Hey everyone,

Basically I wanted to make a character that does close range assassinations with a dagger and is a master of illusion.

Race: Dunmer (Dark Elf) - the race is cool and the resist fire looks good. but mostly for RP.

Stone: The Steed - Weightless armor without having to go into the tree. I don't think I'll be needing armor rating.

Trees:
Enchanting
Illusion
Sneak
One-Handed (only for Armsmen, the first perk.)
Alchemy
Light Armor ? ...not sure
Smithing(Maybe)

BASICALLY, I wanted to enchant my gear so that the magicka cost of illusion spells is down to zero. I want to avoid putting points into magicka for this reason, but I dont know if I can level enchanting quickly enough to do this. I was thinking I get Azures star as quickly as possible and level it using that. Is this possible?

Alchemy - so useful, resist fire potions especially.
Illusion - I was absolutely everything in this tree.
Enchanting - whatever perks that will make my enchantments reduced illusion's magicka cost
Sneak - Everything.
One-Handed - I doubt it, I dont think I need it but it might be nice. Just for the first perk that increases damage of one-handed weapons by 100%. It is 5 perks though so idk.
Smithing - I would like to be able to increase the damage of my weapons but the highest tier of weapons is deadric so i would not be able to get only half the tree like I normally would. I would either have to get the entire tree or ONLY improve my weapons and get all the heavy armor perks. I think this might actually work considering I will be able to outift my follower with great tanking gear.
Light Armor - I would be closing in for kills, but I might forgo this because invisibility/calm/fury spells might make the improved armor rating useless.

So tell me what you think!!!! Sound viable??? All feedback is welcome.

Edit:
I want this character to be a master of illusion and totally obsessed with his vampirism. he is calm,cool, and deadly.

Sincerely,
Athyn

What exactly do you need?

Race, skills, RP, etc.?

Race is dependant on RP. Lore wise, it would be Imperial, Nord, or Dunmer, most likely.

Skills would be Illusion like you specified (and a good choice), Alteration if your going unarmored, one handed if your a dueling rake of a Vampyre, or a destruction, two handed, etc. for damage. Enchanting can help if your going unarmored with clothing, robes, weapon, etc.

You choose how you want to play and RP, and I'll tell you how to make it viable in ES, specifically Skyrim.

Dark Elf with the following skills:

One hand
Illusion
Alchemy
Conjuration
Light Armor

You don't need light armor, or smithing. Therefore you don't really need the Steed. Unless those are vital to your RP, then grab them by all means. As an illusionist, your all about indirect conflict.

You could switch out light armor for alcehmy and use it for resist fire/restore health/restore magicka potions. It was more a of a skill for defense.

I can see not getting light armor or smithing, but I wanted to get the steed because of the weightless armor and increased carrying capacity though. Should I pick up conjuration instead then? Would be cool to kill a mid to high rank mob, reanimate it, and fury something else, become invisible and watch the chaos!

I agree
That brings me to

Illusion
Sneak
Enchanting
Alchemy
and perhaps Conjuration? does Conjuration sound like a good idea?

Vampires like to reanimate their fallen comrades and use them against you again or you could use it for summons. For a stone I would pick the Lord stone for the armor/magic resist bonuses. At least until you get further in the game.

Instead of thinking whats cool or not, think of a character. Make a character in your mind of what he does. That's the best way to choose what to take. Since stones are interchangeable, just because you take the steed now, doesn't mean you'll need it later. Conjuration isnt bad, for the darker aspect, but its dependent on your builds prerogatives.

for me, my Imperial Vampyre Playboy Illusionist is:

Illusion

Sneak

One handed (for fencing)

Enchanting (for clothes and rapiers)

Speech (for RP reason)

But that's just my RP, and how I like to choose between 4-5 skills per RP. Tell me how you feel, and it will be viable.

I guess the way I feel about my character is that he is a very damaged individual. He would be obsessed with illusion and conjuration, and would be a deadly assassin as well. Completely obsessed with his Vampirism so he seeks it out. His gaze is hypnotic, and he is one of the most intelligent individuals in Tamriel.

So,
Enchanting
Illusion
Sneak
Conjuration
Alchemy
One-Handed (Armsmen Perk)

How is that?

The Lord Stone DOES sound very useful I may very well do this. Thanks!

It works. Focus on Illusion so it will work on level appropriate enemies, as well as sneak, a crafting skill, and a direct damage skill. That will keep you busy for two dozen levels or so.

Also, is this build using H2H?

Sweet looks like I'm set. My only issue is now I will have to spend points into magicka because I am going into two magic trees. Any idea what my skill ratio should be? i was thinking 2:1 =>Magicka:Stamina
I will still reduce illusion down to 0% cost though and just use all my magicaka on conjuration. I plan on getting basically everything in conjuration.

Something like 40% Magic, 20% Health, 40% stamina. Get enough magic to cast your master spells, so you can work on reduction after enchanting gets high. It really doesn't matter though min/max wise. Just do what comes intuitively, feel you need more magicka, or stamina, level that the next level.

Why bother with health at all though? I should not take any damage with tanks from conjuration and illusion spells such as calm/invisibility/fury. Also, I feel like I would need more magicka then stamina.

Just depends. Take that 20% health and put it in magicka. As long as you can cast thrall and master Illusion spells (even though the lesser Illusion spells, dual casted are better), your good.

I would definately put some in health unless you wear armor. Sometimes there is no avoiding being hit, like Dragons.

For those sort of situations I would use Alchemy to increase my amount of HP and my HP regen. Alchemy is actually quite powerful.

Well I have done this type of character and I would dump light armor and smithing. You won't need them. My nighblade character never would get hit in melee combat outside of dragon attacks. Stick with cloth, but enchant them with illusion buffs.

I would simply sneak in Frenzy groups of individuals, calm the last one and dagger stealth attack them. Everything pretty much dies in one hit even on expert level.

Dragons will be your only challenge in the game, but with a good alchemy skill you can have enough potions to weather their attacks to kill them too. I also wouldn't bother with stamina at all. You won't need power attacks at all.

I play a similar playstyle on master, I'm a dunmer vampire assassin.

I use illusion, destruction, archery, sneak, light armor and alchemy. Destro and archery work very well together, if you throw alchemy in, I can hit some huge numbers with destruction damage. Using a bow for the initial sneak attack, with a weakness to magic/fire poison, then nuking with incinerate for 220 damage per dual cast. I could throw in a +destruction potion for 500 damage per dual cast, killing an ancient dragon in ~6 casts.

I don't do this to often though, I like challenge ha.

I would say, just play the game, you don't need to plan your build extensively. Just have an idea, then improvise with perks.

For race, dunmer works well due to fire resistance, breton works well with the magic resist. Being a nord is a terrible idea (unless for personal/rp reasons), as you already get frost resistance.

I wouldn't bother with enchanting, having 100% reduction just takes the fun out of the game IMO, the illusion spells don't require to much, just get the reduction perks and use any fortify illusion gear you find.

With smithing, I recommend just getting the steel and arcane perks, you don't need to be able to improve to the extent available with the perks, especially with the sneak crit bonus. You can achieve 60x sneak damage with daggers if you want to. It gets boring as hell though.