We’ve all done a stealth archer build in Skyrim at one point – or several – but have you ever killed 999 people before turning your blade on the Emperor to mark number 1,000? This player has.
Redditor Peterlerock shared a screenshot of their stats page, showing that they’d killed 999 people and nothing else. Not an animal, creature, Daedra, undead, or automaton. Through Skyrim’s translucent menu we can see the Emperor stood just a few feet away from their dagger, poised and ready to strike.
Peterlerock says they achieved these stats by playing as an illusion assassin. “I never entered any vampire/dwemr/draugr content, and I pacify all animals,” they explain. Think I cleared every single bandit/forsworn/black mage site in the game at least once. Have to spare Hagravens and random vampires (like Hern for Dark Brotherhood).”
Kill No. 1000 from r/skyrim
They’re not taking the easy route with this, either, opting to play on expert difficulty but with a “heavily modded” game. “To get an illusion assassin going, spam Muffle until you can buy higher tiers of Calm. Then it’s kind of easymode,” they say. “Avoid using other skills (speech, lockpicking etc) in the beginning to keep enemy level artificially low.”
I’ve played a nightblade build myself and loved it. I didn’t do it as rigidly as Peterlerock, but it would be fun to try on my next trip to Tamriel. I have used the Muffle trick before, though, as it’s by far the easiest way to quickly boost your illusion skill. There are other ways to boost your skills, but be careful as these can break your game.
If you want to try this yourself on legendary difficulty, Peterlerock has a strategy for that, too. “On legendary, you need to separate bandits from each other and then sneak-double-power-attack them with two daggers, followed by calm,” they explain. “Should not take more than two cycles per bandit. You can get like sneak60 from Embershard mine alone. With sneak 50+, muffle boots from dark brotherhood or muffle spell and sneak perks, it’s really not that hard anymore in dungeons. In the outside world, you need a source of invisibility. Potions from alchemy or the illusion spell. Outside, enemies have much better detection skills.”
If you want to spice up your next playthrough, here are the best Skyrim mods you can install to transform the experience into something fresh.