How to mix Magic & Stealth, that is the "million dollar question" of tonight.

Purpose of mixing Magic & Stealth is to come close to a perfect build for an character that loves sneaking and loves the beautiful fireworks of magic (chaos & destruction)

... perhaps not chaos, but sometimes things just get messy, you know? ...

So you want to have the power of Destruction but still want to be stealthy when you feel it's needed.

Imagine you want to join the Thieves guild first then the Dark Brotherhod after.

So how would you do it?

Work only with Invisibility from Illusion school and forget Sneak, or put points in Sneak aswell?

Would you use Conjuration for Bound Bow or use Destruction with Quiet Casting to assassinate your targets?
Or would you just keep a Dagger around?

Would you use Alteration for the armor when there was much chaos and less sneaking around?

Or would you use Conjuration for summoning the undead?

I personally want to create a character that is a Assassin\Thief but with the power of Destruction.

But I have to drop something to get something, unsure how to mix Magic & Stealth, maybe you got some idea.

I sneak just about everywhere and put a few points into the Sneak perk because I had no other use for them.

Otherwise, Sneak + Throw Voice (casting something ranged has the same effect) + Fireball the group

Aura Whisper is also very useful.

Cool!

But do you or anyone else know if you really need to put points in Sneak for Stealth if you use Invisibilty and Muffle to move silently and unseen?

Sneak + Archery + Destruction

You don't even need to put any perk points into Sneak... one or two if you like but that's it.

My sneaky assassin character likes to use fury/frenzy a lot against crowds - sneak up and get everyone fighting each other while they stay out of the way, then creep in and mop up any survivors. Calm anyone who catches them, then kill them while they're all mellowed out. For me, illusion is a must for sneak magic.

No conjuration at all unless for roleplaying reasons you wish to only use the bound weapons and the soul trap spell that's fine.

Definitely go for illusion to manipulate the enemies minds turn them in each other and so on, you should get invisibility and muffle you need one to work with the other. You will also require silent casting that is essential. You should get sneak and archery, maybe one handed too and use daggers for the sneak bonus. In saying that get sneak. Think about alchemy for poisons to give your sneak attacks even more of a punch. Alteration might be good for detect life and telekinesis for roleplaying reasons or stealing. Also paralysis is a treat tool for any sneaking mage or Nightblade like character.

You could think about destruction in case for whatever reason you might run out of arrows.

i don't like playing with destruction. it's arrows with color, for me, and why a lack of spellmaking is beyond insane.

the management of specific spells for control and manipulation adds so much depth.

the same reason why warrior-type combat in past games has been poor. no secondary skills, traits, perks, attributes, whatever, to off-set the button smash repetativeness. must have specific warrior, sword/shield, mechanics. at least, if depth is desired. (and, enemy a.i.)

My assassin never carries a weapon. Conjuration to summon bound weapons, illusion to augment stealth and use mind altering effects, and destruction for when stealth fails.

I don't think, "get everything" is a useful answer.

But I don't want to become like an Illusionist Thief\Assassin.

After reading your replies, giving this some thought. I came up with this idea:

• Destruction to keep in touch with being a Magic type of character.
  
• Alteration for better armor as I will only wear cloth and also to make the most out of Paralyze.
  
• Pickpocketing to keep in touch with being a Thief type of character.
  
• Illusion for Stealth (using Invisibility and Muffle + Quiet Casting all together)
  
• Perhaps Enchanting to increase my power of Destruction and so on..

I think this come close to a playstyle where you focus on Magic but still sneak around, doing your thing with Thieves Guild & Dark Brotherhood without the Dagger & Bow, will it work?

I did not say "get everything" they are different perk trees to consider. They are general ideas on what I think could work for a stealth magic character build.

Also how is the suggestions I listed not useful they are all good ideas for a stealth mage. The only two must have skills on my list is illusion and sneak those two are a must for a stealth wizard, are they not? The other things are just ideas. I have used a few off that list for a few Nightblades or stealth like mages.

i just don't get the application of destruction with a thief. for me, destruction use with non-mage type characters is strange, unless, a spellsword type is used. fun, maybe, but, rping i don't get it.

In more details:

10 points in Illusion for Dual Casting, Quiet Casting, Calm work on Undead, Deadra and Automatons and Expert Illusion for mana efficiency as I don't feel the need for area effect spells in this school I drop the master.
9 points in Destruction for Dual Casting, Master Destruction as you can use Invisibility to charge up Master Destruction spells without being seen.
9 points in Pickpock for most effective chance of not getting caught when pickpocketing. Then Perfect Touch so you can take their armors off, may help with the process of assassinating the person.
9 points in Alteration for Dual Casting, Expert Alteration and Stability with Mage Armor so you can take few hits for sometime.
If you want, add 4 more points in Alteration to get a better magic defence aswell.

