I picked up Skyrim again a few nights ago and figured I would get more achievements. I chose to join the Dark Brotherhood to complete the storyline achievements but I came out of it kind of disappointed (not the "this game svcks" kind of disappointment but a "this could have been so much better"). Immediately seeing the outfit I was supposed to wear I thought "No, I think I'll just wear my Nightingale armor thank you." I personally detest light armor because I simply die too quickly with it. I decided to mix some of the Nightingale armor and the Dark Brotherhood armor even though some of the pieces of armor kind of spas out on my character.
The problem I have with the outfit is that it just doesn’t look like something an assassin would wear. It seems awkward and too tight and the fact that you have no mask to cover your face with, which would seem practical seeing as most of your contracts are killing people in the middle of town. There's no way for your outfit to help you blend in with the surrounding, there's not even an invisibility spell to use or at least a piece of clothing that will turn you invisible which I would think would also be very practical seeing as you're suppose to kill people without being spotted.
Alright, done talking about the clothing. The next thing I have a problem with is the whole quest line where you have to kill important people in the middle of town. I find it frustrating because there's just no way of getting away from the guards after you've eliminated a mark. I've lost thousands of gold pieces because in most cases the missions seem to just imply "kill person, go back home." there's no way to avoid the guards. I've tried using invisibility potions and I’m even 100 in sneak but I still get caught which bugs the hell out of me. Not only that but when you kill certain marks in towns (such as when you have to kill important politicians) all you really get is a slap on the wrist. It’s like: so you're telling me I just killed the most influential man in the civilized world and all I need to do is pay you 1000 gold and I'm scott free?
There's no real consequence to these actions, my reputation isn't really tarnished at all even though I killed important politicians in front of everyone. It would have been better if there were more creative ways of dealing with these things and better ways of avoiding the guards after taking out a mark or doing the storyline.
I just think that being an assassin could have been pretty cool (gameplay wise, I know that killing people is immoral), but instead it's just been go here go there this and that and it feels like an actual job which jobs in games shouldn't feel like actual jobs. I also think that out of the 26 hours I've played with the Dark Brotherhood at least 10 of those hours were spent loading- at least. I never joined the Dark brotherhood in Oblivion so I'm not sure which was better but the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim just didn't seem as ominous as the one in Oblivion did.

Most of the Skyrim guilds feel a bit lacking. I love them in Oblivion, but in Skyrim, the guilds feel like they weren't given as much attention/effort.

The Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion was good, and I believe the writer of that questline got some award for it. Getting arrested by guards was mostly a non-issue, except for one particular mark, who was a guard.

I'm not sure which is worse: being able to pay guards 1000 gold to get away with murder, or having the same effect after telling them you're Thane. "Oh, you're the Thane? In that case, go kill anyone you like."

The dark brotherhood in oblivion was sweeeeeet I thought. Skyrim dark brotherhood is cool I guess. The armor is horrible I use the ng armor with the shrouded cowl. Killing the emperor was cool though.. could of been epic.

What I always do to make being an assassin more fun is stalk the people I am told to kill so I know what their schedule is and I can kill them when they are alone. If you don't want to do that you can just look them up on the UESP Wiki. You can also use different poisons and try different styles of killing. My personal favorite is the poisonous arrow in the back of the neck while sleeping (creepy right).
I think you are right abou the whole pay 1000 septims, free to go thing. They really should add more negative consequences.
You're also right about Oblivion's dark brotherhood being darker and cooler.

I also hate that its only a 1000 bounty for killing someone.. there shouldn't be a bounty system when you kill someone you should get arrested, be killed or, escape. If you escape a bounty should be put on it head and, you should be expecting random encounters with people trying to collect your bounty.. and no option to pay it off. They are going to collect dead or alive. This could set up some cool situations like a way to just fast travel to your wanted city and serve your time or attempt to get away from the bounty hunters.

Sorry about the posy its half ass because I'm on my phonh.

Try ebony mail with nightingale hood gloves and boots!!

Everything in Skyrim is an option.

If you don't like the fact that you can bribe your way out, don't do it. You have the options of going to jail, fighting, or running away. Roleplay it out how you want to. Again... it's your choice.

My assassin is the Royal Assassin of Ulric's court. All jobs given to her through the DB are directly from Ulric. Nobody knows that except her and Ulric. Nobody else even knows her relationship to him.

She is also tasked with removing bandits and the Forsworn. If the Empire won't make the roads safe... Ulric will. All part of his plan to win over all the Nords of Skyrim.



1 point in Stealth. Build up the right side of the tree only.
Non-magical weapons and armor... no enchantments allowed. Enchanted jewelry is fine but only what you find.
No magic, no potions except poison , no smithing, no enchanting, and all level points go into stamina. Not boring this way.

I have alot of problems with the dark brotherhood armor. For one it wasnt what i expected. Well it didnt surprise me that they brought the oblivion armor to skyrim but its not fair that females get a face mask and males dont. I wanted a face mask on my angry-looking assassin. I kept picturing it as I was joining the brotherhood and at first I thought "maybe its bugged"...so i turned my xbox off and loaded it again and still the same armor. I got disappointed at that and when I was given the quest for some ancient assassin armor I thought "OMG! Ancient assassin armor!! Now this has to be awesome!!" but... it was the EXACT SAME ARMOR!!! At that point I nearly wanted to delete my character because of it. When I go out to do my contracts I like to do it in style so it would make me feel more epic. They could have added a slight difference from the normal armor such as giving it leather pauldrons or maybe make it not look so tight. I hope that you get some crazy assassin light armor in the dlc because this was a big disappointment.

