Skyrim how many followers

Every companion in Skyrim comes with their own set of pros and cons, and players often choose their followers very strategically. For others, it's beneficial to have a follower that is skilled with stealth or ranged magic attacks.

Skyrim requires players to prioritize the development of certain skills over others like most RPGs, so a follower is a great option to cover the playable character's weaknesses. It's also often advised to recruit an "essential" follower, meaning that they can't die due to being essential to the plot. Altogether, it seems like there are a lot of followers that should be better than Lydia, the housecarl assigned to the player after they become a Thane of Whiterun.

So why does Lydia always come to mind when Skyrim companions are brought up? The first reason for this is pretty simple: every Skyrim player who's gotten anywhere in the main story has met Lydia and traveled with her for some time. Players can always dismiss their followers, but most players will do at least a couple of quests with her, especially as a low-level Dragonborn on a first playthrough. It's extremely helpful to have anyone's help when encountering an overpowered enemy in the wilderness or accidentally embarking on a quest that's a little too advanced.

Lydia levels up with the player until level 50, so she might not be an ideal companion for late in the game, but it takes a while to reach level 50 and players who keep her around for that long may develop an attachment.

Other followers can be more strategically chosen and may offer more benefits than Lydia, but they often have strings attached or additional requirements. Many of them aren't available until later, after the player has poured countless hours into leveling up. Some followers may not even be encountered at all. Players who aren't interested in the College of Winterhold may not meet J'zargo, the loveably arrogant Khajit mage, and players who don't want to follow the Companion storyline and become a werewolf won't have the opportunity to have Farkas as a follower.

Lydia, on the other hand, while not as personalized, is available to everyone and players can keep her around as long as they'd like. Unfortunately, Lydia is not an essential follower, so failing to protect her or accidentally leaving her in a closed-off location will end the relationship. And where do I get them?

Asked 9 years, 11 months ago. Active 9 years, 6 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question. Community Bot 1. KnotHeather KnotHeather 1, 7 7 gold badges 12 12 silver badges 19 19 bronze badges. Has anyone tried the Fallout 3 trick where you use the dog to have as many followers as you like? The trick was to get the dog, find someone who will follow you, sack the dog, 'hire' the new follower and then hire the dog again. There is so much of Fallout 3 physics in the game, I thought may be it might work.

I haven't tried yet cos I haven't got my dog yet TomWijsman lets take this question and Mark's answer as a reference, otherwise we will short-circuit and destroy gaming. Bora: I don't understand your circuit logic, we have something called merging Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. At any rate, this is temporary, and the second follower will leave when the quest is complete.

There are 45 in total: 6 mercenaries: generally one per hold city 5 housecarls: one per Thane appointment in the cities where you can buy a house 7 members of the Companions 3 members of the College of Winterhold 2 members of the Dark Brotherhood 9 quest-related or dungeon-related followers 13 followers you can recruit if you've done them a favor In addition to a single follower, you can buy a wardog in Markarth Side for gold, which acts as another member of your team.

Improve this answer. Ah, interesting: haven't run into that. I went and hedged my answer on that part. See other answers. Bora If you actually read the other answers, they're incorrectly using very liberal definitions of followers: followers mean one specific types of NPC.

If you discount "yourself" and conjuration as not being followers because they aren't: you don't follow yourself and conjuration creates summons , my answer is exactly the same as the others.

With the benefit of being not misleading. The question is about companions, not followers, as I understand. Show 4 more comments. You can have 3 as a baseline, with the extra's coming from abusing the conjuration skill. Dog The dog Barbas cant die, he just cowers at low health. Dont finish his quest means he follows you forever Conjuration skill: a zombie or atronach.

Use Thrall spells. Say hello to a friendly Atronach. That "Master Necromancer" you just killed? Prior to the fixing of this failure of stats to update with patch 1. Players of the PC version could also use certain console commands to fix any follower's inability to update their stats with each level the player gains.

All permanent followers become protected NPCs while they are actively following you. When your follower would die due to an enemy attack or a trap, they will be incapacitated for some time and begin to recover their health , just like essential NPCs; enemies will stop attacking or targeting them during this time.

However, if they lose all their health again during this period, they will die for good. Thus, you should try to move the fight away from them, so that they are not hit by a stray arrow or area-effect spell.

They can die from a damage-over-time effect that is stronger than their health recovery; most commonly those are caused by poisons. If you strike your follower dead, on the other hand, there is no recovery. Attack carefully when your follower is low on health. If your follower's death is caused by you, even accidentally, it will count as a murder on your crimes list.

Many temporary followers are "essential", so they cannot be killed, only incapacitated for a while. Non-essential ones will die immediately when struck down, just as ordinary NPCs. It is also possible to heal damage and quickly return the follower into the fight by having traded to them some standard healing potions e. Potion of Extreme Healing but not potions you made by alchemy. They will consume the standard potion, heal, and quickly rejoin the battle.

Otherwise you may have to wait until all enemies in the area are removed before they recover. You may also use a restoration spell like Healing Hands , Heal Other or Grand Healing on your follower, which is beneficial to you as well since you will gain experience in Restoration.

It should be noted, however, that followers will not always drink healing potions if they have any in their inventory, even if they are kneeling and recovering health, so the best bet would be to have Healing Hands ready for use. Followers do not take Water Damage, and cannot drown. However, they do not have infinite breath with the exception of Derkeethus, the only Argonian follower unless you give them a waterbreathing enchantment to wear see Follower Equipment below.

