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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Damn you slimy toad, but I love that method, I did the same thing to kunesh in skalitz
I guess that might require a hunting skill which helps you to stealth in the forest better
Aha, auto-correct where would I be without you.
The stealth skill increases mostly by knocking down or stealth killing, and a little less by lockpicking and pickpocketing. Normal sneaking around doesn’t increase stealth very much because the range in which you gain experience while sneaking is inside 4 meters around the target(s), that’s very low imo (in fact I personally increased the radius for myself).
i have had 0 noise 20 conspiciousness and 17 visibility and knocking someoen sleeping out and the whole room still wakes up and spots me (talking about you monastery quest)
The Lord works in mysterious ways
It still depends on your stealth level. Won’t matter if you have 0 stealth xp.
my stealth was 11
