Could you guys help with different builds or tips. I've never done a thief. I've always been a good guy warrior type that fights for honor. Also, could you give me tips on RP aspects. Do you do quests or what? I like to justify my reasoning for doing a certain quest. Does your thief character have any motivations besides money? Any advice is welcome. Thanks

Could you guys help with different builds or tips. I've never done a thief. I've always been a good guy warrior type that fights for honor. Also, could you give me tips on RP aspects. Do you do quests or what? I like to justify my reasoning for doing a certain quest. Does your thief character have any motivations besides money? Any advice is welcome. Thanks.

Edit: I don't think I want to be an assassin type and probably wont do the DB questline. I'm thinking maybe toward a Robin Hood philosophy; take from the rich, give to the poor. Idk, help. Lol.

This iPod is frustrating.. I only meant to post 1 topic and I can't find the delete post button on the mobile version..

Don't start the MQ.

Hook up with the Thieves guild as early as possible to get fences. Steal until your hearts content, within rich houses, guild halls, Shops, Hold Keeps, other places of interest in towns, as well as doing things for the thieves guild. The thieves guild is long so you wont have to worry about rushing through it as much as other guilds.

Good, stereotypical races for a pure, PURE thief, are; Khajiit (Their makeup and even culture is based around thievery and deception), Bosmer (The most agile of the races, although its not represented in Skyrim, and the most skilled with Bows. Natural sneak thieves), rounded out by Argonians, Dunmer, Imperials, in no real order.

A Bow, Dagger, or your hands are your only back up, and your prerogative is to steal without getting caught, and only fighting when cornered, or for financial gain, etc.

Companion wise, you actually should go solo. If you still want a companion, a sneak, archer, or assassin type is good (although you'd have to go through the DBH quest line to get an assassin companion, or use mods).

Thanks. Do you have any advice as far as the skill trees go? Besides the obvious sneak, archery, light armor. Is there any others that work pretty well or is that about it?

I never steal or do the Thieves Guild and always play a good character too. This time though, I've been working on pickpocketing skills. If it's someone I like, I reverse pickpocket them a gold ring or something nice and if it's someone who's not nice, I give them a dead fish. It tallies up in the stats as a pickpocketing but items stolen = zero. It's sneaky, fun and the anxiety of not getting caught is still there. Good luck.

Haha that's awesome. Does it you level or just effect the statistics. I kind if want to do something like that except reverse pickpocket the poor or people I like and completely wipe out greedy rich people. That guy in Whiterun comes to mind.. I think his name is Nazeem.

Pickpocket everyone you can. If you're with the thieves guild you get off at a reduced price and get to keep your stolen items (I believe). If you want to truly RP as a thief I'd recommend not using weapons and reverse pickpocketing poisons if you truly want to kill someone. I have a Khajit named Zidane (based off a Final Fantasy character) that is a thief but dual wields as that was how he was in FF9. He can pretty much steal anything from anyone including items/weapons that an enemy has equipped which fits his style of character as he was very crafty in FF9.

I love being a thief, in my opinion best way to play
1. I'm always a khajit
2. I head to the guardian stones and get the sneak boost
3. I only steal from the wealthy (or a poor [censored])

If you take a stealth archer all you really need in the sneak perk tree is one point in stealth to get the +20% sneak ability.
After that perk the right side of the stealth tree,on the left side only muffle is really useful.
The others are kind of so so.
You will most likely need to put points into light armor,pickpocket,lockpick,and maybe even speach,depending on your roleplay.
Most of all just have fun,thief characters can be challengeing but they can also be alot of fun.
Oh wait! I allmost forgot Alchemy,it's extremly powerfull but it does take alot of time to develop.
However the benefits are more than enough to warrant putting alot of perks into it.

Are you sure you want to start a thief character? You've only made two posts about it.

My thief is a pacifist. He often casts calm to avoid confrontations. He prefers to sneak by rather than assassinate. But he steals everyone's sh!t.

