I was just wondering if anyone could help me make a stealth/assassin build, I started as a plain nord shield and sword character however am quite bored. Iv seen countless youtube videos of people sneaking and dagger executing people, id like something like that

Should my skills be the following?

Sneak
Lightarmor
One handed (for sneak dagger attacks? or does that come under sneak)

I was thinking of pickpocketing? any advantages of that to a assassin?

thats pretty much all iv found
many stealth characters are archers but id prefer daggers, but that leaves me susceptible at long range

any help would be welcome

bump

Sneak, Archery, Alchemy, One-handed

I am playing a dunmer assassin right now and that ancestral guardian power really helps when you get surrounded by a lot of enemies.

Sneak light armor and one handed are good places to start, pickpocketing is fun, and good to level up while truckin with the thieves guild, but in no way necessary, essentially my suggestion would be to go through the guild quests asap, as the gear they give you will be very helpful. Most importantly be patient, watch enemies and how they move before you go in for the kill. often you can clear a room by just knowing how people rmove.

Pickpocketing is useless IMO. I'm going to use:

Archery
One handed
Light Armor
Smithing
Enchanting
Sneak

I don't think getting the quest rewards early would be smart. They don't scale to your level so you would get it at its weakest form.

Pickpocketing is amazing imo, especially when getting the steal weapons and items perks.
Lockpicking is something you simply shouldn't bother with at all, unless ur interested in that 50% chance of finding rare items perk. That seems useful.
Personality will help you get more gold, which is useless if you're not going to buy anything as a thief anyways, and intimidation perks are ok at best. I'd never spend points in personality at all.

I don't see a reason for taking armor and weapons. Most people have Iron or Steep items.

90% of the "build" threads seems to be about stealth, specified as assassin. I really dont see why people need "tips" on how to make one, use common sense and just play the game how you want to and you'll be fine, choose the perks that you'll have the most use of suitable to your style, I didn't have any trouble at all selecting perks as they are very well explained in the game.


Edit: I stuck with the traditional assassin class skills (what's left of it).

Sneak
Lockpick
Archery
One-handed
Alchemy
Light armor

Magic is for pussies. :twirl:

thanks for the suggestions
looks like its best to go with archery and one handed then, only thing which worries me there is if il be able to level up both, id predominantly want to kill everything i can with sneak attack daggers, i guess archery can be just for the dragons etc

You might want to focus on just 4 skill perk trees to start and then branch off after that. I wouldn't really worry about light armor perks as most of them regenerate stamina but if you have a high stamina you won't really need to worry too much about it and assassins shouldn't be getting into combat situations often anyway. If you do then your archery skill tree with slowing down time + your massive stamina pool should pwn anything and everything.

Even if you want to mainly use daggers you'll probably still use bows for a few things. (e.g. Dragons, sniping to thin out a room, wild animals like deer, bears, mammoths, etc...)

Something which no one ever seems to mention but I feel "belongs" with a stealth/assassin character is Alteration magic. The armor spells are nice, but mostly it's detect life/death and paralyze that "fit" in my opinion. Although if you are going that route you probably also want Illusion up to 50 and spend 4 perks for silent casting. Muffle and invisibility are nice too.

My list would be:
Light Armor (though with the right perks you can wear heavy armor and not have a problem)
One-Hand (though if you're using daggers most of the skills are useless, mostly just the +XX% damage at the bottom is useful)
Archery
Sneak
Alteration
Illusion

Pickpocketing and placing poisons can be fun as an assassin. Placing lingering damage health on Dark Brotherhood assignments is one of my favorites. Or now that the resistances are currently not working, I sometimes place a paralyze poison on a mage and proceed to hack at him while he lies on the ground as stiff as a board. Not really needed, but its fun.

Sneak - Backstab 15x damage with a dagger, then combine that with Dark Brotherhood gear for the double backstab and you will be doing 30x damage with a dagger for sneak attacks.
Light Armor
Archery - all of them
Alchemy - paralyze, resist potions, invisibility potions
Enchanting
Smithing

If you go blacksmithing + alchemy or enchanting you can craft really strong weapons to the point you really don't need any points in one-hand. I would advise not using benefits of alchemy and enchanting combined for smithing. It's too strong and not fun.

Enchanting gear with added damage for archery, one-hand, sneak, pickpocket, muffle, and light armor will pretty much make you a super assassin. Once you can dual enchant things, it's incredibly powerful.

I'm going around owning people on master with backstab and I haven't invested a single point in the one hand tree. I considered dual wielding daggers, but usually I end up just swinging my right hand weapon.

If you don't put anything in magicka, you end up pumping most levels into health. You don't need more than 200 stamina either.

