newbie here trying to fiddle around with the CK.

anybody know if its possible to somehow convert a saved game character into a follower? I'm trying to make my characters into followers and i have absolutely no clue what i'm doing, and the official wiki only seems to cover on how to make a generic NPC for quests, and nothing about followers.

If you want to make someone a follower, follow these steps:

1. Make the NPC and place him ingame as the tutorial tells you to do: http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Creating_an_Actor

2. When you are done, go to the 'Factions' tab

3. Right-click in the table found there. A menu will drop down. Press 'New'

4. Another window opens up. Search for CurrentFollowerFaction. When found, select it and press OK. If done correctly, the faction is added to the list.

5. Now click twice (not doubleclick, just 2 slow clicks) on the number in front of CurrentFollowerFaction, in the Rank column. Set this number to -1.

6. Repeat step 3, but now you search for PotentialFollowerFaction. Select it and press OK. The rank number stays 0.

7. Now go to the 'Relationships' tab and right-click in the table. Press new. Another window opens.

8. Do the following things:
* Type a fancy name in ID.
* Leave ParentNPC untouched.
* Turn the field ChildNPC into 'Player'
* Turn RelationShipLevel into 'Ally'.
* Press OK

Now save your plugin and test it in your game.
I hope I explained it correctly. If not, ask away.

This helped me immensely! However, I have one slight change that I can't get to work with this solution: I want a NPC to become a follower after I accept their quest. Would this be apart of the dialogue tree I created or is it a seperate part of the quest data?

Can this be done with a creature NPC? There's a mod called Dwarven Spider Follower "Skittles" and I'd like to change it around a little bit and make it more like a normal follower. Later on add a quest where you have to build him...

But I'm a complete dummy at this stuff. Thankfully I learn fast, but the wiki is hard for me to understand lol

Has anyone figured out how to make an NPC hireable, I can't get it to work for the life of me and the dialogue menu is a terrifying mess of too many options.

Skip step 7 and 8 of my tutorial. Finishing the quest should raise the RelationShipLevel, allowing you to ask the NPC to follow.


I am afraid I cannot help, since I only tried humanoid NPC's.
I guess humanoid followers and animal followers use a different package.


I believe adding the factions CurrentHireling and PotentialHireling to said NPC would do the job. CurrentHireling must be set to -1, like CurrentFollowerFaction. PotentialHireling stays 0.

I tried this and my hireling did not give me the option to hire him without already having a follower. If I chose to hire him with a follower present, it did not work.

I've working on hirelings myself. I started off by making a duplicate of Janessa the hireling in the Drunken Huntsman. I've followed the tutorial, added all the proper factions, set up the crime faction for my new NPC, and added it to factions as well. I placed the NPC in an inn and added the name with REF at the end at the top of the box. But when I test in game, I get a standard goodbye statement. No option to hire. When I check the dialog in the CK there is no follow dialogue or hiring dialog. Has anyone elese had this problem?

What happens if you just use The PotentialFollowerFaction? Why do you need the CurrentFollowerFaction if Potential is sent to 0? trying to come to grips with skyrim logic.

Because Potential represents to ability to become your follower. Current is whether he/she is actually following you or not. At least, I think so.

I managed to get a hireling tow ork by doing the -1 thing for "potential hireling".

But once I talk to him, the option never shows up again (I didnt haev the money), EVEN ON A LOADED FILE! I reloaded a file before I had asked him to join me, and the option isnt there anymore! I even made an entirely new hireling and the same thing happens. It's like it saves to his esp file somehow.

I've altered the file, moved the character to a completely different place, and his "Another time, then" dialogue is all that shows up. This makes absolutely no sense.

I'm having problems making a Female Argonian a follower. I've done everything right, even remade the NPC herself a few times. Can anyone shed a little light on why she won't follow me, or even come up with the dialogue to?

