All in all, I'm quite satisfied with sneaking and the way the mechanic works. However, there are a few things that bug me, and I was wondering if anyone had advice/suggestions--perhaps a mod that can help?

For example: If there are two or more NPC's in a room, and I sneak up and instantly kill one of them, the others will often times not even acknowledge that their dinner partner is now dead.

My sneak skill is at 99 and I'm wearing a ring of peerless sneaking, which may account for some of the issue. In the daytime/light areas, this isn't a problem, but if I'm in a dungeon, I can often stand right in front of an NPC and not be seen, even after I've killed his companions.

Anyone else notice that sneaking can be a bit unrealistic at times?

P.S. I haven't taken many sneaking perks. Just one or two at most.

Thanks

Indoors sneaking is extremely overpowered. Outside it is far more "realistic". Even at night my thief/assassin can be detected when outside. But anywhere inside he basically becomes invisible.

The skill's description may be faulty here. Perhaps "Sneaking and Visibility" skill would have described it better. It is more than simple sneaking.

Your Sneak Skill is 139 and you wonder why you are so effective at it? Seriously?

If you want to svck at Sneaking, then don't increase the skill to 99 or wear an item that increases your Sneak Skill even further. Or, take a companion or wear Heavy Armor Boots or Run While Sneaking.

I will never put perks into sneak again and now only use a sneak attack bow if I see a distant enemy ... to hell with crawling around a dungeon and 1 shotting everything. Sneak makes combat too easy and I dont understand how crouching can make my arrow do double damage ...

I think it has to do with how shadows are factored in as aids to not being detected while in Sneak. Outdoors, even at night, there are usually very few true shadows available to lurk in, nearby to whatever you are sneaking up on. Indoors, any area that isn't in the direct shine-path of a lightsource, seems to provide really good hiding potential. And the darker shadows make you purely invisible, unless the enemy happens to have a really high innate detection ability.

Does raising your sneak skill past 100 (with items) actually make you even harder to detect? I had been going on the assumption that the level cap of 100 was a hard-cap, and anything beyond that was wasted... was I wrong in that assumption? Does that apply to all the other skills as well?

With Perks giving you increases in your skill, then it stands to reason that skills can be effectively over 100. Otherwise, there would be no reason to pick those Perks that increase your skills power after a certain skill level.

^^that.

Take for example armsman perks and fortify 1 handed enchants. They are fortifying one handed skill.

the mechnics is very simple, i agree. There are not covertures ala MGS, also there are not enough elements of distraction (except wasting arrows) . I feel myself casting chamaleon spell more than sneaking.

You misinterpreted what I'm saying here. I don't want to "svck" at sneaking. That would defeat the purpose of being a rogue style character. Rather, I'm commenting that sneaking sometimes feels broken. I don't care how good I am at sneaking, if there are two people at a table and I creep up and slit one's throat, the other should at least have some sort of recognition. Maybe he doesn't see me, but he shouldn't just continue eating his dinner.

I'm also well aware that using enhanced equipment will cause my character to be better at sneaking. But this is more than just perks and skill levels. Even w/o my ring, the example I used above about the table killings, still happens.

In the game, enemies notice whenever I kill someone while sneaking. They also start looking for me. My Sneak is only at 74 or so, but it is buffed up to just over 100 with an Enchantment. So, get rid of the Peerless Ring and you might get more of what you want. However, I also have a follower clomping around in HA Boots too. They find her when they start looking and ignore me.

The other thing to remember is some NPCs are just not that Aware of things. Some are and those are harder to Sneak around.

I'll try w/o the ring. Thanks!

You can get the same sort of thing with long-shot archery. For example two bandits are talking together and you drop one of them; the other will run around for a while and then go back to his/her original position saying something stupid like, "I guess it was just the wind" or even worse, "I guess I was imagining things". The person he was talking to a couple of minutes ago is lying dead with an arrow sticking out of their still warm corpse. FFS!

Such behaviour is, I think, a big flaw in the game. However, with my Nord warrior character I don't suffer from it - all the bad guys 'n' gals know when Rupert is around.

I think the real problem is when you kill a NPC and the others around him/her stop looking after, oh MAYBE a minute. They would be up, out of their chairs, and searching the whole dungeon. THAT would make sneaking around a little more fun. People get mad when you shoot someone in the back of the head and they die, then their bandit buddy gets freaked out (as he should), but after a minute he decides he's tripping on skooma and it's his imagination.

I totally agree with you there. He may not be able to see me but he sure should see his mate fall over dead and react to it. I honestly wish the NPC's acted more like the deer in the game. At least the dear become alert when one nearby is killed and they run for it. I would like to see NPC's be more alert to what is going on around them and act accordingly. They don't respond when they should and even when they do respond they drop from alert status way too fast. It would be cool if, when you killed his mate, he would pull out a torch and look for you. That would give him a much better chance of detecting you in the dark. Things like that would at least make it a bit more difficult and fun.

the AI in this game are one of the dumbest in the game, seriously.
- i kill a bandit
- another bandit starts searching and stands right next to me and says "i was sure i heard something"
[censored] i just killed your friend infront of your damn eyes

The reason for this is quite simple, really. Your target was clearly not the life of the party. Either that, or the other NPC will assume the target drank too much and passed out.

I typically only put a point into the first sneaking perk so I can branch onto the other perks, like the muffling one or the one that allows you to not trigger traps. Sneaking is way overpowered while indoors, but I am not complaining about it

I was sneaking around in a quest area yesterday with my archer, when I saw a guard some ways off.

I shot and killed the guard who fell backwards into a table, and kind of stood there, leaning over said table.

At that moment I shift left a little and then saw a second guard sitting at the table, only a few feet from the guard I'd just killed. He was looking at something on the table and I expected him to get up and start looking for me.

But, that never happened. He just sat there, not paying any attention to his dead friend. Really surprised me since when you kill one, usually the others know someone is there.

I'm playing a character that doesn't level up, so no skills or perk points. I do miss some of the sneak skills, though. Like the increased damage.

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