I posted this in the Xbox360 forum under bugs, and i have had a few people report back with great results. so i am going to post it here as info for people to try.


As you know, followers are useless pretty much as you level up in the game. There is a FIX for this however, and it is very simple.



Some background first. you may or may not know, but followers do not level up properly. They gain level increases, but they DO NOT gain HP and their Skills don't increase. This is why they get weak(such as Lydia) as the game goes on...yet some will level up enough where a Dead Thrall Spell won't work on him/her.



To fix this, you will need the Wabbajack from the Sheogorath Mind of Maddness quest. Once you have Wabbajack, perform these steps.

1. Take your follower outside of town away from the guards to avoid a bounty.

2. Save your game.

3. Dismiss your follower.

4. Immedialy use Wabbajack on your dismissed follower, and continue to do so until you follower transforms into a mud crab, a chicken, or a rabbit. (YOUR FOLLOWER MUST TRANSFORM INTO EITHER A MUD CRAB, A CHICKEN, OR A RABBIT FOR THIS TO WORK)

5. wait for the effect to wear off. You will know this worked because when your follower transforms back into their normal self they will be wearing their default gear.

6. Talks to them, and recruit them again. your new leveled up follower will now be following you.



To test that this works, Cast the 25 point damage lightening spell on your follower BEFORE and AFTER Wabbajacking them...you will notice their HP bar decreases less afterwards.....It best to try this on Lydia if you got her at a low level and your now on level 20, 30, 40, etc...you will see Lydia will get her stat increases as she was intended to after you Wabbajack her. This stays and persists on saves and loads as well.


to level up your follower, just Wabbajack him/her into a chicken, mud crab, or rabbit every few levels.


Followers have Level caps/Max Levels. Followers such as Uthgerd and most favor followers have level caps of 30, housecarls have a level cap of 50. The only follower that will Level up into the 80's is J'Zargo from the College of winterhold.


Followers max levels and stats can be found here


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0Aly8njaU3H1adGJYTlJaUnRxRUN2RnM5MkxPaU1mQkE&toomany=true


Get to Wabbajacking, and report back...on the other thread I have 4 happy players...one just reported his formely useless Lydia just soloed an Ancient Dragon by herself.....My Lydia can tank high Level Bandiat Chelfs, Master Vampires, and Drauger Deathlords no Problem.


This will make your followers viable so they actaulyl watch your back instead of you having to babysit them. so until they patch followers, the only way to get them their proper levels, HP, and Stat increases is to Wabbajack them

If this ends up working for me, I declare you the Royal King of Awesome.

I just got Wabbajack a couple days ago, and thought it was useless. Until now!

If you follow those instructions i pretty much guarantee it will work...it has worked for these folks over in the Xbox forum

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1335689-patch-14-for-xbox-discussion-merged-similar-topics/page__st__90

Lydia goes from useless to solo an Ancient Dragon......it will work...just make sure every level or every few levels you Wabbajack your follower and follow the steps above and you will be golden.....this game is so much better with followers that actually help out for a change!

Its pitiful this bug exists, and even worse because console users (until now) had no way of remedying it. Thank you for your contribution to skyrim.

hey, that's a really nice find (if true)!! great work!!

You my good friend, deserve a medal, or a cookie. Thanks

Your welcome folks.

i stumbled upon this about a month ago just messing around with my Wabbajack. i then asked some of my friends to test it, and sure enough it worked for them too. i spent about two weeks on 4 different characters and saves testing exactly how this worked and if it was consistent. After i confirmed it was consistent, i later found it was added to the UESP. So i guess i wasn't the only one who messes around with Wabbajack, and may not have been the first to discover it.

i just didn't want to post about it unless i was pretty darn confident that it worked because I don't want to confuse people. however, it seems if you follow those my instructions to the letter, you can get your followers to level up and increase stats correctly.

Please post results if you have tried it. such as seeing the health difference before and after Wabbajacking by casting a spell on a follower, and taking that Wabbajacked follower out and battling a Bandit cheif he/she used to get owned by before. You should notice a big difference after Wabbajacking the follower, this is especially true if it is lydia who you got around level 3-6 and your now level 30 or 40...the difference should defininitly be very noticeable then at how much of a tank she becomes.

post results....this way...hopefully Bethesda fixes it soon.