I can't tell you how many perfectly good assassinations have been ruined because the stupid target WON'T DIE.

I'm in the perfect hiding spot, poisoned arrow at the ready, just waiting for the person to walk into view. Fnally they do, I let the arrow fly, watch it race towards them with bated breath... and it's a perfect shot!...



And then they yell, draw their weapon, and come sprinting towards me with an arrow sticking out of their throat, with every guard in the city right behind them.

Am I the only person who thinks this is ridiculous? You're ability to assassinate someone should be based on how well you can sneak, you shouldn't have to worry if your arrow is going to do enough damage to kill the guy. That's what the sneak bonus is for. I think if you shoot someone, and stay undetected, it should be an automatic kill. Unless it's a dragon or giant or something. What's so hard about that?

I guess what I'm trying to say in this rant that you've been kind enough to listen to is that even though Bethesda has done a great job of improving the stealth system from game to game, it's still far from perfect.

Edit:

So I seem to be hearing a lot of the same things.

1. Better gear/skill will in time make most things a one hit kill.
I guess I don't think one shotting everyting at level one makes sense, but I also don't think you should have to be a god before that starts happening.

2. Location damage is what should happen, not insta kills.
I definitely agree with this, I wasn't really being very reasonable with saying everything should be a one hit kill. Getting hit in the foot obviously never killed anyone outright. Location damage is indeed what I want, getting shot in the head or chest should have a very high chance of a kill.

3. One shotting dragons, giants, mammoths, etc would be stupid.
Yes, I know. I said already that I'm not talking about large creatures that could obviously withstand much more damage than humans.

If it were this way, you'd be here complaining about how boring things were and why there was no chance of failure. People will complain no matter what they do.

I see your point, but I think the chance of failure should be getting caught, not failing to do enough damage.

Ok.

Bows aren't guns. It's actually more realistic that arrows don't insta-kill you. Unless you hit someone in the head, and http://www.funnychill.com/media/484/Dart_In_Head/ (WARNING! Link content might be considered graphic!).

As your archery skill improves, you'll eventually be one-shotting people left and right anyway. If you're playing on Adept difficulty, that is.

I'd be quite peeved if I oneshotted killed a Dragon by shooting it in the tail <3

I insta-kill most of my enemies. You just need a better bow and arrow and perks.

I kind of agree, but the only way it would really work is for Bethesda to put hit boxes or whatever they're called into the game. Right now, the game doesn't recognize the difference between an arrow to the knee and an arrow to the eye. Until they change that, we're going to be stuck with an imperfect system. Having said that, the bows in this game are 1000 times better than they have been in any other ES game that I've played. In Oblivion, I literally shot people so many times with a bow they looked like a porcupine by the time they died. I'm much, much more satisfied with the current system than I have been since I started playing TES games.

At lower level. Yeah you can't expect to insta-kill. I cannot insta-kill anyone at a low level.

I have low ranks in both Sneak and Archery, have no perks in either, and I still get a lot of one shots while sneaking.

Later in the game, a sneak attack with a bow always is an insta-kill. And it shouldnt be like that

What bow are you using?

Everything is stats based as I'm sure you know so if 3x damage of bow+arrow is less then the targets HP then its a no go.

They could add more levels to the sneak damage multiplier taking it to 5 or 6x but you would probablly need to be ~70 sneak to unlock the perk. At that point your character would be a higher level where you were finding/smithing better equipment making the perk less valuable.

Right now I'm lev 47 with a legandary deadric bow with frost enchantment and I one shot giants on expert.

I do agree though that you never know if you are going to get a nice clean kill or have a mob running after you...kind of anoying but also kind of thrilling as with most things unknown.

Edit: forgot about the archery perks as well. With 80+ archery and a good bow there's not much in the game that can stop you.

What is your Enchanting and Smithing rating?

I one shot kill giants on master mode with a glass bow fire enchantment all the perks and such give me 298 damage.

Being shot with a bow or gun isn't instant death IRL. Generally you bleed out and die, which could take a while.

sneak LVL is one thing in the mix but what about a bad aim which all assas have at times or have one to many meads in you, comon these are RPG real life elements,,,

Maybe op would prefer to play assassin's creed or hitman ?

Run up the sneak tree and get the 3x bow sneak attack perk. My bow does 94 damage now and with that perk nearly everyone outside of a boss goes down instantly. You can't expect to oneshot at low levels with weak weapons.

Unless it's a well centered head shot.

In which case you lose consiousness and die in seconds.

The problem is, as has been said, is that there's no area damage in the game.

Getting stabbed in the face should be insta kill too, being electrocuted probably should be as well. Why just bows? Equality!

invest in a few perks then, the x3 perk in sneak, the archery damage perk and archery critical shot perk should help. like a previous post stated get a better bow and arrow and upgrade at smith and possibly wear archery enhancing items.

I disagree with one shot kill, that would make the Bow even more overpowering.

I would prefer headshot is instant kill except when your opponent is wearing heavy helmet.

unarmored i agree but if they are wearing armor then no you can and people have throughout history survived multiple arrows. what the game really needs is locational damage. one of the many things that fallout 3/NV did better than skyrim.

100 smithing. perked all the way up the heavy side (obviously since I'm using a legendary Deadric bow)
80 enchanting. only three perks spent so far. two on the base increase and one on armor enchanting I think.

also...

88 archery perked out as much as possible
and I'm wearing an enchanted helm 15% archery, enchanted ring 25% archery, and sometimes I'll put on an enchanted necklace 20% archery.