Sup people, first off I'd like to say that I am a huge fan of stealth builds and just from what Todd Howard has confirmed I know that the stealth build wont be bad its just for some reason I feel like Warrior and Magic archetypes will be so much better than Stealth archetypes. I mean the things that Warriors and Mages can do in this game are [censored]ting all over Stealth characters. I know that the bow becomes deadlier but it also becomes slower and its use will come sparingly because arrows are now more expensive and there are less of them. The dagger also gets an upgrade because it causes large amounts of damage under stealth but what about those times when your caught or in a major battle and out of expensive arrows that take too long to shoot. What about fighting dragons, how can we kill a dragon with a few sticks and a knife. I havent heard anything on alchemy but poisens can only get you so far, especially with a dagger. Maybe I just want to whine because I am eager for this game to come out but I think I raise some valid points but then again I don't know everything about this game. If someone can convince me there is nothing to worry about I would greatly appreciate it.

Also due to a mental condition I have, as per every topic I visit I must post ideas I think would be really helpful to the stealth class (Or helpful stuff in general) lol

Throwing Daggers- Throwing daggers could be alot faster way to take down enemies from afar albit weaker. It could be done with regular daggers that you would normally use only to throw them youd have to hold the strike button and/or a directional button and the longer its held the more it hurts. It would also be good if we could throw more than one to really take down enemies. It would make fighting larger threats like frost trolls so much better especially if they are all poisened.

Explosives - This could help so much and it couldnt be hard to do if they were done in fallout 3. When you are surrounded by undead with a dagger and other things an incindiary bomb mixed with holy water could really change the pace of battle. The stealth class would be that much more deadlier. (it would be great if fire damage actually burns enemies flesh.)

If I remember correctly don't Daggers now do 10X damage when you do a Sneak Attack. I hope they didn't change that.

I wouldn't worry about Stealth, the Bow has been changed and it sounds like it's better then what it was in Oblivion. Alchemy's still there and with Perks who knows what powerful beneficial effects we could get off of them. Like for example Poisons could be more potent if you picked a perk or something like that.

How is that Stealth Related??????

I'll just sneak in here so I can wake everyone up with a loud explosion lol

They have also redone how sneaking works. You are no able to fire your bow from the shadows, kill a person, and not be immediately detected. In fact, if you are sneaky enough, you can completely rehide. I am also hoping for darker dungeons, with the ability to extinguish the lights inside. Stealth builds will make killing dragons harder, but that's what makes is fun.

If you take a little bit of magic, you can place "traps" on the ground and lure enemies into them as well. Slwo them down with a frost trap, and make your escape.

It is almost impossible for stealth characters to worse than they were in Oblivion. It was the only archetype I didn't play.

Ideally each class has advantages and disadvantages, that's how it should be. A melee fighter will have no problem fighting someone in close combat, but if he fights a mage who is far away from him he might be dead before he arrives to cut the mage's head off with a single hit. A stealth character should avoid direct combat at all costs, but he has the advantage that he can kill enemies with a single sneak attack or at least weaken them so much that he will kill them with a few quick additional hits. I imagine if you encounter a dragon with a stealth character you need to run and hide a lot, but that's how this type of character should be played imo.



Uhm...this is how it was in Oblivion already and it was terrible (albeit you rarely managed to kill someone with one shot admittedly, at least on a decent difficulty and without mods). Your friend, who is standing next to you, collapses after getting hit by an arrow and all you do is scratch your head and then return to business as usual? I hope it will not be that way in Skyrim, otherwise it sounds more like advertising dumb AI as a cool feature. Surely you should be able to hide again after you hit someone with an arrow, but it should take effort and require hit and run tactics instead of simply waiting in a dark spot until the enemy lost interest.

Judging from the trailer we have sneak attack animations. I think being stealthy will be awesome.

Sneak will work like in Fallout 3, with different levels (undetected, detected, caution, danger), instead of the "instant gotcha" from Oblivion. Don't worry, OP.

