Lets face it alot of people realise that you can go through most tes games without ever needing to max out your security and sneak skills and you can still excel without being fully agile or acrobatic but it seems to me that if you max out these skills and play the game like a thief you can have alot of fun even though gaurds wont ever approach you and ask you why you are sneaking around and jumping from roof to roof

I'm assuming you're asking why alot of people don't play as thief's.
I don't because I find being a thief to be boring. Never liked sneaking around and trying not to be caught doing something. I'd rather take something if I like it and pay the bounty or off the guard that tries to arrest me.

Stealth is great fun - most of my character tend to have some sort of stealthy component to them.

I prefer being an Assassin to a thief, as an Assassin I seem to have more freedom.

Most of my characters are some sort of assassin/thief.

I love it. Don't see why so many people think its useless.

Who said it's useless? I love breaking into other people's homes and grabbing all their things, or putting it all in a drawer!

I like being a sneaky bastard and steal things under people noses. They are not meant to be combat-oriental anyways.

This

I think you may be underestimating other people. No one is going to tell you that being a thief, or having thief skills is useless or lame. I usually have sneak as a skill, because it makes closing oblivion gates a breeze.

A thief can't do everything, but no one is going to say that the thief is underpowered or doesn't do what its meant to do well.

I use sneak in most of my games, it allows you to avoid fight when for instance your health is low and you dont have any potions

Unfortunately, TES MQs don't seem to lend themselves to true Thief gameplay. Oblivion was the worst as it forced you to fight head on too much. I don't think you really had to fight in Morrowind until the end. Now if you could successfully sneak and attack on a thief's terms throughout the game then it would be a worthy endeavor to play as one.

I play a thief because paying for things is for svckers. 'nuff said.

Can I ask the relevance between thief and assassin? One steals, the other kills. Link pl0x?

But one couldn't sneak in Morrowind, without use of magic...
Or unholy, cheat-like sneak levels.

I play a mage. One of the great perks about playing a mage is taht we get all of those fun spells such as detect life and chameleon My mage is always also a thief, sneaking into places and cleaning out the house then having the owner come back the next day and notices nothing (great AI) and I walk along like nothing happened.

edit: almost forgot we even have the open lock spell

Umm.... I snuck around all the time in Morrowind. With a Redguard assassin, no less, and I hardly had unholy cheat-like sneak levels.

O rly

Ya rly

Srsly, it wasn't as forgiving or as easy as Oblivion's stealth system, but it was workable. Very touch-and-go, coupled with a lot of slip-ups and getting discovered. But after some time, I could still sneak around fine. Not constantly and not everywhere; I couldn't crouch-walk around Balmora all I wanted and not be seen, but I could get away with it in dungeons and in interiors. I could get away with it where and when it counted.

Any estimate of how high your sneak level was?

I love sneaking!






But the fear of getting caught and the temptation of using the Invisibility armor is far too great for one such as me.

Prolly around 60-70. Lots of creeping around awkwardly behind scribs to train it up at early levels, and lots of purchasing training as well.

I loved the thieves guild in ES4, because none of the TG quest in that game required any type of combat. I personally like building some of my character around non combat attributes to fit the whole rogue/diplomat build.

Nobody answered my question though.
What's the logical link between thief and assassin?

Both must be stealthy, remaining unseen. At least that's how I look at it...

I liked plaiyng as a thief in Oblivion... Not to mention "THIEF" the game. I just hated that huge eye right in the middle of the screen. Could that have been any more obstructive? I like sneaking around in the dark whacking people and being deadly as the night.

The abilities of thieves can be useful, the skills of a thief in sneaking an security allow you to get at things others might have trouble getting to, as you may be able to slip items away without alerting anyone nearby, or unlock locked doors and containers. Their abilities are also useful in dealing with the enemies that populate many parts of the game, a thief could try to sneak past enemies instead of attacking them, or if you must kill an enemy, you could use stealth to gain a sneak attack bonus to damage. Though I find being a stealthu character more fun in Oblivion than Morrowind, aside from the stealth system being a little better, the Thieves Guild quests were also more interesting, Radiant AI also added to being a thief, as you could wait around until the owner of a house or shop was asleep or gone, then break in and steal things, much more intereting than walking up to the completely unguarded second floor and take things without any effort, or the owner even coming to see why some shady looking Khajiit walked in his front door, went upstairs, and spent an unsual amount of time up there. On the down side, without mods, there isn't all that much that's really worth stealing in Oblivion, and you can only sell anything you steal to specific merchants, in Morrowind, you could sell stolen goods to anyone except the person you stole them from, and some places had some pretty valuable things to steal, especially the great house vaults (which, sadly, if you were strong enough to kill a few ordinators and persuasive enough to taunt them into attacking you, you could rob without being a skilled thief and not get any bounty.)

As to whether I use thief skills, it depends on the character I want to play at the time, though even if I make stealthy characters, still take a few weapon skills, as even if you sneak past every enemy you can, at some point, you'll likely have to kill someone or something.



That would be it, assassins try to kill people and thieves try to take things from people, both often rely on stealth to do this.



It is possible to sneak in Morrowind if you get your skills high enough, the only problem is getting your skills high enough, without training, I've found that raising the sneak skill can be quite difficult at lower levels, of course, it's not like you won't have enough gold for training.