Thanks for the ebony sword and bow, uh, why am I wearing light armor for stealth character?

It would have been logical and 'fair' for the player to be rewarded with the weapon kind of his choice- or his armor and smithing skills choice.

Now I have a bow and sword as final quest/guild rewards I cannot make very good use of.

Next time I'll just go heavy armor for my thief character. I thought Bethesda was making an effort towards more realism; we lost acrobatics, high speed, strength, and chameleon because people couldn't 'immerse' with them. ??? Now I have a thief who should choose heavy armor? Really?

That's real world imersion- a thief clanking around with heavy armor, a master of shadows with 60 pounds of metal attached to him.

Don't even get me started on heavy smithing vs light and the effect it has on damage output. Who'd have thought I couldn't smith a weapon weighing a pound more, or that if I swung the same weapon it wouldn't hit as hard as my light one weighing less?


If they'd bring back acrobatics I'd happily take whatever armor or weapons they choose to give me, but that wouldn't be realistic? Sigh.

Wait what?

You're complaining because they gave you an ebony bow?

You're complaining because the quest gave you some very good equipment?

You are aware that weaponry is weaponry, and armor is armor, and that bows are not heavy armor, or light armor, aren't you?

Are you aware weapons are either light or heavy, and depending upon which smithing skill you choose, will have damage outputs adjusted accordingly? In Oblivion a weapon was a weapon; not in Skyrim.

Perhaps if you choose no smithing at all, the weapons would be the same- ? But a thief usually goes light armor, and that means light smithing, and if so, will be unable to fully utilize the potential of the Heavy weapons given as rewards-

Um... your wrong old Grog.


Light and Heavy only applies to Armor.

Weapons are Two Haded, Archery, and One Handed. The material determines the damage.

From the wiki
You were saying?

I did not say heavy armor or light armor skill affected damage output- I said light or heavy smithing. Upgrading the bow with ebony is not the question.

Go look at the damage calculation formula, or better yet, for those of you who have selected smithing, compare the damage on your weapons menu- there is a damage calculation for light or heavy smithing, and you can clearly see the difference between the light weapons vs heavy depending upon which your character choose.

My nightingale bow is now topped at 80 damage, not including magic, and a conventional glass bow is at 97. (legendary for both) With my character, that's something like 115 vs 98 damage listed on bottom of page.

Um... Heavy/Light does not apply to weapons. Weapons simply get heavier the better they are.

Dwarven armour is heavy, and Elven armour is light. The weight for a Dwarven Bow is 10, while the weight for an Elven bow is 12. Why? Because the Elven bow is better.

OH I see what the OP is saying now, my bad. Argument still stands though to the other posters.

It's only a few perks, dude. If the Nightingale bow was glass, though.. The colour scheme wouldn't fit what the Nightingale's are. That's why it's ebony (imo). Though I agree with you now, that they could have handled it better.

I really have no idea what this guy's talking about, but either he's horrible at describing stuff, or he's horribly confused at how stuff works.

Edit: I'm going to assume that by "Light or Heavy weapons" you mean....

Elven/Glass vs Dwarven/Orcish/Ebony/Daedric weapons?

I still don't see where Nightingale Weapons fit into this whatsoever.

^He's saying that on the Smithing perk tree, there are TWO branches of it. The branch to get light armour perks (being able to create elven, glass, etc. stuff) and another branch for heavy armour (dwarven, orcish, etc.). He's saying it's stupid because the Nightingale Bow/Sword are Ebony, which is on the heavy armour branch. But, as a thief, he shouldn't have to go down the heavy armour branch just so he can improve one weapon.

although, on the wiki (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Nightingale_Bow) it says "The Nightingale Bow can only be improved with the http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Arcane_Blacksmith perk and requires one http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Ebony_Ingot. However, improving this bow is not affected by the http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Ebony_Smithing perk." .. I assume this means you only need the 'Arcane Blacksmith' perk to improve it fully, not the ebony perk.

so there you go

from uespwiki, Skyrim Overview, Weapon damage formula,

Displayed damage = (base damage + smithing increase) and continues with the rest of the calculations

If perhaps we did not attack what we did not understand?

But that's the modern culture, isn't it? Flame on!

Don't take my word for it, or wiki's- if you've selected either light or heavy sides of the perk tree of smithing, look at the actual damage in your menu when carrying each weapon- compare heavy with light.

None of the ebony weapons,even at legendary status can compare to glass weapons of MINE because I've choosen light smithing and that is the second part of the damage calculation.

It just because all daedric/archaic weapon artifact require ebony ingots to upgrade. I still wish Ebony Blade was upgradeable via smithing. This is the first mod I'm creating when the creation kit comes out. Also perks only effect that material, it has nothing to do with heavy or light. Isn't it strange that you can still build dragon plate armour (which is heavy) wiithout investing a single perk in what you describe as Heavy Smithing Perk?

Even though the Nightingale weapons use Ebony Ingots are magical weapons that are in their own class, hence they are not effected by the Ebony Smithing Perk, and are not Ebony weapons. The requirement of Ebony Ingots is most likely a balancing feature they got lazy with and made it for all the artifacts.

