How comes that, in all Skyrim, my character is the only one capable of wearing those fancy armors based on Dwarven, Glass, Ebony or Draedric material? Why is that, is Skyrim so poor and void that no mercenary group/important characters/factions can't afford wearing them or what? in such a big country?

I remember in the previous TES games you could at least see some NPCs (and I don't mean your usual Oblivion bandit) wearing them, making those armors more plausible lorewise, but what about Skyrim? Too much Viking la-la-land? Oh well, at least weapons don't suffer from this, thanks to level scaling...

Because they like iron and steel better. Probably because of their "viking" nature.

There are, in fact, varieties of bandits and NPCs that appear with parts of Glass or Ebony armour, it's just that they are rare. Things like Studded, Fur and Iron armour are just more practical, easier to forge and cheaper, thus allowing even the poor bandits that can't even pay for proper weapons and live in caves.

The random Thiefs, Mercenaries, Orcs, Nords, Imperials and other unnamed adventuring NPCs out in the wilderness often have high level armor. Named NPCs are mostly town-folk who would not normally be expected to own any armor.

Sure, I can understand that, but ALL the Nords and the other races? stereotyping much?



Na, those don't count, that is just the crappy level scaling "made in" Bethesda, that would mean the bandits (in Oblivion) running at you in full Dreadric suits to ask you to hand over your money (ugh...) would have been canon story and lorewise...

Personally I think lowly bandits barely scraping by with their entire group outfitted in armor forged from expensive ebony that has been infused with the essence of Daedra would be a bit farfetched. But I could be wrong.

I'm not sure if you understood what my question is...

Daedric, Ebony, Dwarven and Glass aren't supposed to be common. These are materials that are hard to find and/or to work with.

Dwarven metal is only found in dwarven ruins, which tend to be dangerous to explore. And the secret of manufacturing the metal itself was lost with the Dwemer.

Glass and Ebony are the hardened blood of the god Lorkhan. They are hard to work with, and very expensive. Which limits their use to nobles and other rich people. Like the player.

Daedric is Ebony infused with the soul of a lesser Daedra. All the restrictions that apply to Ebony apply to it too. Plus as you might imagine, the Daedra don't want to part with their souls that easily.

It makes perfect sense that every Bob & Belle the Bandit doesn't walk around in full Daedric gear.

Well, it's probably alot to do with enemy scaling also. It's just they way it is. Can't say it bother me much, but it would be cool if there could be some variation of what type of armor the enemy uses.

True, but what about the Jarl of Markarth's personal Orc Blacksmith? A master of his trade, with no Orcish gear to be found. Hell, not even the Orc strongholds have Orcish gear. Same with the fact that Eorlund Gray-Mane, the greatest Smith in all of Skyrim, deals in petty Iron and Steel gear.



Reread the OP. He's not talking about petty bandits or generic enemies. He means the rich, the powerful. The ones who have money and resources to get the best items around.

Same as above. He is talking about high end mercenaries, people who are extremely wealthy, and the like. Like the Silver Blood Clan. Controls most of the silver in Skyrim using mostly slave labor and their gear is equal to that of bandits.

I turned lvl 36 the other day and was approached by a thief wearing glass armor. That was sweet! Interesting thing is I have found a lot of ebony armor before this...

Ebony or glass should be present in mercenary or otherwise rich npcs. However dwemer, dragon, falmer, daedric or any too 'alien' armor should not be.
My reasoning is that: wearing daedric will make you a target to the Vigilant of Stendarr for one, falmer would look alien or too noticeable,
dwemer? well, I haven't heard of many expeditions into dwemer ruins which were successful in their endeavours and dragon armor is just too hard to smith.

What strikes me is this:

-Orcs not wearing orcish
-Elven not wearing Elven
-No imperial shock troops wearing ebony
(despite npcs in game talking about ebony gear shipment)
-Nords not wearing much scale-nordic plate-ancient nord
-companions dont seem to be wearing legendary quality ancient nord steel
(yet the game talk about it, they got the best smith in the game)
-I guess either silver blood or forsworn or markath guards, or both should wear dwemer gear because it s so easy to make in markath and the reach

on the other hand, there is the jarl bodyguard wearing elven in riften
and that is totally out of conntext !!!
(that s something Iruleth, the jarl bodyguard in whiterun should be wearing)

It s like they made no effort to give an identity to those armors

When they proudly announced that combining greaves and torso would allow to make more armor
and since skyrim supposedly took 5 years to make
I would have expected a hugue variety of each armor

for example ebony in orcish style, elven style, scalemail style, maybe even as ebony-studded-leather -armor

then the same goes for elven (should have been renamed moonstne and quicksilver respectively)
orcish (who should have bee renamed orichalcum)
dwarven (who should have been renamed dwemer)

I mean what exactly prevent me to make an ebony-armor-suit-looking armor made or orishalcum, moonstone, or absolutely whatever !!!
This would allow peoples to look exacly the way the want at little cost
and it would also make more sense

I mean I always found weird that my dark elf feel compeled to produce exact dwarven suit replica when his natural tendencies should be ellven style
he could even be able to create a much lighter suit out of dwemer ingot that way

lets se, just for metal armor

based on metal style (11)

iron
steel
corrundum
dwemer
orishalkum
ebony
moonstone
quicksilver
glass
dragonbone
dragonscale

and for style (11)

(iron)
(stell)
(nordic steel)
(scalemail)
(dwarven)
(ebony)
(daedric)
(elven)
(glass)
(dragonbone)
(dragon scale)

and finaly daedra binding, which should not be limited to ebony

we now got 2 x 11 x 11 = 142

a grand total of 142 armors types, just for metal ....
dress however you want in whatever color you want

I didn t even count the imperial, stormcloak or guards armors, as well as the fancy jarl armors (ulfric, elisif)

I'm just saying more variety is always better

but of course the cities are small and the world a bit compact to showcase all those armors
(compared to lets say medieval england, which was the size of daggerfall)

Out of all I said what I miss most is not being able to craft an armor that look like jarl elisif armor,
because it look really cool on a male character, and it seems purely a chainmail armor,
which is sort of missing from the game

What's with the elven sword? Nord steel not good enough for ya?

