A question for Skyrimers........

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So, I picked up Skyrim on a Steam sale this weekend. It's the first fantasy RPG I've played in about two decades and I'm having a blast. Skyrim is a beautiful and fun game.

Anyway, I'm playing a Robert E. Howard style warrior/thief, specializing in light armor, greatsword combat, and no magic (except dragon shouts). I had Lydia as my personal Carl, but she was getting too many of 'my' kills. So, I married her, set her up 'keeping house' in Whiterun, and replaced her with Marcurio (mercenary mage). I want a spell casting follower to balance my lack of magic use.

So, here's my problem... I like Marcurio well enough, even though he hits me with his chained lightening spell in combat sometimes.

What I DON'T LIKE is that he CONSTANTLY GETS LOST when I'm walking 'cross country'.

Anyway, I plan to replace him with J'zargo as soon as I can.

In the meantime, is there a way to fix my problem with Marcurio?

He usually turns up if I wait somewhere for an hour or two, or when I enter (read load) a new section of dungeon.

However, this time, he's been missing for a long time, and the tricks, mentioned above, aren't working.

Is there a way to find Marcurio?

And, more importantly, if I cannot find him (to fire his non-following ass ), is this going to stop me from hiring a new follower?

The only time when something like that happened to me was when I told a follower to wait, and then forgot about him In that case, wait three days and he will leave your service. Otherwise you can always use console commands (you can active this by pressing the button below Esc), though I don't know the exact one.

As noted by Bluth, use the tilde key ("~") to open the console window. Then type:

player.placeatme <Item/NPCID> <#>

You can find the NPC's ID on any Elder Scrolls wiki. I forget if the command wants the Reference ID or the Base ID. So if one doesn't work, try the other.

For Marcurio the IDs are:
Ref ID 000B9986
Base ID 000B9980

So:
player.placeatme b9986
or
player.placeatme b9980

I think that should do the trick.

Ref:
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Marcurio
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Cons ... ds_(Skyrim)

@Sharkbait: I'm afraid that will create a clone of Marcurio to be placed near the player. This is assuming he is still alive in the game.

@OP: You should check to see if Marcurio is still alive.

player.moveto 000B9986

That should work, or otherwise just do what Sharkbait told you to do, but use the base-ID instead of the ref-ID. That would essentially "revive" Marcurio or at least an identical copy, assuming he's not still alive and kicking. If Marcurio is alive, this might present some problems for the clone. I don't know how it would work if two followers leave your service and head back to where they came from, which is what might happen if Marcurio is alive, and OP adds another copy to the game world.

This is all assuming you're fine with using the console, which is technically cheating, and disables your ability to get achievements until you reload your save file.

What is particularly funny about this thread is that OP might be mad at his follower not being able to follow him...because said follower might actually be dead. I don't mean to be rude or anything. I just thought it was a bit morbid.

^^^ Thanks for the info, guys!

I don't have a problem using the console for things like this.... I also used it to get Lydia to wear a dress after I married her and left her at home. She cleans up real nice!

I couldn't get her get her to change shoes, but I like a pretty girl in a nice dress and combat boots...




I'm pretty sure Marcurio isn't dead. He's never been able to keep up with me in the mountains, which is strange, because Lydia always could.

Either way, I'm only one quest away from replacing him..... when I get more time to play.

LOL yeah I had that problem.
My follower got lost, and I couldn't do a bunch of escort quests since I "already had them with me" ...
About 4 hours later they showed up in some random place as they were supposed to be the key character in a different quest.
Maybe they should take a compass or map with them, at least ?

I had this with a follower once (forget who it was).

I found that when traveling cross-country, if I ignored him for too long he would disappear. Kind of like unless I kept an eye on him he would get distracted and wander off (attention deficient? )

The solution that seemed to work is that when traveling along I would occasionally stop and look at him (i.e. make sure my visual indicator landed on him). That seemed to reassure the fickle man that I had not forgotten him, and encouraged him to keep up. Or is he was really lagging I would walk back to him, click to start a conversation (he would respond "I am still here") and then I would just click out of the conversation. He would then respond with "Lead on!". That seemed to reset the following bond and he would thereafter follow well. For awhile until he would lag again and I would have to repeat the process.

Such emotionally high-maintenance followers can be burdensome.

