I also have interests in lockpicking and sneak, but haven't allocated perks yet, as I'm starting to worry about spreading myself too thin again. Basically my playstyle has been to use a bow at distance, preferably while sneaking for double dmg, and then switch to my dual wielding swords when up close. So a couple questions:
1. Am I gimping myself by using Light Armor over Heavy Armor. I've only spent 1 perk in light, so switching over to Heavy wouldn't be a big deal?
2. If I stay with light armor, which smithing route should I go down?
3. Is DW worth it? I haven't put perks into those skills yet, only the base 1H weapons. Or am I better off focusing 1H + Shield?
Any thoughts would be most helpful to this Skyrim Noob.
1) This is definitely not a huge deal, but it makes the early and mid-game a little rougher.
In time, you can rather comfortably, reach the armor cap (567 armor) with light armor and smithing + enchanting. With serious effort you can reach it with elven armor (2 smithing perks) and only a couple light armor perks, but that requires 100 alch / 100 enchanting / 100 smithing, which can take a while.
Smithing adds to base armor, which is adjusted by the other % improvements from the light armor skill, and the light armor % perks. Your BS skill (and having a perk associated with the armor you are using) becomes the most significant factor in your armor with light armor. Heavy armor can survive on it's base, and you can get away without smithing perks (though weapons like smithing perks too)
The armor formula is also a little rough for light armor, as it takes ~330 armor in order to cut incoming damage in half, but it takes only ~520 or so to cut it to 1/4. So the "returns" on more armor are accelerating returns, not diminishing returns. For me, it felt really rough on incoming damage at 200 armor, but got a LOT more manageable around 350-400 armor, and it becomes very easy at 567 (you take only 1/5th damage)
You may want to do some light armor skill "training" by letting things beat on you on purpose for what you can take to help this out. In badit camps, for example, leave an archer for last and get in melee range and he'll pull a dagger. Let him beat you down to 20% before you kill him. Or shout to stun / freeze him and pop out some healing spells.
2) left side for light armor. If you are going to fill the light armor tree & enchanting, then you really only need to take elven or glass and buy some +smithing potions to go with smithing enchants.
3) The combat mechanics strongly favor being able to block. Not only defensively, but being able to interrupt casters and stun opponents with a block punt. Dual wield is definitely more difficult, but if you get 100 smithing / 100 enchanting and appropriate perks, stuff doesn't live very long. The midgame will be rough with DW on a first play through.
I took 2H my first time through and it's more difficult than 1H + shield. You can still do some blocking (and block punting for interrupt / stun) with a 2H, but it's much slower than with a shield. DW has no blocking at all, and I imagine you will be doing some reloads, especially on casters.
You have about 40-50 perks before leveling gets really slow and you have to start using stuff you don't usually use to level. You need ~10 perks per tree to max out a skill, which means you need to focus on 4-5 trees. You can afford a few perks in another tree if you don't completely fill trees.