Hey Lads,

I've played Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim through and through many times, and a bit of arena and daggerfall. I however have only started playing the Assassin/stealth class as of Skyrim. I love it and I'm enjoying re playing as a archer/assassin. My question is I know my adventure in Skyrim will eventually end and we all know there are no full games like Skyrim that offer the same stealth skills. So, my question to you is, would I be able to somewhat roll that class in Oblivion/Morrowind. I was thinking of going backwards this time and doing oblivion and then Morrowind. I'm mainly assassins king about oblivion. Can I play in oblivion 2 daggers, a bow, sneaking around and stealth killing in dungeons etc? I know oblivion is much different from Skyrim, but it does have sneaking. Do you have the sneak multiplier with weapons, and the gear that has bonuses for sneaking. My favorite thing in Skyrim is getting right behind someone and killing them. Is that offered in oblivion and even possibly Morrowind?

Sure you can sneak around in Oblivion. In fact, Chameleon is still available in Oblivion, and with that, you will not be seen. I think it is still even set that a small amount of Chameleon makes you unspottable.

However I have played through the entire Oblivion game from Sneak on one character (mostly with a Bow), and most other characters sneak most of the time. And, the Dark Brotherhood is a much more fun quest line in Oblivion than in Skyrim.

I don't think there is Dual Weild in that game, that "feature" was added in Skyrim. However there is a mod that adds it.

Worth noting that while many disparage the default classes, my lil' bro can attest that the default assassin class is quite good in its spread of skills. Morrowind's I find somewhat "iffy"-er, if only because of its addition of the long blade skill as a minor skill.

You can't dual-wield, but you can sneak and you get damage multipliers, and also gear that increases sneaking efficacy, though restricted to pumping up your Sneak skill. There are no stealth kill cams and in general sneak attack damage is somewhat less powerful because it hard caps at 6x for melee, with no special gear or perks to increase it, though you can simply jigger with the difficulty slider if you feel that it should be stronger.

Morrowind has the least intuitive stealth, in my opinion, and has a hard cap of 1.5x damage for sneak attacks (which are called "critical damage"). Morrowind's combat and skill application is very different from Oblivion and even more so from Skyrim, so I'd suggest looking it up before you try, to see if it appeals to you.

Thanks for the quick helpful answers guys! So basically my main concern was oblivion. I plan on going totally all out with the overhauls and great mods. Only one dagger is fine and no kill cams is fine. I just love in skyrim how you can get right behind someone and sneak insta kill them. Dmg cap is fine aswell as long as I can be totally muffled and get right behind them and kill them without being detected that's the style of skyrim game play I love. That works for the most part right?

There's no muffle effect, but beyond 50 base sneak skill your boots won't count against you (which, aside from movement, is the only detection penalty that's not related to actually hiding), and at 75 you can sneak-run or sneak-walk with the same detection penalty.

One handed melee weapon damage is 6x for a sneak attack if your sneak is 25 or above and 3x for a bow. A dagger does not have enough base damage to one hit kill tougher opponents from sneak. A longsword is better, but even that is not enough to one hit kill a lot of your tougher enemies, especially at higher levels.

The bow 3x is enough with most enemies until you reach level 12 or so and start running into tougher enemies, but with a high sneak skill you can get hidden quickly in a dark cave and come back for a second shot.

Poison is a good option to make sure your first hit kills. Enchanted weapons help.

The mod I use, Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul allows the user to easily set whatever sneak damage multipliers you want. I know you said you don't want an overhaul, but I just thought I would mention it since it has an adjustable feature that directly answers your question, and since it is entirely adjustable, you could turn off any features you don't want to use.

You may have misunderstood me, I'm all about overhauls for oblivion. So you can have a mod that makes the sneak dmg multiplier higher than X6? That would be great! Even if I'm still going to play a sneak/assassin class that runs dagger/bow. Now you said longswords are more viable as assassins? Is this always true in oblivion? I'm just basing my assassin knowledge from skyrim where as an assassin a dagger totally trumps longsword. Really interested in the ability to make The dmg multiplier higher

Unlike Skyrim, the damage multiplier is the dame for daggers and longswords (and shortswords), so you get the highest total sneak damage output with the weapon with the highest base damage (i.e., longsword).

If you are open to using an overhaul mod, you should really check out http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/42780. IT's stellar and it allows you to set the sneak damage multiplier for bows and one handed weapons to whatever you want it to be based on sneak skill level. Daggers and longswords will still have the same multiplier, but you can increase the multiplier enough to make daggers just as effective as they are in Skyrim for sneak attacks.

There is also http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/37385. I have no experience with it. It seemed way more complicated in its approach than I needed.