Assassin/Stealth Class!

[Nathxoxo]

Hey guys Nath here!

As we all know there is no best assassin stealth class you can be, but there is variations of it and each person likes to play it differently

As I plan to be remaking my character which will be a Stealth Assassin class I was just wondering if you guys could let me know how you like the play the class (race/birthsign/Attributes/Major Skills/style?) just so I have a general knowledge of the class and can make 1 that will work for me with your ideas

Yours truely, Nath!

[Ares2382]

Depends if you want to be up close and personal, knife in the back kind, or find a nice spot and put a couple of arrows in someone's head before they see you kind.

For the former, I'd go

Dunmer (really just my preference, and argonian or khajit would work here as well)
Stealth specialty
Endurance and Luck as my two attributes
The Thief birthsign

Majors:
Blade, Light Armor, Sneak, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration, Last one a skill of your choice.

For the latter, Pretty close to the above

Bosmer (But a Dunmer would do rather well here as well)
Stealth
Agility(or speed) and Luck
The Thief

Majors:
Blade, Light Armor, Marksmanship, Sneak, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration.

Great thing with Oblivion is that really you can totally ignore what I just said and still end up with a great assassin..... even if you play an Orc.

[Nathxoxo]

Depends if you want to be up close and personal, knife in the back kind, or find a nice spot and put a couple of arrows in someone's head before they see you kind.

For the former, I'd go

Dunmer (really just my preference, and argonian or khajit would work here as well)
Stealth specialty
Endurance and Luck as my two attributes
The Thief birthsign

Majors:
Blade, Light Armor, Sneak, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration, Last one a skill of your choice.

For the latter, Pretty close to the above

Bosmer (But a Dunmer would do rather well here as well)
Stealth
Agility(or speed) and Luck
The Thief

Majors:
Blade, Light Armor, Marksmanship, Sneak, Illusion, Mysticism, Alteration.

Great thing with Oblivion is that really you can totally ignore what I just said and still end up with a great assassin..... even if you play an Orc.

You seem to like using luck, may I ask why you like to take that over Agility or Speed? Also is it worth take both Blade and Marksmanship as majors?

Just wondering why you take Mysticism as well?

Also why is argonian or khajit better as meele and Dunmer / Bosmer better as marksmanship?

Thanks mate for all your help, you are helping me understand the game alot better

[Ares2382]

Ok I don't know how well you are familiar with the leveling system in Oblivion, if you're not familiar at all read Oblivion:Leveling - UESPWiki before the rest of my post. Otherwise it might not make sense.

You can get up x5 on each level up for 3 of your attributes. It's easy to raise your Speed and Agility very quickly because most of the skills you'll be using will be based on both of those attributes, thus you'll be getting x5 many times even if you're not trying to power level. However, there are NO skills that raise Luck so the only way to get it up really quickly is to get it as one of your starting attributes. This is also why I also get The Thief sign, it's not for the other attributes it's to get more Luck.

The reason you want Luck is because it effects absolutely everything in your game, although in a small way. All of your skills (except Acrobatics and Athletics) are raised by 40% of however many points your Luck is over 50. So it really pays to have a lot of Luck. (Also if your Luck is below 50 it will negatively impact all of your skills).

Also there are 2 schools of leveling in Oblivion. One suggests that you get x5 on 3 skills at each level up. The second suggests that you get x5 on 2 skills and add Luck as the 3rd attribute at each level (you can't get x5 multiplier on Luck since no skills are associated with it). I'm of the second school of thought.

If your Luck is 100, all of your skills (except Acrobatics and Athletics) are increased by 20 points!!!

This will not appear on your skills page, it's all done behind the scenes. So just trust me on that.


Why Mysticism?

As a stealth character, you want to be able to know where everyone is before they see you. Mysticism has one spell that's called Detect Life. What it does is allows you to see living being through walls (think X-ray vision). Hence it's useful. Also, not as important to the assassin type, but can't hurt, are the Reflect Damage and Spell Absorption spells.

As for which Race?

