Hi!

Is it possible to see each followers status?

I have had Lydia since the very start, and she serves me well. The backdraw with her is the fact that she acts like a good tank, but I often kill her by mistake (as often discussed here).

Yesterday I finsished the black star quest with Aranea follower as a bonus reward.

When I let Aranea solo any mob I think she has to work real hard to take em out...much harder than Lydia.
Lydia has good gear that I have made and inchant for her, so that′s ofc the reason...but how can I get any ranged follower to use good ranged spells?

Im a mage and spec on destruction, resto and conjuration.
I like to get out my conjured Dremora Lord′s and back up with ranged spells.
My plan is to have a follower with range weapon, like me. I have looked at the ones from the Collage of W.
There are 2 that looks the same when it comnes to stat...Onmund and J′Zarg are both Scorcerer and have Destr, Illusion, One-handed and prefer heavy gear.
What if I let any of these have a good one handed weapon?...will they prefer to use that and get in close combat rather than use ranged spells?

So my mainquestion here is:

Are there big differences between the followers of the same type?
And is there any way I can see how good they are...both in level and gear/armor/weapon?
A comparable list in the game or on the net?
Or maybe som tip here on what follower to use..

Thanx
/Stefan

I found that Arenea will use ranged spells. If you give her or Janessa a staff (chain lightning, ice spikes) for example, they will use it over anything else. You have to be careful giving them area effect staffs though (fire ball, frost) because they may hit friendly NPCs making them hostile. Or, worst yet, they may catch you in the blast radius.

I never gave Lydia a staff, but I imagine she would use them too. Those are the only followers I've had while playing Skyrim

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aly8njaU3H1adGJYTlJaUnRxRUN2RnM5MkxPaU1mQkE#gid=0

Lydia will use staffs, you just really have to watch which one's you give her. After she killed me with a Chain lightining staff I took that one back!!!

On the pc you can open up the console, click on them and use some commands to check their level and stuff.

Examples:
getav health
getav carryweight
getav onehanded
getlevel

You can also change them if you replace the word get with mod and put a number at the end.

Examples:
modav carryweight 5000
modav health 500
modav sneak 50

the question i have for followers is this:

are their stats determined by their skills or mine?

if i'm a 1-h character and they have 2-h as a skill, what i see on screen is my stat adjustment.

when i give them a weapon does it readjust to fit their skill?

The damage value that you see in the item menu is a function of your skill in the tree that governs said weapon. There is a base value, and an "actual" value. The actual value is how much damage the weapon deals.

There is no way that I know of to know how much damage a weapon is going to do in the hands of an NPC. I suppose you could get their level and plug it into the formula listed at UESP.

As an addendum to that, you have to use "marksman" to see/change archery stats.... Yes the skill is called archery, so isn't it suspect that the term from Oblivion's ranged skill was used? "New Engine" my heiney. Sigh.

i was thinking the pc guys would know.?

I can't answer for the skills ( I doubt those carry over), but I found something interesting yesterday. I got the Voice of the Sky effect which did extend to Janessa. I wish my sneak skills extended to followers!

I'm on PC, and there is no way that I know of to see the damage an NPC causes short of having them attack you, which could be done on console anyway. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me will chime in here.

On PC you can get the mod Ask Follower Skills from the steam workshop. You get a new conversation topic to choose What Can You Do. Select it and the npc's stats display in a text box on the screen. You will be able to see all their individual skiils and check their character level to make sure it matches yours.

Remember that the followers don't level with you (unless that got patched) - so they stay at the level they are the first time you meet them (or is it when you hire them?? - don't know)

Thanx all for great info!

A special thanx to "GreyNap" for the awesom tip on the mod "Ask Follower" ...This was really an awesome mod for exact what I was looking for

/Stefan

awesome! tyvm

iiuc you can hit them with wabbajack to force their level up