LE Small bug fix: make enchantments affect followers

[scissorhands]

I've noticed that followers don't benefit from fortify 1-handed, fortify archery etc enchantments. I've been told that ASIS fixes it, but I don't want all of the other changes that come with it. Since I couldn't find anything that fixes just this, could someone please make something that does? Thanks in advance :)

[DrNewcenstein]

There's a Perk called Skill Boosts which governs this for the Player. Adding it to an NPC and giving them a Fortifying item did not reveal a change. After further testing, equipping the same item myself did not give my character a boost, either, so I'm thinking I may have a mod that's preventing that from happening. Hopefully it's not an intentional gimp but rather a fluke related to load order or a combination of mods. I'll have to investigate further.

 

That said, even on the 360, certain skill-boosted items did work for followers - namely, if I gave Lydia a Staff of Fireballs without any Destruction-boosting gear, she used it up in about 30 shots. After I gave her Fortifying gear, she used the same staff (once I recharged it for her) until the end of the main storyline.

 

I've also given my followers super-boosted Archery gear and they 1-hit Dragons. The bow itself was not Smithed up, but the gear they were wearing had been over-enchanted with potions made under the Restoration Loop.

[DrNewcenstein]

Ok, so further testing: I disabled all but one mod (kept one I made that only gives me good starting gear, including gauntlets that increase one-handed) - no SKSE, nothing that could influence the results - and when I equip the gauntlets, my One-Handed doesn't change in the Skills menu, but the bonus is reflected in the Damage rating of my weapons. This means the only way to tell if boosted gear will work on followers will be to make gear that 1-hits. If that works, then you can scale it back to keep them from 1-hitting everything.

 

However, while you can view an NPC's One-Handed rating via the console, you can't get the Damage rating of their weapon with boosted gearm so you'd have to test it both vanilla with and without gear, and then by giving them the Skill Boosts Perk via the console.

 

Personally, I'd avoid the idea of a mod for this since, as I said, I've given them enchanted gear on the 360 that disproved the notion that they do not benefit from enchantments.

 

I did make a set of mods (Improved Housecarls and Hirelings) that gives various perks to various followers, however, and those definitely work - with the Savage Strike perk, Iona regularly lops heads off in combat. I also gave her Disarming Bash, and watched her shield-bash a sword out of someone's hand.