Heavy Armor, Enchanting, Smithing. This guy rips face. His whirlwind shout is maxed out and can travel farther in a instant than my video card allows me to see lol.

2nd: Female orc assassin. Yes she is the dual dagger, archer, sneaky, alchemist. She does have problems with elder dragons and dragon priest. Destroys everything else. God I will never level alchemy again, that skill annoys the crap out of me, although it is very powerful.

3rd: Female orc shaman: I have a male orc companion that I heal and buff. She also dual wields staffs sometimes and specializes in frost destruction, enchanting, restoration, archery. She is tough to play when the game won't allow me to bring my follower. With my follower she is quite fun and can handle any type of situation thrown at her.

P.S. Orcs are beautiful, die in flames to those who say they are ugly!

I'm not I, for my first char I play a goodie melee character (no stealing/killing random people) - I DO however usually start off with a sneak bow attack so my bow/sneak skills are pretty high anyway.

Heavy Dadric Armor one handed Sword wielding lightning shooting Deathnight! lol

Thief skills are always a good thing to have, but they're never needed.

All of my characters lockpick, if only because there's so many locked chests. Only my thief will break into houses, though.
My mage will sneak to dodge trouble when out of Mana and in danger of, you know, dying. You can't sneak attack with a spell, though - that's left to my thief.
My warrior... doesn't sneak. She doesn't need to. Legendary+ Daedric Gear, and high heavy armor. I'm sorry, but when you can walk up and slap someone and have them die, you don't need to sneak. Of course, my sneaking thief can snipe mages before they laugh at my puny non-magic resistant armor...

My thief? Is built around sneaking. While she's not my main character, I did like that I started with her, because some of the skills I learned as her have really saved my hide. You don't need to be a thief, but you most definitely should start your first playthrough as one. You'll thank yourself later, when working on other builds. These skills make for excellent secondary skills later on.

oh wow, so many people play thief? im a fully warrior mage lol! every but sneak, i don't even use bows, dang spells are just op, daggers sneak attack one hit? well so does charging with a 2H sword lol! it is so fun without being wasting all those time sneaking around, I run through the dungeon all the time, master conjure with 3 followers by my side. haha sneak...

I hate Kill cam I find the whole combat system rubbish its got no fluidity to it and the kill cam just takes even more control away from me.

When fighting the same mobs I have to hack away at one 10 times with the one single attack move, the next I kill with a single impaling thrust that I never activated. I just think the whole mechanics and graphics are very poor.

my current character is a sneak assassin, but my first one was a normal warrior

I use the bow for an opening sneak attack, but then out come the dual scimitars

I have a warrior, uses both Sword+shield and 2h. Fun. But I like my stealth archer dagger one-shot stab with a dagger and dual swords guy better. I love using a bow.

The overpoweredness of the dual dagger kills made my theif less fun to play IMO. What saved that playthrough for me was the thievery, shadowmarks and variety of DB/TG quests. It was fun, but the most fun I had came from being a thief not an assassin.

My first playthrough was a sword and shield warrior, that was the most fun I had (and I played through 3 characters so far). He used shouts, smithing, 1h axes, heavy armor, and a shield. The combat was varied, tactical, fun and wasn't ruined once I got pulled out of stealth... plus I could run around without fear of being spotted. He played the companions, the main quest, and the stormcloak campaigns.

On my second playthrough I played a thief who used double daggers, bows, sneak, lockpicking, and pickpocket. It being so overpowered meant I never had to use poisons, or smithing... or anything. I played as a thief for a while and turned to the dark brotherhood at the end of the TG's quests. I could 1 shot like, anything... and it got old, so old that I only really kept playing to get the TG/DB quest line completion achievs and then grinded 100k gold for the other achiev. I imagine it would have been harder if I hadn't been a kajiit, night eye is so powerful it makes you miss it for ages once you reroll.

Right now I just finished a playthrough where I started as a mage, after realizing how underpowered it was and how terribly it scaled... even at lower levels, I switched to playing a conjurer. I played a shadow warrior really. Conjuration, Illusion(with silent casting), archery, and sneak.... I would stay hidden and use frenzy spells to turn people on each other, sometimes I'd throw a daedra into the mix, shoot at the enemy with my summoned bow, and when someone went down I would use raise zombie to get them back into the fight. I almost never even got attacked, the enemy would almost always die before I got noticed because of all my summons and trickery. I did the mage guild quests and all daedric quests on this guy and it wet'd my taste for companions in combat.

After that I realized I only really needed the achievs for "complete side quests" and whatnot, and I hadn't done a lot of side quests on my way through the games (mostly because all the main questlines constantly make you feel like you need to rush to the next objective, everything is life or death, so everyday quests are nuisances at best). So I'm going to make a character that uses most of what I never used on the other characters, a noncombat monk that uses a 2h companion. I will use alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, restoration and alteration to keep my friend alive while exploring side quests and the area's of the game I haven't yet toyed with... I'm going to try and finish the entire MQ/other side of the civil war without getting a single kill myself.


After I've done this and 100%'d the game of achievements, I'm going to give it a rest for a couple weeks or months then start doing "dead is dead" playthroughs (if the DLC isn't out by then) where I never reload saves and death means deletion of the character. Assassin with dual dagger isn't close to the only way to go or the only way to have fun, but it might feel that way if you go from dagger assassin to destruction caster. The way alteration and destruction scale, well, the fact is taht they don't not that they don't do it well. The spells need to become more powerful based on school skill, not cheaper to cast and then they would be balanced.

I can't help it, I find it the most enjoyable playstyle. Mages are in a watered down, poor state and I've just never been a fan of the straight forward warrior type. I usually mix in stealth and some magic, but it felt pointless using Illusion this time around.

Inspired from the Viking culture I play a nord shaman. I use a 2 handed axe and wear leather/fur armor.

With my resto skills I make sure companions are always at full health, with my alteration skills I manage to reach the armor cap without having to wear dragonscale which in my opinion look terrible .

But my most used skill is alchemy. I have hotkeyd pots for healing, resistance to everything and every time my two handed axe lands on somebody's neck it is poisoned with 50 or more points of Health/Stamina/Magicka damage.

As far as roleplaying goes, I keep my self away form both Stormcloacks and Imperials, considering the whole war meaningless.
I often go with my wife, Mjoll, on giant hunting expeditions just to test our skills and to keep fit.
I also stay most of my time in camps in the wilderness and above all I hunt down Fornsworn for the crimes they commit against nature. Being a pagan is one thing, having animals on sticks as decorations is another.
Being a shaman is not necessarily about following the old religious ways. I cinsider my character a follower of Talos, not the type who visits the church often if at all, but still...

Currently level 42, I ahve yet to get bored of my main.

EDIT: The whole thief/mage experience has dried out for me at my Oblivion days. It has been fun moving around as a vampire with black angel wings, riding a flaming horse but honestly I can not reexperience the game like that.

Agreed, orcs are beautiful. :biggrin:

I haven't made one yet (played around a little with faces) - I was actually thinking of having an ork as my first Archer Sneak-Thief type.

People swear by battle-mage builds. Though I always get all Sam Fisher on this bizznatch, so I'm not in a position to support them. Sneakthief Khajiit with a bow and a shankcannon ftw.