^^^ Hmm... That is an interesting theory.

Marcurio does remind me to 'check my six' from time to time. Maybe his tendency to get lost has something to do with the fact that he is a mercenary and therefore not so loyal?

Like I stated above, I never had this problem with Lydia, but she is loyal to a fault.

If it does have something to do with the follower's personality, I bet I'll have trouble with J'zargo too.

But that's okay. I've always wanted a pet cat who can crack jokes and kill my enemies. So, I'll be willing to cut him a bit of slack.

I've never had a Kajiit follower; I would be interested to read how that works out for you.

The guy I was referring to above was Belrand. When I first started it was good to have him around because I needed the help. Thereafter he stole all my skill opportunities. Worse, when I was leading and started to swing or charge a spell at an attacker, he would rush in front between me and the attacker to get in his lick, with the result that I would end up hitting him. And get this: he would then get all p*ssed off at me for hitting him!

I was like: "Dude, when you see me charging a spell don't ya think that running in front between me and my target is a stupid move?" But he did it all the time.

After trying different followers it turned out that my favorite is good old romantically-challanged Faendal. I could always count on him to stay behind me and just lob arrows - enough to distract the enemy (and maybe take down a few) while I did the real combat.

Oh wow yeah, Belrand is a right character isn't he ?
There's a good reason for why 90% of his time following me I called him "Bellend" instead of "Belrand"

I remember seeing a mod that gave followers quest markers so you could find them on the map if you lost them.

Usually if your follower is not dead or is in the kneeling position from being beat up real bad in an interior zone, sleeping a few days, or fast travelling far distances sometimes multiple times will get them to reappear by your side.

Oh and maybe you told your follower to "wait here" or "I need you to do something" and didn't speak to them afterwards. A lot of the time they will just stand there until you tell them to follow you again.

Anyways, all followers have bad AI. They tend to follow set out trails. If you're jumping on top of rocks and up hills, they will try go through a trail to get to you, and sometimes they just don't get to the destination.

J'zargo is my favorite vanilla follower. He is entertaining and an overall balanced follower. I'd trade him for Marcurio and Lydia any day.

So, I've had the chance to play with J'zargo and I gotta say, he is WAY better than Marcurio.

I've been traveling through some pretty rough country and J'zargo might get separated but he NEVER gets lost and always catches-up really quick.

We killed our first Dragon Priest the other night and I gave J'zargo his fireball staff.

Now, J'zargo hangs back and softens 'em up at range, while I get up close and personal.... I just got the two-handed perk that let's me score decapitations. We're having a lot of fun now.

I am glad to learn that J'zargo is working out well. I enjoy having a follower that can be entertaining; I'll have to give J'zargo a try sometime.

I too have found that giving a follower a fireball staff can work well. Even pushy Belrand would stay behind me and not rush in front when given a fireball staff. It was kind of cool too that, when walking forward, even before I might see a foe myself, I would hear the fireball staff and then see the fireball sailing over my head. Rather like being followed and protected by an unseen angel.

And though I feel a bit funny admitting it, I too find that decapitations can be fun.

Critical strikes are key to my combat style because I don't have a shield, only wear light armor, and frankly, I'm not very good....


That brings up ANOTHER QUESTION:

Why is it possible for spell casters to wear (heavy) armor?

Like I mentioned in my first post, I haven't played a fantasy RPG in a long time.... But, back in the day, there was no such thing as canned magic! Wizards could not cast spells while wearing armor.

It's kinda funny... In my current game, J'zargo is in the rear, sniping and wearing steel armor, while I'm up front slugging it out, clad only in leather (thieve's guild) armor.

So Bradleigh, you will be going with Mage Armor? I have never tried it, and would be interested to learn how well it works for you.

Regarding wizards, one of my favorite things to do is to get a really puny bow & arrow this is guaranteed not to kill on one hit (e.g. a long bow with iron arrows). When facing a wizard I then poison the arrow with a really strong Damage Magic Regen and plink them with it. In short order they are out of magic, yet foolishly still yelling smack like: "You can not conceive of the power I wield ! !"

I then calmly and casually stroll up to them while they are screaming about what bad-asses they are, and then I decapitate them in a single blow.

I somehow never tire of giving them their comeuppance that way.