I would appreciate some help with an issue I'm having. Whenever I try to build a magic/stealth character the build always ends up the same, and then I end up playing him as a generalist. I've done this way too many times and I'm now tired of it, So I'm trying to create a new character but I can only figure out half of him.

Race: Argonian
Birthsign: Atronach
Skills: Marksman, sneak, conjuration, illusion

The idea is no melee skills, mainly uses a bow, backed up by destructive magic, and, if all else fails, a bound dagger. The problem is I can't figure out what to put as the rest of his skills.I've been racking my brain over it for three days and I'm just going round in circles.
Here's the character I'm trying to avoid using:
Breton
Mage
Blade, destruction, illusion, light armour, marksman, restoration, sneak.

It makes for a good character but I need a change. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Edit: Removed destruction, since marksman covers ranged damage, and since without armour I don't want to be too close, touch-based destruction spells would be counter intuitive. Conjuration is no longer a maybe as it sounds like it works well with this style of play.

I'd definitely keep conjuration; if you're not using armor or melee weapons, you'll want a meat shield. Alteration and alchemy would round out the build nicely.

Add acrobatics and mercantile.

Mara

I only pick majors to control how high and slow to level so I won't recommend majors.

I do recommend the atronach. You are used to a Breton with the wonderful magic resistance. Atronach is a wonderful different approach. Seek items that boost that spell absorption up to 100% and embrace the rewarding challenges of playing an atronach for something different. It can be challenging early, but becomes easy and second nature by mid levels.

You say you want your bow as your primary. Me too. I tend to back it up with mind control illusion spells and absorb health on touch if really needed. Since it looks like you have used blade and destruction as back ups before, try conjuration with illusion - that is, attempt to play such that you do no direct damage except by your bow. Mind control spells and summons to do any dirty work your bow can't handle.

One trick I like: Combo spell: Summon clannfear x 15 sec + Invis on self x 20 sec. Cast it and race up to your foe (leading your summon right into their face). When your summon disappears, recast.

Good luck!

I usually use a Breton spellsword type myself so I'm not the best advice giver but i'd try a bosmer or something for a stealthy archer with magic support and be born under the thief regardless of race. Mysticism can be helpful for detect life but its pretty easy to level even as a minor and then its easier to control leveling and get better attribute bonuses as well. So i'd say definitely incorporate mysticim into your play regardless of major/minor skill choices.

Made a couple of changes, thanks for the advice, He's slowly starting to take shape. I'm considering alchemy to help out with the atronach sign, but I'm always hesitant to select it as a major, I've heard it can backfire and level too quickly.
@Acadian: what do you mean by controlling how high you level?

I'll take this one if I may. It's not how high, it's how fast. If you pick Majors that you rarely or never use, your character's game will level up more slowly. On the other hand, if you choose Majors that you use all the time, it will level up quicker.

Personally I like option 1, as I hate the way (at higher levels in hte Vanilla game) every bandit starts wearing armor that's way out of their league price-wise (glass, ebony, elven). I mean, if it were one or 2 bandits out of a 100, that would make sense. I also hate the way all these creatures start popping up out of nowhere at higher levels. All a sudden, there's minotaurs, land dreughs, and spriggan, etc everywhere. Where were they all hiding before I leveled up? It just feels so fake to me. Again, it would be believable if such creatures were rare, and showed up only in certain regions while being rare.

That's nonsense. Potions don't brew themselves. Make potions only as you need them and it levels the same as any other skill.

Here is something you might consider as far as play style that might be new. If you get homemade spells pretty quickly you can try this one

Command (your level +5) for 4 secs on touch/target - add short inviso on self when able

cast that on any group and hang back and wait form them to kill each other, often you can sneak shot the last one or in the least poison shot then run off til they die, or use that and conjuration to finish last enemy. works really will and is a little different than the run of the mill destruction/restoration route.

oh, and i concur on speechcraft and mercantile as majors, great fillers and mercantile is somewhat useful. also, i think you can get by with alchemy as a major and be okay. but if you don't mind making a lot of potions just to raise the skill, it works better for game mechanics as a minor

What gets addicting, though, is making potions for profit. Clearing out the alchemists shops of their ingredients, making dozens of useless potions & poisons, and then selling them for profit. That's half the reason why Alchemy seems to level up faster than other skills.

Oh, I'm not disputing that it can level quickly, but so can, say, alteration if you run around spamming shield spells.

All magic skills are like that to me except Restoration since it takes forever even when casting as fast as possible.

Dump light armor, for the 100% spell effectiveness, you can enchant street clothes... with Sigil Stones from Oblivion Gates, at level 17 or higher. You will receive a better Armor Rating than most other armors anyway. In place of the armor, I would put in either Acrobatics (my first choice) or Athletics.

