Thread title says it all: do followers have perks, and if so, do they use them? And can they learn new ones? I've searched around for an answer on this one and found mostly guesswork and "well...maybe" sort of replies, but I'd really like this answered definitively once and for all. Because otherwise, I think I may be starting to hallucinate.

Here's the deal: my follower is Erik the Slayer. And I swear to God, lately I've been catching him doing the silent roll move while sneaking. Repeatedly, in multiple locations.

The first time I noticed this was in Blackreach, at around level 30 or so. I was sneaking through an area, turned around, and caught Erik doing a silent roll to catch up to me. Cue face, but I wrote it off as a weird movement/clipping glitch. Well...my character is now level 34, and I've caught him doing this in several different dungeons since, both just out of the corner of my eye and actually watching him do it. It doesn't look like a movement glitch...he's actually doing a sneak roll.

On the technical details side of things: - I do use the Fixed Followers Lite mod, which raises all followers' level caps to 81. But AFAIK it does not affect follower perks.

- I've had Erik with me since level 15 or so. He's only started doing this since Blackreach (level 30), as far as I can tell. I "unstick" his stats (health, etc.) every five levels by taking all his gear back, dismissing him, then disabling and enabling him in the console and rehiring him.

- my character's sneak skill is around 60. So she has a high enough sneak level that she could use the silent roll perk (which unlocks at 50 IIRC), but I haven't taken it yet.

- ...however, I just checked Erik's sneak level via the console ("getAVinfo sneak"), and it reported back as 15. Which...seems wrong, since he's far better at sneaking than that. I swear. But then his class is supposed to be Barbarian, so sneak certainly isn't one of his primary skills.

So, basically: is it possible Erik's somehow acquired the silent roll perk, despite his sneak level supposedly being so low? Or am I just totally cracking up here?

Yes they do, but I have seen the roll used by every follower in sneak at one point, so I don't think they need the perk in order to roll. You can check if they have it by using "hasperk 105f23".

I think you're right. I just checked with that console command it reported the Perk Rank back as 0, which I assume means he doesn't have that perk.

Although that still raises the question of why/how he's started to use the silent roll move when his sneak's supposedly so low. Is it tied to the player's level (either overall level or sneak skill level, since as I said, my character's sneak skill is pretty high) somehow?

Unless they fixed it in the latest patch. The PC could execute the roll by running in sneak mode, while sheathing or drawing their weapon. This could possibly bug into the NPCs as well.

Can't be related to PC level, I saw Lydia do a sneak roll way back when, and I was maybe 9th level. She does it now and then, but I quit paying much attention to it.