I wanted to build an assassin, because being a mage or warrior didn't seem as fun to me.

I wanted to build a great assassin, and I have read hours worth of forums, so I want to make sure this is all correct.

I chose Stealth or whatever instead of mage or warrior.

Then I chose a Male Dark Elf with the birth sign of Theif.

Speed and Agility were my specials.

My hardest picks were the 7 starters.

From what I read, althetics, aerobics, and sneak, were all useless on account they will build up as you play.

If I am correct you have access to all stats, but you just get a boost by choosing them. Like I didn't choose destuction, but as i throw flame balls I increase its power.

So this is what I chose: Alchemy, illusion, marksmen, blade, light armor, restoration, conjur.
Anyways, I am just not sure how much light armor and blade will be, if I can just upgrade them while fighting. I wasn't able to sneak up on anyone and stab them, I was only able to shoot an iron arrow. Also it seemed really hard to talk to people without the speech upgrade!!

I was wondering if this sounds like a good setup, I spent hours learning what I could to build, and saved before I left the sewers so I can change anything at this point,
I just want to make sure I don't start out on the wrong foot.

From the hour I played testing, half of the picks will come in time, while others seemed to a lot harder to build up. Anything that has to do with fighting, will upgrade on its own, and anything that has to do with movements, will all upgrade easily(swim, jump, sneak, run)

Well, you are an Stealth type character, so don't expect that light armor to level up much. My stealth character is level 8 and light armor went up only 5 times, 'cuz I don't get hit.

Restoration + Alchemy seems redundant. You have Alchemy to heal, why bother with restoration? You're not gonna level intelligence much, and healing spells are expensive. Scrap it.

Power level sneak, since you didn't chose it as a major. Power level Acrobatics, it's a HUGE help to jump on a ledge and turn everyone into pin cushions.

If you want to level your fighting skills, I suggest you go to bandit lairs. They are pretty soft and easy. Watch out for warhammers.

The whole point of even taking blade is to either get the x7 sneak attack, or fighting off a seriously weakened NPC from an arrow stealth attack.

You seem to be taking a mage Hybrid, since half your majors are magic. IDK why, but you have to concentrate on increasing Intelligence.

So which should I get, I knew the blade and armor didn't seem right. When I was fighting, my stealth and speed didn't seem to help me.

This is why I asked cause I didn't know restoration and alchemy would end up doing the same.

I don't want to be half mage, I want to be full theif/assassin/sneaker!

Alchemy, Marksmen are the only two that seem to be with that assassin group. Should I just get the sneak, aerobics, and stuff?

Probably.

I have one Bosmer, he has

Sneak
Security
Marksman
Blade
Light Armor
Alchemy
Mercantile

You can powerlevel acrobatics easily, just go to bruma mages guild, there's a barrel near the basemant. Jump on it and press the jump button like mad. Easy way to get +5 in speed.

In my character, I can walk through a bandit lair, sneak attack everyone and not get hit once. Mostly because of my enchanted weapon, and the reason why light armor never levels up much.

At first, Blade won't level that much, since it's marksman that does the job. So I have constant effect blade fortifying amulet because of that. Once you get a blade enchanted, it will be easier.

So the High Elf would be better for theif/assassin than the dark elf???

I am just having a hard time picking, I figure it would be smart to pick the things that will be hard to upgrade or to long to build up.

Obviously, as an assassin I should probably get at least sneak, I just know aerobivs and athelte upgrade as I run around and jump, and jump off rocks and cliffs.

I didn't mean to be half mage, but I thought restore would help with health and stuff.

Ultimitaly I want to sneak around and jump on high places and snipe with an arrow. I also want to be able to sneak up on people and stab them in the back.

As far as magicka goes, I don't really care for the white or dark magics, I like the fire ball, but prefer to use arrows.

If you were gona a make something Like what I descibed what would you do? I don't mean to be so picky, I just want to be able to actually do assassin and theif stuff!

Bosmer instead of Dumner

Sneak-Still debating on it
Security-IDK about it
Marksman-Must have
Blade-I would like behind the back one hit stabs in the back
Light Armor-I guess It would be smart to get it, sense I wouldn't get hit much
Alchemy-A must for any class
Mercantile-I dont care about 5% discounts,

My sneak is high enough to plow through bandit dungeons without get hit once. Backstabbing with a 40pt enchanted weapon is fun. Backstabbing a group of 5 bandits one by one is even more fun.

My acrobatics is in the near 90's and I can jump at those high places while my opponents can't do anything while I pelt them with arrows.

You have to be EXTREMELY patient in attacking. They have to be away from each other, or risk being detected.

If you don't like Mercantile, then perhaps armorer or something else.

Don't go to marauder dungeons, it's very hard in there. Since you are a sneaky character, you can sneak through. Another fun way of being sneaky. If you have to, make lots of poisons.

Security is a filler. I can open very hard locks at 5 security, but for the sake of being a thief.

