Being a Stealth Archer in Skyrim is one of the most fun and effective playstyles available in the game. Players typically pick Light Armors, use Bows and One-Handed weapons when things get too close for comfort, though staying away from the middle of combat is usually ideal to get sneak attack bonuses.
After a while, though, any playstyle can get tiresome – especially if it one-shots all but the most powerful bosses. There are a lot of Skyrim mods out there that change Archery, Stealth, and related systems. Some change Archery and Stealth as a side effect of changing other Skyrim systems, and all for the better, of course.
5 Realistic AI Detection
One of the most obviously dated aspects of Skyrim is the AI system. AI are programmed to suddenly forget about a disturbance as soon as the Stealth meter returns back to normal, even if they were shot in the head with an arrow. As long as the player gets away, they're generally safe, but this isn't a very fun way to do things.
The Realistic AI Detection mod makes Stealth in Skyrim feel much more realistic and, in some ways, more difficult. Enemies are more likely to see a stealthed player in certain situations, but planning ahead and using the cover of darkness, avoiding the use of items that act as a light source, and planning movements carefully can make the experience much more rewarding.
4 Ordinator
The Ordinator mod is one of Skyrim's most famous, used by millions of players who found the game's vanilla Skill Tree system to be disappointingly sparse. With this mod, just about every Skill Tree and Perk is overhauled, including of course the Sneak and Archery trees.
The Archery tree gains a variety of situational perks that improve damage or aim based on the type of bow/crossbow, the distance, or movement. The Sneak tree gets a swathe of useful Perks, like the Laughing Ghost level 100 Perk, which teleports players behind their targets, or the level 70 Perk Clean Escape, which forces enemies to forget your presence after standing still.
3 Shenk's Thievery Overhaul
Shenk's Thievery Overhaul is, as the name suggests, a total overhaul of the stealth and thievery-related systems of Skyrim in the effort to make them feel more rewarding. This overhaul adds a variety of thief routes to cities, vaults below major holds to rob, guard dogs for certain shops, and a huge number of new items and behaviors that make stealth feel fresh again.
The mod even adds a bunch of rare events, like thieves in cities aside from Riften stalking targets, and lets players climb onto the rooftops of most major cities to stealthily find their way around – a boon for bounty-avoiding thieves.
2 Scoped Bows
The Archery Skill Tree in Skyrim is home to perks that make it easier to snipe targets far away, like the ability to zoom in and slow down time for shots that particularly thread the needle. Because it's perk-based, though, it's not exactly honed for different types of bows.
The Scoped Bows mod changes this by adding sights to a variety of bows throughout the world. Now, players can find (or buy) bows specially made for long-distance shooting. Just be sure to switch back to normal bows for mid-range combat situations.
1 Proper Aiming
One of the major problems with bows in Skyrim is the arrow drop and how difficult it can be to account for. Even when shooting enemies at point-blank range, arrows somehow miss their targets and fall well below where the reticle was aiming.
The Proper Aiming mod rectifies this my simplifying how Skyrim determines where arrows fly. Now, arrows fly directly where the crosshair is aiming, no matter the direction or angle of the shot. You'll find yourself making much more accurate shots with this mod, especially at a distance, so it's worth considering turning up the difficulty a tad to compensate.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition is available on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S
