I second this advice. I don't care who you have to kill to get the money for them - DO EEET. They - therefore the enchant - is worth MORE than gold.

It worked great. Kiir Srinna made it to Skuldafn on her way to find Alduin. She had Sneak at 100 with no perks, an Amulet of Peerless Sneaking, the Invisibility spell w/Quiet Casting perk and Boots of Muffle with no armor, only cloth. If there was any time to blend into the environment, that place was it and no one ever saw or heard her coming unless she wanted to be seen and heard.

She likes it when the Dremora Lord does most of the fighting and she was able to conjure inside and outside the Temple without the enemy using Command Daedra. This was on Expert, which was why the boots were important too.

I gained a healthy respect for the School of Illusion in this game. It's very powerful, very worth the effort and perks invested. Now Kiir needs a little vacation...going to find a sweet swimming spot somewhere. Thanks again everyone!

The quickest way I found to get them was near the beginning. There is an option to destroy the DB that will take you into their hideout and you can loot their bodies and the extra clothing on the bookshelf.

Does the muffle enchantment stack with the Muffled Movement perk in the Sneak tree?

That only works if you want to wear their clothing yourself, which some people (myself included) do not. Those items are not disenchantable and are useless when it comes to actually learning the enchantment and applying it to other footwear.

UESP says values over a magnitude of 1.0 for Muffle don't provide anymore benefit, 1.0 being 100% noise reduction.

Muffled Movement (Sneak Perk): 0.5 Magnitude (50% Noise Reduction)
Silence (Sneak Perk): 1.0 Magnitude (100% Noise Reduction)

Pre-Enchanted Muffle Boots (Such as Thieves Guild/DB Boots/Elven Boots of Muffle etc): 0.5 Magnitude (50% Noise Reduction)
Self-Enchanted Muffle Boots: 1.0 Magnitude (100% Noise Reduction)

If UESP is right, they stack, but there's a cap magnitude of 1.0 so it's rendered pretty much useless if you're perked up in the Sneak tree high enough.

Edit: Still really useful for followers and players not perked into Sneak, though.

Is muffle an effect that works on followers? The list of enchants that actually work for them is supposed to be very limited.

I just saw and ignored some muffle boots at a blacksmith's yesterday. I didn't know they were that rare. I wonder if the rarity of some specific items is set at the beginning of each game. The reason I said that is my experience with the necklace of poison immunity. I found several with my first character, none at all after 57 levels with my 2nd character, and one with my 3rd character when she was around Level 20. My poor altmer is very frustrated. Race related?

UESP lists it as one of the effects that *will* work on follower equipment. When I've had it and put it on my followers it definitely seems to make a difference in our ability to sneak up on enemies, particularly with followers whose Sneak skill is very low.

My experience is that my follower and I can run up behind an enemy who has his back turned to us, without sneaking, and we will not be detected when both of us wear self-enchanted boots. Fun times.

This was a new quest for me. Thanks. Figured it out without looking it up. Whirlwind Sprint ftw.

Edit: Oh, but you can spam the jump button to get there too without even going through Hag's End. Heh. Next time.

Thanks, abrinth. It does sound like a fun time.

I have a lvl 61'assassin w/ speech in the 80s (lots of shopping) who never found a pair...

My lvl 21ish Mage found some dwemer version in Riften awhile back...go figure

I have found that if my toons don't acquire them before about level 25, it's never going to happen. I only want the de'able ones.... This game is pretty odd that way - sometimes the lower level you are, the better the items in shops and drops.

I'm beginning to wonder if the patches haven't made them rarer. I've played through about eight characters so far (mostly to about the mid-60's range), and my last few characters have had the darnedest time finding them. Seems they were alot more common in my first playthroughs.

Paralyze is another rare one. Only found one in 400 hours played. And it was on a character that doesn't use enchanting

After my 8th or 9th character I found them (after all the patches). I didn't even know they were in the game. I found them in a chest in the Dwemer ruin under Markarth and didn't do anything with them for a long time. They just sat in the same barrel in Vindrel Hall with all the other miscellaneous weapons I keep there. Then when I got the Ebony Smithing Perk shortly after hitting 100 in Enchanting, I disenchanted them and put that andd fortify carry weight on the same pair of boots.

Awesomeness. And now Lydia isn't clanging around, alerting every enemy in a mile radius.

Just realized that Muffle enchant is more awesome than I thought. If you disenchant and enchant it yourself, it gives you 100% noise reduction even if you have no enchanting skills and use petty stone. But if you find muffle boots in the wild, those only give you 50% noise reduction. This is due to a bug, it seems. Looks like they were using 0 to 100 scale numbers in some places and 0.0 to 1.0 scale in other places.

After the heads up from this thread and a bit of luck on Thursday, I went ahead and did this. I bought some muffling boots (iron, I think), disenchanted/destroyed them, and enchanted a pair of forsworn boots for Aela and some steel plate boots for Lydia. Yes, it works wonders! Thank you all.

I found one pair outside of a dwemer ruin once...

I just bought a pair of Glass boots with Muffle yesterday from Grelka, the sarcastic merchant in Riften. I generally only sell loot to her because I don't like her attitude, but I wanted these boots so I could disenchant them, then enchant other boots and wear/sell them.

I gave up trying to find them and just consoled them into my inventory.

In order to soothe my guilty conscience I'm pretending that Ulfric had Wuunferth teach me the enchantment as a wedding gift.

Woah, really? Paralyze items arent that rare for me

All these "item drop chances" are mind boggling.