Since I already have a thief kind of character (dual daggers, probably alchemy for poisons ect.) I was wondering if there was a way to make the assassin a little different. I would like to not use bows with him, though, but I fear I'm running out of options. That's why I thought I might want to make him a magic based assassin, but I don't have much experience with other schools of magic than conjuration, destruction and restoration (my main's line of work ) and those don't appear too helpful for a sneaky guy.

What spells/schools would be best? I'll try to go dagger in left, spell in right hand. I'd prefer to wear magic apparel instead of light armor, would that work?

(By the way, I forgot where, but somewhere in the game I read somethign about "middle armor". So far, I've only seen Light and Heavy. Misunderstanding?)

Spells are hard to do as an assassin because they alert people unless you have the silent cast perk and it's fairly high leveled perk. I like bows and feel as an assassin it would be a choice weapon but if you don't like em then you don't like em. Next best would be daggers with 15x dm this will kill almost any non-essential NPC in one strike with a strong enough dagger; the down side is you need to sneak up close. My dunmer assassin used sneak one handed archery smithing and enchanting as main skills. Another issue with magic is that the range and AoE are hard to control and fine tune. I would recomend going with daggers and maybe alchemy to poison people.

It's not that I don't like bows, but I already have a bow using character. This is where throwing daggers would've been a nice addition to the game. I do not plan to do much with this assassin, pretty much only the DB questline and maybe the daedric stuff. Couldn't invisibility and that stuff help getting through dangerous places?

invisibility can help you get through danger if you cast the spell or drink the potion away from the targets. Also doing any combat or activating anything will break your invisibility. If you don't want to use bows. Try getting the silent roll perk. It will allow you to roll towards a target fairly quickly so you can strike while their back is turned. It's not very effective against rooms full of people. I agree with the throwing daggers or some other option would've been great to have

Guess I'll go with Illusion and Alteration. If I don't want to invest into Enchantment, is there a place I can let it be done for gold? I was able to ask someone at the Mages' but he said I should do it myself. (Was with anotehr character, maybe too high own skill?)

You can do what I will do for my new character.

Dagger in right hand and spell in left.

One-handed
Light Armor
Illusion (cast RAGE, Fear, CALM and invisibility. Since you don't want to use a bow, sometimes it will be useful to cast a fear or RAGE spell, to distract enemies or make them flee, giving you space to hide and wait the main prey to come.

The illusion build for a stealth is perk-expensive but it worths since you'll follow the paths of the "rage and fear works on higher level animals and human".

Also, bows are great for sealths. But it's your call.

I just played my assassin 'til lvl 40 and the only things you really need are Illusion with silent casting for invisibility and the sneak tree... Next priority would be one handed (remember that only the first perk affects daggers!!!) and then light armor.
But seriously, if you want to keep a bit of tension when sneaking up to your enemies for the kill: leave Illusion out. It makes everything too easy, especially when you got the Silent Casting perk.

How far can I cast Rage? Haven't been able to test it properly yet, but do I have to get close?

No. It's distance spell. You can shoot from anywhere. Not sure if it has any range limit, but I think it's "to the horizon and beyond".

i actually just rerolled a character and i'm currently level 16 assassin (cant say thief but i pickpocket as much as i can)

my basic perk build planned is: sneak, one-hand, light armor, archer

altho i'm second thinking about doing 1-hit kills with the bow since it takes off all the challenge of being an assassin (tho i know i'L need archery for dragons)

i'm also thinking about dabbing into a little bit of magic and i'm thinking Runes perhaps.. my style would be, set up runes (does anybody know if placing runes alert enemies?) stay back then use my bow (if not reachable by daggers) to lure them into the runes while they're searching for me.. kinda lika a magical trapper style since we dont have physical traps here in Skyrim.

my character is a level 40 imperial thief / assassin, and i′m not using any magic in my playthroug... I think potions and poisons is more the way an assassin would play arround.

With a good Sneak and with 15x bonus damage with dagger when sneaking, you can make a great assassins... You can also make 30x damage if you backstab with a dagger and using the Shrouded Gloves from DB.

I′m wearing a Nightgale armour with a Shrouded Cowl from DB and it looks preety awesome:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/raelbr/screenshot/650998151632665768

A huge tip that makes dual daggers unstoppable. Enchant both daggers with 1 second paralyse, if you have 100 enchanting and the perk, enchant fiery soul trap/soul trap also. You will get 300+ enchants and due to the speed of the daggers (further augmented by the dual speed 1h perks) you will paralyse most things very fast.

My own rogue/assassin is currently lvl 31.

No armor (jester outfit + hood), one dagger (usualy mehrumes razor or the blade of woe), a bow to distract foes only (time to go get the throw voice shoot) and of course no follower.

Just have perks in sneak and alchemy : if sneak fail a good poison is often enough to dispatch any foe, if outnumbered I just took an invisibility potion and run to hide away. Speech, lockpicking and one handed gained lvl too but no perk spent here (enough fence with 4k gold, lockpicking is a joke and one handed not needed : sneak kill or poison do the job).

Once alchemy is finish leveling I think i will go with pickpocket and illusion.

Only dragons are a problem, I avoid them as much as possible at the moment .

Maybe I don't have difficulty high enough (Adept) but I found all I needed for an assassin was sneak + illusion. Didn't even raise one-handed much, just got the best dagger I could find (added smithing to the mix later on). Go down the sneak perks and get the x15 dagger sneak attack modifier.

Muffle is awesome, and casting it raises illusion fast. When enemies were turned away from me I found I could run up close with muffle and then sneak at last minute and backstab them.

Once I got to 75 illusion for invisibility, I found I could many times lose enemies after being attacked, and get a backstab in still. And you can always get a calm spell for the same reason.

Muffle isn't really necessary once you get one of the "weightless armor" perks for either heavy or light armor. Played through on Master both Archer and Assassin Style and didn't use invisibility either. Maxed out stealth for "Shadow Warrior" is kind of a must have anyways and together with "Throw Voice" and a couple of "Fortify Sneak" enchants you can basically sneak up to anyone in plain sight.

Couldn't find much use for Alteration since most opponents will be a one shot anyways. If not using a bow at all Illusion might come in handy. I use -100% illusion gear just for the fun of it on my archer at the moment and it's at least somewhat funny to cast mayhem silently in the middle of a bandit camp. Still Enchanting, Alchemy and Smithing might be the most useful skills besides one-handed and Sneak obv.

The only thing I find a bit weird is that you cannot play as a "lefty". Left hand seems to be considered a "secondary slot" as you cannot even use poison on a weapon in your left hand. It also seems a shield will always be equipped in the left hand. (?)

And you can't hotkey left items. That's annyoing.

That's sad, you know.

A sneaking character with Illusion is just... evil. You creep your way through dungeons casting rage in crowded rooms to make enemies murder each other and then cutting the throats of anythings that's left. I actually found that it became to easy, I snuck through an entire dungeon just casting Illusion spells and became quite bored.

An illusion based assassin is a ton of fun. You can come up with some creative ways to clear rooms. E.g. shooting an arrow at the wall then casting fury on the gathered enemies answer let them tear each other apart. Illusion opens up some fun doors.

Also make it a little more challenging by not using daggers. The silent sneak attacks from then are OP and a bit unrealistic since enemies don't notice their buddy dying dead.

i dont know where you all get your patience from.. i tried a "sneaking" dude and got board very quickly , its just TOO slow.. bish bash bosh please...

i mean the devs have already designed this game to be slow i just couldnt play if it was even slower

edit.