Bounty Strangely Disappears

[Wahooka]

I'm doing the Thieves Guild Quests, and I am on the quest called "Lost Histories".

During the quest, you break an Argonian out of the dungeon in Skingrad in exchange for information. During the escape, I got a 500 Bounty. I paralyzed the guard and ran away and escaped.

After that part of the quest ended, my bounty was all of a sudden ZERO. After playing the game for over a year, this is the first time that a bounty has just vanished.

I re-played the quest, and this time avoided being arrested, but then I could never save my game cause it said I was being pursed by guards, even though I wasn't!

Are the vanishing bounties and false alarms about guards pursuing considered bugs in the game
I always ask about this stuff, cause bugs will cause crashes.

Thanks.

[Azure Fang]

Yes, this is a long-standing and devastating bug. I would recommend rolling back to an unaffected save, then hunt down the Unofficial Oblivion Patch, Unofficial Shivering Isles Patch, and Unofficial DLC Patch mods on Nexus as necessary for your version of the game, as these will fix most of the (large amounts of) bugs Bethesda never fixed. If you've never installed mods before, install Wrye Bash as your mod manager/installer to make everything completely painless... after you read the documentation for Bash and the patches, of course.

[Wahooka]

Which bug will cause the problems?

The bug of the guards still pursuing you when they aren't certainly will cause the inability to save.

What about the bug that the bounty disappears when you talk to Amusei after escaping prison, is that really a big problem, or is that meant to happen that your bounty magically goes away?

Is there a way to avoid all this happening when escaping with Amusei from prison? There doesn't seem to be a way to avoid the guards, especially when entering West Weald.

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by Wahooka:

Which bug will cause the problems?

The bug of the guards still pursuing you when they aren't certainly will cause the inability to save.

What about the bug that the bounty disappears when you talk to Amusei after escaping prison, is that really a big problem, or is that meant to happen that your bounty magically goes away?

Is there a way to avoid all this happening when escaping with Amusei from prison? There doesn't seem to be a way to avoid the guards, especially when entering West Weald.

No, it is not meant to happen. Something along the line of clearing your bounty bugged. This has been around since the original release of the game and was never completely officially fixed. Only the Unofficial Patches ever brought it to a semblence of a close. It has nothing to do with Amusei or escaping prison, but with the game being buggy as hell. You may be able to temporarily fix it by attacking a civilian in front of a guard and paying your fine, but it may not fix OR if it does it can come back again, unless you install the patch mods I already mentioned.

EDIT: Seriously, 30 seconds in Google and I'm finding posts about this bug as far back as 2006. You'd think they would have officially patched it, but noooooo.

[Wahooka]

I attempted to pay my fine when the guards caught me getting Amusei out of prison.

This puts you at the castle gate, and then they start chasing you again!

I think the only way to avoid this bug is not to get caught, but that is nearly impossible, there is no way to march Amusei through the County Hall, it is crawling with guards.

Will the disappearing bounty bug cause crashes later on in the game, or should I just ignore it?

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by Wahooka:

I attempted to pay my fine when the guards caught me getting Amusei out of prison.

This puts you at the castle gate, and then they start chasing you again!

I think the only way to avoid this bug is not to get caught, but that is nearly impossible, there is no way to march Amusei through the County Hall, it is crawling with guards.

Will the disappearing bounty bug cause crashes later on in the game, or should I just ignore it?

It can cause instability, from never being able to rest/wait/fast travel due to guards trying to find you when the guards don't exist up to crashes due to looping scripts piling in memory. And it can be triggered ANYWHERE in the game, not just where you describe, as it's the bunty clearing script breaking somewhere between clearing your bounty value and resetting a global state, the latter becoming impossible to reset at that point.

Installing unofficial patch mods has been commonplace in Bethesda games from as far back as Morrowind and as recent as Fallout 4. You can find the links to the mods at the top of my post here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/22330/discussions/0/1353742967800800932/#c1353742967805706017

[Azure Fang]

And for reference, here's the list of bugs fixed by the core patch alone: https://afkmods.iguanadons.net/Unofficial%20Oblivion%20Patch%20Version%20History.html

It'll take hours to read.

[Wahooka]

I believe you that the bug can cause instability.

What I did was basically allowed Amusei and I to get caught by the guard, then I paid my 500 bounty, then it put me and Amusei just outside the castle entrance at the West Weald.

Luckily, there were no guards around, so then I ran for safety, and Amusei was set free, and then I fast travelled to Skingrad and ended the quest.

As far as I know, this avoided the bugs, but I am not sure. If you can think of a better way to end this quest without any possibility of bugs, please let me know.

Thank you.

[BondageSpider]

I know this quest also has issues with Dion greeting you to warn you about Glarthir, which can make it impossible to avoid getting a bounty if he does this during your escape.

If I recall, it also temporarily removes the guard at the end of the bridge, to give you and Amusei some hope of escape.

[Wahooka]

Luckily, I did the Glarthir quest a long time ago, so that didn't happen.

But the logic of surrendering to the guards, and then still being allowed to escape with Amusei, is kind of funny.

But hopefully this solved the problem of bugs happening during this quest. Game seems to be stable, for now.