Gameplay Suggestions - Skyrim Stealth Archer Build

[Paes]

Hi all,

I'm returning to Skyrim after a long hiatus and am planning a male, bosmer, stealth archer build. I'm looking for some suggestions based on how I plan to build my character. Here's some information on how I plan on building/playing:

• Don't want to use exploits
• Don't want to acquire weapons in the early game that are best left for the later game
• Don't want to use Bound weapons
• In the early game, I only plan on developing only Archery and Sneak (ie. I want to prevent anything else from gaining a level)

Based on this playstyle, I'm looking for early-game suggestions on the following:

• Bow
• Gear for buffing archery
• Best way to earn gold
  • Without buying/selling/pickpocketing, I'm limited to whatever I find in unlocked chests
• Passive buffs - I am planning on Agent of Mara, Agent of Dibella, and Ancient Knowledge

Any other suggestions are welcome!

 

 

[Greg]

I generally begin life as a wood elf that's hunting in the woods so I get a base hunting bow and iron arrows.

After doing the alternate start through Helgen and Riverwood, I enter sneak mode (and stay in sneak mode to gain experience from sneaking around wildlife) and wander through the woods around Riften and Whiterun. This is actually a very large area from roughly Falkreath to Morthal and from Rorikstead to the mountains.

If you play this well, you can gain a lot of sneak and archery experience hunting mudcrabs, wolves and elk. There's one particular area with a sabertooth cat you should stay away from at low levels. Also stay away from the snowy areas that have higher-level creatures and the bears around Riften. Every so often you can return to Whiterun and either sell your raw hides or convert the hides into leather and sell the leather. You can also get free smithing training in Whiterun in which you essentially get a free dagger and leather helmet that you use or sell.

Once you're ready to take on some bandits and draugr, head over to Bleak Falls Barrow to take out the bandits and pick up an Ancient Nord Bow and some higher-level arrows on some of the draugr. You can also loot the place as you go, but carryweight is your main enemy here. I'll leave it for you to decide whether to tackle the boss. The boss actually isn't terribly difficult, but you have to get so close to trigger the boss that sneak doesn't really help much. It may take several trips to completely loot the place and there's so much loot you can't sell it all at once anyway. Do loot every arrow you can find.

Once you are out of Bleak Falls Barrow, you can head over to Whiterun to sell your loot and go back out into the forest to take out the bandits and other creatures in the area.

If you want to branch out into alchemy, create some poison potions and use these to enchant your arrows for higher level enemies for a bit of a boost to damage. I usually don't bother using most of the alchemy perk tree, but arrows dipped in poison can add a bit of an extra punch.

You'll also want to leverage smighting skills and smithing perks so you can upgrade your bows over time and wear light armor with dark colors. I usually concentrate on sneak, archery and light armor perks with secondary on smithing and speech.

At the higher levels, I tend to use heavy bows for long-range sniping attacks in exteriors and light/fast bows in interiors. AT the lower levels I use whatever bow I can find with the most damage and sell the lower level bows.

[Mousetick]

Is this vanilla or modded Skyrim? Assuming vanilla:

On 12/17/2022 at 11:20 PM, Paes said:

Best way to earn gold without buying/selling/pickpocketing

• Do chores (chop wood, mine ore, gather wheat, ...). Won't increase skills, but doesn't earn much.
• Do bounty quests (the ones obtained from innkeepers, or Jarl's stewards). At low levels you'll be asked to kill bandits. 100 gold per bounty. 1 bounty per hold, repeatable.
• Make potions and sell them. Earns good money but increases Alchemy skill. Borderline exploit.

It's very difficult to controllably "build" a character in vanilla Skyrim. You'll need a lot of discipline and awareness to avoid increasing unwanted skills and levelling up as a result, or to ignore OP random loot that you find. Which makes the gameplay not fun IMHO.

I'd suggest using at least one simple lightweight mod: Experience Multipliers (MCM sliders for each skill). For example, you could decrease the Speech skill multiplier so that you can still trade without increasing the Speech skill too fast. The multipliers can be adjusted at any time.

[Paes]

On 12/17/2022 at 7:37 PM, Greg said:

I generally begin life as a wood elf that's hunting in the woods so I get a base hunting bow and iron arrows.

After doing the alternate start through Helgen and Riverwood, I enter sneak mode (and stay in sneak mode to gain experience from sneaking around wildlife) and wander through the woods around Riften and Whiterun. This is actually a very large area from roughly Falkreath to Morthal and from Rorikstead to the mountains.

Once you're ready to take on some bandits and draugr, head over to Bleak Falls Barrow to take out the bandits and pick up an Ancient Nord Bow and some higher-level arrows on some of the draugr. 

Thanks for the response. This is pretty much exactly how I've started all my archer builds up to now.

[Paes]

12 hours ago, Mousetick said:

Is this vanilla or modded Skyrim? Assuming vanilla:

• Do chores (chop wood, mine ore, gather wheat, ...). Won't increase skills, but doesn't earn much.
• Do bounty quests (the ones obtained from innkeepers, or Jarl's stewards). At low levels you'll be asked to kill bandits. 100 gold per bounty. 1 bounty per hold, repeatable.
• Make potions and sell them. Earns good money but increases Alchemy skill. Borderline exploit.

It's very difficult to controllably "build" a character in vanilla Skyrim. You'll need a lot of discipline and awareness to avoid increasing unwanted skills and levelling up as a result, or to ignore OP random loot that you find. Which makes the gameplay not fun IMHO.

I'd suggest using at least one simple lightweight mod: Experience Multipliers (MCM sliders for each skill). For example, you could decrease the Speech skill multiplier so that you can still trade without increasing the Speech skill too fast. The multipliers can be adjusted at any time.

Thanks for the response. I'm playing using the latest STEP build. You raise a good point on playing a "controlled" build. It's also been my experience that controlling the character development makes the game tedious, since avoiding levels through speechcraft and lockpicking make the game less immersive. I do enjoy the challenge though, so I will avoid manipulating skill multipliers on this playthrough --- but I will eventually try a build with speech and lockpicking multipliers reduced, since that seems as though it would make the game a lot more fluid and enjoyable.

For gold, I guess I'm limited to bounties for now.

Any thoughts on early game gear or buffs?

 

[Mousetick]

10 hours ago, Paes said:

For gold, I guess I'm limited to bounties for now.

You'll also find some gold in chests and various containers in dungeons.

10 hours ago, Paes said:

Any thoughts on early game gear or buffs?

Not much to tell really. Pick the best bow and light armor you can find or buy. Imperial bow is good early on. If you're playing in Survival Mode, pick an armor that is warm, which may not be the best one in terms of armor rating.

You'll stumble upon enchanted items (jewelry, armor, weapon), in random loot, that provide various buffs. Use them as you see fit.

[TechAngel85]

Once upon a time, Archery Gameplay Overhaul was my go-to when I was playing archery characters. I enjoyed the realism it added. It once had some animation issues in 3rd person that I don't know if were ever fixed, but that didn't bother me because I mainly play in 1st person.