ManleySteele

Interesting.... all my companions I've chosen will choose to wear the highest rated armor (I think based on their prefered skill) and weapons, but I've never seen one fully strip. Though, I know there's a mod of two out there that implement that feature such as RbtRvltin pointed out. Perhaps you unknowingly installed one that supports it? -MM I play on an XBox 360 with no mods. Since this happenned, I have learned that my follower, if dismissed, goes to the tavern now in her underwear. I also learned that if you go to her store, you can buy her old gauntlets (she is in legendary ebony armor, now) and that act will respawn her entire old set. Weird, huh.

What Armor are you using? All the forms of regular leather and steel armor are slow played throughout the game. They just won't level at the rate of elvin, scaled or glass armor. What is your smithing level? The ability to upgrade the already enchanted stuff that is everywhere is very important. The same with weapons. A fairly tame sword with fire damage is a killer. Same with cold or electrical. I haven't used a dagger with elementals on it, but it should work well. Early in the game, there is no substitute for damage.

YES! You wake up in the morning after a night of passion, and oops - "You have contracted Witherbits". Shoulda been more careful... Better do some careful AI screening to make sure your significant other is not like a guard who knows everything, all the time. lol

Update. I closed the game and turned everything off. Started back up and nothing has changed. I have half a mind to do it all again, just to see if it will happen again. If I do, you can bet that I will have a set of plate gauntlets with me, too.

I was in a dungeon (Treva's watch) where their is too much to carry, so I was taking advantage of the follower bug to overload Uthgerd the Unbroken (my default follower and my wife). As it happened, there were multiple sets of plate armor (minus the gauntlets). Uthgerd donned all the plate armors, like a mannequin. I think she donned all the other apparel I had her pick up also. When I removed the armors, I was able to give her any apparel and she will wear it, now. I have reloaded several times and she hasn't reverted to her former behavior. Has this happened to anyone else? I was even able to strip her to her underwear. If she doesn't revert to normal when I close down and restart the game, then I will be able to giver her muffled boots, light armor. etc. The only problem, so far is that she still wears the highest rated armor, but that's no problem for me. We can now dress up and go out. lol.

I have already started my dialogues for my follower/spouse. I prefer Uthgerd the Unbroken to any other available follower. I get her as early as possible and marry her as soon as realisticly convenient. In my mod, Just before you win the fight, you get a dialogue box that gives you the choice to finish the fight, or let her win. Afer the fight is over she will offer to accompany you. Regardless of what you decide, she begins to follow you. At first, she doesn't interfere. If you approach her, she denies that she is following you and puts it down to coincidence. However, anywhere you sleep outside, she is there when you wake up with your breakfast ready. After you finally invite her to help you, there are some dialogues where you learn more about on another. I don't want to bore you with details but the relationship advances from leader-follower to friends to friends with benifits to marriage.

I would never have thought about that. lmao. And like blocking and one handed weapons, have a seperate skill set for romance?

I go most places, most times on foot. I've had horses. They're a pain in the butt. The person who actually needs a hore is my wife/follower, since I can out run her and the horse. Unfornately, the only thing a follower will do to a hore is kill it for you. I have finally got to the point where I just go Wher I'm headed and let her folow the best she can. She always turns up, eventually. As for never fast travelling, why would I limit my options, even when they make sense for me. You have your fun and I'll have mine.

I am considering starting to spec out an open console for gamers to build, themselves. I need to gather some parts and build one myself to see where it takes me. Have to make OS and game engine decisions wisely. Thoughts?

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Of course, I'm no the guy youi need to convince. I'm one of those weird guys who will play about anything, once. For me it will all depend on making a more detailed set of NPC's, making better use of environments , etc. Really, ESV is not a big enough advance over Neverwinter Nights II to get redicuously giddy about and NMII is old in game years. Iwant to see some advance the art that doesn't depend on your users fixing all the mistakes you make as game designers. Maybes, when the toolset comes out, you can start layou of some terrain/areas and see where it goes. Have you scripted any characters yet?

That's funny. I did the same thing, just to cut wood in front of the Inn. I also carried it for a while for swimming, sleeping and other activities. I quit when it became more problem than it was worth. What this game really needs is a backpack that only holds four or five sets of clothing. 1. The afformentioned swim/sleep set. 2. A set of work clothes. 3. A set of good clothes 4. A Mage or priest set. and 5. One set of non-armor, of your choice. I don't care as much about weight as I do about the ability to organize the junk into sets. Does this make sense to anyone else?

I also find some of the armor, both light and heavy, ugly. I just don't find any of it ugly enough to do anything about it. I may do something later, but I probably won't. As for the questions about light and heavy armor perks and smithing perks, I guess it depends on your mindset when playing the game. I use light armor for everything. I also use followers ( as talking mules). I try to respect the intent of the game as much as possible, but I find it hard at times. Some of the scripting decisions leave me scratching my head, but hindsight from an outside observer of these decisions doesn't advance anything unless I am willing to do something about it. Having whined all that, I just find that light armor fits my style better than heavy armor. The perk limitations drive most of my decision about armor crafting and use. I made a decision, early in my playing. to only use armor/ weapons I had crafted. I have been forced, by circumstances, to make numerous exceptions, but I try to stand by it as much as possible. I also try to get my enchanting and my bow up off their knees as early as possible in a game. It's not easy if you don't want to pay for training (another thing I try not to do). One observation. If you don't intend to use the console commands or mods to break the limits of the game, then max armor is max armor and maxed weapons are maxed weapons, It really doesn't matter what form they take, It's all a personal decision and if you play enough, you will find your own favorite methods and styles. Hope this rambling doesn't gore anyone's goat, too much. If it does, try not to work yourself into too much of a frenzy. lol

No follower actually uses the arrows you equip them with. If you watch, you can retrieve the arrows they fire and slowly grow their inventory of a particular kind of arrow over time. In order to uparmor Lydia or any other follower, the armor you give her must have a base armor score higher than the base armor they start with. Upgrading the armor will not affect whether the follower will wear it. The other shoe is that if you give a follower unupgraded armor of the same type as they are wearing, they will don the unupgraded armor in prefereence to the upgraded armor.

Lydia also coughs a lot and makes a noise if you bump into her :laugh: I have thought of asking her to wait from a distance, but if I run back to her with an enemy ... will she automatically attack or do I have to ask her to follow me again? She will attack if she sees you in combat. Then she will wait where she winds up.

Early in the game, I prefer Uthgerd the Unbroken. You don't need to do anything about her armor for quite a while. She can carry quite a bit more than Lydia, and doen't have the crappy attitude about carrying. Also, she has a house so you are not under such pressure to get one of your own. I liked her so much I married her. I'm pretty sure she makes a great buttermilk biscuit and she doesn't complain. Also I don't have to hear about the golden claw or this deed or that deed every time I see her.

As someone who plays a warrior type, I find that sneaking with a companion is only limited if you really, really need to sneak. In those cases, I just park my companion far enough away that I can sneak until it's not germaine anymore. I then go get my companion and continue on my way. I also do this for hard boss fights, where it is all too easy to kill your follower. The more opponents, the more likely I am to leave my follower out of the action. I guess that makes my followers glorified, talking mules, but I like glorified talking mules. At least they don't bark constantly. As for Lydia, in my opinion, she is far from an ideal follower. Her armor is too weak and she doesn't like an upgrade in type. When you do upgrade, then all the weight of her new armor comes out of her carrying capacity. A weak mule, indeed. You can put rings, necklaces or boots of loading on her, but she will remove them at the first opportunity. Oh to have my hands around the neck of the designer who thought that was a good idea. lol