I like Dunmer purely from the fact that Dark Elfs are cool. If you want to look at it from a gameplay perspective though, they are still not a bad choice because they get +10 to Speed and Blade, +5 to Light Armor, Mysticism, and Marksmanship.

But if you're going for an Archer type, Bosmer is king
+10 to Speed, Agility, Marksmanship, Sneak and Alchemy
+5 to Acrobatics and Light Armor
(although with -10 to Strength you might want to avoid melee as you won't be doing as much damage)

And yes, you can have Blades and Marksmanship as majors. Nothing wrong there. Just remember in Oblivion, the only thing that having a skill as a major means is that you start with a higher value in that skill, and it's a bit easier to level it up. For example you can leave Blade off of your majors and still level it up to 100 by using it a lot and maybe paying some trainers early on to help you get the skill higher.

Also, just wanted to point out, it's often better to leave some skills out of your majors if you use them a lot. Alchemy is a prime example of this. It's probably THE most useful skill in a game for any character, but I will never recommend you put it as a major skill. The reason being is that it's will level you up very quickly. And the reason that that's bad is because the game levels up with you, and you will start facing stronger creatures, but since you were leveling up with mostly Alchemy your combat skills will be too far behind to fight against these creatures.

[Nathxoxo]

Ok I don't know how well you are familiar with the leveling system in Oblivion, if you're not familiar at all read Oblivion:Leveling - UESPWiki before the rest of my post. Otherwise it might not make sense.

You can get up x5 on each level up for 3 of your attributes. It's easy to raise your Speed and Agility very quickly because most of the skills you'll be using will be based on both of those attributes, thus you'll be getting x5 many times even if you're not trying to power level. However, there are NO skills that raise Luck so the only way to get it up really quickly is to get it as one of your starting attributes. This is also why I also get The Thief sign, it's not for the other attributes it's to get more Luck.

The reason you want Luck is because it effects absolutely everything in your game, although in a small way. All of your skills (except Acrobatics and Athletics) are raised by 40% of however many points your Luck is over 50. So it really pays to have a lot of Luck. (Also if your Luck is below 50 it will negatively impact all of your skills).

Also there are 2 schools of leveling in Oblivion. One suggests that you get x5 on 3 skills at each level up. The second suggests that you get x5 on 2 skills and add Luck as the 3rd attribute at each level (you can't get x5 multiplier on Luck since no skills are associated with it). I'm of the second school of thought.

If your Luck is 100, all of your skills (except Acrobatics and Athletics) are increased by 20 points!!!

This will not appear on your skills page, it's all done behind the scenes. So just trust me on that.


Why Mysticism?

As a stealth character, you want to be able to know where everyone is before they see you. Mysticism has one spell that's called Detect Life. What it does is allows you to see living being through walls (think X-ray vision). Hence it's useful. Also, not as important to the assassin type, but can't hurt, are the Reflect Damage and Spell Absorption spells.

As for which Race?

I like Dunmer purely from the fact that Dark Elfs are cool. If you want to look at it from a gameplay perspective though, they are still not a bad choice because they get +10 to Speed and Blade, +5 to Light Armor, Mysticism, and Marksmanship.

But if you're going for an Archer type, Bosmer is king
+10 to Speed, Agility, Marksmanship, Sneak and Alchemy
+5 to Acrobatics and Light Armor
(although with -10 to Strength you might want to avoid melee as you won't be doing as much damage)

And yes, you can have Blades and Marksmanship as majors. Nothing wrong there. Just remember in Oblivion, the only thing that having a skill as a major means is that you start with a higher value in that skill, and it's a bit easier to level it up. For example you can leave Blade off of your majors and still level it up to 100 by using it a lot and maybe paying some trainers early on to help you get the skill higher.

Also, just wanted to point out, it's often better to leave some skills out of your majors if you use them a lot. Alchemy is a prime example of this. It's probably THE most useful skill in a game for any character, but I will never recommend you put it as a major skill. The reason being is that it's will level you up very quickly. And the reason that that's bad is because the game levels up with you, and you will start facing stronger creatures, but since you were leveling up with mostly Alchemy your combat skills will be too far behind to fight against these creatures.

I must tell you how much you have helped me understand the game and I greatly appreciate it!


