So I'm doing the Blessing of Nature quest and I'm headed to the Eldergleam Sanctuary to get some tree sap. Some pilgrim named Maurice Jondrelle wants to come along. I figure why not, I'm headed that way anyway? How much trouble could he be?

Turns out the dweeb's got a death wish. You can't tell him to wait, he has no weapon and can do about as much damage as a declawed kitten, and he doesn't regenerate health like a companion. Despite this, he rushes off to attack every enemy within 10 miles the instant they come within range of his suicide radar. I spend half the trip saving him from all the mudcrabs and saber cats he keeps unnecessarily aggro-ing. By the time we reach Valtheim Towers he's got a sliver of health left. When I get close enough to the towers to notice it's filled with bandits, I turn around to find another path. I don't know why, but by this point I've made it a personal challenge to get this lunatic to the sanctuary alive. Maybe I'm too soft-hearted.

So about a mile down the road I realize Maurice isn't with me anymore. I look back at the distant towers just in time to see the crazy Nord sneaking into the tower! Alone, unarmed, on the brink of death and outnumbered 8 to 1 and he apparently thought those were good odds! Just as I'm about to write him off, he runs back out with all the bandits on his tail and rushes straight towards me, and I get overwhelmed and killed. Thanks Maurice!

So anyway, I reload 6 times trying to save this suicidal [censored], but no matter what I do he will enter that tower like it's his god-given destiny, and most of those times he brings them back to me. Finally I manage to kill them all but I lost the guy. Somehow I find him on the top of the tower, 4 stories up, a single arrow in his forehead. The craziest thing is, turns out he had a weapon in his inventory the whole time, he just refused to use it!

RIP you crazy Nord, you may have been helpless as a bunny rabbit but you had the heart of of a lion!

it's true what they say, a true Nord never backs down...

This one time this guy came up to me and engaged in dialogue and there was nothing I could day and neither could he, then he ran off

Cheers

It's because they're not real people and don't follow actual logic. They're just NPCs that follow their scripting according to the given situation.

But that's the boring answer.

NPC's are dumb because the game adds realistic components and people are dumb. Fair representation I think, lol.

I'm pretty sure he's a Breton. "Maurice Jondrelle" is not a Nord name.

That's what I thought at first too but the Skyrim wiki says he's a Nord. Thankfully the wiki also says he's not very important so I've stopped trying to save him from his own stupidity.

Anyone else have an good stories about stupid NPCs?

Any quest with a follower is just annoying. They aren't needed, and it feels more like babysitting then anything. The way that NPC's move around makes it so that you end up striking your follower more than the enemies.

He's not worth getting to the grove, to be honest with you. Let him die.

I just did an escort quest that was kind of unique. It was a child (and thus immortal) and she ran off screaming whenever anything hostile appeared. Problem was she had to stop at every corpse and comment on it.

Best option for Maurice is to fast travel to the cave. Plus he is kind of useful in the cave.

His choice to follow you on a fool's errand anyway. You can do your best to protect him, but you can save everyone. Especially from themselves. RIP weird pilgrim guy.

This is actually the only guy I've encountered where this situation occurs... and yeah, luckily the bonus for getting him there is extremely minimal in the sense that it only effects how the end of the quest plays out, and not your actual reward, so you don't need to worry much about it. However, an easy way to avoid this scenario is to make sure you've already discovered the grove or an area near it, then talk to him and let him follow, and then fast travel there. Even if you don't see him right away he should be there once you enter the grove, and then just talk to him before you make the extraction from the tree.

Alternatively you can try riding a horse there - if you outrun him and get to the grove before he dies he should kind of teleport to you once you enter the grove. I haven't tried this with this quest specifically, but it works almost any other time an NPC is following you, so I assume it's applicable here too.

Ah! Dead body!

That sounds like something that would happen in a MMORPG.

Speaking of Maurice, here's how my encounter with him went:

I decided to let him follow me, assuming he may actually be important to the quest in some way. I fast traveled to a village nearby the sanctuary to save some time and as soon as we get there.....he runs off to fight something. Then, the battle music starts and I hear the roar of a dragon. The dragon lands in the direction he just ran and as I run over a small rise, I find him fist fighting the dragon.

I turned to run back to some cover and some guards from the village come to help out as well. We kill the dragon and I go to look for him....can't even find his body.

Poor fool. RIP.

Interestingly enough, this quest was actually the least trouble I've had with an escort quest in a Bethesda game for a very long time, even though I ended up running into a random dragon halfway to the cave.

Maurice did manage to pick up a 2 handed sword from some random enemy right after I fast traveled to the nearest fast travel point to the cave though, so that was probably part of it.

Stupid NPC's?

Try Mjoll the lioness, i married her and now regrete it..
not only does she bring some man slave into my house.. she dosent understand that when im beating her with mace + axe that i want a divorce
not a love tap

I'm not sure even that would have helped him survive my dragon encounter.

My one tried to take on a dragon with a dagger. Needless to say it took less that 5 seconds for him to be eaten and thrown away.

I could see Maurice achieving similar status to the Adoring Fan or Fargoth in being a person people try to come up with entertaining ways to kill.

Simply take him to dangerous place and let him charge headlong into ridiculous foes.