Example: If I give Lydia both a plain, unmodified Ebony Sword and an Orcish Sword (Epic) enchanted to do 20 fire damage per hit (which has substantially more base damage than the Ebony Sword, let alone the additional fire damage), she'll choose the Ebony Sword over the Orcish Sword (Epic) every time. Actually, even with the default gear from her hidden inventory deleted, if I give her a plain Imperial Bow and a Glass Bow (Epic) enchanted to do 20 fire damage per hit, she'll use the Imperial Bow instead every time — and it's an inferior material to Glass, let alone doing far less damage.

Anyone figured this out yet? Is there a mod/fix? It's easily "solved" by not having followers carry weapon and armor loot, of course, but that does get annoying after a while.

I read somewhere she refuses to use enchanted stuff.

Maybe she's scared of magic. Most nords are a bit backwards that way.

I find the whole thing weird, especially not being able to access their full inventory, for instance I can give Mjoll standard steel armor and she uses it, but she will absolutely not equip fur or foresworn superior, I want her to equip fur armor superior for my role play, it's bloody freezing in skyrim!

She uses the most expensive item, I believe...

She does use magic items. I give her a glowing green helmet, so I don't accidentally shoot her in the heat of battle. Glowing green is easy to see.

However, she does seem to default back to her old junk if you leave her alone for a while.

I just wish her health would update with her levels. She still has like 120 health at level 35!

They need to include (Magic damage potential) as part of value and damage calculation. (Giving AI the ability to recharge the item if needed, and realize it is out of charge.)

SWORD: 34 (+14 = 48) Ice Damage

how did you delete her default gear???

Lydia does have problems with gear...

she does not 'see' enchantments...so she will not take enchanted bonuses into account.
works strictly off 'base damage'... even so she can randomly pick the worse item.

for me she is dressed all in enchanted ebony armor... and she wears it faithfully.
enchanted ring, necklace, and tiara... no problem
enchanted ebony shield and axe... she loves it.
(all items enchanted by me)

enchanted bow... no so much.
give her enchanted glass, ebony, elven, dwarven she usually pulls out her original wood hunting bow.
however, give her an enchanted imperial bow and she uses it almost every time... (still randomly chooses her old hunting bow).
take enchanted ebony bow away then give it back she equips it immediately... she obviously knows it is better... but, after a few minutes she is back to hunting bow.... grrrrr!

oh.. as mentioned previously, if i leave her home for a couple days she takes off her ebony armor (chest piece only)... wtf???

p.s... have to be very selective in what i have her carry. so long as the items are lower base she seems to ignore them.

If you tell them to go home, they just revert back to the old gear... at least, thats how it worked in 1.1...

A couple of times when I parted ways with my companion after removing all but one of their default clothing items, they just took off all of their clothes and started walking home nekkid.

It's definitely not just weapons and armor, value, material, or base damage. Lydia does the same thing with rings, too — I gave her a gold +18% Magic Resist ring, and she wore it. Then I gave her an unaltered silver ring, and she switched to that instead.

She uses the enchanted stuff I give her... I have her wearing Ebon Mail (so she doesn't always ruin my attempts to sneak by something), an Orcish helmet, some Ebony Boots with a fortify carry weight enchantment, Ebony Gauntlets with Fortify Two Handed enchantment, a ring with Fortify Two Handed, a necklace with Fortify Two Handed, and an Ebony Battleaxe enchanted with Fire Damage. For Ranged I gave her a Daedric Bow with a fire damage enchantment along with one single Daedric Arrow. All items upgraded to their fullest extent I'm capable of with 100 Smithing and several Fortify Smithing enchanted items.

She does amazing two handed damage with those fortify enchantments. With the bow, her damage isn't as good but it's enough to be helpful. I like Fire to be a good general enchantment for a follower.... not a lot of things seem to resist it. Occasionally I'll give her something comparable and she'll change to it instead of what I want her wearing/using... mostly a problem with Helms. I have her wearing Orcish since anything above that covers her face completely. Heh, I don't like talking to a helmet. Other times, she'll equip something way worse than what I gave her, but that happens mostly when I've had her wait somewhere for extended periods, or if I've sent her home temporarily. Removing the items I want her to wear/use and giving them back to her (through the regular trade windows) fixes it.

So yeah, seen this problem, but hasn't been too much of an issue.

she probably has about 20 bows.

they get auto replaced it seems even if they are there

this bug maybe has something do with the fact that followers have special archer code that lets them use infinite arrows.

i believe you can fully strip her through console commands at which point she should use bow and arrows you give her as base although she might actually start using arrows at that point or simply auto replace one of them during a cell transfer.

her ablitys and leveling are broked as for most people she doesn't level properly however like all followers has she skill numbers that do level at varying rates and she even changes weapon preference based on them. these may or may not level with use like a players.

i've seen her base numbers naturally level to the point where she prefers using a two hander to a weapon and shield and will flip her preference.

her leveling bug can be addressed by dismissing her then "delete" - "enable" her using the console.

her stats can be augmented with the "modav" command which will enable her to become, for example, an archer. as if you add a decent buff to her archery stat she will prefer to shoot at long range and (afaik) will only melee if she is directly attacked from melee distance.

a few here have mentioned they 'deleted' her default gear...

can someone please explain how to do this? (or provide a link)

thanks

Open console mark lydia or whatever npc you use.