Once again thanks for the help!

[Fljotsdale]

I already posted my current char in another of your threads, so I won't include it here.

But I'd like to add a little bit.

Wood elves are nice. I like 'em, I play 'em. But they have some disadvantages:
1 Three of their attributes start at 30 (most other races only have 2 at 30). For male Wood Elves it's Str, Will, Per. For females it's Str, Will, End. If you use your +5 bonuses on Speed and Agility you have a very unbalanced char, imo, especially with Thief sign, cos they then have start values of
STR 30
INT 40
WILL 30
AGI 65
SPE 65
END 40 (male) 30 (female)
PER 30 (male) 40 (female)
LUCK 60

And I don't like that. The racial strengths are overbalanced by the race weaknesses. Sure, s/he can run from danger very fast, but it's hard to outrun spells and arrows! :laugh:

[Nathxoxo]

I already posted my current char in another of your threads, so I won't include it here.

But I'd like to add a little bit.

Wood elves are nice. I like 'em, I play 'em. But they have some disadvantages:
1 Three of their attributes start at 30 (most other races only have 2 at 30). For male Wood Elves it's Str, Will, Per. For females it's Str, Will, End. If you use your +5 bonuses on Speed and Agility you have a very unbalanced char, imo, especially with Thief sign, cos they then have start values of
STR 30
INT 40
WILL 30
AGI 65
SPE 65
END 40 (male) 30 (female)
PER 30 (male) 40 (female)
LUCK 60

And I don't like that. The racial strengths are overbalanced by the race weaknesses. Sure, s/he can run from danger very fast, but it's hard to outrun spells and arrows! :laugh:

Ah I see what you mean, hmm decisions decisions!

[Nathxoxo]

I have restarted my new character and gone Bosmer as I plan on using a bow mostly and they look pretty neat!

Ill taken Agility and Luck and then for majors: Blade, Alteration, Illusion, Acrobatics, Light Armour, Marksman, Sneak.

I didn't know whether to take Acrobatics or Armorer..What do you guys think would of been more useful? I have a save at the sewer gates so I can go back and change if you think armorer would benefit me more!

[Ares2382]

They're both useful skills, but neither one is worth restarting the game over. And as I said before. You can just train up your armorer skill by using it a lot. So repair every non-enchanted weapon and armor you come across. Find a trainer if you have some extra septims and pay him to train your armorer skill up, and you'll be fine.

[Ares2382]

Sure, s/he can run from danger very fast, but it's hard to outrun spells and arrows! :laugh:

Actually spells and arrows are quiet easy to dodge (unless the spells are area effect, but I haven't seen the computer use too many of those).

See if you're moving, the computer will aim his spell/arrow a bit ahead of you so that it will hit you. Unfortunately for the computer he assumes that you will keep moving in the same direction, so once you see that he's firing of that spell/arrow, just change the direction of your movement.

Assuming you're not standing 5 feet away from your foe, you should be able to avoid the spell/arrow most of the time, and pepper him with your own arrows in between.

But I still wouldn't take a Bosmer female, because yeah that -10 to endurance really hurts.

[Fljotsdale]

Actually spells and arrows are quiet easy to dodge (unless the spells are area effect, but I haven't seen the computer use too many of those).

See if you're moving, the computer will aim his spell/arrow a bit ahead of you so that it will hit you. Unfortunately for the computer he assumes that you will keep moving in the same direction, so once you see that he's firing of that spell/arrow, just change the direction of your movement.

Assuming you're not standing 5 feet away from your foe, you should be able to avoid the spell/arrow most of the time, and pepper him with your own arrows in between.

But I still wouldn't take a Bosmer female, because yeah that -10 to endurance really hurts.

You have a point, certainly; but quite often it's hard to spot where arrows are coming from, which makes them hard to dodge. Spells you can see, unless from behind you, in which case you get hit at least one or twice, if not more, before you dodge. And what about when you have several aiming at you from different directions? It happens! Not once your sneak is at a decent level, of course, but even so...

