Looking at the perks, It seems that sneak will be OP as all hell, as usual: press crouch to become invisible and deal stupid amounts of damage. Oh how I hope I'm wrong, and that all suppressed weapons will deal piddly base damage.

ok....

Moveing on. . .

why would you change somthing that works?

In each RPG, when you are furtive or sneaking, you always deal critical damage, based on an amount calculated by your sneak lvl, perception, weapon damage, position of the target en armor (and a whole other bunch of stuff)

Yea, in most RPGs, there is a penalty for sneaking (often, sneak attacks break stealth, and then you have to contend with your poor defenses until you can sneak again). In BGS games, sneaking gives you amazing defense AND amazing offense, all the time.

In Bethesda games also, if you attack from sneak, in ranged for example, the NPC will investigate were it comes from, at least in a certain range, depending on the atitude of the payer the sneak will be broken or remains if not detected.

It is told that the enemy AI is much smarter, so it is possible they will investigate a bit further now...

I really hope so. I would be fine with sneak attacks dealing tons of damage, if I was forced to constantly move around to avoid detection. Don't see how anyone derives any joy from quickly clearing whole rooms whilst invisible.

The point of a stealth character is to deal massive amounts of damage in as little hits as possible. The downside is, that your character is as fragile as a ming dynasty vase and can't stand the sustained onslaught of a super mutant barrage. I personally always go stealth, because it offers the most suspense while waiting for an opportunity to strike you have to get under the noses of your enemy and for me that is most satisfying.

I'm not too worried. Staying hidden is quite tough in the beginnings of past games. It only really becomes overpowered at higher levels. Since we know that some perks are level locked we hopefully won't have a quick route to an overpowered sneaky character.

Why though? You would think that using sneak attacks and stealth tactics should be rewarded by doing more damage.

But why are you so against it. This isn't a multiplayer game? You have no competition.

I normally play stealthy characters in BGS games, and not once have I found sneaking to be too powerful or effective. Sneaking in Fallout 3 seems a tad too ineffective at times, but it's fun. Sneaking in Skyrim is just about right; it regularly requires me to actively evade detection, but usually not so often that it feels tedious.

If you suspect that might eventually be too hard to detect, then don't overdose on sneak-boosting perks. If you feel that stealth weapons might eventually deal too much damage, then don't overdose on damage-boosting perks.