However, I did kind of like the thief armor though but later on it kind of felt like batman armor and the enchantments were ok. But thats just me lol not that Im trying to hate skyrim that much but still when you get that "special item" ya know it has to look different and unique than say the typical glass sword or iron war axe so that you feel like you found this ancient artifact deep within this high-level pain staking dungeon. Anyway thats just my thoughts, I hope they make a couple of changes to the armor in the dlc.

There is an ancient shrouded armor which is extremely powerful.

Also, with smithing and a blacksmith potion, light armor can be made extremely strong. It's lightness also adds to your carrying capacity in contrast with heavy armor.

Until I achieved the dragon smithing perk, I wore the ancient shrouded armor (heavily upgraded with my smithing skill and my own blacksmithing potions) exclusively. I found it to be superior even to the nightingale armor.

Why would you even wear the DB outfit at all? Thats like screaming "Watch your back, assassin here!".

I felt so disappointed after doing the dark brotherhood in Skyrim. It really was dull, VERY few interesting missions. Most could be completed by just walking up to the person and introducing yourself then kill him. Very little fun stealth required.

DB in Oblivion was amazing however.

The DB guild struck me as the fighters guild in light armour more then Assassins.

I did enjoy the DB questline in Skyrim, but I think the potential that many of the quests had to be really amazing and make you feel like a badass assassin was missed. To me, everything feels like you just follow a quest arrow somewhere, sneak if you like cos it doesn't really matter, and then stab someone. It doesn't make any difference if you do it stealthily or if you have to barge your way out with dozens of guards chasing you. I miss the bonuses in Oblivion, and how they gave you the incentive to remain completely undetected and do everything with care and precision. For me, it made me really want to level my stealth skills to be able to fulfil the contracts perfectly, whereas in Skyrim I didn't really care what was happening.

You just gave me an idea for a mod!

I won't explain anything, when a picture is all that is required.

http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/1800000/Dog-dog-the-bounty-hunter-1852385-1280-1024.jpg

Would be awesome to recreate the entire crew in Skyrim. No?

I've had a completely different experience. I'm pretty much the master of stealth in my game (favorite thing to do is sneak into and enemy camp and Mayhem. Sit back and enjoy). Generally for contracts I just put an arrow in them and they are dead so I'm almost never caught. The only times I was caught were more scripted than anything else and that was on my first play through. My second my character is an even further master stealth artist.

(warning Spoilers) (I don't know how to do the spoiler tags)
Though The thing I did find boring was after you complete the quest you have to do one assassination at a time travel back to dawnstar, talk to the night mother and head out again. Don't get me wrong it makes sense as Listener that I should speak to the night mother but here my idea on how to improve the Dark Brotherhood post quest completion.

While you still speak to the night mother this should only be for larger contracts that involve a hell of a lot more difficulty than your standard affair of walk here kill target return. For regular jobs the player gets notes from the guild notifying them that someone has performed the black sacrament. This could be brought to you buy a special dark brotherhood Currier or Cicero if you spared him or we could introduce an entire new character. Of course if you want you can go back to the guild headquarters and simply pick up more of these targets yourself if you so choose.

Anyway just my thoughts.

You can get a hood with a mask, I think it's on one of the shelves in the DB sanctuary. I remember having one for my male char

This. After finding my character is too lead-footed to pull off a bed-knifing when other people are asleep in the house, I took to doing this whilst fiddling with the camera in 3rd person. I like the over-the-shoulder view, puts me in mind of assassins creed. Picking your moment is cool as well, a quick look round, a cast of muffle, and fingers crossed lol! I love that frantic now-or-never moment when you realise you have them on their own.

In terms of the 1000 bounty, if you want a more negative consequence then go to jail.

I never got caught once. Used mostly bow because some targets was too difficult to kill with daggers. Invisibility potions and poisions was also used frequently.
you must be completly out of anybody's sight and hidden (ofc). And invisibilty dissapears when you attack someone ( been awhile since i played skyrim so not sure).

Only once did I get a bounty that I paid. (Well maybe two or three times, but I reloaded. The rest of the quests, no bounties). I tried my best to keep hidden while taking out the target. My favorite was....

You just do [ spoiler ] (without the space between the brackets and spoiler) before your spoiler. And [ /spoiler ] (again without the spaces) after the spoiler.

Ever thought of using some skill when killing people in town...
-you could use illusion, frenzy or frenzy poisons
-follow them back to their home at night
-pickpocket poisons silently

You get caught by just attacking them because assassins don't do that, good ones don't anyway.

Yeah same, I mean one of them carries an AXE and is a WEREWOLF! How the hell is that subtle?

Exactly. Isn't it perfect to carry out your assassination? It's like saying "Best wishes from the Dark Brotherhood!" to your victim. Of course, you shouldn't wear it until you got close to your victim and about to carry out the killing move.

Bounty hunters in Skyrim- good idea
Dog the Bounty Hunter in Skyrim- bad idea
It would be good for a comedy mod though lol

It's funny, reading the OP rings true for me in many ways. I love Skyrim, and if I could I'd stay at home all day every day playing it. But the DB Quest-Line has certainly made me less inclined to pick the game up as much. I've ended up being drawn into doing things I wouldn't normally do. (My own fault for starting the Quests I suppose, but after 180 hours of gameplay I wanted something new to get my teeth into.)

I wholehearedly agree about the fines though. I've killed and got off with a small fine and a stint in Jail. The fine wasn't much more than paying off a guard when I get caught stealing an item from them. So yes, very unevenly balanced in that respect. In fact, I think I'm going to abort the rest of the Quest-line and just stick with the mundane run-of-the-mill stuff.