As for Bosmer females - I almost always use a female for any race or class, including Bosmer, and they work very well. I'm just careful to put the +5 bonuses where they will compensate somewhat for 2 of those 30s!

[Nathxoxo]

Was just checking my old Assassin character and my new 1, and on my old 1 I only have 32 sneak and 33 Marksman at level 5 and on my new 1 (just closed the first gate) I have 41 sneak and 43 Marksman and I'm only level 1..whats that all about? I took both of them as majors so I don't understand..Maybe thats why my damage was sucky!! 'Cause on my new assassin I am able to 1 shot some mobs with the sneak attack which I wasn't able to do on my old 1..

Is acrobatics a good major to take as an assassin then? I just didn't know what to take and this seemed most suiting for an assassin, closely followed by armorer for repairing magical items!

One thing I've forgotten to ask though is that when I level up and I get to put points into three of my attributes, which should I prioritize in maxing first for my class?

Thanks in advance!
Nathxoxo

[Fljotsdale]

Your Bosmer has an automatic racial +10 on both Marksman and Sneak. Argonians don't.

I like Acrobatics, so I almost always have it as a Major. I think most people don't. Acrobatics helps you jump higher and to climb better when you are in very hilly country. Both can be very useful to keep you out of reach of things with sharp claws and teeth, and people with nasty two-handed weapons. You can then shoot 'em with your bow or spells. Not so useful in caves or forts or Ayleid ruins, though. (Although in some Ayleid ruins an ability to longjump comes in very handy!)

Prioritise any that have 5 points - so long as you don't include Speechcraft (you can up that later - early on, concentrate on other things).
Personally, I aim to improve Strength and Endurance first; Str because your weapons do more damage if you have muscle behind 'em, and End because you want as much Health as you can get, to make you harder to kill!

It's probably a good idea to look up the racial characteristics and bonuses somewhere: Maybe on that Wiki link someone gave you.

A little tip: In the Imperial City, in the Arena segment, you will see an Argonian male and a Redguard female practising Hand-to-Hand. Watch them long enough for a nice bonus which will add points to Str attribute option when you come to level-up.

[Ares2382]

Flj (sorry it's too hard to write in full ) pretty much nailed it.

You need to raise your Str so you can carry lots of stuff, and also helps you hit things harder. Endurance increases your health. Basically, every level up you get 10% of your endurance added to your Health. But it's not retroactive, so it pays to get Endurance up early on.

But at the same time I would say don't waste your choice at level up on any attribute unless it has a multiplier (ideally x5), the only exception to this, imho, is Luck .

Acrobatics is a good skills, as mentioned by Flj, jumping on rocks and such is a good way to avoid some nasty encounters with the local wildlife. Some people think it's cheap, and expoits a flow in computer programming..... I'm not one of those people. But I rarely put it in Major. It's pretty easy to level it up, if you don't mind jumping everywhere instead of walking

And here is the link to the Wiki, literally a ton of information in there.
Oblivion:Oblivion - UESPWiki

[Nathxoxo]

So even if your an assassin class you would prioritize endurance over agility ? On my old character which is level 5 I have never seen the x5 multiplier, is there a way to make sure you will get it by the time you coming to sleeping and leveling up?

Also why would you want strength as an agility base character? It seems rather confusing.. lol! I would of thought strength would of been best for a warrior type character?

Anyhow thanks for the tips and advice its greatly appreciated, I'll give that website a read to see if it can answer a few of my questions. hehe

[Ares2382]

"So even if your an assassin class you would prioritize endurance over agility ?"

Even an assassin will get hit sometimes.... so having health is important. But as I said before, if you have a choice between x5 Agility and x1 Endurance, go with Agility, but if it's x5 on both I'd probably go with Endurance (but remember you get 3 choices at each level up, so it's probably good idea to pick both).

"On my old character which is level 5 I have never seen the x5 multiplier, is there a way to make sure you will get it by the time you coming to sleeping and leveling up?"

Straight from the Wiki

The amount you can raise an attribute depends on how many skill points you have gained in skills governed by this attribute (major and minor).

