Acrobatics/Sneak Bug

[Lucky Flame]

A known bug is that when you reach Journeyman in Acrobatics, all your sneak attacks with a melee weapon will be strong attacks. I just came across this bug today, and am wondering if a solution was ever found (yes I did google it, no I did not find anything conclusive), or if a fix was included in any unofficial patch (before I go through the whole process of installing a bunch of mods/fixes--this one bug is all I really care about at the moment).

[Bomb Bloke]

It's not mentioned in the UOP changelog[afkmods.iguanadons.net], and testing it out I see that the bug's affecting me too. The only report I can find from someone who specifically could not reproduce the bug was from a player who hadn't updated to the latest official version of the game - they were still on 1.1. So presumably Bethesda broke things with a later update.

Since the skill system is hard-coded into the game, it can't really be fixed with a mod. The only workaround I can see is to temorarily "player.setav Acrobatics 0" whenever you're feeling stabby.

[Lucky Flame]

Yeah I just set myself back to 25 (and will set it back again if I play long enough where it increases to 50 again). Until now, I was having a better time with this game glitch-wise than I had with Skyrim. Disappointing.

[DrNewcenstein]

Do you mean you perform the Strong Attack animation, or that you're suddenly doing massive damage?

Sneak attacks should do massive damage, that's the point.

If it's an animation glitch, however, that's easy to fix with a mod.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

Do you mean you perform the Strong Attack animation, or that you're suddenly doing massive damage?

"Strong" as in "power attack" - a slower swing which drains stamina.

Sneak attacks performed this way don't get a damage boost, so the bug's quite detrimental if you regularly use them in melee.

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

If it's an animation glitch, however, that's easy to fix with a mod.

I doubt that, but by all means link one!

[Lucky Flame]

Edit: Yes, "strong" as in "power attack", sorry.

When you sneak attack someone with a melee weapon, it does the same amount of damage whether you do a strong or regular attack, so doing a strong attack while sneaking is a waste of stamina.

For this bug, when you reach level 50 in acrobatics, all your melee sneak attacks (yes, even when you just tap the button instead of holding it down) execute the strong attack animation (which takes a second or two longer to play out than the regular animation). You can easily tell the difference by looking at your character in third person.

The damage I'm doing is the same, but the game forces my character to do a strong attack while sneaking for some reason. It most likely has something to do with the rolling-dodging-while-blocking mechanic you unlock at acrobatics level 50. So maybe there's something in the code that is confusing those two animations, or something. I don't know, I'm not a programmer.

[Telas]

Sorry for necroing but I just found that I have the same problem. After my acrobatics hit 50 I can no longer do regular sneak melee attacks.

Any solutions?

[Qu]

Set it to 25 throught the console, that should fix it.

The command you need to type in the console is:
player.setav acrobatics 25

[Bomb Bloke]

That'd be the workaround I suggested earlier.

I don't believe a fix exists.

[462_Geekman]

Unearthing this thread to point out that a fix does exist: https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/47085
(That way I won't spend two hours searching for it next time)