Just like how the Bound Weapons use Daedric models and are not Daedric weapons.



A mod for this already exists, also fixes stuff like Guildmasters Armor being improvable, but I can't find it on Nexus at the moment.

I wasn't flaming whatsoever. I just truely can't understand what you're getting at, it seems you're a bit confused is all. Nightingale Weapons, as Geezerguy stated, aren't enhanced by any of the perks. As for being forced to take Heavy Armor side of the Smithing Tree, if you want the strongest weapons in the game (Daedric and Ebony are stronger than Glass), then yes you're forced to take the Heavy Side, but after Daedric you're still fully able to get Dragon Armor perk and create Dragonscale Armor (Which is better than Glass anyway.)

But it truely doesn't matter anyway, if you're looking to Min/Max you can cap armor rating with Leather Armor, and even Steel Swords can get ridiculous damage on them if you really want. Hell, on my Mix/Max Char, my Daedric Swords do 570 damage each, which is incredibly boring and takes the fun out of the game. Glass honestly isn't too far behind in damage, you really have nothing to worry about.

he went up the light armor side of the tree which allows you to improve armor and weapons twice as effectively.Thus his glass bow , which he spent the perk point in , can be improved to do more damage than the ebony-based weapons awarded from the nightingales.And no , if you spen up the light side , you either start spending from the beginning again ot spend across dragon , daidric THEN ebony to get what he's after , which is equivalent upgradeability for different weapon types.

But as someone already posted the smithing perk has no effect on these special items , so this point is moot.Op you are confusing the specific perks with weapons having assigned weight classes , they're simply listed in the trees with the armor types.Maybe what one might expect would have been able to pick up "weaponsmith" perk in combnation with enchanted item perk , sadly this isn't the case.You're forced to spend points you didn't want to to get the most out of your desired equipment if that's how you choose to play.

Personally I really like the Daedric daggers the most , but they're ultimate upgradeability is listed in with heavy armor only.Good daedric daggers with comparable enchants will outdo that nightingale blade anyway , but the special enchant on it makes up for "omgwtfdamagez" if you use it as a backup as a good thief doesn't get into toe-to-toe fights very often.If used as your osh!7 weapon , it will keep you alive and give you time to adjust combat , so viewing every weapon in the game as having to hit like a truck by default is a limited way to play imo.

There are already mods that let you upgrade the ebony blade. I have one that puts it back to being a one-handed weapon and lets you upgrade it, including the benefits of the ebony (or maybe daedric) smithing perk. Just do a search of the nexus I'm sure you turn something up.

@Ji Soo - Dragon armor perk allows you to make both heavy and light armors , requires 100 smithing , and has no weapons.That's the tradeoff of spending the point no matter which side of the tree you decide to climb.Besides , as I said earlier , doing more damage in a single swing than your enemies have health gets reaaaalllll boring real fast.If you look at the constellation dragon is at the "point" where the 2 sides converge , they wanted to introduce their new armor type as the ultimate awesmeness and placed in a way that doesn't penalize either side to ultimately get to.

personally I think daedric and dragon armors look freaking stupid.If you were actually a melee warrior you would avoid giant spikey things jutting up like that , your enemies would manhandle you to oblivion with a good hook move.

It's the way they designed the tree split in smithing perks. Heavy side gets it all, light side kinda gets the shaft.


They give you level appropriate gear, rather that falls on the heavy or light side of the perks, all depends on your level.

What you just said don't make any sense as Daedric is the ultimate in terms of armour rating & damage with the exception of few Unique Artifacts.
Besides are your telling me that Glass Great Sword & Elven warhammer are within the light category of weapons that the Op is talking about?
It rewards you with a one handed sword & a bow. Maybe the OP should be questioning the actual type of weapon rather than the material as daggers can be made out of Ebony Ingots & who in this world is going to consider that as a heavy weapon?
Your enemies would man handle you in battle with spikes or not any way. Those horns are just as stupid as the decorative helmet crest on an Imperial officers helm. It purely there for symbolic or phsycological purposes. In saying that Ebony & Steel Helm's visor won't play to you advantage either in a combat situation.

Vituosus, I appreciate your saying that.
Yes, I read that Glass is approximately 10 percent behind Daedric.

The nightingale weapons are not affected by the ebony perk; are they affected at all by one having invested in the heavy side of smithing more than the light?

If being a master smith- heavy side- does no more to the nightingales than the light side, then this thread is misdirected; I should have asked why the quest rewards cannot be improved much. I'm a master smith on the light side.

I am wondering if there is any real reason not to go into heavy armor and heavy smithing in my next character. The steed stone will ease the penality for heavy armor in sneaking, as well as various perks and the muffle spell.

Nope, the nightingale weapons and armor are not tied to any smithing perk.

Click the link in my signature to see which items that can be upgraded fully.

Stealth characters can't use bows now?

The smithing perk tree has nothing to do with thievery. You decided to specialize only in "light" materials... your choice.

Thieves also uses weapon made from "heavy" materials. Karliah uses a pair of Daedric daggers if you happen to meet her for the first time at lvl 40+ Mercer has an enchanted dwarven sword.