0 skill points grants a +1 bonus
1-4 skill points grants a +2 bonus
5-7 skill points grants a +3 bonus
8-9 skill points grants a +4 bonus
10 or more skill points grants a +5 bonus
It is never possible to gain more than a +5 attribute bonus when leveling up. Attribute bonuses not used at one level (or surplus points past 10 in the skills governed by an attribute) do not roll over to the next level.



"Also why would you want strength as an agility base character? It seems rather confusing.. lol! I would of thought strength would of been best for a warrior type character?"

Strength determines how much stuff you can carry (among other things). And trust me, there are ALOT of stuff to carry in Oblivion . It will benefit a warrior type more, but you should not neglect it.

[Nathxoxo]

"So even if your an assassin class you would prioritize endurance over agility ?"

Even an assassin will get hit sometimes.... so having health is important. But as I said before, if you have a choice between x5 Agility and x1 Endurance, go with Agility, but if it's x5 on both I'd probably go with Endurance (but remember you get 3 choices at each level up, so it's probably good idea to pick both).

"On my old character which is level 5 I have never seen the x5 multiplier, is there a way to make sure you will get it by the time you coming to sleeping and leveling up?"

Straight from the Wiki

The amount you can raise an attribute depends on how many skill points you have gained in skills governed by this attribute (major and minor).

0 skill points grants a +1 bonus
1-4 skill points grants a +2 bonus
5-7 skill points grants a +3 bonus
8-9 skill points grants a +4 bonus
10 or more skill points grants a +5 bonus
It is never possible to gain more than a +5 attribute bonus when leveling up. Attribute bonuses not used at one level (or surplus points past 10 in the skills governed by an attribute) do not roll over to the next level.



"Also why would you want strength as an agility base character? It seems rather confusing.. lol! I would of thought strength would of been best for a warrior type character?"

Strength determines how much stuff you can carry (among other things). And trust me, there are ALOT of stuff to carry in Oblivion . It will benefit a warrior type more, but you should not neglect it.

I see mate, so theres no attribute you should set out to max first, just which ever has +5 and will benefit you more?

[Fljotsdale]

So even if your an assassin class you would prioritize endurance over agility ?

YES! The less Endurance you have the easier you are to kill - think on!

On my old character which is level 5 I have never seen the x5 multiplier, is there a way to make sure you will get it by the time you coming to sleeping and leveling up?

If you want to improve a specific attribute, you have to work on skills that improve that attribute. For example, if you want to improve strength, you need to practice Blade, Blunt and Hand-to-Hand; for agility, practice Marksman, Sneak and Security; for endurance, practice Armourer, Block and wear Heavy armour (I never use heavy armour myself). If you place your cursor on a skill, you will get a pop-up telling you which attribute it is based on.

Also why would you want strength as an agility base character? It seems rather confusing.. lol! I would of thought strength would of been best for a warrior type character?

Well... yes. BUT... the stronger you are the more you can carry and the more damage you can do with weapons. Of course, going down the road of Strength and Endurance does take away from the purity of your stealth-type character...
But it's up to you how you want to play your character. You don't have to follow every suggestion that we make. They are just suggestions. Feel free to ignore anything you don't want to do!

Anyhow thanks for the tips and advice its greatly appreciated, I'll give that website a read to see if it can answer a few of my questions. hehe

I hope you keep posting in here as well.

[Ares2382]

Ideally, yes you want to take attributes that are x5, but again some are less important to you then others.

This would be my list of attribute imporance for you type of character:

1. Endurance
2. Agility
3. Luck
4. Strength
5. Speed
6. Intelligence
7. Willpower
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
85. Personality (don't even waste points on this, unless you can't select anything else).


But if you have to choose between, for example, x5 Intelligence and x3 Strength.... well there's no hard answer which is better.

[Fljotsdale]

We are going to disagree again, Ares! But not much

My order:

Endurance
Strength
Agility
Willpower (for speeding up magica regeneration)
Intelligence (for more magica - think of Chameleon and Invisibility)
Speed
Luck
Personality

But that is for a Stealth character. For a Mage type or a Combat type, the order would be different - but in all cases, Personality is THE least important. It gets you better reactions from people, but you can buy Charm spells that do the same thing.