Sort of an Arcane Archer, but more... monkish.

The idea is to use Archery as the main damage dealer, and to have magic for support. Maybe a Jedi with a bow might be a good comparison.

I have the race and a few skills figured out, but welcome any suggestions for roleplay or other skill synergy.

Race will be Altmer. No Archery bonus there, but they have a nice Magicka pool and boost in Illusion. I want to imagine this guy to be a wandering Psijic (not sure if this is lore-friendly at all, but oh well). It'll also be a way for me to finally make an Altmer in this game - and avoid the whole Thalmor thing.

Skills will be Archery - without Sneak! Sneak + Archery would be pretty much all I'd need, I imagine, so I want to try this without.

Illusion will be another main skill. I'll use it mostly for calm and fear effects - essentially crowd control. I don't think I'll make a lot of use of frenzy spells, but we'll see. The only other thing would be muffle & invisibility - but since this isn't a stealth build, I don't think I'll use those either.

Healing will be done with Restoration, but I'm not sure how far to perk that tree out.

I also think Alteration would be helpful, for the shield spells, detect life, and eventually paralyze. But I wonder if Illusion + Alteration is a bit redundant....?

Not sure if I should take Conjuration for bound bows, or carry a physical bow. Or both?

Well, the kids are all screaming now so I can't think of anything else at the moment. There's probably something I missed.

Any other suggestions for skills will be appreciated - also, discussion of quests or roleplay stuff would be great!

Should have also given a shout out to Riskybiz13, as this is sort of a twist on his Psionic Ranger build.

Done that, even wrote his tale and posted it in the spoilers section. He was an imperial, raised by the monks of the temple of the ancestor moth. No melee weapons. Alteration and restoration was his defense, because he wore self-enchanted black robes. I got the inspiration for him from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyudo.

I understand the lack of sneak for a challenge, but I don't believe muffle/invisibility as part of "sneak". you aren't getting a x3 bonus and it takes a little more skill and care to even pull off a x2 with illusion magic. Also, I wonder how effective archer will be as your primary focus WITHOUT sneak or any similar effect. since you'll probably have plenty of spare points especially in higher levels, I see alteration as a completely viable skill to have along with illusion---ESPECIALLY if you have enchanted robes.

I was thinking about doing a similar build. An archer that is one with the land sort of thing. The main difference from yours is that mine will be bosmer (or khajiit), and have alchemy as another main component. kinda like the one in my sig, but with some fine tweaks (I really love archery ). I love the idea of your build though.

One last thing, I've thought about the bound bow alternative as well. I've never messed with conjuration magic, so hopefully someone else with more knowledge will help us out.