One word: enchantments combined with spell. Oh, wait. That′s four :facepalm:

Indeed. Teresa does wonderfully with an enchanted, but not uber bow (a little bit of damage health plus weakness to poison). Plus she uses summonses on the rare occasion when something manages to get close. When you get your marksman skill high enough you will start knocking down your victims. With your stealth high enough, you can stay hidden even after shooting them (note you need to use the shadows here). Most critters never know what hit them. She is at level 19 or so now, and still one-hit kills magicians. She only wears armor because she likes http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/subrosa_florens/oblivion/Oblivion509.jpg. It is not like anything hits her very often.

I also underestimated stealth

My main character in Morrowind and also in Oblivion was a Nord. In Oblivion I specialized him in combat specializing in strength & Endurance skills but also giving him willpower skills
Endurance = heavy armor, armorer & block
strength = blade
Willpower = destruction, restoration & alteration (reason is that willpower = ranged attacks, healing, open locks & magic defense)

It wasn't until I'd play my Nord to near completion that decide to make a character who was opposite in abilities.

I chose to make a Bosmer with specialized stealth skills (speed & agility)

Speed = light armor, athletics, acrobatics
Agility = sneak, security, Marksman
Strength =blade

To my surprise I couldn't believe how easy he made the game and how much more fun it was. He could sneak un-noticed and get x 6 attack where he could kill a creature with one arrow. That or he could jump out of harms reach and just shoot arrows from a far.

I didn't even consider stealth to be that good.

I cap my char at 20 and find, at least at that level, the bow does great damage in the hands of a sniper. In fact, it's the only weapon my character will touch. 'Course ya gots to use arrows with it for it to work well. :thumbsup:

Stealth in OB is about a lot more than plinking arrows from a dark corner, or backstabbing. It can also be about messing with enemies' minds and making them fight each other with Command/Frenzy spells, or other types of misdirection, like Conjuration. I really do enjoy sneaking into a dungeon full of NPC enemies and beguiling them into killing each other while I watch from afar, only needing to kill the last one standing with any form of direct damage. Or perhaps a Summon combined with an Invisibility effect.

I don't level cap my characters as a general rule. Sometimes. But, once it becomes impossible to one-shot a Bandit with a sneaky arrow alone, there's still Poison, Destruction, Illusion and Conjuration. Destruction doesn't get any bonuses from concealment, but it's still very possible to sneak-kill an opponent with it. Sneak up behind them, and use a Touch spell that contains Paralyze and Weaknesses in order to capitalize upon effect stacking. Using your Block button/key, it's also possible to fire off a spell once every second instead of every two seconds. You can utilize this mechanic in order to fire off a barrage of a spell at an unaware target, oftentimes killing it before its AI tells it to move out of the way.

In case you hadn't noticed, I enjoy the stealthy use of spellcraft... quite a lot.

Stealth is the best way to play the game. Demoralize bow or drain speed is heaps of fun, especially against conjurers.

It is strange, though, to spend hours building the perfect Bosmer archer assassin, and then have a friend say "Bosmer, what is that? I use a sneaky Orc that wields a one handed axe and wears heavy steel boots, it still gets the job done!" :facepalm:

The other great thing is to always land a x6 bonus hit on those will-o-wisps. Revenge is sweet....

^^ This is me too

:)

I love stealth and sneaking around especially with a bow rocks in these games.