I very much enjoyed the DB quest line. It seems set so it can be done many different ways. There was only one quest where I had to deal with guards and that was scripted. Others, I simply was never seen. Although I love Oblivions hooded DB, I do prefer the leather armour looking Skyrim DB. The red on top of the black gives them more identity, otherwise DB outfits from oblivion may of ended up looking like mages or greybeards a bit here.

As for the kills. As someone else said, I personally would stalk my victim. Look for a spot I can shoot an arrow from sneak and not be seen, sometimes even in the same room as several people, then get out quick. If I feel more daring, then I will attempt to get the dagger sneak kill animation. And as for armour, I did prefer the nightingale chest stats to shrouded, but the same set bonus was better, also the stats on ancient shrouded armour meant my assassin Bosmer only wore the DB set as I was not putting points into smithing or enchantment. The bonus to sneak attacks and arhcery damage to a character that uses both were insane for me. As for the armour rating, you cant really expect to be a stealth killing machine, or if using some archery expect not to be weak when someone gets up close, the idea is to move, slow them down, kill them. Honestly level 50+ my assassin can not stand there and straight fight many enemies, but this is fine as I will switch to bow and create some distance. Same applies for mage, make distance and punish.

This is why I stopped playing mage and went Warrior, quite fun to actually get into peoples faces and fight.

I never once got a bounty on either my thief or my assassin. To me the imaginative ways of killing should rest with the player not the game design. The most challenging, and fun, kills are not the ones that take place in solitary locations. Those are the boring ones. The real challenge is getting away with it when other people are around.

Actually that particular quest is easy to complete while out of site of all the guards if you pay attention to your surroundings.


For the most part though, I think I will agree with most people here. the Dark Brotherhood assassinations in Oblivion were far more entertaining then in Skyrim. Especially if you wanted to get the bonus rewards for killing your targets a certain way.

With one of my Characters I'd just walk up and stab the target, and then pimp slap all the guards as they try to go crook.

It's a bit of a lol.

That reminds me of one of the first DB quests in Oblivion, where you tell Rufio a line and he says, "GOD, NO!". I was hooked after I made him wet his pants before doing the deed.

In skyrim, killing the Emperor was the only fun mission for me in the DB, and i agree 100% about the suit. It is horrid but i dont finish the TG on my main assassin ton because yu sell your soul to Nocturnal and Sithis is not pleased with that, so i cant have NG armor.

It’s not that I don't like it; I just kind of find it silly that I could slash a person’s throat in broad daylight in front of everyone and can just pay to get out of it, especially when I kill someone of great importance like a politician. It's like if I stabbed President Obama or vice President Biden to death in front of a huge crowd then just paid an FBI agent $1000 and was able to just walk away.
I always choose to pay the fine because first off I don't like killing guards and second off if you go to jail some of your skills loose progress so I'm sort of either forced to dip into my wallet or forced to never go to a city or town again because all the guards will attack me. There's not much choice in that matter.

I'm 100 in smiting so I have my nightingale armor up to legendary I hadn't improved the Dark Brotherhood armor I kept though which I guess is why I keep dying in a few hits even though I'm lvl 55 that's kind of why I don't like light armor dragons tend to one hit kill me even though I have plenty of health and same can be said for people I fight as well I can take 2 hits before suddenly out of nowhere they do those finishing moves even though my health bar is almost full it really pisses me off sometimes because I still have a heavy armor mentality so I think "my health is fine, my health is fine." Then boom finishing moved in one hit. So I tend to just use my bow and arrows for fighting or sneak killing.

Like I said I'm 100 in sneak and have every perk on the sneak tree purchased. Anytime I kill someone it's while I'm sneaking, then after I've made the kill I use an invisibility potion to get out, but it never seems to work, even if I'm in a room and close the doors and everything somehow people see me and once I sneak away and turn invisible the guards just walk up to me and demand I go to jail or pay.
in my entire lifetime membership with the Thief’s Guild I was never caught once even though my pickpocket lvl isn't even at 30 but for almost every mission I've done for the Dark Brotherhood resulted in me loosing 10000 gold which is a ton of money to be losing. The guards are like blood hounds they can just find me even though technically I'm not even there. I'm not a run and gun type of guy I bide my time and wait for the opportune moment to strike, but with the experience I had it just seems better to just walk up to the target stab them in the back pay the fine then head back to get half-or less- than you lost. That bugs me a little bit.

I had the same thought as I finished the Dark Brotherhood quest line. It was so annoying having to fast travel to where my target was, kill my target then fast travel back to the sanctuary to hear about my next contract. There should have been some type of system such as sending you letters or you would just hear in your head about the contract or something. I understand that it is practical in a story-wise way to have you go back to the sanctuary and speak with her face to face but it's kind of a hassle. The Dark Brotherhood (and to be fair I think every guild) lacked networks, which I would have expected something like the Dark Brotherhood to have.

Multi-quote ftw...

But that kind of goes with what I was saying.
You feel that paying 1000 gold is a silly consequence, yet you also feel that the other choices that are given to you have consequences that you find too harsh.

You can't have it both ways.

What exactly are you wanting?

