Just a quick question: If you take the steed stone or the heavy armor perk, it says your gear you wear doesn't weigh anything, but does this count toward you being detected by other NPC's?

Thanks in advance!

yes, it does

Heavy armor sneaking is totally viable. Just get the weight reduction perk you mentioned and the muffle perk in sneak and then later silent movement and your golden.

Thanks for the quick reactions. And it's exactly what I wanted to hear Heavy armor assassin incoming!

Heavy armour sneaking is even more effective than light armor, you need weightless armor and the ebony mail. It has a unique muffle effect that no other chest piece has, combine that with muffle on shoes and you will be a sneak god.

Two muffles together seem to stack, you are then completely silent.

Heavy armour sneaking is viable from the outset, for the typical situation in which you hope to assassinate your opponent before they detect you.

Until you have the perks / armour mentioned above, you may find it convenient to don ordinary clothes (or go naked) for a few special missions where you definitely want to sneak past.

The Ebony Mail (Beothia's Calling) only applies muffle on the armour itself, not the rest of your gear. The way that it shrouds you in shadow and poisons enemies who gets too close is awsome though. Not for archers though as the shroudin effect gets in the way of aiming at targets. Dark Brotherhood Shrouded Boots or Nightingale Boots will muffle all your gear (not sure how well if works with heavy armour though. Since you're aiming to be an assassin I presume you'll join the DB and will then defnitly use the gloves from the Shrowded Armour for the backstab bonus. Which leaves only your head for which you might as well add the DB hood to give you 1 x heavy armour and 3 x light armour pieces.

If you really want only heavy armour try to get the enchants for fortify sneak and muffle as early as possible and put some perks into enchanting so you can make some good quality enchantments.

If you use the Steed guardian stone you don't need any perks in heavy armour except Juggernaught. and Well Fitted. You also do not need the muffle perk from Sneak as this is provided by your DB/TG boots (unless you want to go full heavy armour of course).

Personally I prefer light armour and medium HP to keep things interesting. I mean what's the use of sneaking if you can go head to head with a giant? If your life depends on remaining unseen and unheard then every dungeon becomes a fun game of cat and mouse with the mouse hunting the cat.

Once you get the right perks, yeah.

Thanks for all the input, very helpful. I posted it 'cause i like crossovers in playstyle, and maybe try to go H2H or something special. This SHOULD keep it interesting

I made a heavy armor / two hand melee / stealthy Orc and it is a lot of fun. Sure, I don't get the one hand stealth bonus, but nothing says "Surprise!!" like a warhammer to the head when you least expect it.

I found one muffle to be more than enough to allow me to RUN pass someone from behind without alerting him.