Lady_Scorp72 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that any action, i.e., pickpocketing, opening a door or container etc. immediately pulls you out of stealth no matter if it's cloak or potions. So, while you see the eye closed in stealth, as soon as you act you can become visible to any NPC standing nearby. The best way is to crouch and sneak without any invisibility mechanics until the eye is closed, and pickpocket/kill at that point. That way, you can be sure no NPCs are seeing you.

Quite often if it's partially open, you'll not be seen, but it's better if it's fully closed.

I would agree with you except that when I only pickpocket a NPC from stealth (cloak or invisibility potion), I stay in stealth. It seems to be only murder that does this. One of the biggest reasons that we need stealth (those of us who don't PvP anyway).

Just a forewarning, stealth mechanics are very buggy in this game. I have NPCs witness me committing a crime through the walls and floors all the time even when there's no possible line of sight between me, them, or the victim. The only way to mitigate these bugs is with certain passives.

As a NB main, I can tell you that cloak and potions will not help you commit the crime, BUT they can help you go unseen should you be trespassing or you are trying to escape a guard/hostile witness unless they have the anti-stealth aura. On a related note, anti-stealth auras such as in Heists and Sacraments are very buggy and sometimes don't render. I've found that if I think a guard might have an aura, un-crouching and then crouching again will usually get it to render correctly.

Night's Silence is a must if you cannot get the "Ignore the Movement Speed penalty of Sneak" from a skill. If you really want to do thieving, these are the most important passives to have:

Dark Brotherhood:
- Scales of Pitiless Justice
- Spectral Assassin

Thieve's Guild (in order of most important to least important):
- Veil of Shadows
- Clemency
- Swiftly Forgotten
- Haggling

Any unlisted passives are entirely optional and did not enhance my thievery significantly imo.

and there's no noise mechanic.

zvavi wrote: »

Just making sure you are using blade of woe to kill the npc and not a skill

Yeah it’s not obvious but you can’t assassinate anyway except with the blade of woe.

LadySinflower wrote: »

@Finedaible , thank you very much for your insight! It helps me understand it a bit better, but still not completely. The whole system seems out of whack.

@idk, so it's pick 3 times then kill? I'll have to remember that. I did know that the reason for killing them was to have them respawn faster with full pockets again.

@zvavi, yes I'm killing with the blade of woe. @Runefang, thanks for pointing out the obvious. :-)

@Lady_Scorp72 , thanks for reminding me that murder does make noise and that could be alerting other NPCs.

Overall I appreciate everyone here taking the time to answer my questions. Have a great day!

You're welcome. Trying to figure out how stealth and stealing worked was kinda frustrating for me, and it still is sometimes when things don't work how they should.

Some further tips I thought of:
- If you are not opposed to the jarring look on your character, being a vampire with the Dark Stalker passive is a great way to ignore movement penalty of sneak, and also helps you enter stealth really quickly at night. I like the vampire passive because then I don't need to carry an entire set of Night's Silence or Shadow Dancer's Raiment just to sneak around. I can then use that space for another set of my choice like the new Darloc Brae set from Northern Elsweyr.
- If you are a magicka NB build, taking the Concealed Weapon morph of Veiled Strike will further boost your sneak speed, so you'll actually be pretty darn fast that way.