First of all hi everyone, been lurking for a while since release, been loving the game to death since release to @.

My first playthrough was a 1h/dest/heavy armor battlemagey type build, played it on normal difficulty and kind of breezed through everything tbh, im sure alot of people found normal difficulty to be a little underwhelming, however....

I now am on my second playthrough as an assassin type character, currently level 14, playing through on expert and theres been a couple of times when i've had to back out of dungeon crawling/run away from a group of hitmen etc..

The most recent example i can think of where i really had my ass handed to me was during the quest "The only cure for madness", or something similar, a dark brotherhood quest in which you have to plough through a dungeon near dawnstar. For anyone that has done that quest, jesus christ i really struggled against the two bosses, to the extent where i was quicksaving after every sucessful hit!...

Im not sure if its because of the difficulty or because im playng a squishier character, or if its a combo of both, but i'd like to know how other thief/assassin type characters are doing, and if they have any tips on how to survive and deal out damage better?

Currently havent looked into enchanting or smithing, and i dont have any named weapons, just using steel daggers. Would really appreciate some knowhow from some fellow stealthy bastards! (especially since i've read that stealth types are supposed to be able to break the game rather quickly.... i'd rather that than the game break me )

Get yourself a decent bow, sneaking and archery skills. Enchant the bow if you can and get some perks to increase the hit bonus in sneak.

Other than that, if they get close enough, pull out a two hander and power attack.

I've got an orcish bow and a couple in the first perk for archery, so far its only been my weapon for taking down giants and dragons because i get 1 hitted by them if i get up close and personal. Ill start levelling that though as i do love using a bow, but i really
had my heart set on being a badass dual knife guy, is there anyway to make this at all viable? Just getting destroyed at the moment, and i dont want to use a two hander it just seems so unassassiny... will if i have to though guess...

Option 1: Sneak, with sneak perks for archery damage, plus archery with archery perks for damage, plus an exquisite bow (made via smithing), plus good arrows, plus poisoning the first arrow = a ton of multipliers and damage stacks

Option 2: The same perks above for sneak, but by using a dagger with the 6x damage perk for sneak attack. Need to use invisibility potions or be really really good at sneaking. You can also fire an arrow to one corner of the room to lure people away while you get into position.

Option 3: I use a combination of sneak with all the archery damage bonuses, and then a one handed to finish them off. All light armor/unarmored.

Good points, i will definately sink some points into my stealth/archery. Presumably i should get into alchemy and smithing then aswell, guess i was really diluting the art of assination

the niggling part of me is worrying about the unavoidable, unsneakable, unarcheryable (terribleiknow), moments - like boss fights and ambushes etc, i just dont know what to do in those situations!

thanks guys, more tips appreciated!

I think it would help (I'm not sure as I haven't used it yet) to use the stealth shout where you whisper and it takes away some of their health