I saw someone mention that they gave Ebony gear to Mjoll so how is that done? I think they mentioned they were married to her so is it a marriage thing? I've never actually asked any of the NPCs to 'join' me so IDK what the dialogue options are when they're with you. If you reverse pickpocket them will they use the stuff?

FWIW: I know I can find these answers on the wikia.com, but I usu see more spoilers than I care to when I do that so that's why I asked pointed questions here. I'm sure my questions have been asked several times before, but there is so much traffic here the questions quickly get pushed down the list to later pages after only a few days. :\

Talk to the follower(while they are in your service) one of the dialog options will be to trade gear. Keep in mind they won't keep the gear equipped after you dismiss them. It stays in there inventory and you'll need to trade an item again to make them reequip it.

Damn, that's harsh. Can we get it back when we dismiss them? Since it stays in their inventory I guess they don't give it back? :\ Can we pickpocket it back and, if so, I'm assuming it counts as Stealing? That'll get tedious making a Legendary set of armor every time I want one of them to follow me. XD

FWIW: I don't like using NPC followers for 2 reasons:
1) I usu spend too much time keeping them alive (I'm guessing that our followers are not Hero class.). <.< At least this was the case with followers in Fallout 3.
2) I feel a lesser sense of accomplishment if an NPC helps me.

You can take it back anytime they are still your follower. Same way you gave it to them.

Sweet - that'll work. Thanks, y'all.

They simply don't keep your stuff equipped if they aren't with you. Which is kinda annoying as I'd like my housecarl to walk around my home in Daedric.

Hell yes! ...or the followers that walk around the towns/villages would look badass in Dwarven armor. I get comments about my Ebony armor frequently so the NPCs definitely notice. XD

Yeah, it's annoying that they don't keep their armor equipped. I married Jenessa and gave her my Nightingale armor once I had crafted and enchanted my Dragonscale. But anytime I send her home, I return to find her back in her leather. Even if I get to change back into the Nightingale and buy the leather armor from her, she magically has another set of leather the next time I dismiss her...annoying.

Also, there seems to be a bug (still happening as of last update) where followers WILL NOT use any bow you give them, preferring a default hunting bow that you can't remove from their inventory. So don't waste any time, materials or money on a good bow for your follower until that gets fixed.

For people on the PC who want to equip their Mage companions with custom enchanted Robes or other clothing that have no armour rating :

1) you need to open the console , type "showinventory" , then a list of all the items your companion wears by default will be displayed (with their ID )

2) Locate the ID of his default clothes/robes and remove it by typing "removeitem" "ID" "1" ( example : removeitem 000xxxxx 1 )

3) Remember you should always leave at least one default clothing on the companion , otherwise it resets (the NPC becomes invisible and respawn with his default gear ) . As a rule , i always leave them with their default boots , because it's the least interesting part to enchant

4) Once you done this , your companion should be naked (with only his boots ) , then it's time to give him whatever robe , gloves , ring , circlet/hood , necklace etc ... you want , and it will wear it even though it doesn't have an armour rating

Oh, this isn't limited to just Aela? I noticed this with her, but she is the only companion I have had who primarily uses a bow.

The bow bug I managed to somewhat figure out but not fix. Basically the followers will use the bow you give them, but not in conjunction with anything better then steel arrows. I find if I give them better arrows instead, they will revert to the hunting bow. If i give them back a good bow, they will revert to steel arrows but continue with the bow. It also helps to have no other weapons like a dagger or something and they should continually use that bow. Been using faendal for 20 levels now....hes fully equipped with upgraded and enchanted elven gear and using a dwarven bow currently. Will have to upgrade him to elven now to match.

Well I now know why Mjoll is using a hunting bow instead of the daedric bow I made her! Also what's up with rings and companions? I gave her one that increased her light armor but she won't wear it she was using the ring you get from getting married but she won't even equip that again.

Im not sure whats up with all your guys' companions....Faendal wears all the armor I give him including rings and uses the bow I give him (so long as I don't give him any better arrows then the steels he uses). The only thing I make sure of is that he has nothing else but his armor (or armor of crappier quality) in his inventory.

I was using Jenassa and gave her an enchanted Dwarven bow I had improved, but nope...even with iron arrows, it was still the hunting bow.

But your second part may explain that a bit. I gave her two Daedric longswords I improved and enchanted, and those were her "primary" weapons. She'd (seeminly randomly) switch between using those and the hunting bow that you can't remove from her inventory.

I can't win At least when she uses the swords she hacks everything to bits.


From my testing, they will use whatever you give them that has the most VALUE. If you give them a cheap silver ring that you enchanted with something great, but they also have a more valuable but less useful ring in their inventory, they'll equip that.

Also, if your follower doesn't wear any ring or amulet, take on thing they are wearing (like a piece of armor) out of their inventory. This seems to "reset" what they equip themselves with. You can then give whatever you took back and they should put that back on as well.


That works if you only want them using archery, but I need their help in melee sometimes. Plus, it's silly when they're trapped in a corner by some baddies and still trying to fire their bow.


All I know is that this needs fixed in an update.

I let faendal have his dagger for the first 10 levels or so and I had to re equip his bow sometimes. Most times with two archers (me being in sneak) the enemies never had a chance to get too close or if they did faendal would easily finish them off with a couple more arrows. I guess archery is a bit easier to have companions with. My mage however avoids followers like a plague.

Dismiss Faendal and return after a couple days and tell us if he's still wearing the same armor.

I have and yes I have to trade one piece of gear back for him to put on the whole set again because he reverts back to his clothing, a nuisance I agree, but hasnt affected my gameplay and taking one piece of gear and giving it back is an easy enough fix for now.

I made a vid for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGbVHhaIKrw&feature=related
Followers will keep the armour that's better than their current gear, and keep weapons if they're the ones they use (like Lydia only uses 1-hand and shield). When you dismiss them, they'll keep the armour but as soon as you return home they go back to their ugly noob gear I did this cause sometimes I'd trade them armour, but then they wouldn't equip it.

Lydia will actually use two handed weapons. I found this out by accident when I asked her to carry a dadreic great sword and she equipped and started using it.

I think companions will use any weapon you give them they just have skill sets on specific things.

Maybe it's different then, I gave her a bunch of two-handers (because I was too stupid to see the difference lol) instead of one-handers, and everytime I traded with her she'd remove them. But as long as I gave them to her and didn't trade or get a loading screen, she'd keep using it.

True , they favour armor rating for wearing anything , however if you want your mage companion to wear the robes/hood you give him , he will not accept it because it has no armor rating , they'll stick with their default robes unless you can use the console (on PC )