My friend and I are sitting here obsessing over our characters, trying to figure out how we're going to play our assassin/thief style characters come Skyrim. Without either of us having played the game, we are both very curious what the consensus is among the thief community regarding playstyle. My first question, is how are you guys planning on dealing with the "point-blank" situations. When an enemy has survived your barrage of arrows, and is now directly in your face with a war-axe, how will you deal with it? Will you commit to bow, running backward and continuing the assault, or do you have plans to switch to sword and shield, or dual wield, or spells? My second question (for those of you that have studied the perks), is what perk trees your are planning on focusing on (list specific choices if you have the time). We're spending so much time trying to figure out things for ourselves, that I think it might just be more beneficial to throw it up to the community for advice and input. Cheers!

Your topic couldn't have had better timing, I'm dealing with the exact same questions.

I'm interested in the communities thief/assassin build strategy as well.

Since you are going to focus on your 1h skill to get the best out of your daggers, you should also always carry 2 swords cause they will benefit from the 1h perks so you can deal good damage with them in direct fights.

I'm not planning on doing any stealth-based dagger kills, but do you think I should still perk into 1H just for the dual-wielding capabilities in a direct fight?

I certainly will

My first stealth character will be heavenly invested in illusion (going for the silent casting perk). So hopefully there will never be more then one enemy left when hostile attention gets focused on me. If I end up face to face with a melee enemy, then a bit of two handed destruction magic will likely fix things.

In case of close combat, I was thinking the re-hide ability in stealth, also leveling destruction for the magical traps, or possibly using illusion for invis.

My biggest concern is how many points should I put in lockpicking and pickpocketing. I want to be good at both, but I don't want to gimp overall damage.

What about the rune magic I've seen? Think there's any usefulness to these abilities from an archers perspective? Potentially slowing enemies down for damage-over-time?

Use of poisons and a skillful application of illusion magic will quickly get that annoying barbarian out of your face and you back into the shadows

If you're a true rogue, they won't get a chance to fight back

I will be a thief, not an assassin. Just a sleazebag, not necessarily cold-blooded. Bow, short bow, unless its totally gimp will be my preferred method of erasing disturbances, but when the going gets tough I'll be ready to scrap. Do whatever I can to survive. Not sure I will have a default backup plan as I won't be able to account for every detail of every situation even with careful planning.

For my first play through I'll likely be a Wily Berserker. The majority of my perks will be going into Alchemy, One-Handed, Sneak, and Illusion with a minor focus on Light Armor, Archery, and Enchantment. My tactics will vary depending on the situation.

For lone targets I'll try to snipe them silently with a bow, If its a closed and confined space I'll pop an inviso or chameleon spell up and to try to close in with dual daggers and take advantage of the 15x dagger sneak attack damage perk.

For large groups I'm probably going to toss subtly out the window. I'll likely open up with dual-casted Frenzy spells to get them fight each other. From there it's going to be whipping out poisoned dual axes, chugging some buffing potions and charging straight into combat. I'll probably be swapping my left axe to cast Fear or more Frenzy spells if the fight drags on to avoid getting ganged up on.

If I'm low level in a straight up fight I depend on sword & shield, poisons, and luck. Once I reach a high enough level I though in paralyze (poison or spell) and invisibility. The only enemies that gave me a gripe were attarchocs (sorry for the spelling), liches, and the spider deadra

I usualy would roll with a bow as primary and use illusion as a secondary "combat supplement" if they get to close you have plenty of options you could paralyze them, demoralize them, or just disapear giving you plenty of opertunitys to finish them off at your lisure.

This is hands down my preferred play style.

For the "point blank" situations as you call them, I feel it is a common misconception people seem to have about the play style. There seems to be a stereotype that if a thief/assassin is not fighting from range with a bow or using a sneak attack they are vulnerable and weak. This is completely false. In these situations what I would do is switch to my dual wield daggers (or your 1h of choice), I always make sure I keep my weapons poisoned with alchemy. Alchemy is a huge and often under-utilized aspect to this play style. It if course take forethought and preparation but that is one of the things I really enjoy about it. Also there is no reason that magic should be forbidden. I don't care to develop this significantly but I don't consider it taboo either. My plan is to stick with primarily just the Illusion tree as I think it will offer quite a few spells that will compliment the play style well (i haven't seen the full spell lists so can't say for certain if I will do this).

As for perks, I haven't looked through the full lists, but I have heard or seen a few I defiantly plan on getting. The x15 sneak attack dmg with daggers.... hmmmm yummy , move silently while in stealth, etc

Pretty much I plan on focusing my perks for these skills in order from most important to least important. Of course this is subject to change since I don't know the full lists yet.

Stealth
Lock-picking
One Handed
Illusion
Marksman
Alchemy
Speech
Light Armor
Smiting
Enchanting

It could seriously help a thief to learn illusion and alteration, with maybe destruction bonus. While the damage output from dual daggers will *suffice*, learning paralysis, defensive spells, and the ability to juke away with invisibility for a second sneak attack would be extremely strong. With destruction too, you can swap in an iceball enhanced with the Impact perk to interrupt, slow, and weaken enemy warriors. If Frost attack damage fatigue and slow enemies, your faster attacks can easily bring down a greater warrior, moreso if a frostball staggers him and you can swap back.

A thief's combat is about having tricks up your sleeve. A thief will lose in toe to toe battle. Just be ready with a crippling spell or escape path.

Sprint away. Equip dagger. Stab em in the face with a burden poisoned attack.
Renew arrow bombardment

My sig should pretty much be the motto for us in this thread.
Here's what I'll look like once they're foolish enough to let me in a city. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcNeaButEWg&feature=fvst btw, does anyone know if removing light sources is in the game?

I haven't heard if it is or not but I doubt it. Would be cool though.

Is not paralyze now in alteration???

My thieves only use shortswords when faced with direct combat. My Dunmer thief in Oblivion learned some basic Destruction magic, but that was more out of experimentation than character Roleplay.

My second planned character, a Neutral Evil Argonian thief named Skeeme, will not use magic. At least as much as I decide that he doesn't need it. I am trying to Roleplay a bit more in Skyrim as opposed to kind of just doing whatever I wanted in Oblivion. Skeeme will rely on daggers and shortswords as well, and I may shun the shields in favor of dual wielding during direct combat.

As for archery, I didn't enjoy it at all in Oblivion, so I never used it. I will give it a try with an open mind in Skyrim, though.

thieves dont fight, if yoru caught your doing it wrong

that siad, my trickster will whip out the daggers and illusion

For me it can come down to what mood im in and how the people react towards me initially. I don't mind a little conversation, but keep it brief. And it better be interesting. Not the "I saw some mudcrabs the other day" line or you'll find yourself with less worldly possessions when you wake up the next day.

In unwelcome circumstances, I like to keep my trusty dagger in one hand and use the other hand to steal the daily earnings from their now empty pockets. If the situation gets too big for me to control, I use my speed and agility to escape far enough away for me to go into hiding and reset myself for the next task at hand. A bounty on MY head? Please and thank you.

It's a rough world out there, so you had best adapt to it. As long as it's to your advantage.

Guess i will decide when ''X'' situation arises

If you are an assassin, and find yourself fighting face-to-face...

You have failed. There is only one thing left for you to do....

Seppuku.