Making followers wear different armor?

So this is a common issue, I guess: you give followers a new set of armor, but as soon as you "part ways" they go back to their old gear. I tried leveling up my character's pickpocketing so I could just "steal" my follower's default clothing to make sure he had no choice but to wear my armor. However, as soon as I interact with him, his clothes spawn back in his inventory.

This annoys me loads. Faendal is my steward and I downloaded some pretty cool Bosmer armor for him. But as soon as I leave him alone for some time, he gets back to that ugly green shirt of his. Rehhh.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Anouck said:

So this is a common issue, I guess: you give followers a new set of armor, but as soon as you "part ways" they go back to their old gear. I tried leveling up my character's pickpocketing so I could just "steal" my follower's default clothing to make sure he had no choice but to wear my armor. However, as soon as I interact with him, his clothes spawn back in his inventory.

This annoys me loads. Faendal is my steward and I downloaded some pretty cool Bosmer armor for him. But as soon as I leave him alone for some time, he gets back to that ugly green shirt of his. Rehhh.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

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Sorry, as far as I know there are only two ways to have a follower keep their armor. One is to make them a Blade and they will keep that armor on always. However, you can steal certain armor pieces off if you don't like the Helmet or something.

The second was by pure luck for me and I have no idea how it happened. I had Karjho (sp?) as a follower in all Imperial armor. As soon as I gave him a new sword, took it away, and then gave him back the old sword, I then took off his armor and gave it back to him, unequipped his sword, then gave it back to him. I have no idea how, but now he wears that Imperial armor all of the time, even when I leave him as a follower! Though I never go into his inventory anymore because I don't want to screw up whatever I screwed up!

Or if you're on PC. There IS a way to do it, I know for certain. You have to type in a command though.

If you marry a follower you can buy their default gear from them. While they are actively following you and have better armor equipped. But they most likely still take off the given armor when dismissed and just walk around in their undergarments.

lastphoenix said:

If you marry a follower you can buy their default gear from them. While they are actively following you and have better armor equipped. But they most likely still take off the given armor when dismissed.

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That is correct. As long as the NPC has at least one of their original armor equipped, they will wear anything. However, as stated, they will remove any items once dismissed.

lastphoenix said:

If you marry a follower you can buy their default gear from them. While they are actively following you and have better armor equipped. But they most likely still take off the given armor when dismissed and just walk around in their undergarments.

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Kinky. I wonder how Onmund looks nekkid!

Anouck said:

So this is a common issue, I guess: you give followers a new set of armor, but as soon as you "part ways" they go back to their old gear. I tried leveling up my character's pickpocketing so I could just "steal" my follower's default clothing to make sure he had no choice but to wear my armor. However, as soon as I interact with him, his clothes spawn back in his inventory.

This annoys me loads. Faendal is my steward and I downloaded some pretty cool Bosmer armor for him. But as soon as I leave him alone for some time, he gets back to that ugly green shirt of his. Rehhh.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Click to expand...

By downloading armor for him, I can take it you're playing on PC? There are a few ways you can accomplish this. The simplest is using a mod. The next would be console commands, but there is a limitation there. You have to leave one piece of the original equipment, or they revert anyway. The third, and most reliable if you don't want to download someone else's mod, is to use ck to create yourself a very small mod that just changes their default outfit. If you're comfortable with creation kit, you could also take the mod that the bosmer armor came in and adjust it there, but you could run into problems by not knowing exactly how the modder set it up.

If you want to try the creation kit route, I can get you through it pretty quickly.