just remember the new patch i think made the xbow not do any sneak attack dammage. That being said You CAN put on another enchantment so say hello to a base 22 with out upgrades, 50% ignore armor, PLUS 60 magica dammage you can slap on it (and thats without any + enchant gear on nor any extra buffs from the enchanting tree).
I carry a fully upgraded xbow with a fully enchanted magica dammage slaped on it, with my exploding arrows. Plus, a dragonbone bow with dragonbone arrows, the bow fully upgraded with the same magica dammage slapped on it. Stealth mode use bow, when they figure out im there pull out the xbow and laugh like hell.
On the ps3 I'm doing sneak damage with a crossbow, so the patch hasn't nerfed sneak unless you're talking about a pc specific patch, like the unofficial skyrim patch.
As far as consoles go, I'm fairly certain the aforementioned patch did not take place, as I am on xbox 360 and crossbows still do sneak attack damage.
Xbow still does sneak damage on all systems. It's loud though so enemies might hear the xbow and raise their guard before the bolt hits if you're too close.
I wanted the enhanced dwarven crossbow but got stuck siding with Harkon, my last save was over 50 hours prior and I accidentally saved over it. Now I really wish I was playing on the pc so I could use console commands to fix this.
I don't get why people have problems sneaking with the crossbow, I took out a room of like 10 people while sneaking with my enhanced dwarven crossbow, and i got the 3X multiplier for sneak damage on every hit, maybe it's just the way I play, does anyone else feel like they can sneak effectively with the crossbow?
I sided with the Volkihar Clan and I have spawned ALL of the crossbows through console commands...
It happened to me but the enchantments definitely work.. I think it's listed in the bugs section so it is a known bug.