I'm starting a new Vampire character, and I've decided to go against my usual style of taking whatever I want, and go for a "no looting" playthrough. Right now I'm not 100% sure of what his rules are going to be, or what he'll personally consider looting.

So far my thoughts are:

• No looting people he kills (both enemies killed in battle, and people he's fed on) unless it's to obtain a Quest Item they were carrying;
• No robbing from stores/people's houses when he breaks in;
• The exception to those two being situations where he feels there is a dire need (like he is badly injured, and needs a health potion to help him recover, or he's been disarmed and needs a weapon quickly)
• I'm not sure yet whether he's going to class raiding dungeons as 'looting' or not--I'm leaning towards him having an interest in old Nordic culture, so he'll perform 'archeological expeditions' to Nordic Ruins to reclaim 'artefacts', and probably avoiding looting other types of dungeon;
• Caves will probably be 'free game', along with bandit hideouts (i.e., liberating things they have stolen)

Has anyone else tried a "no looting" style of play, and how far did you guys take it? Was it fun/challenging (since I'm hoping it will force me to use more "live off the land" style skills than my normal playing style), or did it just end up becoming a bore? Any suggestions/ideas that I can factor in?

I have not tried a "no looting" playthrough. I don't think I would ever eliminate looting from my Skyrim plays entirely. I think loot is handed out way too generously but obtaining better loot (eventually) is a good part of character/story progression for me. I'm trying to minimize what I will take and from where. Then again, it's based mostly on the roleplay I'm trying to play with.

So far, not searching fallen foes hasn't really made an impact so far. It's because I don't know what I maybe missed out on. Exceptions would be questy items that are on the enemy.

I have a dark brotherhood character that doesn't loot anything. She only did/does the DB quests. She's still wearing the roughspun tunic she left Helgen with and picked up an iron dagger and uses the shrouded hand wraps. She doesn't loot because she has all she needs: a dagger and her sneak skill.

My archer loots coins only so she can buy arrows. She collects blue mountain flowers for healing. The same character could chop wood or some other such means to purchase arrows.

Never done this before. But it sounds like fun.

I did a "no looting" game in Oblivion once. I'm glad I did it, it was an interesting experiment. But I don't think I'll be doing it again anytime soon. Finding cool loot is one of the things I most enjoy about RPGs. It also rarely makes much roleplaying sense for the characters I play.

What I usually do is loot only certain items that make sense for the character I'm playing. A Mage might loot only scrolls; an assassin might loot only poisons, for instance. That, for me, is a nice compromise between looting everything that isn't nailed down and leaving everything behind.

My mystic archer is insatiably curious so she looks in everything. However she only takes gold coins and top of the line healing potions and poisons. She will also harvest meat from fresh kills for her own consumption. She doesn't need arrows (mystic bow) so she doesn't have to scrounge for arrows. She doesn't do alchemy so she doesn't care about picking up ingredients. She uses a spell to unlock things so she doesn't care about lockpicks. . . . So a few coins for renting tavern rooms and buying food works out fine. One nice feature of this is that 'loot to sell' is never a consideration when deciding when to go to town.

I have done a no looting style on several occasions.
My most memorable being a lawful good character he was devoted to becoming the "hero of skyrim", he helped everyone out who he could. He was the type that wasn't afraid to fight someone's battle for them or clear out a cave of scary necromancers so a town can feel safe, etc.
He saw looting dead bodies to be for the thieves and rogues, it was a dirty low-life thing to him.

It was a lot of fun. Money was actually pretty scarce for a while. It made the in-game economy feel more realistic and having wealth actually seemed like an accomplishment.
He didn't loot any dead bodies and he never picked a single lock or pocket.

I like this idea, but I think my current character won't be able to resist taking whatever he wants from his fallen victims. He's just bad like that. But I will have to try this with my next character.

To keep it fun for me, I'd just not loot dead bodies of folks I've killed. Exceptions for me would be items (aside from quest items) that will help my current conditions, like healing potions if i'm wounded or something like that.

Are you basically limiting looting to dungeons, bandits, random lairs etc? Basically just the stuff from baddies outside towns and homesteads? I've always played that way with the exception of the Dark Brotherhood quests or Thieve's Guild quests so it's not hard to do.

I thought you meant no looting of any kind, anywhere, ever! That would be challenging - you'd have to just craft your way into wealth and fortune. That's actually a very interesting notion - only get money by crafting. The downside would be all time you'd have to spend in mines collecting precious metals and gems or out in the wilderness collecting alchemical ingredients. Hmmmm... this needs some consideration.

I personally try a "no looting armor unless it is enchanted" stance on looting. Same thing with weapon (mostly Iron swords and other low-valued items). Works well for me.

I think the title of this thread is a little misleading. It's not about no looting, it's about limited looting.

I almost always do limited looting games. Like Pseron Wyrd, I did a strict no looting game once and didn't like it. I may try it again, though. Maybe I just wasn't in the proper frame of mind for it at the time.

While it wasn't a true no looting playthrough, I did play a thief character in Skyrim who would only loot the bodies of characters he killed for items he would be using at that time. The rule I had with this was that in order to take the new item, he had to leave the old one behind.

So, how can you make money like this...as a thief would, of course. Stealing is a very profitable career if your good enough. if not, you might be sharing a cell with the Black Briar kid.

Much the same as Pseron Wyrd, I'm glad I did it, but I'm in no rush to try it again. I spent alot of time sneaking around Skyrim, traveling from town to town on my hands and knees, all the while praying I didn't run into anything or anyone who might want to kill me. I was, after all, a thief and not a fighter.

A notion of no looting (at all, ever) is pretty interesting. However, you'd have to craft like crazy, right? Money is way to easy to acquire in Skyrim so limiting it sounds very conducive to long playthroughs. You could still do lots of alchemy as well as thieve's guild quests to activate the thief caches but it would take a while. I really don't enjoy mining (though clearing out the mines is always a rewarding challenge) but this type of limitation would pretty much force you to mine like crazy or else you wouldn't be able to craft anything.

Enchanting would be harder to master as well if you can't pick up the various enchantments from looted weapons and attire. But if not from loot, then how? Maybe you'd have to buy them from vendors? That would be tough with limited money.

This 'no-looting' approach might dovetail nicely with my vampire-lord and Dark Brotherhood/Thief necromancer build. Without random enchanted gear and limited money with which to acquire such gear, the VL's innate powers become even more valuable. Oh, and this build would not pursue the main quest, so no shouts...

Don't forget the money and items earned from quest rewards.

I think I might try this on my next character though, the "absolutely no looting at all" thing.

yeah, I could play the aged blacksmith who will prove that his steel is truly the finest steel in all of Skyrim. He would make it a point to take on challenging battles with weapons and armor he crafts before every quest. He would only stick to quests given by inn-keepers and other townsfolk so that word of his mighty steel might travel.
yep, I like the sound of this. He'll craft a different set of armor and weapons every single time he goes out. He might even adopt one of the random unmanned forges as his own.

thanks for the idea! Cheers