Looking for pure thief build

jgelety

So Ive looked around here and other sites but having a hard time figuring out how to do it best. Im looking for a char that is just a pure thief. Not looking for PvP, PvE, CP etc. Not even looking to get a level 50 char. Just a char that solely is a thief for fun (pickpocket, stealing, lockpicking). Ive seen that a Khajiit NB appears to be the best char creation. Obviously Ill pick up the Legerdemain skill and the thieves guild line. But Ill probably also pick up the Dark Brotherhood line for the Blade of Woe skill and if able to level that line enough to put some points into Scales of Justice and Padomaic Sprint. Ive even considered the vampire line to get the Dark Stalker skill. But the odds of advancing the vampire line to level 9 for that skill without playing this character as normal is pretty much out of reach.

Im not looking to have a character that moonlights as a thief. But a character thats just a thief with minimal PvE needed.

Yes I am aware Ill never be rich this way its just for fun. Yes Im aware that Ill have to do some killing to advance some of my lines but if needed Ill get help for that. Yes Im aware that my skill points will be harder to come by but I can do shard hunting along the way. And if needed run some public dungeon groups and main story line for extra.

Like I said this is just an extra character I want to mess around with purely for fun.

Any suggestions, hints, opinions etc?

Eradrann

Race: be either Wood Elf or Khajiit, they have the Stealthy passives which reduce detect radius. Khajiit also have a bonus for pickpocketing chance.

Class: Nightblade, if only for the Shadowy Disguise morph

Skills: just focus on Legerdemain, and Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood (if you have the DLCs)

Champion points: focus on maybe maxing out The Shadow for it's treasure chest bonus, also for the sneak and dodge roll reducing. Then maybe max stamina and stamina recovery.

Armor! Now what REALLY matters (imo) and makes it fun/east in my opinion, use these two armor sets:

Night's Silence (crafted set in each of the beginner zones)
Night Terror (dropped set from Stormhaven)

With NS, the 5/5 armor passive is ignoring speed penalty while sneaking (being a vampire also does this I think, but I don't play as one)
And with NT, it's 3/5 armor bonus reduces sneak detection even more and reduces sneak cost.

I used this "set up" while farming Black Market Mogul on my characters and even have my own "thief only" toon. Hopefully that all helps or makes sense!

jgelety

Pretty much what I was looking at myself. Thanks for the armor info though. I knew that Id need something special but wasnt sure which set. I also may do alchemy crafting for the potions. Plus with the Dark Brotherhood skill line I can get even more free potions daily with the Shadowy Supplier skill.

Couple questions though

Where should my attribute points be spent? Stamina?

Which Mundus Stone is the best option for a pure thief? Tower for max stam? Serpent for stam recovery? A different one?

Would I be better off initially using training armor for the increased XP before using one of the other sets? Im planning on using XP potions and scrolls when I can. But the armor could give me almost double the XP. Or does that set only increase XP from kills? If so Id probably be willing to grind some minor stuff for the extra XP to gain skill points.

Eradrann

Attributes... yeah I'd do more Stamina, maybe some Magicka (depending on what other skills you decide to pick).

Mundus... either of those would probably be fine, or since you're role playing a thief, maybe even The Steed for a 5% running speed bonus?

Yeah, if you want the XP bonus, go ahead and use that, you can add that if you craft Night's Silence. Night Terror I think drops random traits though. You'll have to farm for that set unfortunately. I use Well-fitted on my set(s), which just reduces run cost. Maybe save that for when you hit 160cp or hit the level you want.

jgelety

Sounds good. Im actually looking into what I need to make the Nights Silence set. Also looked into the Night Terror items. I figured I will be able to wear both the 5 pieces of NS and 3 of the NT easy enough. Im thinking for the NT Ill get Bone-Handled Dirk of Night Terror, Flame-Twist Blade of Night Terror and the Murk-Watcher's Greaves of Night Terror. The first 2 are from Delves so shouldnt be too difficult to get. The 3rd is from a quest that requires me to kill an elite mob so may need help with it. Or just use one of my higher chars to farm the items. That will leave me 5 armor spots to fill with the NS set if I choice to craft it or have someone craft it.

jgelety

I guess the only concern I have is with crafting my own set. Just to research the traits I need for all 5 pieces and to gather the materials for a level 1 set is a bit time consuming. And as soon as I hit level 16 Id need to replace the entire set. Which unless I plan on being an actual crafter I wouldnt be able to crafter higher level sets or even better quality sets without actually putting in the time to raise my skills. My guess is Im better off getting someone else to actually craft my NS sets at each bump instead. Downside to that is they may not be able to add the specific traits Id like.

jgelety

I just realized another good thing to get. If I complete the three chapter of the main story (half way point) then I can get Soul Summon II. Which lets me revive once an hour without any soul gem. Something nice to have if I happened to get killed near a treasure. Or I could even do one of those sprint through a dungeon drawing everything after me then let them kill me near the treasure. Then wait for them to leave and rez right there. The best part is it will use no skill points since it automatically raises the skills without using my points.

budrow

Khajit vampire, 3 piece night terror from Stormhaven and 5 piece night mother’s embrace from Deshaan. Add 4 piece way of air for recovery.

