My first character was a sneak archer. Abandoned him at level 25 because he was one-shotting most NPCs and two-shotting bosses and I was getting really bored. Haven't touched sneak ever since, which is a shame because I like the creepy crawler type of gameplay. Has anyone managed to make it less overpowered through self-gimping?

My idea is to have a sword and dagger assassin that lands a nasty sneak attack with a poisoned dagger, then either falls back to sword and dagger toe to toe action, or bow kiting when up against hard hitters. Here are two possible builds:

• iron weapons only, no DB gloves, fully perked sneak: probably won't work because max, fully perked sneak turns you into the invisible man.
  
• standard gear with no sneaking bonus, unperked sneak: don't know how hard it is to remain undetected with unperked sneak. Anyone tried it?
  

Yep. A sneak archer, didn't wear any 'fortify sneak' enchantments. Still has difficulty with enemies, although I admit I don't play him much anymore.

Yes, my permanent level one character has sneak maxed out at 100, but since she can't use skills/perks, the distance at which NPCs can see you is greatly increased.

And sneaking in front of a guard because he won't see you, that's out of there lol.

PS: And she wears the DB boots - muffled and silent enchant - well I can hear her walking, so I don't know how that works.

I've never felt the need to gimp myself, I sneak and I kill everything. I like it, the game let me be that strong so I embrace the overpowered-ness of my character. Makes me feel, uh... powerful.

I haven't really noticed it isn't balanced tbh.

For the record Niamh is a sneak archer, she has no enchantments nor has she any enchanted "sneaky" items, in fact all she has from that point of view is a pair of archery-enhancing bracers, but they are only low-level.
Such perks as she has for these are developed as close to organically as is possible.
She's a very good sneak and a very proficient archer.

No db gloves, no smithing 100 damage daggers and 500 damage bows, play on master. Done.

pretty much the same for me, if im an assasian and im taking on a room of thugs i would expect my ''arrow to the head/heart'' to actually kill them then i snipe as many off as possible, or weaken then and then finish them with kiting or a few melee strikes....i dont see a balancing issue at all to be honest but then again its probably the way i play and perk etc.

Turn off the HUD so you don't know the detection level. Trust me, it makes it harder.

Eh, I didn't really notice any imbalance. But then again, I wasn't planning on getting Sneak to 100 so fast, or to use archery so much. I wanted to create a melee character who focused on dual wield blades and restoration. So now I've got a sneaky dual-wielding swordmaster who uses her bow for long-ranged offense and restoration for defense.

Anyway, if I'm not careful, I still get noticed when sneaking (e.g. in plain light, near stronger or alert enemies). And I still have to shoot several arrows to bring a leveled falmer down (alright, simple falmer and bandits die after one, but that kinda feels satisfying. Shouldn't waste effort on those weaklings). And well, I only chose the perks which looked realistic aka not over-the-top in my eyes. I stopped at the Muffled movement perk from Sneak, if I sneak over a pressure plate I didn't notice in time, then the game surely shouldn't correct me. Not to mention the Silence and Shadow Warrior perks ... (you can still perform a silent roll without the perk if you really want to, you simply crouch, jump and hit the sprint button when you touch the ground) Oh yeah, and I like to use the orcish bow instead of ebony or whatever, I just like the design more. Plus I RP with the arrows. ^^

So yeah, still having fun with it. I only got surprised at the speed my Sneak skill was progressing. But I like to listen in on conversations, not alert 'sleeping' draugrs and animals, and/or use surprise attacks.

Probably by not using sneak perks and not using bows and arrow you can make your game sort of balanced.

I'm currently using one character like this...

Weapons: dual scimitars ((base damage 11)
No enchantments or smithing bonuses
1h skill : 100%
1h perks: almost all of them (not those giving critical bonuses)
Stealth perks: only 3x bonus

With a sneak dual wield standing power attack I can almost kill a draugr overlord, a master mage or briarheart in one swith move. I say almost because some health is left after the first strike but not enoguh to survive another single attack

Try Path of Shadows at
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10456

Not having much problem with my sneak/archer type at the moment. (Of course, it's still one of my normal "hybrid" builds using a bunch of skills, so it's not like it's just Sneak and Archery). Lv 44, Sneak and Archery are somewhere in the mid-70's? They're not close to fully-perked, I've had too many skills that I wanted to spend some perks on. Sneak is up to 3x bow damage, and Bow has..... 4x overdraw and some crit? Daedric bow w/soul trap and some fire damage. Can't two-shot bosses, and definitely can't come close to two-shotting upper-rank dragons.

I'll have to check later and see what my menu-listed damage is.

edit: ok, it's a bit better than I remember. But I hadn't seriously arched since the last equipment upgrade. Also, I think dropping my folllower helped.... I suspect I wasn't getting some sneak-crit-bonus shots with her around. Still, I doubt I could two-shot higher-rank dudes. The one I just did was a draugr scourge.

2 hitting bosses? have you tried putting the difficulty up, unless your blacksmithing equipment and using alchemy and enchanting, I didn't think that was possible on master. I just fought a random guy on the path to Whiterun (he was boss lvl) took about 50 arrows to kill, maybe more and each did 25 odd damage, if you've fully levelled sneak and archery with all perks then maybe this is possible on master and id say that's to be expected at end game, there will be tougher bosses though.

I have enchant, alchemy and smithing at 100.
Level 63 dunmer assassin/thief and part time mage.

Glass bow and lots of daedric and ebony arrows.


In short:


One Shot.
One Kill.
No Exceptions.



Badness Defined.

You can be powerful with Sneak, or you can be weak with Sneak. It is all in how you develop your character, what items you use, and what tactics you employ.

If you don't like the results you are getting, change one, or more, of those three things.

Well then. Was able to three-shot Deathlords. Definitely seems like Mjoll was cramping my style.

(Of course the drawback to not having Mjoll along revealed itself soon after. Made it to the "boss room" of the dungeon, and opened the door on a Deathlord and Death Overlord. Who noticed the door opening and attacked. No sneak attacks for you! )

i'm attempting a sneak - light armor - dual wield build. we'll see how it goes

I like te idea of one shoting, yet I haven't made an archery character yet despite having it since release

1 point in sneak, 1 point in backstab, and 1 point in deadly aim.
Forsworn armor, bow, and axe with no enchantments.
No potions or magic that enhance the sneak skill.

Sneak is sill a fun and interesting challenge and I can get spotted if I move too quickly or walk in front of someone.

one could make the argument that everything in skyrim is op, which make sneak balanced

or you can just not put any perks in the sneak tree

I want to be weak with it. Thing is, I'm not sure such a thing is even possible. Maybe if I only used an iron dagger, didn't perk sneak, and refused to use the DB gloves. But even unperked, does max sneak keep you invisible? If so, then that doesn't solve anything. It'd just take much longer to take someone out, but I could still do it in complete safety.

Easy, best way is to take a Heavy Armor wearing follower. Or, wear Heavy Armor Boots, Obviously, not using enchanted items that help Sneak is another way. In fact, until I got the Nightinggale Armor, my Sneak Attacks were limited to the first one, after that, the NPCs saw me and would rally to my death. Or try to. My Sneak is in the 70's, almost 80 if you were wondering. I have some Perks in the Sneak Tree, but only one in the first, and just a couple of the other Perks.

Hmm, I didn't think of using a companion. That's a fantastic idea, thank you. I hate companions, but if this opens up a fun build for me, I'll tolerate it. Know any good mods that make them smarter?