Let's face it, Glass and Elven Armour is hideous.

If one were to have a character, clad in all Heavy Armour except boots, would there be any penalty to Sneak? UESP was not forthcoming with an answer...

Take off the boots and you'll be fine. My first character did that because I ended up sneaking around in the sewers under the city for quite a lot of levels and ended up being a thief. Now I can't stand the sound of wearing any shoes on any of my characters even after my sneak is high enough to lose the penalty for it. Just so loud clunk clunk clunk.

Once you get the Journeyman (50 skill) perk, the boots don't even matter. I've done the entire Thieves Guild quest line, without ever getting detected, in heavy armor with one character. With my boots on.

But prior to Journeyman yes, taking your boots off works quite well.

Sneaking in Heavy Armor? That's almost as smart as some adventurers (added by some mod) that sneak while holding a torch :lmao: Realistically speking you shouldn't be able to crouch, much less move crouched while wearing a heavy armor. Unmodded game doesn't penalize for that (like in Fallout 3 it's possible to sneak while wearing a Power Armor and carrying a minigun :facepalm:) , but i have a mod that does (http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6359).

I mean, you only need an armor if you're going to get hit, and if you're getting hit you're not sneaking succesfully.

Any of the characters I've played who wear heavy armor would consider sneaking beneath their honor, mostly knights, so I've never really tried it.

My sneaky characters never wear armored boots. I wear doeskin shoes or something like them. Initially, it's because of the penalty, but even after journeyman I don't. The DR bonus for boots isn't all that great, and by that time I've usually enchanted my shoes with feather of shield or something cool. Not to mention the boots for glass and elven armor are beyond ugly.

I just like my leather boots and if I want to sneak succesfully below 50 I'll just barefoot it(only if argonian/Khajiit for rp reasons).

Well, I'd say all the armor is pretty ugly as far as aesthetics, but so are the (default) characters. I don't really mind the glass and elven much compared to the other armors, but I only wear armor to train, never for actual use.

I've commented previously (long ago) about the silliness of sneaking in heavy armor, but that's actually true for any armor. In fact, it isn't only sneaking, nor is it only crouching, etc. The fact is that, especially any type of heavy armor, people only wore it when going into battle, and usually only on horseback, because basically you were immobile once equipped. Also, this is a big reason why nobles (who were the only ones generally able to afford heavy armor, anyway) would have squires to assist them in putting on the armor suit. It's simply too heavy no matter how good of shape you are in. In Tales of Vesperia, Judith actually gives a nod to this reality when she first joins the party (only with Yuri at the time, though). He asks her about her armor and whether or not she wants to keep wearing it, and she points out that she only wears it while riding Ba'ul. This is very realistic, unlike the various ideas and approaches we see commonly used in many other RPGs. This is especially realistic for anyone who does not have a LOT of body strength and instead relies on speed and agility, particularly females but also races such as elves. You'll notice a huge difference in Lord of the Rings between Legolas and Gimli and how the two fighters handle the issues of armor/protection and movement, as well as the pros and cons of each of their approaches.

On my low-level character i just use Leather Boots.

I like the look of the glass and elven apparel!

No detection penalty. However, heavy armor causes you to move more slowly, so that's a penalty of a sort.

Mara

As a challenge, I ran one heavy armor pure stealth character (an Orc, no less). Once he made it to Journeyman, it made no difference at all. Before that, he just had to be very careful and move very slowly, since there is a greater detection chance with heavy boots. He got caught more often than my light armor characters, but not as much more often as I would've expected.

I often run characters early in the game with a combination of heavy and light armor, in part because heavy armor gives more protection and in part for the endurance bonuses. So long as they use light boots, they're fine.

One of my best stealth characters is an Argonian who wears heavy greaves and gauntlets, no shirt and no shoes (it's a style thing). Bare feet are far and away the best way to go, and the rest of it just doesn't seem to make any difference at all.

