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.

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.

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.

Here's a great one from Inklings.

https://imgur.com/QL7dphv

Occasionally, he streams it on twitch in action.

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.

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.

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.

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.