BenevolentBowd

Here's a great one from Inklings.

https://imgur.com/QL7dphv

Occasionally, he streams it on twitch in action.

Asardes

Khajiit Stamina NB
3 Night Terror 5 Night Mother's Embrace 7/7 Medium
Racial, armor, ledgermain, TG passives

SeanBlader

I was trying this out as a no-kill build, but I was having a hard time getting the first point into the Restoration Staff skill line without using it to attack. And then after a bit it got weird RP-wise as a thief only using a restoration staff waiting for other players to come along and help. I was thinking maybe only equipping a single dagger though, and avoiding ALL weapon skill lines, but that just seems a bit too semantic, so I'll probably go dual wield on one bar, and unarmed on the other. I imagine for the character development, you could initiate as a street-rat, that becomes a thief, and evolves over time out of necessity into an assassin. Or you could keep your moral code and maybe only fight in self defense. That's something you could consider down the line for the character. Also, by allowing kills you can run the main storyline. Killing Animals, Daedra, Undead, Were-beings, or anyone who would kill you feels fair to me, but making a real effort to try and avoid killing people MOST of the time, that's up to your conscience to decide where to draw that line.

I still like Bosmer for the race. Also if you're going to avoid combat, Dark Cloak is the way to go, and you'll want some magicka to be able to spam it past mobs. Later in your build there's also Aspect of Terror, I feel like Manifestation of Terror would be the better morph but I don't have any experience to back that up.

I was literally going 1/1/1 for magicka/health/stamina, which isn't great for upper level content, but that's not a priority for the build, and you're going to need the magicka like I said for Dark Cloak, you're gonna need the health if you want to avoid dying when you slip up and have to cut and run, and you're gonna need a lot of stamina for when you need to bail as well, again, where Bosmer really shines. I imagine that pickpocket bonus would really come in handy, but that's really if you only want to stick to towns and avoid the countryside and most of the quests/skyshards. I found though that the risk/reward ratio early on with pickpocketing was really bad, so I'd wait until I had some points into the guild passives to go that route.

Beardimus

I have a theif toon, but he's also a were now for fun.

Easy e ouch to make just look for the sets that support you. I think you do need the main quest tho for the SP.

Also leveling legerdemain is easy steal fruit from a market, max the daily slots and sell. Then increase slots with passive and its yours in no time.

Imza

If you do the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood quests that should get you close to lvl 50 - it will take you the "world" over and you don't have to kill much.....

I don't think speed is so usefull if your following to pickpocket it can actually be a hinderance so I don't use Night Silence

On my Khajiit Thief I use 5x Night Mother and 3x Night Terror for the radius reduction and have space left for resource management.

Waffennacht

I like this thread, well for killing purposes I personally would seek out animals (like a bear) to "hunt for food,"

And if like a bunch of goblins happen upon you and you can't escape, seems logical you'd have to fight

Nolic1

I would say try 5 pieces of Night mothers Gaze with 5 pieces of Night mothers embrace they both work super well together and with embrace you get sneak bonus. Also with the night mothers gaze if you get seen it helps for DPS. These are the sets I have used on my thief/assassin character for along time now and they work well.

Rainraven

If you vamp as soon as possible, you'll hit lvl 10 somewhere in the character level 30s (maybe as late as lvl 42, it's been a few months). That sneak speed is going to be very nice for a thief and you won't have to waste gear slots for it, and you may want elusive mist too.

jgelety

So an update. My “thief” is level 39. I’ve spent time playing other chars but so far this is my favorite. He didn’t go quite as planned though. My legerdemain isn’t as high as I’d like but I have been enjoying steal etc. What I did plan was this char is more of an assassin than I thought originally. I finished the Dark Brotherhood, thieves guild and the main quest. I’m currently half way through Cadwells Almanac. I spent time also taking dolmens. When I do actually play the thief I do most of it in the secured compound of the bank area in Vulkhel Guard. Robbing monks then using Blade of Woe on them for the last bit of treasure. Then drop down into the thieves area conveniently located in the same area. I’ve probably sold about 20k in stolen items but also probably paid 20k in fines when getting caught before I can get to the fence. Anyway just wanted people to know where I was. So far my favorite char to play.

Deepblue962

jgelety wrote: »

So an update. My “thief” is level 39. I’ve spent time playing other chars but so far this is my favorite. He didn’t go quite as planned though. My legerdemain isn’t as high as I’d like but I have been enjoying steal etc. What I did plan was this char is more of an assassin than I thought originally. I finished the Dark Brotherhood, thieves guild and the main quest. I’m currently half way through Cadwells Almanac. I spent time also taking dolmens. When I do actually play the thief I do most of it in the secured compound of the bank area in Vulkhel Guard. Robbing monks then using Blade of Woe on them for the last bit of treasure. Then drop down into the thieves area conveniently located in the same area. I’ve probably sold about 20k in stolen items but also probably paid 20k in fines when getting caught before I can get to the fence. Anyway just wanted people to know where I was. So far my favorite char to play.

I know this is a year old thread, but I was looking for the same thing and found this on YouTube. Pretty interesting build.

https://youtu.be/sLRkqRz-pQM

I'm working on it now.