This is exactly correct. :tops: Type of armor aside from boots doesn't matter, and even that goes away at sneak = 50.

That is from the perspective of game mechanics. RP considerations may or may not be important to different players.

As said 50+ sneak does not matter what you wear, but for some rpg reason I am paranoid about wearing heavy footware on a sneak.
Such as swearing the npc's still can heaar my foot steps no matter my skill level, so for that reason I do not wear much on feet.

But glass armour not my favourite look wise, but I do like elven as I think it fits with a Khajiit soldier more than others.
And I noticed tonight that if you add pauldrons to it and make it from "glass" it would fit morrowinds style very closely imo.

They needed help putting it on and the like, but the armor wasn't actually that heavy... and, due to articulation, you could move quite well.

I still agree that it shouldn't be worn when taking a wilderness trek or sneaking around in a dungeon.

They needed help putting it on and the like, but the armor wasn't actually that heavy... and, due to articulation, you could move quite well.

I still agree that it shouldn't be worn when taking a wilderness trek or sneaking around in a dungeon.

Knights in heavy armor (iron, steel, etc) in medieval times needed help getting on and off their horses. They also were not very mobile in battle; that's why they were heavily armored in the first place and could take charges of enemies horses. This is recorded history, after all. In the modern day, we have the same thing with heavy tanks versus fast transport vehicles, or heavy aircraft versus light but fast planes. In fact, in WW II, the Japanese zeros were deadly because they were incredibly fast, but they gained that speed advantage by stripping off any sort of protective plating. If they got hit, they'd be done, but it was very tough to hit them because our planes were heavier and could not (generally) outfly them.

Of course, Nirn is a different planet loosely based on different eras of Earth.

A friend of mine took his Orc fighter (heavy armor, of course) completely through the game by sneaking everywhere.
He would get close to the enemy with a night-eye ring equipped and then attack them aggressively from behind for x6 damage.

The high damage of an Orc warrior combined with sneak meant that very few creatures could stand up to him.

Not exactly the way I would play the game, but still....

it is possible....!!

Well I agree sneaking in heavy armor would fail due to the fact it'd be loud chainmail seems to be in most heavy armor on this game which would make a lot of rattling and plates would clink and make too much noise, but you do have to take into account it is a different planet and skill plays a part. A skilled user in heavy armor could move so quiet and fast they could even sneak up on two people while walking on their hands. So for RP skill level should be taken into account.

I'm surprised people find the armor in this game ugly, I think light armor is from an artistic point very pretty. Too pretty for my tastes, at least from mithril on up for the most part.

It's documented that they couldn't move as well, but nowhere does it say they can't move at all. They don't require assistance in putting it on because of the weight, but because of all the layers required and straps that go with it. If you look at a lot of the medieval armor, the amount of articulation and craftsmanship is astounding. They aren't meant to be used as infantry, but the capability is still there. A suit of medieval armor weighs just about as much as a fully kitted out 11b infantryman. They don't have to ride into battle on a horse now do they?

Another thing I might add, the majority of soldiers didn't wear armor because it was much too expensive. The rich nobles who could afford the armor, could also afford the horses which in turn, turned them into what is essentially an armored tank with mobility. Heavy armor was used in that fashion simply because it was more effective, not because being on foot was impossible.

A while back I heard from a documentry that the typical knights armour weighed roughly the same amount as a modern day squadies gear. Pack / weapon / ammo / radio... so on.
As armour is made from sloped plating with chainmail at joints on top of a thick under garment.
Like modern tanks the armour being sloped added thickness in the places where it needed it, and would help bladed weapons slide of without bitting into weak points.
The issue of weight is brought up alot, but this is more to do with battles being muddy, choatic melee's mostly in europe. where plate tended to lack grip, and would often get suctioned into the ground.
Rather than it being to heavy to move, just watch any tournement reinacted, even though staged mobility played more of a factor than brute strength.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Hallgerd%27s_Tale (For those who didn't get the reference).
:D