So... Your housecarl should not be your steward? And neither should your follower?
I have reloaded sveral times. Valdimar is my housecarl at the lake peoperty. Sven is my follower, so I have to release Sven, get another follower to go with me to my home, make him/her my steward, then find Sven again and get him as my follower?

This is confusing. LOL

It is fine for your housecarl to be your steward, if you wish.

Only if you want a large staff to defend your home. In theory, you can have a steward, a housecarl, and a spouse, all of them lethal. Add yourself and a follower, and that's five. I'm assuming your kids, the wagoner, and your bard are noncombatants.

Ideally you shouldn't have your housecarl (for that house) as your steward as you can only have one unique housecarl per house, and once he's a steward you can't get another housecarl, and your staff goes down from two to one. It's like in the normal houses - you can have a wife, housecarl and follower with you in the house, but if you married your housecarl who also happens to be your favorite follower, you only get the one person in your house to keep you company when you're there.

In your case there's nothing wrong with having Sven as your steward, as you can always find another follower if you wanted. Choosing Valdimar, however, will result in the permanent loss of a housecarl for your house, unless that's what you want.

My Imperial plans to marry one of his housecarls and make the other his steward. And he doesn't use followers. Matilda the Battle Axe is the only company he requires.

I am taking the three female Housecarls from the regular game (Lydia, Jordis and Iona), and making each a Steward of my Hearthfire homes in one of my current play-throughs. Will keep the Housecarls who came with each house and will marry Mjoll to get her to stay at Lakeview Manor with Jordis and Rayya. This will give me three very well qualified defenders of this home, and two in the others.

I really like being able to have more people in the house. Makes home a bit more lively.

For some reason I prefer my stewards to not wear heavy armour - makes them look more administrative compared to the more physically talented housecarl. So far I've found Illia to be a great housecarl - she's dressed like a court mage, has a good voice, nice face, and quite a vicious mage to boot. She was also a pain to recruit from her original place (needed to use the console everytime to reset her disposition, and she was fond of taking long walks to Windhelm, making it a chore to find her) so as a steward I know pretty much where she is if I need her to go adventuring with me. Haven't decided who next, but Marcurio sounds like a good option for my second house - you don't have to pay him anymore to recruit him again once he's your steward, right?

I also found that some follower mod followers can become steward too! In one of my test playthroughs for my vampire character, Alva from Morthal actually because my steward. She didn't quite walk around the place like Illia did in the other house, though, so maybe non vanilla followers are a bit glitched. She'll be in all different places when I arrived but once I'm in the cell she stopped walking. A shame, because she (and her tavern clothes, and her character history) made for a very cool steward too.

I would much rather have more people around. Having a housecarl, Steward, wife, and two children makes things more lively.

Just got my second home in Hjaalmarch. Sven asked me if he could be my steward. I figured we'd be adventuring for a long time now and he needed a rest. As I rode off with Shadowmere, I couldn't help but feel lonely.
I have to quit for the night since my wifey is home so I can always reload, but I figure I can get me a bruit of a woman to go with me out fighting. I always have Sanguine Rose if I get into trouble, and it'll be more fun to taunt the bandits if Sven isn't there running into battle. I keep having to leave him a long way off if I want to fight alone. Should be a command to "Stay, and be quiet".

I feel the same way. Housecarl = hired muscle, steward = personal assistant.


As have I. Though I haven't encountered the problem with her wandering off to Windhelm.

In addition to that, if you make your housecarl your steward, your housecarl abandons his/her housecarl daily routine of diligently patrolling your property.

I made my housecarls my stewards, and while I regretted it after a while, I no longer do. I may have one less staff/guard at my houses, but they still patrol, I have come home to Gregor fighting a giant, and Rayya fighting bandits. None of them wander off either. They also work around the place and cook too. So, while if I had it to do over (and I will, lol) I would, I am satisfied.

That's not patrolling. They go outside, sure. My steward goes outside as well, and if an attack occurs while she's' outside, she'll defend the home of course.

But they don't actually patrol the property in sentry-like fashion as the housecarl does when you let the housecarl remain a housecarl and hire someone else as a steward. They spend less hours outside as well.

Confirmed, I've been seeing a big difference between housecarl Valdimar and steward Faendal at WIndstad.

I kitted Faendal out with a nice armor set before asking him to be steward so that he'd be protected in a fight, but since then he switched back to his clothes. OK, I should have expected that. But later, when I thought we were *all* battling a dragon visitor, I duck back inside afterward and Faendal is sitting around by the fire! (eyeroll) I guess he didn't want to get those clothes singed.

I'm worried too that I chose the wrong person for my Steward. I choose Uthgerd the Unbroken. She's rough but I was thinking she'd defend the house.
I came home to her baking pies. Nice steward, now she cooks.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8471/8079631280_3777259b80_c.jpg

So do I want to go back in time and NOT hire her, and hire someone with a more pleasing voice? Is she SUPPOSED to fight for my home or just manage it?

Just manage it. Your steward will of course help defend against home attacks, but only incidentally so. After all, he/she lives there too. But it's your housecarl that has the official duty of defending your home.

Hm, come to think of it, who does a better job on defense at Dragonsreach, Proventus or Irileth? So it does make sense for them to have made your house work the same way.

Well, it works for me anyway. I've seen him at the top of the surrounding hills and down by the road, so I can live with it. Now, when I start a new character, will I choose differently? Probably, I like variety....

It's the way game in general works, really. Your stewards react to house-attackers in the same way many NPCs react to vampires whenever they decide to roll into town: They attack.