I just started one of these guys yesterday and was looking for some tips for the early going. Right now my sneak is so terrible that I am basically running as a destruction mage just blowing everything up. I am using Muffle to make sneaking a little easier but every cast I level my Illusion so I am worried that is outpacing my destruction and conjuration way too quickly. Thoughts?

Also, I wanted to check in with you guys and ensure that if I dump most of my points into Magicka I won't be screwing myself. I imagine that I won't face to many enemies that I won't be able to take out with a combination of: Sneak -> Fury -> Conjure -> Destruction on the straglers. And for those that are immune or alone the Stagger perk should ensure that as long as I don't run out of Magicka I should be fine. Is my thinking accurate? Can I get away with low health and no stamina?

Probably better to spend most of your points in magicka, your playstyle should focus around not getting hit in the first place. Illusion is a fantastic school of magic for sneaky magic, be sure to use more than just fury in combat. For single encounters calm is an excellent spell. You can spend some money on destruction training if you feel it's not going fast enough.

Maybe others can give better info as I haven't gotten into higher levels with my sneak mage, but if you are going the Sneak, Fury, Conjure, Destruction combo I don't think you should worry too much about your illusion outpacing the others. You will need the perks, I think, in Illusion for those spells to affect higher level enemies.

Seems that between Illusion and Conjuration you would have a pretty good handle on your enemies with not as much destruction thrown in. Keep going and see how it works for you.

I took all my points on magicka and I also started with joining the College of Winterhold to help me become better with magic.
I plan on later to join the Dark Brotherhood and I have learned that Illusion is all you need with Conjuration to summon Bound Bow or Bound Sword to do your assassinations quietly.

I also have Destruction that I really enjoy.
And then Alteration! Yes, the Detect Life and Paralyze from the Alteration school is really nice for a caster that sneaks around I think.
Also the armor you get from Alteration plus perks really helps out when you only wear cloth as a Mage type of character.

So my advice to you is to take Alteration for the hard times where sneaking won't work or that you are just in the mood of being all "out there".
I don't see any point in taking perks in Sneak if you have Illusion because if your sneaking fails, you can always Calm them and they will forget that you were ever there.

I hope this helped you a bit, if so..
Tell me.
If not, good luck

Get the Quiet Casting perk as soon as you can, it'll let you place Runes and summon Atronachs without getting people's attention. And the Illusion spells along the way are also useful.

Good info in here, thanks to everyone who has contributed so far!

I also was curious on people's thoughts regarding boots and bracers. Currently I have been avoiding wearing them for two reasons: 1. I don't want to level light armor (although I haven't been hit very often yet) and 2. I don't want to be less effective at sneaking.

I can give you another good reason to only wear cloth and nothing else.
If you get 1 perk in Novice Altration & Apprentice Alteration you can get "Mage Armor" perk that will make your protection spells like Stoneflesh are, four times as strong if not wearing armor.

That is a good point but I am trying to make a character that isn't ever going to be in a "fair" fight so if I end up on the wrong end of a sharp weapon I have already failed at my build. Do you really need the mage armor spells to make it through the game with this playstyle?

Put a few perks in the sneak base skill about two or three. Then get everything in the illusion tree maybe exclude the master spells depending on if you will commonly use them spells or not. Be sure you get the silent casting perk that is essential for a sneak mage. You will need to use both the muffle and invisibility for your sneak mage to be truly effective.

The sneaking will come. Use illusion as well with the invis, muffle, calm and fury to get past foes. Do you use the bound sword from conj with summons? That will help level up conj. I would dump 5 points into stamina if you use melee. Restoration or alteration is a good option as well. Resto has healing as well as stamina healing. Alteration has armor, detect life which is essential, and paralyze.

And if you get to a high enough level, you'll need to take illusion dual casting. I play one of these at the moment and I have 100 health. I take all magic schools and enchanting, which would be smart for you to dump 8 perks into. If you have any other q's just ask!

Sorry I don't know why it did that

Does Calm work on just about everyone? And you use melee with only 100 HP? You must pump the mage armor then or I would imagine you run the risk of being one shot constantly.

Synergize your perks to maximize damage. Illusion perk aspect of terror boosts fire spells by 10 points. Choosing fire perks will end up making your firebolt hit for 47 per hand. Cheap magicka cost for a nice stagger damage spell if you go with impact.

Alteration's paralyze will easily be made obsolete by illusion spells and impact. bound sword, sneak, backstab into a summoned pet will level sneak quicker than walking around...way quicker. Sneak will svck for a bit but that can get you to decent levels quick.

Necromage is another nice perk to synergize for more damage against the ever popular draugr. Plus it allows a higher level thrall and higher level reanimate dead bodies. Not quite sure how this perk affects illusion spells. I'm guessing it improves the possible level of effect even more?

Awesome information, some of which I was completely unaware of (i.e. Aspet of Terror). I would agree that skipping Alteration completely is probably a good idea as I should not be getting hit anyway. Thanks again!

True, but what about detect life? That is one of my favorite spells and most useful.

There is a shout
I thought about that, and there is a shout I learned on a previous character that mimics that skill.

Yeah, I have that shout too. Wish I could remember where I found it, as I'm looking for it for my own Spellshadow (Mage Assassin). >_<
Fact, I think that's my most used shout. 8-/

Yup, that's true, im just partial to alteration because of how useful it is with armor and paralyze.

a good strategy for this may be the following

You level up and increase your magicka
Next level up and increase your health
Next level up increase magicka
Next Health

And so on... This way you can probably get away with robes and youll have plenty of magicka in the long run

Anybody else with any helpful tips or tricks?

One last bump to see if anybody else has anything interesting to add.