Type: Removeitem 10e2dd 1 so value goes to 0.0
(Id for the bow and they all use that default one)

Now your companion will use the bow you supplied.

Enjoy!

This is the basic process, though I add a bit more in so the companion will also level to you

Step 1: Take everything you don't want removed from follower via "Trade" option
Step 2: Tell your follower to go home/leave your service
Step 3: Bring up console, ~ Key
Step 4: Click on follower
Step 5: Type "removeallitems" in the console, hit enter. This deletes their entire inventory (hence the need to take the stuff you want in step 1
Step 6: Type "disable" in the console, hit enter. Your follower will vanish. DON'T CLICK ANYWHERE ELSE
Step 7: Type "enable" in the console, hit enter. Your follower should reappear. They are now leveled to you
Step 8: Exit console, rehire follower, give them their stuff back


You now have a follower that is leveled to your level, their skills have also leveled and their "hidden" inventory isn't full of duplicate items. You can confirm by opening console, clicking them and typing "show inventory"

She uses all the enchanted stuff I give her? Dwarven Shield +30% to block and a Bow that causes fear in anything up to 12th level. Enchanted Dwarwen helm with 20% additional archery damage...? She's used enchanted melee weapons as well. She'll use whatever has the higher damage. if it's a 2 handed weapon, she'll choose it over the single handed because it does more damage overall if the base damage value of the weapon itself is higher... i.e. upgraded Ebony axe vs a iron warhammer, axe wins.

Kind of a cool thing but not very realistic, is giving them a quiver of like 7 deadric arrows... it doesn't empty... They'll keep shooting them and you can pick up the arrows they leave everywhere and increase the numbers in their quiver. Then once you reach like 300 deadric arrows you can take like 290 and let her replenish your stash...

Click on her in the console and disable, then enable her. It updates their stats without losing any equipment you gave them.

You mean Lydia will use a Daedric bow of Awesomness I gave her instead of her trusty hunting bow that I want to beat her with??

Nice will give *this a try.

Stalker/Dynablaster -

YOU ARE AWESOME!

will give this a try when i get home... thank you!

probably she is just a better RPer then you and try to balance out the game instead of take the easy way...

Stalker -

YOU ARE A SAINT!

'removeallitems' was the answer!

Leyda is FINALLY using the enchanted bow consistently!

as for level... odd...

i used 'getlevel' and she is already my level

went back through several old saves and she has been leveling with me... including her health (getav health).

to check a companions stats use '~' to open console. mouse click the companion.
below are available commands:
getlevel
getav magicka
getav health
getav stamina
getav carryweight
getav marksman
getav Block
getav HeavyArmor
getav OneHanded
getav TwoHanded
getav Smithing
getav Alteration
getav Conjuration
getav Destruction
getav Illusion
getav Restoration
getav Enchanting
getav Alchemy
getav LightArmor
getav Lockpicking
getav Pickpocket
getav Sneak
getav Speechcraft

Great info, but I still seem to having an issue (or maybe everything is fine and I think it's wrong).

-I took all the gear I gave her back and did a "show inventory" before the steps, it's showing all her default steel gear as intended.
-I did "getlevel" and "getav health" just to make sure and she was level 50 (odd, because I'm level 56 so she should be my level correct?) and her health was 178.
-Followed Stalkers' steps.
-Her inventory is still showing the same stuff (along with all the BAD EDITOR ID xxxx values). The only difference after all steps that I see is now her health is 671, but her level remains unchanged.

She still seems to be equipping lower Damage Valued weapons over higher ones and her inventory still shows that weak Hunting Bow, along with Iron Arrpws.

Did I make a mistake somewhere?

The removeallitems usually resets their gear so stick with removeitem 10e2dd 1 if its the bow you want to remove.

Thanks Dyna.

As for the issue of her prioritizing lower damage weapons / lower armor valued gear over higher ones, is there a fix for that as well?

For example, I have Lydia in a full set of Legendary Dragonplate Armor, but when I give her a plain Ebony Helmet, she equips that over the Legendary Dragonplate Helm. Another example, when I give her a Legendary Daedric Waraxe she equips that. Then when I give her a Legendary Daedric Sword (which has slightly less damage, she equips that over the Axe).

Keep it simple they arent meant to carry your burdens with that AI.

Give them one set of armor and do watch what sort of armor and weapon/shield is their default as it indicates what they are good at using, there is plenty of companions to suit your needs.
(though i find them quite skilled with a staff of fireball or sangurine rose to summon a daedra ^^ )
About equipping axe instead of sword my guess is that she got perks in swords not axes.

I guess that makes sense.

Is there a way of figuring out what followers are best with, aside from trial and error and what perks they have?

Use Stalkers info for that.

But it dont show where perks is placed but will indicate enough to equip them with the right stuff.

Othervise if you see they got onehanded leveled make 3 equal weapons axe, sword and mace and see what she equip.
(then maybe unequip and requip it again in different order and see if the AI pick same weapon)