On this play through I have been running with Aela from very early on and twice she seems to have acquired new weapons for herself. The first time was a while back when she was still using her default kit and we were fighting a bunch of Alik'r, during the melee I noticed that Aela had acquired a scimitar and was using it with gay abandon and good effect. She seemed so pleased with her new toy that I upgraded it for her and she has used it ever since. Then last night after clearing a dungeon I went to trade some stuff with her and found an ebony bow in her inventory. She didn't get that bow from me and she didn't have it before we went out on that quest so it would seem she spotted a valuable piece of loot (we are only at level 25) before I did and grabbed it for herself.

I never noticed this behaviour with Lydia and Mjoll, the followers I used on my first play through. Has anyone else seen it?

Yes. Jenassa picked up a staff of flame yesterday and equipped it immediately. I was somewhere else when she did that, so it was completely her own decision.

Lydia has picked up two Staffs of Firebolt once. She also equipped and used them both too. Caught me off guard.

She also looted a Staff of Reanimation once.

I'm on my third play though & I did the Companion mission with Vilkas where he turns into a were wolf for the first time. When we get to the end of the mission & have to fight a hoard of Draugr, I see Vilkas sprint to the treasure chest & grab the staff out of it. I was like, you SOB!!! That really pissed me off because he's not like a typical follower in that mission & I had no way to get the staff from him at that point, especially during a fight.

I've had Kharjo pick up staffs, to the point where he had 3 and was duel wielding them. It was awesome. He caught one of them, I wabbajacked a mage and she died and left her staff, Kharjo caught it mid air and began to use it. It was awesome.

I have not seen that happen yet. That sounds good though ^^

In my experience, it seems to be happening more often now. It used to be I had to give them something new, but now they seem to loot goodies themselves. I've seen NPCs stoop and apparently loot corpses, too.

Many followers love them some staff magic. The first time one of them started using a staff, I thought there was a rogue mage behind us. Nope, just Aela. They will switch them out as needed, too. Aela in particular knows when to use a firebolt-type staff. At one point she had three or four staves, but she didn't seem interested in the fire types. She'd use frost and lightning till they ran out. That is, until we came across a troll. Then out comes the firepower! I half expected her to say, "That done blowed him up real good!"

At one time she had a sword or axe with paralysis on it. She would not equip her shield, even in melee combat. Instead she'd use a flames staff, you know the type that kind of works like a torch? She seemed to have a ball in Nord dungeons against draugr. She'd knock them down with the axe then, with them helplessly paralyzed, would play the flame over them, taunting them all the while.

Lydia does this to me. I took everything from her and gave her a nice bow. I figured she would hang back and just to ranged support and stay out of my S&S warrior's way. I'm clearing out a tomb and the next thing I know Lydia is standing next to me using an Ancient Nordic War Axe. I was like "Where the heck did you get that!". I then realized that she had looted it from the last undead I re-killed. After that I had to be real careful and watch what she was using.

I have to admit this is pretty cool behavior for them to have, but it is equally a pain since we don't have any REAL control over our followers.


Another similar problem I had. I was over-loaded and needed to drop some items so I could run into town. I dropped a shield and started running. A random farmer picked up the shield and handed it back to me saying "Did you drop this?". I was over-loaded again.

This actually happened to me the other day. Erik the Slayer and I were going through some burial tomb or other, and he had slain a necromancer and took his staff. I had just turned around and he was weilding it, the sneaky bastard. It was pretty cool though! I'll have to keep an eye out for more of this.

So this is a general behaviour and I am not going nuts. That is a relief. Mind you, I am not sure that Aela's judgement is spot on when it comes to bows. In this morning's session I caught her using an imperial bow she had stolen for herself (we went to an Imperial Camp which was being attacked by a dragon), I wouldn't mind but it only had a damage value of 10 compared to the 30 plus 20 fire damage of the Dwarven bow I had given her. In the next session I think I'll follow give her a pair of staves and see how she gets on.

Thanks one and all.

Followers only rarely, but when I had a quest with a Companion I noticed him loot a few corpses.

Wow. That's really good AI. She knew to use fire against Trolls. That's impressive.

Followers love staffs.And I have found if I take their weapons to try to get them to use their bow they pick other stuff up and use it.

Well I gave Aela a pair of staves and we went out on a freelance dungeon crawl. The first place we came to was a cave full of Falmer. The first of murderous little buggers we see I charged forward to put it down but before I could lay a sword on him there are fireballs and lightning strikes flying everywhere. I turned to look for another spot one but, blam, he goes down to a fireball. In the end I just stood still until all the noise stopped. Then I counted up she had fried six of he brutes without me getting a look in. That carried on all the way through the dungeon. Aela certainly loves her staves and knows how to use them (she only singed me a couple of times). However, her enthusiasm means she will certainly burn through my stock of soul gems pretty quickly and if I am not getting kills my 2 handed skill is going to take a long time to level up. So I think I might have to ration her new toys.

One last thing about NPCs picking up stuff. On the way back from the Falmer dungeon, we stopped to investigate a fort. Whilst we were scrapping with the outside guards in the courtyard, Aela blew an archer of the top of the wall and he fell outside the fort and out of view. Once the dust had settled I walked round to loot the archer's body (I can't leave the chance of 3 gold un-taken) when I got their I found a Khajiit Caravan had already found it and the lady Khajiit in charge was kneeling over the body obviously removing anything worthwhile, or maybe trying CPR. There wasn't a speech option for, "We killed him and the loot is mine, so you lot can bugger off", so I left them to it. Quite neat though that a bunch of NPCs completely out of the view of the player (I never even knew they were in the area) stop to loot a body they find.

Sometimes it's quite bizarre, though. I found a couple of the citizens of Riften poring over the corpse of one of those thieves that attack the town. Well, maybe they were checking for lost property, lol.

There was a time when I was questing for Morthal, and for some reason every day that passed a new dead frostbite spider would appear at the entrance of the jarl's longhouse (where the guards are at). Every time a civilian npc passed it by, (s)he kneeled down to loot the body, even the guards. it was kinda weird. On the other hand, when I ask a follower to loot a frostbite spider, they're never willing to do it.

In Oblivion, NPCs would pick up and use any weapons or armor they found that was better than what they already had. On the higher levers, you'd start to see stuff like bandits wearing Glass armor. I'm guessing that they still do this in Skyrim.