If they run out of air, they will abandon their post by your side and swim to the surface. To avoid near death experiences, followers should be traded better armor in the skill type they prefer either heavy or light armor. The DamageResist variable can be increased by tempering the armor and shield. In addition, wearing armor pieces or shield awards a hidden 25 bonus points per item. The possible hidden points are not reflected in the DamageResist variable, but are counted in combat.

Providing equipment with magic resistance enchantments ring, necklace, and shield increases their MagicResist variable. The follower is less likely to be incapacitated if provided all of these enhancements. Should your follower be slain, their body should disappear in about three days.

Their coffin with their belongings will most likely be found in the Hall of the Dead in or near their home town. Permanent followers have the ability to trade money and goods. This gives you free access to anything the follower is carrying, with the exception of certain default items that are hidden from you, and allows you to manage the follower's inventory.

There is no penalty for taking anything the follower has, including gold, jewels, and enchanted items. In addition to any other equipment they may have, followers will automatically receive a hunting bow and 12 iron arrows when they start following you.

These are specially modified variants of the regular ones which do not appear in the follower's inventory. This can cause the bow and arrow usage bugs noted below. The bow and arrows will be removed when the follower leaves your service. Followers will make their own decision however about which equipment they use, given the choices that they have in their inventory. If they have multiple items of the same type e. Sometimes this doesn't work as expected and inferior equipment gets used instead.

This normally happens with different grades of the same item that have been improved through Smithing or Enchantment e. You cannot force a follower to use the "right" item other than by removing all the wrong ones that they prefer from their inventory.

The item must also be "better" than the default item the follower started with. Giving a follower who started with Steel Armor a set of Banded Iron Armor will have no effect because it isn't as "good" as the Steel. Normally, you cannot take a follower's default apparel - unless they are killed in battle. Then you can search their body, removing anything they were carrying, including their default items. You can also take their default equipment if you have the pickpocket perk Perfect Touch if they aren't currently following you.

There is one other exception to this rule: your spouse. After you get married, your follower spouse will open up a general goods store, in which your spouse will sell whatever items are not equipped in addition to what's in your spouse's merchant chest if you're at home.

If you get your spouse to wear something that isn't default apparel normally you do this by giving your spouse an improved piece of armor then the default apparel that isn't being worn will become available for sale.

You can then purchase it, and then give your spouse anything to wear in that slot and your spouse will wear it while following you. There are two caveats with this approach: one, if you purchase all of your spouse's default apparel, your spouse will respawn new default apparel, so you must leave at least one piece of default apparel in your spouse's inventory, and two, if your spouse is not following you, your spouse will not wear any custom apparel, but will only wear whatever default apparel is left in your spouse's inventory.

Enchantments on weapons work normally, but followers will only benefit from the following enchantment effects on their apparel and armor:. Because followers choose which items to equip, verify that your follower equips the enchanted item s. All other enchantments on apparel and armor do not actually have an effect for followers, even if they should.

Notably, this means:. Followers who are also trainers can train you for "free". They will still charge you, but leave profit from training in their inventory. Simply request to see their inventory while they are an active follower, and take your gold back from any training sessions.

Note that the follower's gold will reset to a low amount when you fast travel possibly change zone , so get your money back from them quickly. Once enrolled as a member of the College of Winterhold , you may recruit your fellow students to join you in your travels, if you have completed their personal quests. Simply talk to them and they'll tell you what you must do. These followers wear robes as their default apparel, so they will accept any armor given to them; however, they will not equip any other robes, since all robes have an armor rating of "0".

They will accept weapons and shields, but they will immediately switch back to dual-wielding spells when an enemy is encountered. Once their Magicka runs out, they will resort to using their bare hands until it recharges. All of these followers can be located at Jorrvaskr , the Companions faction headquarters in Whiterun. You must join the Companions and complete the quest line before they can be recruited as followers.

Complete all the quests for the Dark Brotherhood to allow these followers to join you. Cicero must be spared in The Cure for Madness if you want him as a companion. These NPCs are added by the Dawnguard add-on. They become available after completing Prophet only by siding with the Dawnguard , except for Serana, who becomes available during Prophet both sides.

These NPCs are added by Dragonborn. Hirelings are mercenaries; you'll need to hire them for a set price of gold. They are usually found in taverns. They'll stick around until they're dismissed, at which point they'll return to their starting location and you'll need to pay the fee again to get them back.

If they're particularly fond of you or you only dismissed them a short time ago, they may rejoin your service free of charge. Housecarls are bodyguards of noblemen. After completing a quest for the jarl of each major hold, they will proclaim you a thane of their land and give you a personal housecarl.

These housecarls won't exist in the game until you become a thane; however if you lose your thane status in their original hold, they will remain and will continue to be available as a follower, and will also continue to address you as thane. Three new housecarls are available after installing the Hearthfire add-on. These Orcs are available from their respective strongholds , and each require the relevant quests to be completed in order to be recruited.

In addition to NPC followers, certain creatures are also recruitable. All pets are muffled and come with a unique spell to teleport them to your current location. Some NPCs follow you until a quest is completed or an event occurs. Quest followers will not give you access to their inventory. They are often marked as essential so they cannot die, which may make them useful to have around before finishing their related quest.

These followers are only present during certain Dragonborn quests. Jump to: navigation , search. A female Dunmer Mystic. Alteration , Illusion , Conjuration , Sneak. Brelyna's Practice. A male Khajiit Sorcerer. Destruction , Illusion , Heavy Armor , One-handed. J'zargo's Experiment. A male Nord Sorcerer. A female Nord Thief and expert Archery trainer.

A male Dunmer Warrior 1H and expert One-handed trainer. Heavy Armor , One-handed , Archery , Block. A male Nord of the Blacksmith class, and master Heavy Armor trainer. Smithing , Speech , One-handed , Pickpocket.