Yeah this is kind of strange. I've got a new and custom NPC that I'm trying to create as a hireling/follower. I've done all of the steps listed here and elsewhere, but I haven't been able to get the initiating dialogue unless I've already got a follower in tow. Once I dismiss my current follower I don't get the hiring dialogue again. It's almost a perfect catch 22 situation in that I can try to hire if I've already got a follower, but I get no option to hire once I've created an open slot. Another puzzling aspect is that the AI sandbox package that I'm using for the new NPC works just fine as long as I've got a current follower, but it doesn't when I'm solo. I've placed the custom NPC inside the Drunken Huntsman in Whiterun and if I'm alone she stands in place behind the counter, but if I've got a follower with me she moves around and does the AI routine of sitting and eating. I'm scratching my head here and trying to make sense of this.

I think female Beast races aren't designed to follow the player in the first place. I tried to make another follower, a female Khajiit this time, and she doesn't work either. Both my male followers work, so why don't either one of the ladies work?

I created 2 followers, one Dunmer the other Bosmer... the Dunmer works perfeclty but the Bosmer refuses to start the conversation to follow me, even if i have no follower, what is wrong? can someone tell me? i did the exact same steps to both characters so no idea why the bosmer refuses to bring the quest conversation.

Hi guys here how to solve the dialogue issue your having. It is a problem with the voice type, there are only certain voices that work with the follower faction dialogue. If you set voice type to argonian it will not work because there is currently no dialogue for argonians in the follower dialogue quest. I tried to make a greybeard follower and he wouldn't talk to me with the greybeard unique voice type but change it to Male Nord voice type and the dialogue suddenly works. If your followers is a female change the voice type to Female Voice Even Toned, this is Lydias voice. You can try Male Nord for your male followers.

All the voice types can be seen in the follower dialogue quest, more can also be added but a recording will not play. I am currently making a Dwarven Centurion follower and have managed to add dialogue fairly easily through the Quest Follower Dialogue.

Youre right! thanks a lot CRSmiley.

This worked great for me, except for one major problem... when ever i attack somebody innocent such as Sven in Riverwood for example, my Follower attacks me rather than helps me. How can i make it so if i were to attack Sven or even a guard the follower helps me instead of them? Anyone know?

My housemate figured it out

1. in the object window expand the "character" tab and select "quest"

2. search for "hireling" and double click on the quest titled "hireling quest"

3. click on "player dialogue"

4. in the branches section click on "hireling quest topic"

5. (for my NPC i copied Stenvar's dialog, but you can copy whoevers or make your own) so i found the dialog line that was specific to stenvar (listed under the speaker NPC tab) and copied it

6. open the copy you created and double click on where it says "actoir: hirelingstenvar" under "function info

7. click on the box that says "hirelingstenvar" and change it to whatever NPC you want to make hireable (in my case hireling Khash)

There is still some stuff i haven't done yet, creating a global command for rehiring my NPC and adding the rest of the usual follower dialogue (wait, trade equipment and dismiss, which is part the "Dialogue follower" quest) but this method works for making an NPC hireable. If you need clarification or something didn't work I will be watching this thread.

Well, i've finally got my followers working quite well now. It is just a shame i cannot have any undead or a Dremora or Argonian because of the voice type. I cannot have a Dremora walking around speaking like a Nord.

Hopefully somebody figures out a way past this because i don't have the brain power for it.

it might require messing around with the BSA files, but thats going to be a project for tomorrow

1. do a search for "defaultNPCVoiceTypes" under Miscellaneous, formlist
2. open it
3. search for the voice type of the NPC you want to add "crdremoravoice" "maleargonian" or whatever
4. click and drag that voice type into the "defaultNPCVoiceTypes" list

now they have access to those dialogue options, there could be other conditions that prevent some dialogue from showing up, but its the first step

FINALLY I can get the stupid [censored] to hire.

But I can't believe nobody knows how to make it so you can alter their freaking inventories! D: This is so ridiculous! Making a new NPC should be one of the simplest damn things.

Look for the quest DialogueFollower and add dialogue for your follower for the various topics under Player Dialogue (for trading, add some under DialogueFollowerTrade).