Just to be clear, by a 'classic' Rogue I'm referring to the class used in D&D or the Pathfinder RPG.

I'm trying this now and having a blast so far. My hope is that this is the character I'll finally break level 30 with... and maybe even get higher than that.

Classic Rogues tend to have limited proficiency with weapons, but lots of non combat skills and an ability to hit hard from stealth. I am making use of the following skills to reflect that:

One-handed - I'm not perking this out very much, but I'll grab a few levels of Armsman, probably Fighting Stance, and probably also the dual-wield perks. So far I've been using a single sword, but I plan to eventually dual-wield sword&dagger, or use dual daggers for stealth. I will continue to use just a single sword for blocking (see Block, below).

Archery - This will get more perk investment than One-handed. I haven't decided yet exactly how far to go here, though, or which side of the tree I'll focus on.

Block - This is taken for one reason only: Quick Reflexes. I'll get Block up to 30, take that perk, and then have a way to simulate the "Tumble" or "Acrobatics" skill by being able to dodge out of the way of power attacks. Obviously if I'm dual-wielding this won't help, but I plan to revert to single-sword when faced with hard-hitting 2-hander enemies, trigger Quick Reflexes, dance around behind them, and deliver a free hit or two. We'll see how it works out.
On the other hand, I may want to progress up the right hand side of the tree for things like Disarming Bash.

Light Armor - Rogues are traditionally proficient with this, so I'll perk it out. But it is a slow leveler, so may require training.

Sneak - obviously perk this out. Grab everything in the tree.

Pickpocket - I'll want to play with this, so I plan to take a lot of perks here. Particularly Misdirection, to steal equipped weapons. Never done it before, and the skill is an iconic rogue ability.

Lockpick - I'll work this up, and may perk it up to Treasure Hunter, but more for RP reasons than utility.

Speech - I haven't quite decided here. On one hand the merchant-side perks are appealing, but on the other hand I'll have fences through the TG questline.

Alchemy - definitely plan to perk this up to Concentrated Poison, but no farther.



So, no smithing or enchanting, and no magic whatsoever. I guess Enchanting may level a little bit if I end up getting magic gear and recharging it.


So, some questions:

1.) I want to simulate the classic rogue style of avoiding head-on confrontation, so I think I'll need to keep my Health fairly low. Since I'll be playing on Adept, what is a good level of Health, or ratio of Health to Stamina? Currently at level 10, Health is 130; Stamina is 150. I figured I'd keep Stamina several levels ahead of Health, but I'm not sure how far.

2.) I want the Light Armor skill to somewhat compensate for low Health, but since I'm not improving my gear it's not going to be easy. How do the high-level Light Armor perks play? Do they seem useful?


I guess that's it for now, aside from any comments you might have.

My thoughts are to either take one-handed or archery trying to do both might spread you a little thin,depends on how much enemy cofrontation you will be doing.

For stamina and health I keep them about equal but eventually you will run out of need for more stamina.

For light armor this is tough,you can take a few perks but remember that some of the perks require that you wear all of the light armor equipment or a complete set of one type of equipment,I don't allways like to wear helmets.
Another option for this is to perk the left side of the archery tree and be more of a sniper,or make lots of invisibility potions.
I do miss those shield potions from oblivion.

Daggers will, eventually, do more damage than swords. The legendary ebony dagger does more dps than the legendary Daedric one-hander, and does it faster. The only perk in the one-handed tree that works with daggers is "armsman" perk, and the fortify one-handed effect does NOT work with daggers. My guess is it would be too powerful. It's that enchant that makes the other one-handed weapons equal with daggers, in the later stages. Enchants do work, however and, obviously, smithing improvements work.

if you really want to stay in character and within your rules i suggest selling your used-up enchanted items and buy/find new ones. this gives you a reason for money and lets you not use your self-imposed rule of no magic.

no smith/enchant means ALL the light armor perks should be taken, as well as, possibly activating the lord stone. will you use alchemy to fortify light armor? if you allow it, that will come in very handy.

