How do you bribe a guard? : V

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 5:23 pm

I've got a 1000 bounty in Eastmarch

Spoiler

[rant]for sacrificing somebody in the Boethia quest, as I was instructed to by a cult member. Yet somebody from the cult still reported me anyway, which really annoys me, but that's a different issue

[/rant]

Now whenever I'm near Windhelm a guard approaches me about my bounty. I have three options every time: 1. Pay the fine and go to jail, forfeiting my stolen goods. 2. Go to jail without paying the fine, and also forfeiting my stolen goods. 3. Resist arrest.

I've snuck around several times to allow different guards to approach me, just in case the issue was that some guards can't be bribed, but alas there are no guards that accept bribes. I haven't found one yet.

Spoiler

I have a Speech perk that is supposed to give me an option to bribe guards, from what I understand. So what is the point of this perk? What can I expect it to do? What options should I be able to see?

I'm also a member of the Thieves Guild, yet I haven't done any quests related to Windhelm yet. So my first guess was that I can't bribe guards until I've established a presence for the guild in Windhelm, but that just doesn't make any sense because then the perk would be absolutely pointless, right? What would be the point of a perk that doesn't do anything until you become a guild member, while simply being a guild member inherintly provides the same "perk"? Or does being a guild member NOT provide this perk on its own?

So how can I bribe a Windhelm guard to drop my bounty and allow me to keep my stolen goods?

Thanks.

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:27 pm

Doesn't actually work. You need to have done the thieves guild special mission in that area.

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:13 pm

My guess, just a shot in the dark, is that you might need to bribe them before you commit the crime. Probably not.

One way to fix it is find a random sack or something, and store all your stolen goods in it. Save, just in case. Then go pay your fine, and go back to retrieve the goods.

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:36 pm

Here's all options I've seen:
Go to jail
Pay fine
Resist Arrest
Bribe with 1000+ gold
Claim to be Thane
Persuasion

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:41 am

Only if you're thane of the hold can you get away with crim (up to 3000)

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:44 am

Have you used a perk point on the speech perk allowing you to bribe guards? My guess is you can't until then.

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:55 pm

Thanks for the replies so far.

Unfortunately, none of them really answer my question though.

Flows-Like-Water's response is the closest to an answer, but it doesn't explain what the perk does. I do have the perk, yet I don't have a bribe option. That seems to me like a perk fail

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:03 pm

1. Join the thieves guild
2. Be Thane

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:03 pm

Please read my spoilers before answering.

I have joined the guild.
I also have the perk that enables bribery.

Yet I don't have an option to bribe.

So do I need to do the Thieves Guild quest(s) for Windhelm AND have the perk too?

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 1:46 pm

Here's all options I've seen:
Go to jail
Pay fine
Resist Arrest
Bribe with 1000+ gold
Claim to be Thane
Persuasion

Do you have the bribery perk in the Speech constellation?
Are you in the Thieves guild?
Have you completed the Thieves Guild quest for the hold in which you have a bounty?

» Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:04 pm

I still haven't found a guard that I can bribe so I'm quite annoyed now.

Can anybody please confirm whether I'm simply experiencing a bug? Or is the perk really useless? And does simply being in the Thieves guild not add bribery as an option? Is the perk required AND you have to be in the Thieves guild AND you have to complete quest(s) in the hold in which you have a bounty?

--
On a related note, I tried sneaking past the guards to get into the city but I can't do it. They spot me even when I'm invisible. Maybe if I was a master in illusion and sneak it would work?

Though it has the feel of Oblivion where guards rush at you even without true line-of-sight, so I'm worried that even if I did make it into the city a guard would come at me immediately and I'd have no chance at sneaking around. If that's true it really makes thieving quite dull. What an immersion breaker