I think the citizens of Skyrim are purists, thinking that anything that isn't steel is inferior. Just my take on it.

I tend to skim posts that seem like they're going to be a bit too easy to be a [censored] in terms of replies.

Ebony, Glass, Daedric, are all Elven-made armors, and being that Skyrim is filled largely with Elf-hating-Nords it makes sense that few use their type of armor, preferring instead their iron and steel armors. Dwarven on the other than is rare due to it being a Dwemer-make and I doubt most Nords other than the scholarly go messing around in any Dwemer ruins. Sure, a few could use those armors, but having more than a hand-full wouldn't make much sense. Not to mention that Ebony, Glass, and Daedric are all very expensive.

I could see however more people using Orcish armor in areas near the strongholds or around Markath.

I don't care about the ennemies, hell I already despise seeing a bandit wearing Elven/Scale/Glass armor due to bad programming coming at me asking me to give him all my money.

In Morrowind you had the House of Redoran with people wearing Glass armor (and that wasn't due to level scaling), in other places you had NPCs (not you're random mob/bandit) wearing Ebony or Dwarven, they were uncommon, but present nontheless, and I repeat myself, making those armors more plausible and fitting in the world.

In Skyrim I fell like a total stranger if I walk around in those armors mentioned above, because they don't fit in Skyrim, ennemies may wear them, vendors may sell them, but that is due to the game level scaling system, nothing else.

Not 100% true. I have seen an orc bandit fort before with whom's inhabitants were wearing just orc armor (sort of strange to me- as they usually wear fur).
And the thalmor justiciars have guards which wear elven armor. Hell there is even a fort northeast of Markarth, full of thalmor wearing the elven armor.

It's probably because of level scaling. In Morrowind, you could see NPCs wearing even glass armor (in Ghostgate) and a few certain NPCs had exotic armor (Divayth Fyr wore Daedric, Duke Vedam Dren wore Ebony), however this meant if you killed any of them you could get the best armor even at a low-level. As level scaling prevents stuff like glass and ebony from showing up until you are in the late 30s, they don't want you to have it early by killing an NPC for high-level gear.

That being said, Thalmor do wear elven, and some Nords like Brunwulf Free-Winter wear scaled. Why Orcs aren't often wearing Orcish is rather mysterious. And smiths do not have any preset wares, which is why the master smith Eorland himself isn't selling or wearing anything beyond basic steel and leather; the game engine forbids him from selling anything outside the level-scaled wares list.

For the nord jarls etc. it's probably a matter of national pride. Plus they'd want to show their subjects that they're wearing local clothes and armor.

- I've run into mercenaries in Dwarven and Ebony armor myself.
- If you go to an orc stronghold like Mor Khazgur, the orcs will be mostly wearing orcish armor.
- The Empire probably has regulations for the armor its troops can wear. etc. etc. etc.

I'd say that the designers were much more aware of what armor makes sense on which NPC, than they were in Oblivion.

For most of the world, even Tamriel, a sword is a sword is a sword. Dwarven swords etc. are expensive curiosities or the weapons of heroes, which few people have experience with, so their benefits might not be readily apparent. Also, jarl's housecarls etc. would have their weapons and armor "improved" to the max since they have access to the best smiths. It's just an oversight/cut due time constraints by Beth that they aren't. Perk-improved steel armor is completely usable against any enemy, so there's no pressing need to use exotic materials. Which is as it should be.

I have encountered multiple Orcs (mostly leaders of strongholds) wearing full sets of Orcish armour, a lot of Thalmor you meet on the road or inside the keep in Markarth wear full Elven gear, Bandit Chiefs usually wear better armour than their followers, Draugr Lords walk around with stronger weapons than Wights and Scourges, and I think higher mages of the College of Winterhold also wear stronger robes than mere apprentices. I think Bethesda intentionally did this - anything higher than Elven or Orcish is supposed to be rare, and random highwaymen or NPCs are not going to be walking around in Daedric or Dragonplate any time soon.

I run across mercenaries and unnamed characters wandering the roadways that are frequently armed in higher level armors.

I agree with this for the most part. I would honestly like for there to be a separation of item type and stats. For example, a Steel Sword that looks like an Orcish blade. Or a Glass Helmet that looks like an Elven one.

Yeah, there is a mercenary on the road going to investigate some nearby disturbance and they always have Dwarven armour...... "always"

Most enemies though have the lower end amours though like fur, steel etc

What do you mean by "viking" nature? Viking age Scandinavians were not above buying gear abroad. The Vikings who went to eastern Europe could very well end up wearing Slavic armour and clothing for instance.

Why? They'd assume that you kill Daedra and that's OK in their books...