Wow… they really need to fix that. That is terrible if you’re playing a “good” character who doesn’t steal
Stealth killing is considered dishonorable though so either way if your trying to stealth kill it would go against you playing as a “good” character.
Don’t forget that the game gives NPC’s an option to give up and surrender, you can choose to be merciful and let them live. Alternatively you can be dishonorable and kill them.
Stealing from innocents, corpse-robbing, and other such “not-good” acts are not necessarily the same as stabbing someone who participates in the slaughter of innocents. What the game and or times consider honorable matters less than my personal view of what my character’s compunctions are, so if I backstab a few of the worst arseholes in the world, so be it… Until someone my character respects tells him that’s “wrong”, there’s no reason for him not to. Growing up, you’re likely taught not to steal, or attack any innocents, but if the goal is to kill a whoresson, then there’s no reason to know that a specific method is wrong until told otherwise. It’s not like old dad likely said son don’t kill anyone, but if you do definitely don’t stab them in the back.
That being said, my response about killing was merely in regards to the suggestion to stealth kill a bunch of guys for xp.
I just want to be good at scouting, but I can’t do that without choking out, pickpocketing, or lockpicking… That seems a bit poorly designed in my opinion.
You can sneak around camps and gain stealth experience a believe.
Also, you don’t have to kill. You can sneak up on sleeping bandits and knock them unconscious while they are sleeping.
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Sneaking alone gives no xp. I’ve tried for days. I have about 20 stealth xp now because I’ve started picking locks and not opening the trunks.
Also, every time I’ve tried the knockout on an enemy that I’m right behind, whether they were asleep or awake, they instantly get out.
I uncovered the entire map, hunted all the Cuman/Bandit camps and posted them Here. Go to them and level up your stealth. Not too difficult.
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That shouldn’t be the case. I’m knocking people out regularly using it.
People suggesting I run to find bandits are clearly missing the point. I’d like to have at least a modicum of experience at being strealthy BEFORE heading off to find bandits. It’s not a hard concept to grasp.
As for the knockouts not working, I have no idea why but it always lets go. I’ve tried clicking the button, holding, etc and it never works no matter which method I try, and in the case of sleeping people (bandits), when I get to them and do knockout, they always slowly stand, get into position, then get grabbed and pop out, which makes no sense all around.
How much noise is your clothing making when you are doing this?
before you develop a solid base of stealth experience your noise makes a huge difference.
Early on I was getting mad because I couldn’t even knockout a sleeping person. I tried stripping down to the base underclothes noise registering at 0 and I had 0 issues from then on.
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I’ll look into that. I should have been between 12 and 14% due to the things I wear to drop conspic/vis much lower. My pasty skin and white underclothes are problematic so I have either leather or hunting gloves and hunting boots on, plus brown leggings, a brown shirt, a brown waffenfrock, and a black padded coif.
Is sound really what determines success in a choke out??? That seems pretty ridiculous. I just thought my agility character didn’t have enough strength with only 4.
it managed to knockout with lower noise… that is very illogical to me, but oh well I guess. Thank you McW.B.
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Think about it this way if your clothing on your body makes noise as you move your going to draw more attention to yourself.
When you make more noise the person you are attacking is more aware of you’re presence.
This would be more obvious if there was a visual cue as to how much attention you were drawing at the time, like in oblivion.
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Then they should see me… or look or something, not auto escape
You can generate stealth XP as soon as the game starts by crouching (stealth mode) and entering areas that you’re not supposed to be in. For example, at the inn in Skalitz there are two rooms where it tells you, the moment you enter the room, that you are entering an area that does not belong to you. If you sneak into one of those rooms and then look at your Stealth XP, you will notice it has gone up by a slight amount. Within that room, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you have snuck into the room you get the same amount of XP. In other words, movement within a room does not increase XP, it is the fact that you snuck in that granted you the XP. There are two such rooms in the inn. Sneaking back and forth between those two rooms will see your Stealth XP go up a small amount each and every time you enter one while sneaking.
As others have mentioned, opening locks while sneaking (which you can do as early as Talmberg as soon as you flee Skalitz - the vendor (Voteva?) in Talmberg castle sells lockpicks and buys all stolen goods) will also grant you Stealth XP as will sneaking behind anyone and using the Knockout option. Hilariously, as a test I knocked out Kunesh while I was in Skalitz and took everything he owned, just to see if that worked. It did and I got a significant chunk of Stealth XP for doing it. Some time later, I see Kunesh come walking down the road in his underclothes and coming straight toward me, well outside of his normal AI behavior. He walked straight up to me, looked me in the face and said, “What the hell?” and then turned around and walked away. I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself.
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What the hell?!
Every time I’ve tried knocking that mofo Kunesh from behind the only guard in the entire area always comes around the corner and see’s me. 
i did it right after the fight. he turned his back. sleep time. no prob.
Ah, that might be a good idea to try! 
Not mine saw ESO (or someone) do it
I’m very glad going in and out of an area marked private does NOT just infinitely rack up Stealth XP, as that would be cheesy. I’ve tested the theory because I had no xp despite “sneaking” in those areas and while checking xp before and after entry into a place there was zero change.
That in fact does not work. Myth… busted.
The only method that seems to work consistently is lick pocketing. Now I don’t care if it’s dishonorable; however, too those that care, I found a trick that might be right up your alley. First ride around until you get attacked by bandits (I have never tried cumens). Hit them until they drop or even better if they surrender. If they surrender go behind them and pickpocket until you have stolen everything after which knock them out. If you end up knocking them out before they give up, load their unconscious body with flowers and other nonsense. Make sure to only put one of each item, multiples will not grant you anything extra. When they wake up they will generally automatically give up and beg for mercy (wash, rinse, repeat). Now there are times that they run, use the run up and tackle option and they will either collapse unconscious again or give up. What makes this little trick so cool is, the people in the nearest town apparently love this. I went up 17 happiness points? in Rate at by doing this early in the game. My stealth is now at a healthy level 11 and pickpicketing is not only easy but fun. With my extra skills unlocked I tend to target very risky targets for fun…like in the middle of the market in Rattay at 3:00 PM. I once climbed on the barrel by the merchant (male) located next to the sword vendor and robbed him blind in front of everyone. That was hair raising too say the least but I pulled it off.
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