I have just finished trying out a bunch of over hual mods and have finally settled on Skyre, I would like to try making an arcane assassin for my first (hopefully full this time) playthrough but am having some difficulty with sneak mechanics. How am I supposed to sneak up on people when it is so extremely hard to figure out where they are? I also seemed to always get jumped on in the wild instead of the other way around. In fact the amount of times I've been ambushed is staggering.

AI behavior seems hard to predict it always seems that just as I am about to finally sneak attack someone their patrol becomes erradic and they fine me right away. I follow them through a door and they instantly turn arournd etc. How do you sneak in this game? Am I just kidding myself until I get invisiblity and muffle? I've been wearing no armor and have instead what I could in the sneak tree but I just can't find ways to isolate npcs or sneak up on them.Especially when i can't determine their locations.

Be patient and take the time to observe how enemies move. Don't rush through dungeons, because then you might run around a corner straight into an enemy. Also, if you move quietly, you can listen---enemies will make noise that gives them away; you can hear Draugr shuffling around, you can hear bandits talk/sing to themselves.

What's your Sneak skill level, and what perks have you taken? Are you wearing heavy armour? Are you casting spells without the Silent Casting perk?

(Note: since I'm on console, I don't know if the mods you're using change sneak mechancis).

My main character is Daeo, a spell assassin.

He also uses a dagger. It requires a lot of waiting around and watching how the enemies move as someone said above there. Though once I got the silent caster perk, it was erm easier to influence their mind with illusion to move them around.

Another thing is if your Sneak is high enough, I am not talking to high, in the 30s. You can do what I use to do. Which was hit something or make some sort of noise to determine how many enemies were in the room and still be able to hide away from them.

My sneak skil isn't very high right now as I just started. It looks like lighting was playing a big role in why I was getting caught so often. I started taking torches down and listening for patrls more and wound up taking out the entire embershard mine with stealth skills. I only have 4 perks atm and I need to put a lot of them into my destruction first so the scales scale better.

What do you do about snow sabre ca and wolf ambushes.I never see them coming.

Daeo just runs the f- away. He wasn't designed for hardy combat.

yea well my best tactic so far was usually sprint until my companion grabbed aggro. It just really throws me off getting ambushed so much in the wild when I'm supposed to be the assassin not the other way around lol. BY the time i hear the wolves all 3 are gnawing on me.

I can hear the wolves, they have a very distinct huffing sound even before you encounter them.

Another thing is don't sneak on the roads. I sneak well above hidden and in a distance from anything. I find often not, most of the time Daeo sneaking on wolves because he decided to take the high road.

Sabre cats + bears are tough in the early levels. What do you do about them? Run away; bring a companion. Not every assassin is also good at open combat. And, just because you rely on surprise to kill enemies, doesn't mean that enemies can't use the same tactics on you.

Once you gain a few levels you should be able to take on sabre cats + bears---you'll be able to either soak up more damage (because you'll have more health or have more armour), you'll be able to do more damage (because you'll have better weapon skills or stronger Destruction spells), and you'll have more supporting resources (better enchantments/smithed items, potions/poisons, other support magic like armour spells or Illusion or whatever).

I always wondered. Is it possible to sneak attack using a destruction spell?

I find the Khajiit's Night-Eye power very useful. Also, it's not restricted to once per day and can be turned off before it's timer runs out.

Silent Casting from the Illusion perk tree would be needed, I'd imagine it becomes more like stealth archery at that point.

no, magic does not get a sneak bonus, never did in any of the TES games.

When I played a squishy arcane assassin, she took carriages everywhere she could, and hired mercs to escort her when there was no carriage available. (She used a cover story when with others.) She was no adventurer - wandering the roads alone would have been out of character.

She was fun. I can't remember why but I ended that playthrough early. I should try that build again.

Get Quiet Casting. Not only does it muffle spells, but it muffles shouts too. As detect life will eat up your magicka, and is hard to find, use Aura Whisper with QC. If you're having trouble leveling Illusion, go to your house, get some fortify illusion clothes on, some regen magicka, and spam muffle.

And if you see someone selling an item with a muffle enchanment, BUY IT. Special boots with muffle, like Nightingale and Shrouded, have a Muffle rating of .5, meaning you're not completely silent. Player-enchanted Muffle has a Muffle rating of 1, meaning you're movement is completely silent.

And Invisibility potions help. They keep you invisible until you attack or activate something, so they're helpful for creeping up behind an enemy and getting that sneak bonus.