Those are a serious threath for me too. Or would be if i fought them, i just calm them and and continue walking

My char construction as well. I have never invested any points in Stamina for my Assassins. 250 in Mag and the rest in Health. I use the cannibal perk for increased Stam.

I only use a Bow (Bound) as a poison delivery system. When and if I need to. I get a better feeling by getting as close as possible, even on sleeping Dragons. When you can Dual Wield a poisoned Sneak Attack on an Elder Dragon, Heavy Armored NPCs are like stepping on bugs.

EDIT : As far as Sneak Perks - 5/5, Muff and the rt side to Assassin's Blade. I invest heavy in Illusion and run Inviso.

Nope, you seemed to have retained the most important concept. Fun.

I just hit them with Marked for Death and spam attacks and drink a lot of health potions. Especially when you get jumped by a load of high level Falmer.
A lot of running away and using health tome to recover, then get back into the fray if I can't shake being spotted.

What difficulty level are all you guys playing on? I'm enjoying my sneak/archery character, but on I'm not quite the dealer of death I thought I'd be (on master). Other than the base version of enemies like wolves, bandits, and spiders, there is nothing I can one shot from stealth and some fights (cave bears, sabercats, random conjuring/archery wood elf in the wild) would be utterly impossible without my riften horse to tank. In between those are fights that I can manage, but still take a long while of plunking and crouching...for reference I'm L.30, 100sneak (perked), 40 1h, 67archery (perked), nothing in smithing or enchanting yet. I'm starting to think my main problem is the lack of smithing, since I'm on master. My bow is glass, which isn't terrible, but it remains unimproved and unenchanted. I may have to give in and skill those up, but I'm working on alch now and want to see if that gives me enough of an edge (poisons). I don't want to do all three and find myself ridiculously OP.

To OP -- if I'm forced into a melee situation, I usually fus-ro them and sprint away, put my camera in 3rd-person (kiting is sooo much easier that way), and plunk them with arrows while I scamper about. If I'm in a cramped space or somewhere with lots of shadows and/or LOS breaks (terrain or what have you) I'll just run/sneak to those and wait for the eye to close.

I play on master, and I rarely use fus-ra-doh. I use yol, which is the first word in the fire breath shout. once I get another dragon, I'll switch to the 2-word frost breath. although I mainly use a destruction mage, I will whip out the bow and dagger if I'm on a brotherhood quest/I wanna kill something fast. however, I am a glass cannon. Once I'm out of mana, I'm toast.

I have a stealth dude but my experience is nothing like carrots, I get spotted a good 40-50% of the time, this guy spotted me today from 30 metres away and he was facing the wring way, the only thing I can guaranteed to sneak up on is Draugr. That's with no armor, muffle boots, 100 sneak and all the perks.

So my dude has to use invisibility, which creates another problem, I'm a bit crap at judging the distance I am away from the character (I play in 3rd person) when I'm invisible so I often miss my shots, especially if I'm going for a power attack which needs more room. Attacking the first bloke always gets me spotted by the second so I either go invisible again or I knock the other guy out with paralysis spell.

How is this possible. I am never spotted. If you do, you just sprint away crouch and make use of Shadow Warrior.

if a Nightblade, Invisibility, sneak and Dagger to back.
If not a spellcaster, charge head in with dual wielded enchanted Ebony Sword and Mehrunes Razor, with all One-Handed perks.

That shadow warrior doesn't do anything for me, I think I must be activating it too close to the enemy or something, because whenever I try it the eye is still fully open, only time I can get them to start going where are you?, in that dopey voice is when I'm back invisible.

Calming them is a good idea. Gotta try that ! : )

I have never went up the left side beyond Muffle. If you have Invisibility, you can cast that while being attacked and the enemy will start searching. Eventually, you will return to Hidden and strike again.

Yeah Shadow Warrior does not work close up. If you read the description, it says enemies at a distance. To take full advantage of this, if you use it after you go out of LOS (line of sight) it works much better. Things like Ebony Mail however are reported to break Shadow Warrior as well as some other items/effects. However, you do not really even need Shadow Warrior, just Sprint away or Silent Roll away and you can reset the enemy and go back to Stealth. Enemies should never be able to catch you in almost every situation.

http://skyrimcalculator.com/#68920 this is my core build. spare points have since gone into speech, so not relevant. if i'm caught i'll calm/fear depending on surroundings. then i'll get to range. if target has friends then i'll frenzy one of them to make finishing up easier. if not i'll just kite. power shot is AWESOMESAUCE for all melee enemies. as is paralysis poison

Once you get the master perk it does not really matter whether you are seen or not. You just crouch and make a quick dagger strike for your 15x. Before I took that perk, I had a really tough time with bandits wearing plate armor wielding two handed weapons. Often had to run from them, try to dodge adn get in a quick strike and run again, quaff a potion and run some more.

When you couch you become invisible for a couple of seconds, which is why enemies at a distance start looking for you. If you get a quick dagger strike in during this brief time you are invisible, you will get the 15x.

This is true.

Your way is more fun though. Getting the quick 15x can make it too easy, and if there are multiple enemies around you, you can get hit during the throat slit animation.

Really? That is strange. My sneak character almost never got spotted after his sneak skill was above about 50 unless someone looked right at him when he was not in the shadows. Granted, I always crept really really slowly, and I would sometimes get noticed sneaking through brightly lit areas with multiple opponents looking around because one of them might spot me. But I almost never got noticed sneaking up from behind on a single individual.

I reload.

If I get seen then I have made a mistake to begin with. Anything else is not a stealth character. A wannabe stealth character perhaps, but not truly stealthy.

Run, return, hide again, raise bridges...? What?? No, no and no!

Trying to kill someone in bright daylight and upfront and because one sees no other choice is just dumb. Try to wait for the night. Many can be killed in their sleep.

If your opponent senses you but has not yet found you then stay calm and stand still. They often will come towards you but still will not see you. You then do not have to walk to them when they come to you and you can do a sneak-attack just in the last second. If you are good then you will get to see the stab-in-the-heart cut scence, which is awesome.

I will usually use Illusion Magic to calm them, re enter sneak, then get behind them and sneak attack them again

If I'm seen, I'll either draw my swords and charge into combat, using the environment to my advantage.
For example: Fighting in doorways/tunnels so that their numbers can't be used against me, forcing them to come at me one at a time.

If not; I'll crouch and hide.

Hope that they'd rather talk out our differences over a tall bottle of mead.

If I'm crouched behind them, I'll apply poison to my weapons, then sneak attack them with a power attack with both of my weapons, then I just fight them. If I'm seen and caught I'll fight them a little, then maybe distract them by crouching far away and shooting arrows, or I'll hit them with unrelenting force and hide. I don't like repeatedly shooting them with arrows, it's boring and unrealistic.

That is a cool way to play. I do it sometimes and it is always a thrill. I have gotten that stab in the heart animation sneak attack as the plate wearing bandit that I never could have taken in a stand up fight unknowingly walked up to me. But it takes a lot of patience to play this way all the time. Sometimes I lack the patience necessary, as I suspect most people do.

Yeah, I would never try for the sneak attack in daylight, but a lot of those bandit caves are brightly lit with a bunch of guys always hanging around in one spot.