Is there a tactic to take out two enemies next to each other silently?

Question

I was happily sneaking through Fort Greymoor, dispatching enemies one by one with Dawnbreaker, whilst dressed as a Jester (as you do on a pleasant Sunday afternoon...). However, I came across a room where there were two enemies with their back to me looking into the center of the room where two pit dogs were fighting it out. There was also another bandit sat at the 10 o clock position on the other side of the room (he couldn't see me when I stood next to the other two).

Up to this point, I'd successfully gone through the rest of the fort without being detected, but I couldn't work out how to kill these two bandits without alerting one of the two and the bloke on the chair.

My only slightly successful tactic was to poison one of them silently and then time my stealth kill just as the other guy died from latent poison I was feeding him. This didn't stop the guy on the chair being alerted, but it did make it easier to just step back into the shadows and cut his throat out as he checked out the dispatched corpses. It didn't feel right though.

Is there a better way to achieve multi kills when sneaking?

Answer 1

Three Simple Steps to Group Assassinations

1. Fire an arrow at the far wall behind one of your targets (the guy sitting down).
2. Watch as the bandits casually meander over to the wall to investigate what made that peculiar noise.
3. Assassinate each target from behind silently with your dagger(s) as their backs are turned to you and they are walking away.

If you are being detected during step #1, an invisibility potion just might do the trick.

Answer 2

I use illusion and the fury spell. It's even better when you get silent casting, but until then act like a stealth archer. Sneak, fire fury, then run and hide. They will fight it out and one will probably die. If not, then repeat until one finally does. You can finish the straggler off with a backstab.

You can actually take out a whole horde of enemies using illusion spells, without even getting noticed. Just let them massacre each other, stand in the shadows and chuckle to yourself.

Answer 3

• Dagger kills are silent. I've often managed to slit a bandit's throat without the guy standing next to him noticing anything happened.

• Bow kills are quiet and tend to leave enemies looking at the spot where the arrow hit rather than at you. As long as I'm being quick about it, I'm generally able to drop two (and often three, sometimes even more) enemies before they manage to detect me. (This is using the +30% bow speed perk and nothing else; I expect that two should still be possible even without that perk, though.)

Answer 4

What I usually do is shoot from a distance. I work my stealth and archery to the max very early so I don't get seen and shoot very powerful shots. Also, even though it's hard to do, I go for the head 99% of the time. I'm also curious if the dogs fight to the death, haven't been to this place yet....