It's been so long since I've played that I've forgotten, but... if you're sneaking, can you do a critical strike with a bow? Or is that something that is unique to Oblivion?

I know if you're undetected, you have a chance to crit with a melee weapon, but I don't remember if you can sneak-crit with a bow & arrow.

Although I don't always get critical hits when I'm sneaking, seems fairly unreliable. It does work with bows but is much less powerful, for good reason of course.

Basically, even if you've got the sneak icon, that second when you raise your weapon or whatever gives them a seemingly higher chance to notice you because you're making more noise or something IDK, and you have to be unnoticed on impact.

For melee weapons, you get a 6X bonus to attack while sneaking and with bows it's 3X. Here's a little trick if you are a magic PC without sneak as a high level skill: make yourself either invisible or hight magnitude chameleon. From there, attack with a powerful ranged magic skill while sneaking. Once your enemy comes in striking range, lash out with your weapon and you will still get the critical strike bonus to your physical attack.