JackDigital

I've been looking in the Creation Kit for what the perks actually do. No doubt someone else has worked this out before, but I can't find it myself. Both Conditioning (for light armour) and Unhindered (for heavy armour) work the same way. It has a property called Mod Armor Weight, with a function that sets the value to 0. It affects a worn helmet, body piece, boots and gauntlets, but not shields. Perhaps shields produce no sound when worn. This means that if sneaking sound is based on armour weight class, the perks do nothing for Sneak, but if it's based on armour weight in pounds, then you sneak as if wearing no clothing. If the Detection article on the Creation Kit wiki is accurate, your movement sound is (12 + 0.5 * armor weight), or (12 + 2 * armor weight) when running, and no other worn or carried items affect sneaking. The Sneak perk Muffled Movement just gives you an ability called PerkMuffledMovement, which provides no information on how it works. The Sneak perk Silence is the same way. This still leaves the question of whether armour weight or armour weight class affects sneaking, and how accurate the Creation Kit wiki article is (it seems based on the equivalent article at the Fallout 3 Creation Kit wiki, which was written by one of the lead developers (but the changes to the Skyrim article were by another author, so it's possible they're not as reliable). It's also still up in the air how weapon type or weight affects the amount of sound produced when it strikes.

I've found some useful information at the Creation Kit wiki here: http://www.creationkit.com/Category:Detection http://www.creationkit.com/Stealth_Points According to wiki user Henning, you have "stealth points" which are like stamina but for being spotted. They reduce when someone is looking for you, and when they drop to 0 you are spotted. If you're well hidden, you lose Stealth Points more slowly and regenerate them more quickly when the enemy stops looking. When you move, the weight of your equipped armour (and other items perhaps) makes it harder to sneak. (I'm not sure whether "weight" means the weight in pounds, or the weight class of Light/Heavy.) Attacking also makes noise, though the article doesn't say how weapon weight affects it. An arrow makes noise where it hits. If you don't move or attack, you make zero noise. Equipped items have no effect on being visually spotted. (Black robes, naked, holding Dawnbreaker, whatever.) The only things that affect being spotted visually are the light level, the amount of moving you're doing, and whether you're invisible to the opponent or not (e.g. no line of sight, invisibility spell, or target is blind). Unrelatedly (but I thought this was interesting), the Creation Kit has the armour values. For the armour body piece, Daedric (49) is better than Dragonplate (46), followed by Ebony (43), Dragonscale (41), Steel Plate (40), Glass (38), Elven Gilded (35), Dwarven (34), Scaled (32), Steel (31), Elven (29), Banded (28), Leather (26), Iron and Imperial (25), Studded, Imperial Studded, Imperial Light and Whiterun Guard (23), Stormcloak (21) and Hide (20). There's actually a better armour than Daedric: the Guild Master's Armor (ArmorThievesGuildLeaderCuirassMercer) has a rating of 50.

I've already read the UESP Wiki, the in-game documentation, and everything on Google, but can't find anything more concrete than "heavy armor/weapons penalizes Sneak". How, specifically, is Sneak affected by each the following factors, if at all: 1. Armor type (heavy vs light vs cloth) 2. Armor weight (in pounds) 3. The Sneak perk Muffled Movement 4. The Sneak perk Silence 5. The Light Armor perk Unhindered 6. The Heavy Armor perk Conditioning 7. Weapon weight (in pounds) 8. Weapon size (two-handed vs dagger) 9. Striking with a weapon 10. Having a weapon drawn 11. The Muffle spell 12. The Muffle armor enchantment