Right now I am looking at doing:

Bosmer or Dumner male or female( I don't want to play a dino or cat)

Theif for BirthSign

Speed and Agility-With these anything to do with speed and agilty will build up quick

now for the 7-

Alchemy-Potions Galore
Marksmen-Long Range Sniping
illusion-For thief and assassin purposes
Armorer-To repair and build weapons(I can build them right?)-This seems to be something that would be impossilbe to build over time

Now I am thinking of doing Blade, Sneak and Conjur, or Blade, Conjur, light armor!

lol, you can't build weapons, only repair them. It goes up quick, repair every loot you have.

If you're in vanilla oblivion, conjuration levels up VERY FAST, I mean 6 casts of Bound dagger, conjuration will skill up.

Depends on you, though I prefer Balde, Sneak, Light Armor since conjuration levels up fast.

Tell me which things will take to long to upgrade, espeicically the ones I will need.

Armorer, blade, sneak, acrobats, athetics, and conjur.

Like if I chose agilty and speed for my favored, that means those skills will build up quick and won't need to be picked in the 7, unless I want a super boost.

So if I choose thief and then agilty and speed, what things won't boost that fast cause of them?

Blade and Conjuration. Conjuration levels fast on its own.

Basically a skill that doesn't favor speed and agility.

I just got this up on my screen in the game.

ok thief and speed and agilty.

ok-
alchemy
blade
illusion
light armor
marksman
mercantile
sneak

I don't know about illusion? Should I get something like speech or security??

If you're good in the lockpick game, then you won't need security at all. Speech is useless, you have illusion harm.

illusion is actually good for you. You can become invisible to get out of sticky situations, charm people to like you and stuff. The problem is long duration is expensive, but you'll manage. It's a good setup. But like conjuration, illusion levels up like the speed of light.

what should I change for speech or illusion??

according to the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Skills

half the stuff I chose in the boosters I chose, including light armor, sneak and marksmen.

I just can't figure which to pick for the last one!!! What will help me the most as a assassin/ theif??

Mercantile can get you moar money, athletics can help you run faster. Your choice.

I am just gona do this

alchemy
blade
illusion
light armor
marksman
mercantile
sneak

ok. Good luck.

I also changed to a Wood Elf aka bosmer, which should prove to be an assest instead of the dark elf!

If I have other questions I will send you message! thanks for the help!

Wow, I felt like I was watching a game of tennis there. :laugh:

I wouldn't worry too much about your build if you are planning a thief-warrior-sneaker. It means very little in the long run what you do because most of the damage comes from a combination of the bow / blade damage and the sneak bonus. The build means next to nothing. The important thing to learn is the enchanting of the weapon (shock damage sword and demoralize or drain speed bow are the best).

If you enchant correctly nothing will stand in your way. Azura's Star is very important to recharge the weapon and the armorer skill needs to be above 50 so you can reapair magical items.

The build of a character IS very important if you plan to efficient level (to prevent the enemies overpowering you at high level) or take a mage type build. Otherwise it is overrated.

The trick in making a really strong character is in keeping several major skills low and developing high minor skills.

When you level up so do all the hostile NPCs and stronger monsters begin to spawn. So while increasing skills makes you stronger, increasing major skills and leveling up will make the enemies stronger as well. But you can increase minor skills as much as you want without leveling up.

There is a bunch of variations of this principle.
- Full underleveling is when for your major skills you take 7 skill you will never use. For example taking all the magic skills when you want to play a warrior. With this method you never level up.
- Semi-underleveling is when you pick 3 skills you will use a lot, 1 skill you will use sometimes, and 3 skills you will never use. With this method you still level up, but slower than normal and you stop leveling somewehere around level 20-25.
- Focused leveling is when you take 7 skills you want to use, but for the first 20 levels you only use half of them. For example in your case you could be developing Marksman, Sneak, and Alchemy while avoiding Blade, illusion, and Light Armor. You would also still be using Mercantile but it increases very slowly even as a major skill.

And don't worry about not using Light Armor. I'll quote my post from another thread:



At low levels light armor is so weak that I consider it to be just dead weight. I don't bother with anything weaker than Mithril (if I'm using a shield) or Elven (if I'm not using a shield). The one exception I make is the special armor you get if you join the Dark Brotherhood. That one has very low weight (even for light armor) and a useful enchantment (+10 to six stealth related skills) so it's worth it even if the AR it gives you is next to useless.


Despite everything I wrote about underleveling, I feel it needs to be said that in the really long run it doesn't matter that much. If you're level 25+ you will start finding some extremely overpowered loot (like a ring that gives 50% Resist Magic + 35% Reflect Spell or an amulet that gives 33% Reflect Damage + 25 Fortify Blade). It's quite possible to make yourself completely immune to magic and reflect 100% of the melee damage you take back at the attacker. At that point it becomes more or less irrelevant what your character's personal stats are. However, focused leveling would still make your transition through the teen levels (probably the hardest part of the game) much easier.