Hey everyone, I'm thinking of starting a new character, and I plan to make it a stealthy assasain or thief, or a combination of both. And I plan to mainly focus on The Dark Brotherhood and The Theives Guild questlines. There is a race or two that looks good for what I'm aiming to make, but I just want to know a few tips before I begin.

Basically I want my character to of course be very stealthy, have some qualities of an assasain ( Bows, daggers, etc. ) and be a good thief. So it is some sort of ranger/assasain/thief combination. I also want to focus on poisons and potions in Alchemy. Is there a particular race that is good for this? Anything I should get or do? If anyone has any tips I'd appreciate it if you would share them with me.

I did a similar thing - a sneak archer/thief. I played with a Bosmer, mainly due to the archery and light armor bonuses, and didn't encounter any problems.

What you said in your post sounds fine. Archery - Alchemy - Sneak - Illusion - One Handed - Pickpocket. Sounds like a good build to me.

And of course Light Armor if he's sneaking. Go with a Bosmer (I THINK) they get a +5 to Alchemy but don't quote me. They're the best Archers/Sneakers next to Khajiit's IMHO.

I'm bout to make a character kinda similar but way diff. play style. And going with a Breton.

Oh yeah, Light Armour and I'd go with Bosmer too. Best race in the game.

Alright sounds good, thanks everyone. I'll probably make it in a few days, if I ever fix this stupid CoW glitch..

This was my idea for my http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1356697-my-first-assassin/

Race doesn't matter. My female Breton stealth archer does fine without the bonus.

By the way, my build is below. It's pretty close to a pure archer build.

http://skyrimcalculator.com/#101698

EDIT: Sorry, Wrong link. Fixed.

Are you sure? it looks like a Mage build to me.

Lol, sorry wrong link!

Dunmer, Argonian, Khajiit or Bosmer are probably the four best choices.

As my main character which is a Nord warrior (plus semi-mage) only plays good-guy quests, he doesn't play the DB or TG quests (he did wipe out the DB though). I did the same in Oblivion and a similar thing in Morrowind.

I find this is good because it gives me the chance to make addition characters design specifically for the quests I leave out. As a result I have made a Dunmer assassin for the DB and have made a Khajiit thief for TG. My Dunmer is the my higher out the two as I feel he really suits the DB role and looks good in the DB armor. My khajiit isn't such a bad guy but more of an opportunist.

Dunmer and Argonians I think make the best evil players.

I made a Bosmer in Oblivion who was a sneaky archer equipped in full elven armor (plus red hood). I'll probably make a similar design to play around with for Skyrim once I've done enough with my others. Make as an Thalmor spy / assassin.

Take the warrior stone at first because it will help with leveling 1h and archery. Both of those level very slowly so the warrior stone is a nice help. Sneak, pickpocketing, lock picking and all that stuff level pretty fast anyway so I wouldn't bother with the thief stone.

I did a thief/assassin my last character also for the DB and TG questlines. It was fun.

I would recommend Khajiit. The Night Eye power is insanely useful for sneaking, also has infinite uses. Khajiit have +10 Sneak, +5 Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Alchemy, One-Handed, and Archery as well.

I like Bosmer,probably my favorite race.
They have a +10 to archery and a +5 to sneak,alchemy,lockpicking,pickpocket and light armor.

I wrote too much so you can skip to the TL:DR if you don't want to read my long waste of time haha.

This sounds very similar to my character. I play on Master and have had no trouble at all. I went Bosmer because I wanted to focus on Archery which would suit role-play. It's really hard to stuff up this character. I just added perks to Sneak, Archery, Light Armour, and One-handed (for a single dagger for fun change up instead of using the bow). Nothing else. I may dabble in Alchemy later for role-play purposes but I will only make poisons if I do.

I like to role-play so instead of making my character very efficient I just put perks into what would suit the character. I've maxed out the Archery tree and my Sneak tree is maxed (except for 1/5 Stealth, I will max later for role-play but I don't notice very much difference because at night I'm usually always invisibile and during the day, especially when I'm outside I get spotted easily). I will also max my Light Armour tree for role-play purposes as well. In One-handed I just aim for Armsman (5/5) I don't really need anything else since I only carry a single dagger instead of dual wielding. Even Armsman isn't really needed because usually it's a 1HKO on most low level or even quite powerful enemies on Master.