Illusion is a good tree for an assassin.
I don't like to take followers along on a kill and sometimes multiple combatants can be tricky - Fury can help there by turning them against each other.
Also, Calm is excellent. Sneak in and back-stab one target, the second agroes and you cast calm. Then you can re-stealth and back-stab the second.

Pickpoket has the Poison perk which would be fun for an assassin. A knife to to throat\back works better but for immersion you can find your mark in the tavern, wander over to them, pickpocket and, in effect, poison their drink\food --> job done.

Have fun and kill-em all.

Playing a dagger-wielding character can be an exercise in futility without a high stealth, and dealing with groups can be a bit difficult at times.

Consider Conjuration for the Bound Bow, Bound Sword, and summoned help to fall back on.

Resist the urge to buy the Silent Casting perk. The prerequisite perks are not worth it. Instead, use Aura Whisper or Detect Life and cast your spells at a safe distance--if you're spotted, just fall back for a moment.

The perk for heavy armor states it weights nothing and doesn't slow you down, it does not state that it makes you less detectable

To the OP, the above build is what I'm using also. I've got a mask and ring that +40s sneak, and I've been putting perks in Archery to make it deadly at long range (which it is now). I have advanced lockpicking as well, and have found quite a few rare items using it, esp gems and the occasional large bag of gold. One-handed has been perked with dual wpns, increased speed, etc. Works well, but...

...I have found that my faithful companion Lydia, and my horse, sometimes have difficulty allowing me to sneak in outside environments. Even if I dismount after initially spotting enemies and tell Lydia to wait, there are times when my horse will just wade in to a bunch of NPCs on a suicide run, unless Lydia and I get lucky with kills. It happens rarely, but it does happen. I want to keep Lydia around for the extra loot carrying capacity, but sometimes (especially in dungeons/caves, etc.) she can go after a hidden enemy that I didn't see and make things "challenging."

Overall, though, this build works really well, and Skyrim rocks!

Oh, it's not that I want their items, it's just a kick in the nuts infiltrating the fortress with all of the guards trying to come up with an excuse when their boss comes back and they're all stripped naked with all the treasure they've been guarding missing.
Or if you get caught, it's funny watching them defend themselves with only their fists. It works great when playing on expert because they don't have training in hand-to-hand.

Personally I like to mix my assassin archetype with a bit of a soulstealing necromancer, tossing in enchanting, conjuration, and illusion from magic. Given how I seem to experience some horrible itch if I don't smith stuff, smithing is usually in too, sneak is a given, and that leaves an armor skill, in this case light armor.

So my list ends up as follows
1. Sneak
2. Light armor
3. Smithing
4. Enchanting
5. Conjuration
6. Illusion

I find that perking weapons is largely unneeded, sneak is really powerful, as is conjuration and (properly specced and leveled) illusion my build at 51 is as follows if you are curious as to the specifics of the build http://skyrimcalculator.com/#15070 (the heavy armor specs are for the deadric weapons at the end and the dragonscale armor)

Illusion is a must for an excellent Assassin. Invisibility's advantages cannot be overstated- especially if you invest in some magica. I do enjoy going through bandit camps like nightwalker.

My advice is not to try to build an uber character, but rather think of what type of character you want to play and give him/her the according skills. By uber character I mean anything that is combining enchanting/smithing/alchemy. IMO, you're gonna get the most satisfying game by limiting yourself to one of those. I went:

Sneak
Pick Pocket
Alchemy
Archery
1 Handed
Lock Picking

If you have a muffle enchantment ie
then noise from armor is eliminated. There is a perk that reduces noise from armor by 50%, meaning it has 0.5 muffle.

In addition to what others have said, try to get Throw Voice and Aura Whisper dragon shouts as they are very useful. Also, 'You' will need to develop these perks - patience, observation, timing.

My thief/assassin is around lvl 38 or so. I stck with the core trees if you will

Sneak - It leveled to 100 all on its own since I sneak thru all dungeons. The damage bonuses are pretty awesome, especially dual daggers with the 2x gloves from the dark brotherhood.
1-hand - at around 70-75 at this point
Archery - 75 ish Playing sniper is a lot of fun.
Light Armor - 70 ish.
Smithing - I have refused to exploit this one so I didn't get to even 75 on here til lvl 37 so I could make glass armor and weapons. I only go up a few points per level basically. No enchantments, but do use balcksmith pots and a pair smithing gloves I found to help enhance
Lockpick is around 70 but I have no perks

Restoration - So far my only magic tree. I use heal when I'm resting after a fight if I can rather than swill all my my potions.

well yes you can use that particular daedric armor..