I hope with the changes to stealth and hide for Skyrim, it doesn't become game-breaking because there was a mod in Oblivion that did something similar to this and it was over-powered because you could literally pick people off one by one even if they're standing near each other. In Oblivion, I also found it unusually hilarious and stupid that you can fire an arrow at someone while hiding in the shadows, cast invisibility and hide for a while, then listen to the NPC say something stupid like "Must have been the wind" or "I better cut back on the ale, my eyes are starting to play tricks on me". Um, "the wind" can't blow an arrow at that speed to your body on its own.

What I would like to see in Skyrim is that if you managed to pull off a sneaky arrow attack and did not kill the NPC, even if your location isn't known, now the NPC will be on alert instead of brushing it off like it was "the wind" or "damn rats".

The stealth build just got more realistic. People dont fight trolls and dragons with daggers. Just use a dagger for assasinations and one on one fights, and keep a sword handy for battling big things. It doesnt break the RPG element, it just makes combat more visceral, giving each weapon a purpose, thus being a bit more realistic. I hate the RPG maxim that if you are an assasin, you somehow can only use a dagger, even when fighting demons. Thats just stupid. (from a certain point of view. from a number crunching, game kind of view its not, i guess)

Perhaps one way of close combat for stealth characters could be a perk under the sneak type tree, that allows players to cast a spell which puts out all artificial lightsources in (x) radius. Of course this would only work indoors or at night, dungeons etc. It could be put under illusion, but imo would be more usefull to stealth characters. This could allow the player time to sneak back to a hidden spot before the lights come back on, and resume stealth assasinations.

Might be ok, as long as the marauder or whatever AI is programmed to relight torches.

Magic is usually overpowered compared to the other two,guess that's just the nature of magic. At least this time, a mage can't increase endurance and intelligence, getting the best of both worlds, hp and magicka. Also, perfecting sneak and lockpicking should require a hefty perk investment, so at least the thief should finally be better at actual thievery than a hybrid build.

I actually think it is funny how you think it would be easier to kill a dragon with a sword than with a bow. Just saying.

I believe we'll have the best options for a stealth build ever. Since the three main perk trees stealth magic and combat, that will mean they have put a lot of thought into stealth.

Recently, while playing OB, I was in a cave and was able to get two shots off while staying stealthed before being detected by the clanfear I was attacking. Was kind of nice to get that extra shot in with the damage bonus, but the clanfear didn't even seem to notice or try to look around. Now being able to kill a person without being detected would be nice if only there was no one to see it happen. If someone does see their friend go down with an arrow or two to the back they should be on alert and seeking you out (both should be looking for you after the first arrow). Hopefully, if they do have different stages of stealth (not detected, detected but they don't know your location, etc..) the AI will be more effective at dealing with it be it stealth, chameleon, invisibiltiy, etc...

I'm sure perks will also give some nice features to make the stealth build more comparable to the warrior or mage. Maybe some "distract" perk where if you are detected but not seen yet you can do some kind of distraction to lure them in the wrong direction if they are searching for you. Kind of like the noise arrow in the Thief series, but without an actual arrow as I thought it was unrealistic to use it in, Thief 1 and Thief 2, and the guard would find this strange looking arrow and think nothing of it.

I am expecting it to be a better version of what we had in Fallout 3. In FO3, there was hidden, caution, and danger. Caution meant that somebody heard you, or knew you were out there, but not exactly where. They would get their weapon out and search in the direction that they heard you, saw something, etc. When they got close enough, it switched to danger and they attacked. Todd mentioned that Skyrim will have the "eye" thing like in Oblivion, but it will open and close depending on how detected you are. Instead of just hidden, or detected (like Oblivion), there will be a gradually changing detection.

They mention it in the demo they gave. In the cave, he shoots one bandit in the head, killing it. The other, while still saying something stupid, immediately goes looking in the direction that the arrow came from. Todd was far enough away, and well hidden enough to get a second shot off to kill the second guy before he was noticed. I am hoping that they will release the demo footage soon, so we can see more of exactly how things play out (HUD, menu, etc.)

Setting off an explosion is about as un-stealth as you can possibly get

Well I thought of it because the crafting skill of stealth is alchemy and bombs could be made with alchemy and while I didnt make myself clear last post I will now. Not all explosives have to be outright killing bombs. What about SMOKE BOMBS that buy you extra time to get away or hide or even allow you to do special assassinations from within the smoke. Todd Howard said that now if you wanted to flee you have to actually turn your back and sprint away, opening yourself up to attack. Stealth types and lots of protective armor do not mix and a direct hit to a stealth character like that could mean the end for you so why not throw a smoke bomb or flash bang bomb to get away without the chance of suffering a critical attack??????

