I'm considering a Skyrim playthrough as a Thief character. Focusing pretty much exclusively on the stealth skills.

One reason is that despite playing Skyrm, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 a lot, I rarely have my character just break into houses and steal things. So I thought I might want to try that. And pickpocketing a lot. And maybe do quests by sneaking through dungeons without killing, but just stealing stuff.

But I'm wondering how that could be a fun way to play. I completely see how playing an Assassin is fun. But what about a Thief. Because with most quests, including the Thieves Guild questline you end up having to fight someone or kill someone or something (e.g. undead monster).

I was thinking that one way to role play combat as a Thief is to have the Thief build up enough moneyto hire others to do their dirty work. But as I recall that may not be possible in some key quests, particulary in the Thieves guild.

So any comments, thoughts, opinions or tips on whether playing a Thief but not an Assassin is viable as a fun and interesting playthough?

Thanks.

My feeling about that is that playing a thief is a lot more fun than playing an assassin, and a lot less easy. But it's really up to you.

Only problem I can forsee is if you avoid confrontation whenever possible, you will probably have nerfed combat skills. (Unless you level up melee and such by fighting creatures.) But it sounds fun. Whenever I set out to do that build I always end up with a thief/assassin mix.

A thief would normally fight just in self defense, imo. Now if confrontation comes in (and within game mechanics, it is unavoidable at times), then you must defend yourself. What does a theif usually carry as a weapon? Something light of course, something easily concealed, and something they'll be very adept at using at close range.

Of course having hirlings does too. Being a thief doesn't mean you're not good at combat, since avoidance of combat is also a noteworthy tactic. Just make sure you get no bonuses, or additional bonuses, if possible for stealth attacks and never initiate combat. Assassins initiate combat, thieves don't.

Pretty much this. Wear light armor (like the thieves armor) and carry a pair of daggers. Go up only the left side of the sneak tree (so no big sneak damage bonuses), and put five perks into Armsmen and three into dual wielding (8 perks in total) and your thief will be able to adequately defend themself in many situations, and can run if they meet something too tough.

Could be a fun and challenging play through, although killing dragons with a couple daggers would be a bit tough,b ut I am assuming this would not be a main quest character, so you would not need to kill dragons, which would be out of place for a thief to do anyway.

I like how you guys think. For some reason I hadn't hit upon the idea of avoiding sneak attack perks and instead taking some one handed perks. Restricting yourself to dagger(s) will already limit damage output (and you won't be staggering very much). And avoiding those SA perks will keep you from thinking you *have* to slit that bandit's throat to avoid being caught.

It's interesting how TES sometimes presents thieves. I was just reading the Unnamed Book from Morrowind, and the thieves there are certainly bloodthirsty! You also have the triple categories in TES: warrior, thief, mage. The "thief" part of that seems to be pretty open to interpretation. Not necessarily a hands-off cat burglar type, but also an assassin figure.

But anyway, I get the OP's desire to play a non-assassin sneaky thief character. I can tell you it's a lot of fun. Even in vanilla Skyrim, those Dwemer ruins will be scary again! There's great treasure hidden there, but you have to avoid all those automatons...