I started the game adding Stamina for longer zooming, rolling, ect. But it isn't needed that much. I still like having a lot for carry capacity and for being able to sprint long distances (I don't Fast Travel).

My Stamina is at 250 and since then I've been adding Health. I also put Stamina for role-play because I think an assassin should be fit and healthy. I might either cap at 250 or maybe go to 300 Stamina and then continue with Health. I still haven't decided I just go with the flow.

TL:DR

This is what I did. Not for efficiency but for role-play. 250-300 Stamina and the rest into Health. Max Archery, Light Armour, and Sneak. One-handed (Armsman only, not really needed though more for role-play), Maybe will later dabble into Alchemy (poison only though).

For technique. When I first started out on Master it was hard as I took so many shots to kill an enemy. What I would do is shoot the enemy and run away and hide. Another technique is to shoot an arrow at a wall and watch as the enemies may go to it and then take a shot. Or you can shoot them and risk shooting the wall afterwards. I don't usually use this arrow trick as I have bad luck and the enemy usually seeks me out instead of the arrow.

I used to shoot an arrow at the wall first but sometimes when the Sneak eye is slightly opened I don't get a sneak attack. It's like a glitch or something, and if I'm too close a sneak attack doesn't register either. If I'm far enough I can take multiple shots but sometimes after the first shot the second won't be a sneak attack and maybe the third will be. It's weird.

Recently I realized how powerful I was. I was hidden in the dark and I shot at a Dwarven Centurion Master, as it started to come towards me I continued to take shots at him and about 5-6 shots he dropped and he didn't see me at all. And those were all Sneak attacks. Usually I can just stand still in a dark spot and nothing spots me.

This.

And unless you deeply care about how good you are at this during the first seven to ten levels, pick any race you want. Personally I like Benton's for their for the magic resistance. Well that and I can make a roll-play background for one that makes more sence to me than a Bosmer or Khajiit would in Skyrim.

They may have been born there. Just because you play as a Bosmer doesn't mean he/she has to be born in Valenwood. They could have been just as easily been boring in Skyrim, or any other Provence for that matter.

I didn't mean to suggest that it couldn't be done, just that it worked better for me and that the OP shouldn't get too hung up over starting stats. But to each their own.

I've found it much more enjoyable to keep the thief and assasin characters seperate. Use the thief to focus on thievery, sneak, daggers, pickpocket, backstab, speechcraft, lockpicking, illusion, and obtaining every last bit of gold, and looting every thing not nailed down. He can be a chaotic good kinda thing. The assasin would be the archer, still sneaky, conjuration for back up, one handed, and whatever else, and cold blooded killing of everyone possible. Imo, makes for two richer, entirely different characters, than one that does all of the above.

if you play assassin try daggers instead of bows, once you done that you will never pick up a bow again

Pick the race you want since the racial bonus don't mean anything other then you can upgrade that skill less then a race who doesn't have any bonuses. For example when you compare a bosmer and an imperials archery skill bosmer starts with 25 and an imperial starts with 15. What this means is the bosmer can only upgrade his archery skill 75 times to get to 100 while the imperial can upgrade his archery skill 85 times! In the end the imperial will have 2 more perks for leveling up his archery skill to 100.

Exactly, I usually am disatisfied when I try to blend builds in, it gets overwhelming at times.

I've always wondered: How do you effectively fight against the dragons in the game with a build like that especially on higher difficulties and the more you level up? I have trouble with my Orc warrior.

Race is insignificant. This guy is exactly what the OP wants, and I chose Redguard. The only racial that I found generally useful was the 50% resistance to poison, easily made 100%. I don't think I've ever relied on the bonus abilities of any race.

Niamh is an assassin/sneak thief/cold-blooded murderer/chaotic evil Bosmer.

She's a lot of fun to play.

A lot of fun.