Making a Nightblade, focusing on Sneak and Illusion. Gonna be backstabbin' people, but want a ranged option as well.

I'm thinking for when I'm wandering outside and don't want to sneak up on everything little thing, ranged would be good. Or if I backstab someone and they don't die from the first shot, back off and ranged attack to finish them off.

I'm not looking for which is the del facto most powerful, because frankly I'm already worried this build will be a bit too powerful (stealth + illusion by itself can be gamebreaking). I'm moreso looking for which can be most fun and interesting and why!

Looking for opinions, the more detail the better!

Nightblades traditionally use destruction magic being that theyre a hybrid (usually) of Mage and Assassin. In Morrowind, Destruction, in Oblivion, Destruction. If you dont use destruction youre not really a nightblade then. You'd be a thief or assassin that uses a couple beneficial magick schools

Destruction has more options than archery.Not only the differant elements but you could cast rune spells and wall spells also.

Yeah, I'm sorta leaning towards destruction. I don't feel that having just illusion + maybe alteration is enough on the magic side to be nightblade. Maybe I'll throw in some archery on the side too later on. Thanks for the comments!

Since you're more concerned with fitting a Nightblade role and variety as opposed to the most powerful, I'd say go with Destruction. It certainly fits the role more, and I hear Illusion + Runes is pretty fun though I've never combined the two myself.

That said, its mostly up to opinion whats more "fun". I know I personally prefer magic to archery, but others I've talked to thing Archery is far more enjoyable.

go conjuration, take bound bow, it's a weapon, but it's magic.

Well, I used destruction earlier in the game, but sneaking and archery has me staying hidden and sniping Deathlords in one shot.... Destruction is cool, but an invisible Assassin in the shadows is the choice I would make.... Everybody plays their own.....

On adept/ above sadly destruction will start falling behind on your nightblade- especially since you are only using 1 hand for destructiom you wont have impact stagger, dual cast, and probably will have more enchants to support stealth and bladd damage rather than cost reduction.

In a power standpoint destruction will not compete with archery. I use runes alot (with rune master) that is where destruction comes into play for me personally. You can create traps use chokepoints
And help with zoc with runes.

If you are on a pc you can fix dedtruction and get mods to increase the number of runes you can place- i suggest the latter for +fun times.

Does destruction work? Sure. Also if you are using stealth take silent casting- with high sneak you can spam destruction and not blow your cover.