One more thing,wait on the concentrated poison perk to see how often you really need to use more than one poison at a time.
With the right poison,Paralyze/lingering damage health,and a sneak attack on you first target you often won't need more than one of these.
If you like to use cheap easy to get regular damage health poisons then it could be worth it.

Well, in all my builds I plan up to level 50, and only specialize in 5 or 7 skills. Now, my Rogue, a Dunmer (which I'll be remaking when 1.5 finally comes out) uses Archery, One handed (dual wielding), Sneak, Lockpick, Pickpocket, Light Armor and Speech. Notably abscent is Alchemy, mainly because while ultimately more useful than speech, speech is very central to the rogue mythos. Keep in mind that Rogues are essentialy thieves who are not afraid to fight back, and often rely on charm and wit rather than pure stealth. Your character's motivation is also very important. In my opinion, as a Rogue, your goal is gold. Plain and simple. The more you get, the merrier.

i have to agree that if i am playing as a strict rogue archetype i'm putting points needlessly into speech. it's just to engrained in the mythos for me.

If you already know how to play the game fairly well, playing at adept should be cake for pretty much any char. I wouldn't even worry too much about health or armor, if I was to be playing at that difficulty. I think I'd actually go 40/60 health/stam, so you can do all the stamina-svcking dual-wield power moves you want.

Well, I'm finding that at early levels enemies get in my face pretty fast with a relatively low sneak and archery skill, so it's good to have a sword as backup. I'd like to keep both as an option, but again - I'm not going to perk One-handed up very highly. Archery I *may* go the Power Shot route, but... I'm not sure if that feels very "rogue-y". I guess I can think of it as sort of another kind of sneak attack; because I'm such a precise hitter, I can incapacitate the enemy. Dunno.

As for Light Armor, I plan on using the Thieves Guild armor set(s) pretty much exclusively (at least while in dungeons or 'on the job'), so the Matching Set perks aren't a problem.

Great point about the Shield potions... yet another thing sadly cut out of Skyrim.


No smithing for this character, so no improvements (or enchanting, for that matter), but you make a good point. I don't know yet if I'll be a dagger+sword or dual daggers kind of character. Having a sword gives me more reach, which is nice. Of course, I can carry lots of daggers and use them or not as I see fit.


I like that idea of selling used weapons! Of course, I may make an exception with special artifacts.... too hard not to use those few unique weapons in the game. I have no qualms with using Alchemy to fortify armor skill. I won't spam Alchemy, though... I'm sort of sticking to the few poisons/potions I know or can find through recipes. This character doesn't spend too much time in the lab.


I agree that speech is a big part of being the 'classic' Rogue. I'm still undecided about the Speech perks, though. Left or right side of the tree, or both?

I may also think of this guy as not quite silver-tongued... a little departure from the traditional rogue.


Exactly - I don't want to spend a ton in Health and then find that I'm overpowered all of a sudden. I'm finding that right now, Frostbite Spiders can be a challenge, and I have to do some sprint-kiting to keep shooting if they ambush me in a group. It's pretty fun actually. So Stamina will be more important.

But at the same time, I want to avoid being one-shotted. I think I'll aim for a health of 150, and then see how that feels for awhile.

a lot depends on how high you plan on leveling. if you're going to 50-60 you will NOT have to worry about having enough perks. you will have plenty.

if i play an archetype rogue i'm going with all the speech perks for pure rping purposes. it's the first thing i think of with rascals and scoundrels, lol. you will have enough perks.

personally, i think you'll find adept way to easy. expert is a great place to start, imo.

just remember, you will have more than enough perks depending on your how high you're planning to go with this character. i have planned and am in the process of making an all-powerful hybrid with all 3 skill groups and he will be god-like around level 55. that will still leave me with 25 more to flesh him out with.

it is a common fallacy on this forum that you need to specialize and limit the number of skills you use.

Left side. All the things on the right are border line worthless, you gain the ability to bribe guards through the TG.