Yep. I stuck some healing potions in her inventory a couple of days ago and found that she was using them.

She's certainly handy when it comes to carrying extra gear and loot. But, my favorite use for her is to give her a soul trap battle ax and a bunch of empty soul gems!

Thanks for the tip

does lyida die for good or is it like when someone comes with you on a quest and they just go down into weakened state, then they get back up later? I never used a companion yet because I am a ranger and the ones that come with me on quest keep walking in front of me and guy I am shooting and I end up shooting them in back of the head.

Is there a way to see her skills?

Like I assume she is heavy armor cause thats what she starts with - but if I gave her light armor - would she level up or have low proficency with it?

I think companions are invulnerable if you play on lower difficulties.

Well, she really handles damage well, and if you give her potions, she will svck them all down and leave you with none. I haven't needed her to have any and she stays alive fine.

What a waste. She doesn't die easily anyway. Most times she just stumbles around then gets back up. Think of how many potins she would have used instead of doing this. She has only ever died once in my game and I reloaded.

No but if you get one of the mage apprentice's to follow you instead they will.

Lydia can open locks apparently I have not tied it but read it in a different thread. There are lots of NPC you can use with all mana of skills and applications.

This is why she stays in my home in Whiterun. Once, she triggered the same swinging spikey door trap multiple times and could not get around it. So annoying.

There seems to be confusion regarding how companions die or stay alive.

Here is what we know so far. A companion that has been defeated will yield and kneel down. If they are struck while in this state they die. If not they eventually get back up.

It's a good thing that mobs change targets once she yields.

You can give her food, armor, weapons, potions, spell scrolls, staves... I gave her a shock staff and she dual weilds it with a skyforge longsword I enchanted with frost damage... She's a killing machine. Also, her in full orcish epic armor is pretty cool.

If its anything like oblivions system they should use just about any item, food, potions, scrolls and even drinks, books, brooms or rakes when their at home.

Though sometimes the AI that controls Lydia and other companions can be a little...slow...I've generally been impressed how Lydia tries to make use of the items you give her. She will equip better weapons, use the better bow over her standard one. If you give her just ONE Arrow that's better than an Iron arrow she'll appear to shoot exclusively that arrow type from that point on - NOT using up the arrows in effect.

She will it appears only equip Heavy Armour though, I did find a rather fetching set of light armour (that I upgraded in preparation) but she'd only equip the helmet and boots, keeping her standard armour.

If would be great if we could see her stats so understood how best to equip her, and also see of course if she levels to any degree. *

Cheers,

Scoob.

* I did ask her about her "skills" and what particular equipment of mine she'd prefer to handle - she hit me with an axe. Don't know what I said!

She isn't immortal. But I found that when she's out fighting if she drops to her knees all enemies will attack you...but! if you hit her once while she's on her knees you can kill her. I've never see enemies try and kill her when she was down though. Also, she did fight giants... she flew for quite a distance. If she wonders off I just use moveto to get her back next to me.

I got an idea... giving her a fireball spell book or something. I need to try that.

I discovered this as well! It led me to try giving companions other useful items, such as spell books and staffs. However, it doesn't appear that they utilize these items. I even tried spell books/staffs with a pure magic based companion. Regardless, she still summons atriarchs and can take an elder dragon down without my help if I let her, so I can't complain.

As for my dear Lydia; I was using her for the majority of the game - even had her a full set of Dragonbone Heavy Armor. I'd engage large groups of enemies and let her fight them to see how long she'd survive (Master difficulty) and she took quite a while to go down. That being said, I lost her at one point, as companions have a horrible pathfinding when navigating cliffs and water. Normally she shows up at your house a few days later if you manage to ditch them and this was the case many times. However, this past time I lost her in the bogs outside of Solitude and now it's been over 15 hours of gameplay and she's long gone. Not at Whiterun or any house I own. I highly doubt she died to mud crabs out in the wild. I've since gone companionless from time to time and also have a new mage companion who I enjoy more - but damn me if I won't run into the poor girl again to regain my heavy set of Dragonbone I'll kill her if I see her again just for a laugh ...

I have been giving her potions since I met her, and she seems to use them. I also upgraded her weapons and helmet (though she doesn't seem to want to wear the other armour).

However, she did surprise me yesterday. I found two identical frost staffs in a chest, and since I was running out of inventory room, I gave them both to her to carry. The next time we entered combat, she whipped them both out and dual-wielded them, firing frost at the enemy from range.

A broom! That could be just plain rude (especially if I set her to work in my messy home)!

I can hear her now ... all these years of training for this?!!?

Anyone have luck getting her to wear new armor? If i give her armor she wont use it. Only a helmet or boots, but not gloves or body amor.

I just gave her a set of plate and she put it on. It needs to be good enough for her to swap.

Yeah...kind of late for that now haha.

I wish I knew that. She died midway through a dungeon so I cast the rez corpse spell on her and had my zombie Lydia help finish clearing the next few rooms.

On my alt, we both got bit by vampires. I cured myself but I didn't give her a cure disease potion, I just told her to wait in my house. For some reason, she vanished for about a week and mysteriously came back. I guess she was out feeding...

Once, she grabbed a lightning staff from a fallen mage and started zapping enemies instead of using a shield.

Yeah, I was planning on testing this...but, well... those are MY health potions.

Really? So few people figured that out? I figured she would use potions after about the second fight we got in together.

Depends on the build. With my jack of all trades toon I just mow things down so fast companions slow me down and get in the way.

With my Pure mage in cloth who don't even use bound weapons...companions are a must have. I sit back and play the support role for my party. Loved healing in WOW arena and Battlegrounds so support role style is something I don't mind doing.