Didn't mean to post twice. I'm on my iPod and couldn't figure out how to delete one.. No need to be a smart ass. <3

Do you want to be a thief in the Dungeons and Dragons sense, i.e. some guy who goes into dungeons and fights dragons, but happens to be the only guy who can pick locks, or a real thief?
The first build needs light armour, one handed, and bizarrely, archery according to most (archetype mixed up with profession, if you were going to break into someone's house, would you take a longbow?), the second needs pickpockets, and speechcraft maybe, and with any sense would spend a lot more time in the towns. This is where you hit problems. If you level up without combat, the enemies get tougher than your character, so a career of thievery, then deciding to do big quests, can be impossible, as you can evade detection, but that doesn't help with 'kill' quests. My advice, playing a pure thief can mean missed content; if that doesn't worry you, have fun.
Mix those two up somehow to your taste, add in the obligatory sneak, work out whether any lockpick perks are even worth it, decide whether your role play allows for illusion or not, and away you go.

Perhaps you should steal only from badguys if your used to playing goodguys, in the words of Sly Cooper "If you rip off a master criminal you know your a master thief"

Actually, heavily role playing any character type means missed content in some sense.

Damn right. I have one character, a healer. No way I would dream of joining the Companions, DB or Thieves' with her. What I mean is a lot of the radiant quests can be combat heavy, as well as the factions and main.

If you're gonna use a bow as your primary weapon, then I'd recommend you get the perks that increase bow damage ASAP, and the perk that triples bow damage whilst sneaking, as they REALLY REALLY help your character kill things early on and increase your chances of surviving. You will also want to invest in sneak perks that decrease your chances of being detected, but your main focus early on should just be getting your archery up.

Also, DO NOT invest any perks into lockpicking or speech, as they are completely useless, and getting them to level 100 without investing perks into them will suffice. You can pick any locks with ease without the need of any perks when it reaches 100. As for speech, you would only invest perks into it to make money off of NPCs, but in this game money is really easy to come by, making speech perks obsolete.

I also always start these games as a good warrior, and later play a thief. With Skyrim I did the opposite, but with a difference. I created a "good" thief, or lets call it "rogue". It's not actually a thief.

I decided I wanted to play the game as a good-aligned char, but I wanted the fun of being a sneaky char. I ONLY use these skills: Speech, Archery, Light Armor, Sneaking and Lockpicking. I ignore any other content like alchemy, smithing, enchanting, magic, etc...

As for RP, being a "good" rogue, I don't steal anything from people (don't even have Pickpocket), neither pick anything from shelves, barrels, etc... even if it's flagged "white" (pickable), and even if it's an object I really want, as player. It just sits there, where it is. I only loot dungeons and abandoned forts and castles. I open chests, unlock traps and kill my enemies with an arrow from dark spots I sneaked to. I ignore any quest that makes me steal an object (for instance a book from the Bards College). I also ignore quests which only way of ending it is persuading or intimidating someone into something I consider unfair, like lie to get a ring, just because a Daedra asked me to. I judge the situation myself and if I think the NPC doesn't deserve that, then no quest for me. I mean that I have them in my journal because I started it (without knowing what it is about) but later I realize that it doesn't fit with my char.

So, that's basically my current "thief" character. I plan on doing a real thief later (after I play a mage or warrior), a more evil and selfish one, with those same skills, plus pickpocket, and one handed instead of archery, for using light swords and daggers. In this case I will join both Brotherhood and Thieves guild, something that I didn't even touch with this current character. Will also do a lot of quests that were "undoable" with this char.

I don't know if this helped or not, but just wanted to let you know my playstyle in case it gives you some ideas.

Have fun.


EDIT: Note to all those talking about "missed content". That's why this is a sandbox RPG and not a pre-set storyline where you just pick a class you want to play, and play the same game as any other char type. Here you can stick to being an evil Mage, and later create another char which is a good warrior, that will play different quests, do things differently, have different items, etc... It's not "missed content", it's just playing almost two different games. In my case I have bought all houses in game, but someone could want to roleplay a person who loves Whiterun and does not want to know anything about Solitude, which means that only visits it for business, and leave, so no house there for him, at least with that char.