Even if it wasnt used for stealthy reasons I think its a good idea. While I realise it is part of the archtype to be stealthy and not flashy I also realise that we wont be able to hide forever, we simply wont and as stated above in a round about way and by other the stealth archetype is not built to fight on the same terms as warriors and mages but they can fight on their own dirty, underhanded, sneaky ass terms. If these terms inculde making a vial of acid with alchemy and throwing it at a gigantic unsuspecting orc warrior that would demolish him in a fair fight then I say its fair play and is as sneaky and dirty as your neighborhood crook. It wouldnt alert enemies to your positions any more than an arrow to one of their heads its not like they can just say 'ohhhhh a bomb was thrown, you must be over here' if the AI is right they should be confused and scurrying on alert. And what if we coud just throw empty vials just to cause a distraction so enemies go to inspect it instead of head in your direction? What if an enemy will not move from a certain spot and you cant get a good shot with your bow? Throw something to get him out in the open and hit him with an arrow. Maybe I should have just suggested projectiles rather than explosives because I might have given the wrong idea. I think this is great.

MW was probably worse stealth wise imo, I could never figure out how to increase sneak, I don't think there were sneak bonus damages and stealing from stores was not as lucerative as people would have you think (not if you ever want to sell that specific item at that store at any point ever again at that store without getting the guards called.)

i dont think so, an assassin has many tools in his arsinal and i would consider a ninja to be an assassin as well,

Ninjas utilized a large variety of tools and weaponry, some of which were commonly known, but others were more specialized. Most were tools used in the infiltration of castles. A wide range of specialized equipment is described and illustrated in the 17th century Bansenshukai, including climbing equipment, extending spears, rocket-propelled arrows, and small collapsible boats.

Hitsuke - The practice of distracting guards by starting a fire away from the ninja's planned point of entry. Falls under "fire techniques" (katon-no-jutsu).
Tanuki-gakure - The practice of climbing a tree and camouflaging oneself within the foliage. Falls under "wood techniques" (mokuton-no-jutsu).
Ukigusa-gakure - The practice of throwing duckweed over water in order to conceal underwater movement. Falls under "water techniques" (suiton-no-jutsu).
Uzura-gakure - The practice of curling into a ball and remaining motionless in order to appear like a stone. Falls under "earth techniques" (doton-no-jutsu).

So, assassins, or stealth characters to make it more general, would use bombs as a means of distractions

Now in TEs, i could see this being used for both distractions and damage

I didnt like how every store had a guard right next to everything, like what? is every shop keepers wife/husband a guard?

Some more ideas that would be great:

The ability to shoot more than one arrow at a time would be good especially for opponents stronger than yourself.

Just a side thought to my 'explosive' idea, what if we could make stink bombs to clear out an area of enemies so that we can sneak through without fighting if we dont want to and even better knockout gas that puts enemies to sleep so we can off or loot from them however we please.

Dragons Bane Poisen. Poisen designed specifally to hurt and kill dragons.

Unarmed techniques like poking opponents in their eyes or throwing dirt in their face.

Maybe be spikes that can be thrown on the floor so enemies chasing you get a nasty surprise that allows you to take them out while their guard is opened.

Trap Setting. As much traps as we walk into wouldnt it be fun to set your own traps from time to time?

Thats all for now.

Stealth play sometimes requires a certain amount of finesse and strategy compared to Magic and Combat. It's probably never going to be as "easy" or "simple" as Magic/Combat in any game, but it certainly should be as effective.

The reports on massive dagger back-stab damage, vastly improved archery, and cool Dragon Shouts that silently teleport you behind the target tell me they are certainly trying to make it as effective.

Also remember alchemy is now part of Stealth, and there could be a number of awesome improvements in that field. Imagine better poisons with a better application system, smoke bombs, fire bombsk, flasks, invisible/chameleon potions..etc.

Exactly.

Shouldn't matter much about your bow concern. If you're playing it right you should use less arrows.