If he's gonna use magic as secondary damage and for support then what does the 5% additional spell effectiveness really matter? If he wears armor he won't have to worry about casting shield spells.

Renee graciously answered what I meant by how fast or slow to level. I also select majors to control how high I level.

I design my characters to cap at a max level that depends on the character. Normally this is between level 20 and 30. I select the specific target level based on what my character wants from the game in terms of equipment, quests etc. Beyond that point, I prefer not to level up and allow my foes to become hitpoint sponges as I find that boring.

When comparing levels to what I want from the game, here are some of the data points I consider:
17: Top alchemy gear and sigils
19: Top leveled Hatred's Soul
20: Lots. Daedric items, all quests, all monsters...
23: Perfect amber/madness (SI)
25: Lots of top leveled quest rewards.
30: Everything, including all remaining top leveled quest rewards.

Let's say, for example I want to cap my character at level 30. I simply pick 4 majors to max, and 3 majors to ignore. Once my four 'use' majors are maxed, I will be at about 28. I then temporarily use one or more of the 'ignore' majors to bump my final level up to 30. Now, I suppose you could stop leveling at any point by simply not sleeping, but that would be unacceptable to me from an RP perspective.

My current character for example (Buffy), has 500 hours and is at her top level of 20. She will never go higher than that. She has access to every thing she wants in the game (she prefers daedric bows and doesn't care about leveled loot at all) and her foes don't have thousands of hitpoints.

The way I build characters is certainly not everyone's cup of tea, so that is why I avoid recommending major skills when discussing character builds. I have found over several years though, that it suits me perfectly.

This is my idea for you, and I think you might like it, give it some thought.

Altmer (Would reccomend female but male would work too)

Apprentice

Stealth (Magic is OK too, depends on what flavor you like.)

Agility
Strength

Illusion
Marksmen
Sneak
Conjuration
Mercantile
Alteration
Athletics

This would be a mysitc archer, but the cool thing is that this character MUST rely on stealth and distance because of the huge weakness to magicka. However it is wonderfully equipped to do so. This character cant be played general or melee due to its inheritant design. It would force you to play the way you are describing. Think about it.

@ Acadian & Renee: thanks for explaining that, I've never really put a huge amount of thought into the leveling process. The most I ever did was efficient level my character to level 5, then just play the game.
@ Zakarius: I'm set on playing an Argonian (I'm a lizard fan), but thanks anyway

Actually, now I think about it, setting up my character to have a level cap sounds like a good idea, I'm planning to run this guy for a good long time. In that case I could just pick three skills I wouldn't use as majors, to stop him leveling past 30. Seems to make sense with this type of character to prevent enemies becoming tougher after my available equipment stops getting better.

You can do like speechcraft and the two out of blunt/blade/h2h you aren't using

Since I plan to use an unaltered bound blade spell as the very last resort, that way the short duration and the Atronach prevent me from overusing it, that would leave blunt and hand to hand and speechcraft, sounds good.

Ya, you can do magic skills but all of them help in some way shape or form. You can't make money without leveling mercantile whether you like it or not so thats not recommended.

This is by far the best advice illusion wise for a none fighter.
Since you're making a sneaky caster, I suggest as well making one into a ranged AoE spell as well.
As a none combatant of mine took out a ruin segment full of ogres 9 I think, with this cast twice, leaving me with a two stragglers easly paralyzed and poisoned.
As you have summons as well, just wait till the enemies kill each other, then summon to finish off the wounded.

Alteration is a fair back up, but shield and fire shield potions at mid to high alchemy levels are common and higher powered.

Spells like command and frenzy are the reason I'm not using armour, the penalty to spell effectiveness makes them less useful at high levels

Acadian and Renee gade as are others, are far more knowledgable on the subject of effeciant leveling ( I tend just to level and slide difficulty down if in trouble, plus the use mods ).
But the general gist is ( I think ) if you work out your majors by only using 3 to 4 of them.. you can predict your max level.
If you keep it under 23 or so then armour wearing vs leveled spells like command have few consequences outside of bosses.
Thats about my knowledge on the subject I'm afraid.

You can develop the skill without having to pu it as a major

I'm running a similiar build, except my lizard uses a bound claymore to administer poisons

I was going to give him an illusion skill but I am running another char who uses that primarily, these days I am only in to developing chars with only one or two core competencies and I think he can get by without it

Achery would work better but that would so much less of a challenge

Considering this is at max dif that can give you an idea of just how effective an option this is

Thanks for the help everyone, I really appreciate it.