Planning FTW.
I managed to get every target by stealth using Archery and planning the best place to be to keep out of the way till things calmed down and knowing what my escape route was to keep well away from guards. The only time I actually got caught was when the storyline dictated I had to.

I find being an assasin the most exciting style of play i've encountered.

It depend on how you play it imo.

Just don't wear the gear you don't like, my assasin is roleplaying being a forsworn assasin and obviously wears and uses forsworn gear (aside from the elven daggers). Looks awesome too

The DB questline in Oblivion was as good a guild playthrough TES has seen, along with House Telvanni in Morrowind IMO.

No offense OP but it sounds like you are just very bad at RPing an assassin. I agree with you regarding the clothing but about getting caught, I never got caught once. If its broad daylight, wait till dark or get the invisibility spell or choose the poisoned perk so you can silently drop poisons in peoples pockets and kill them. Personally I think this is one of the more fun types of characters to play given the advancements to sneak, i.e. dagger/bow sneak damage multipliers, poisoned perk and the dagger kill cam.

If i remember correctly there is one mission that you have to perform a specific way otherwise it will result in a bounty no matter what. It was mentioned in an earlier post.

thinking something is silly and not wanting to do something else isn't having it "both ways" I never said I didn't want to pay 1000 gold I just said I find it odd that I could kill someone of importance and only have to pay 1000 gold or spend a few nights in jail. I also never said I find being put in jail or hunted down and have to kill guard after guard "harsh" I just said I didn't want to do it mainly because I don't like killing guards plus I want to be able to go back to the city and sell/buy things I can't do that if I'm being attacked by everyone in the city.

I bee'd an assassin to test this out for myself. It was really funny seeing him leg it away from a hives worth of enraged bumblebees. Owait...

I had already mentioned in in other posts about my credentials with sneak. I've purchased every skill on the sneak skill tree which means theoretically once I go into sneak mode I'm invisible, not to mention I've stated every time I killed a mark I used an invisibility potion.
I'll give you an example, when I had to kill the Emperor's cousin I was well out of sight (the eye icon was completely closed and hidden was on). when I shot the arrow the eye opened slightly but as the arrow was in the air I used an invisibility potion (a long lasting one by the way) then waited till the eye icon was completely gone and hidden. No one should have seen me fire that arrow and no one did but not 3 seconds after hidden poped up a guard raced up and "caught me." there was no way anyone could have seen me shoot that arrow especially since I shot it while sneaking and out of site and yet somehow the guards knew it was me and "caught me." I was still invisible at the time too.
the same thing happened when I had to kill the general's son. I waited till he went to sleep closed the doors killed him while I was in sneak and turned invisible. no one should have seen me especially since I closed the door right behind me and snuck out without being detected and yet when I almost made it to the door the guards show up and again somehow catch me even though I should be undetectable.
somehow even though I've made sure all my bases are covered spent so much time planning everything out and waiting for unnecessary amounts of time I still get caught, I've used bows and I've used daggers but the guards still catch me. like I said before I'm not a run and gun type of player I've plaid tons of games where you have to be patient before you strike, but the guards always sniff me out somehow. So if waiting till nightfall, sneaking into or waiting for the target to enter the building then killing them while they sleep and turning invisible and sneaking out is "very bad at RPing an assassin" then I must be the worst assassin player in history apparently.

Well, the DB in Oblivion had an orc in heavy armor that did nothing subtle. So if you hold this against Skyrim, hold it against Oblivion.

Getting only 1,000 bounty for killing a few ridiculously important people is extremely stupid.

I miss the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood questline.

I am a morally squeamish person. I feel downright BAD if I kill an NPC, or even let one die under my watch. (Dragon destroy half the town? NOOOOOOOOOO! Must restart and ensure EVERYONE survives at all costs!!!!)

In Oblivion, I got the attention of the Dark Brotherhood by killing an undesireable of my own accord. (That punk REALLY had it coming.) They invited me in, and offered this culty atmosphere of ..weird... brotherhood and I can totally respect a group of people who are that loyal and live by some tenants. That's just neat. And then they gave me contracts and I felt good about them because all those people were buttfaces who deserved, right? ... And then half-way through the quest, you start seeing the real nature of the DB. Things become gray, and you start seeing the backstories of the people you killed earlier. I mean, it was horrible but at the same time you were like, "wtf? THAT IS AWESOME -- I see what you did there, Bethesda."

In Skyrim -- meh, there's no... thrill. No real internal morality battle, you either destroy the DB (for which there is no reward -- you just wipe out a ton of quests and areas... I would totally go for this option if, for instance, it meant rebuilding my own clan in its stead. After all, I was quite partial to the Morag Tong's way of business.)

I also am not a fan of Skyrim's Thieve's Guild. Oblivion's was more Robin-Hoodish, driven by this mythos of the Grey Fox. It's one thing to be an indiscriminant criminal/thief or bandit, but it was another to be a working member of the Thieve's Guild. (After all, it's quite clear that there are TONS of 'bandits' and 'maruaders' out there that don't agree with the Guild!) The one in Skyrim is more like a weak gang without any rules -- it lost its romanticism and charm.