I'm curious about whether those of you roleplaying an Assassin in Cyrodiil actually increase their strength & endurance. I mean, it is very handy because with Endurance you get more life points and with Strength you can carry more things and make more melee damage. But on the other hand, its rather unrealistic that an assassin is so strong and tough, isn't it?

Im not really sure what to do.

PS: Im going to play a dunmer assassin with blade as a major skill, I don't know how to play it yet but I guess I will have much melee combat because once seen I cannot hide anymore and I dont like this going backwards while shooting with the bow thing.

I personally do not. I mean I don't focus on it. Let's put it that way. If it happens that I get a better strength bonus at level up than I do some other thing then I'll take it. But my main focus is agility and speed for my assassins. Endurance, only by accident. As typically my assassins have money coming out their ears, they prefer someone else to do the hard labor . They'll pay well for top-notch armorer's to keep their equipment in good condition.

Ah, finally something Im good at!

If you need in-depth help with your Assassin character, it's build, or gameplay tips, don't hesitate to PM me, stealth characters are a specialty of mine in Oblivion. This goes to anyone needing help with stealth characters, not just the OP.

Anyway, now that the public service announcement is out of the way, the question at hand. Roleplay actually has little to do with stats. as you can simply limit the amount you carry yourself, and increase the difficulty slider, but technically no, Assassins wouldn't put points into their Strength or Endurance. If your using blade as the primary, then I might get strength up to about 60 or so, but leave it at that. Not really much reason to build Endurance up though as Assassins are meant for the one-shot kills, and rarely get into direct combat.

But here's the thing. Oblivion doesn't have a level cap. (Well it does, but it's ridiculously high (255) and you can't get there without using the console). Anyway, unless you never sleep, you have to level, and when you level, you have to add points to your attributes. Those points have to go somewhere, you'll end up getting them all fairly high, though maxing out the important ones.

(About the "going backwards and shooting with the bow thing". Main focus of an Assassin is to stay hidden throughout without creating a ruckus. Use bow and arrows from a distance, crouch for a damage bonus, and poison the arrow. I assure you, if done right, the enemy with fall before he's close enough to strike with melee.) Daggers would be used for close assassinations on say, someone who is sleeping, or something similar.

Personally, I'd put a few points into Strength, as Assassin said, just to allow you to fight close up when you need to, your main focus should be Speed and Agility with some Intelligence thrown in there for Alchemy and some spells to help you hide yourself better. Endurance you should only do if you plan on fighting close up more, for RP reasons, otherwise you shouldn't bother with it as the only Endurance skill I can imagine you using is Armourer, but you can just get someone else to do that.

Also, add some points into Personality for Illusion. Illusion is probably the single most important skill for a stealth character. NightEye spells, Light spells, Invisibility and Chameleon spells.. Intelligence is necessary too for Alchemy. Poisoning your blade/arrow is critical in getting those elusive one-shot kills.

Yet again, I agree with Assassin, except for the Light spells, I never use them, even on non-Assassin char's because they are quite simply useless compared to Night-eye + Detect Life spells, though if you wanted the best Assassin possible I'd suggest just enchanting a ring with Night-Eye.
I'm currently carrying no less than 30 different rings of many varying enchantments or various purposes, they're so light and two can be worn at once.

I actually have a helmet with Nighteye. I thought it would be more realistic that way, but yes. Enchantments are also essential with an Assassin character, due to their obvious lack of magicka, and relatively weak armor. I have dozens of enchanted items as-well.

Light is indeed relatively useless, I only mentioned it because there is a Light spell available from the beginning, and can come in handy on lower levels, as holding a torch can stunt combat, etc.

On the note of Nighteye, Khajiit have a Nighteye lesser power, free of magicka cost. The ultimate stealth build would definitely be a Khajiit Vampire. But it actually varies, there's several different ways to go about being stealthy too.

Vampires, how I loath, detest and yet aspire to them, the bonuses are brilliant but the night only thing and hatred you receive from others, not for me. Though I've tried a Khajit Vampire before, quite liked it but couldn't deal with the Sun Damage, I prefer to travel during the day.
Assassins don't really have to have weak armour, if you wear Heavy Armour with a high enough sneak skill, it wont matter and you'll be better protected during the lower levels. Aside from that I've never really found torches to affect my combat at all, I rarely use shields or two handed weapons and a bow far out ranges a torches light.

wearing heavy armor while assassinating someone ? not very realistic!! wasn't it that when you use fire shield, shock shield and frost shield enchantments on clothes and they are coming from the highest level of sigilstone you could get one of the best defences? i'm not sure about it. but you would lose some enchantment slots then.

Intelligence and personality seem good from an RP perspective, but they actually have no effect on alchemy and illusion.

My character is a mystic archer. For RP purposes, she does not increase strength or endurance ever.

Base strength: She doesn't touch melee weapons and doesn't care about carrying lots of loot.
Base endurance: As a glass cannon she is all about dishing it out. She us unable to take damage - again for RP reasons. She is level 20 with a puny 117 hp. It does work however, as in 500 hours she has never died. We play very carefully, but she will go anywhere she wants.

She uses her bow to kill stuff and uses magic to help her better kill stuff with her bow. Oh, and she doesn't run backwards. It is unnecessary if you can control the minds of your enemies and make them fight each other or stand still while you shoot them.

If you are going to use melee combat, I would push both strength and endurance up.

An Assassin, one of my favorite characters to roleplay yet I'm absolutely horrible with the bow.

For a Dunmer Assassin you may wanna consider having Destruction as a backup option since the Dark Elves get a starting bonus in Destruction.

I would focus on Strength and Endurance a little bit but Strength isn't that important for an Assassin as most Assassins use the Bow as their main weapon and you could always enchant an armor with Feather 125 if weight becomes an issue.

I would increase endurance just because it helps to have the highest health possible. I've never roleplayed an Assasin so I guess I'm not the expert in that department but even when I RPing I make sure that my character has the best chance to not die and the best way to do that is get 100 endurance as quick as possible.