At this point you should be level 42!
So you can get Enchanting for instance with 100% stronger enchants, 25% stronger skill enchants, magicka enchant 25% stronger then two enchants on same item!

Sounds good?



You see it from a different perspectiv because from my perspectiv it's an Assassin or Thief that use Illusion to do his bidding and want to avoid using Destruction because it causes so much harm to everyone around him, everyone close to him ends up dead. But he is not strong enough to fight this Magic so alot of the time, he can't hold on to his burden and unleash fire and destruction upon his foes! Perhaps the part where he is doing his assassinations, he puts the enemy to sleep with a kiss of death (Paralyze \ Alteration) to show mercy before finish them off with a quick zip of lightning, just a inch of magic. It's bit of a balance game for this poor Assassin\Thief that live with this burden of magic, yeah?

If you don't think it would work roleplaying wise, give it a go here. Read above what I just wrote

It could work roleplaying wise if you had a thief trained in destruction. What he want is a sneak mage not an illusionist thief assassin.

muffle...it's a spell that makes you quiet. There you go, mix of magic and stealth

pure thief for me is nope. assassin gains secondary skills, for me. my lore is pretty ingrained, lol.
destruction is anything but a secondary-type skill. secondary level-up, sure.

paralyze, illusion, alteration, and all such are good to go! but, not with the straight thief.

No, they're not. Really, you only need Illusion OR Sneak. You don't need both. My character is 86 in Destruction, 100 in Sneak, and probably 20 in Illusion. I get by just fine.

My more general point was that you listed 7 areas for him to pursue: Illusion, Sneak, Archery, 1-handed, Alchemy, Alteration, and Destruction. That's too many. It's best to start with a core of 3 or 4 and then work from there. And four of those are overlaps. If you have Sneak, you don't really need Illusion. If you have Destruction, you don't really need 1-handed. And then a fifth, Alteration, is just kind of unnecessary for a Sneak/Destruction character who is going to focus on doing damage quickly, not absorbing any hits.

Magic plays very different than archery. Its not just arrows with color. Moving with arrow drawn is way slow until you get a perk. Does it become full speed with perk? Someone else can answer please. Casting spells is far easier aiming, and if you cast electric there is no time of travel so they have no chance to dodge. And finally there is no aoe for archery.

One does not have to max out all of the perk trees. I gave some suggestions to choose from maybe I should have been more clear. The OP said he wanted a sneak mage. You can get one or two of the base sneaking perks if he want to use daggers maybe advance to the damage multiplier. Then you could advance in illusion to get the silent casting perk and go as far in that as you wish, I think for a sneak mage it night be good to advance at least to expert in that skill so you can control the mind. Archery or destruction pick the one that best suits your build. I stand by alchemy that is a good perk tree for any character build. With some of my mages I keep a one handed weapon as a back up with only one damage perk in that tree.

I just gave some general ideas that could be built upon I thought I would not have to break it down.

You are right about choosing three to four main skills to branch off of, but you can put only one perk in a perk tree a twenty or forty percent sneak boost would be very helpful for any stealth mage build even if they had illusion maxed out.

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That's your build right there. Be a Breton, use Lord Stone or Atronach. You are pretty much immune to magic. Can effectively Sneak and kill any targets. Magic from two schools is free to cast.

Muffle is highly useful at lower levels (= lower Sneak level).

If you wear armor, there's a perk for that in the Sneak tree.

If I played a sneak thief, I'd ignore Destruction almost entirely and go for thief/assassin magic:

Invisibility/Muffle
Paralyze
Destruction for runes (early on)
Arrows for misdirection (substitutes for throw voice - or use Destruction and firebolt/icebolt to draw out enemies)
Arrows for poison
Daggers for sneaky, stealthy preciousss

Once sneak gets high enough, you can cast a rune on a draugr coffin and it will explode and draw out that draugr. At this point you'll want to kill the draugr.

Nightblade style.

I do illusion magic though instead of destruction. Cast calm on enemy, sneak up to them, dagger to the throat. Mwaha
or if there is a bunch of enemies in one room, i cast frenzy on one of them and let the rest take care of itself
I enjoy playing this way even if people say that Illiusion magic is useless and a waste of time, i think its fun.

Untested, but how about alchemy & bow combination to give them some weakness to magic effects? You don't even have to perk up the bow all that much, or some of the sneak perks. Can make your sneak and silent casting make better effect of any runes and other effects you decide to put in.

Even better is you sink an arrow into him and kill him before he even gets up

If only there was a Bound Dagger spell for Conjuration, only one that is missing. I don't get that. Kinda silly if you ask me they didn't take that into the game for some mysterious reason!