Muffled boots enchantment ridiculously OP? (Thieves Guild spoilers)

[ManiacOverlord]

So, I've played through Skyrim quite a few times, and I've never found myself deeming Stealth "worth it" aside from just playing a stealth archer. It's nice for pickpocketing, it's nice for archery, but it never seemed like I could get within 20 feet of an enemy without them noticing me even when I'd specifically trained Sneak up to the upper-70's and was wearing light armor with practically empty inventory, sticking to the shadows.

Put simply, it was nearly completely worthless if I ever wanted to play a character specialized in direct confrontation.

Now, over the past few days I decided to take a stab at the Thieves Guild storyline because I'd never gone further than the quest where you have to fight Hamelyn. I went through it all and found "hey, these quests are actually pretty well-designed for stealth. Too bad it's pretty much only these quests." You can reliably sneak around most threats, save for a tiny handful you still have to fight.

But the real gamechanger came in when I got the Nightingale armor.

Like I said, I've played Skyrim a LOT. I've tried stealth many times and it just didn't seem to work for me outside of a tiny handful of situations. Then I obtained the Nightingale Armor, specifically the boots which muffle your movement.

And suddenly, nobody can ever detect me unless I'm staring them in the face or physically touching them. I thought it might be a bug or something but no, with these boots specifically, I can sneak so well that I won't even realize there are enemies nearby until I stand up to move faster and suddenly have 4+ bandits all swarming my ass.

To test it further, I started a new game and modded in an enchanted set of boots that I proceeded to disenchant immediately, giving the enchantment to a set of Leather Boots with a Common Soul Gem. With only 28 in Sneak, but with these Muffled boots equipped, I'm able to sneak just as effectively as I was able to with Sneak 70+ with the Nightingale boots. I literally HAVE to be actually physically touching a target for them to notice me, or otherwise standing directly in front of their face. And I mean DIRECTLY. In the middle of the day, I went to the Uttering Hills Cave, killed the female bandit lurking around, and then turned around and saw the male bandit in iron armor standing about five or six feet away from me, still non-hostile. He didn't get hostile until I moved directly in front of him and attacked him.

Is the Muffle enchantment SUPPOSED to be this overpowered? And yes, I'm 100% certain this is because of the enchantment.

[ManiacOverlord]

Update: I tested a bit more by running through the Uttering Hills Cave using these muffled boots. I decided not to attack or kill anybody until I reached the Bandit Chief at the end. I snuck past every bandit in the cave without any issue at all, even being within arm's reach of them at several points. I reached the bandit chief and murdered him, though I drew the attention of two more bandits nearby in doing so.

A couple of rooms over, there was still a bandit sleeping in their bed. I tested the muffle enchantment further. I was able to sneak directly next to them while wearing the muffled boots, and when I changed to a pair of non-muffled Hide boots, I woke him up trying to sneak past him.

Tested again on a couple of actually awake bandits upstairs, to the same effect. They pretty much immediately started searching for me when I equipped the Hide Boots, but when I switched back to my enchanted leather boots, they just couldn't find me even though I was literally only a few feet in front of them. Eventually I became Hidden again and they went back to doing whatever.

[Kasane Randell MFer]

Stealth for me has been great, I am able to sneak up behind them and backstab em. But I also invest into the illusion school because, who doesn't like to go "sorry! didn't mean to back stab you! *continues back stabbing*".

[ManiacOverlord]

I've never had any kind of luck with it until I got the muffle enchantment >> No matter what I do everyone always catches me if I don't have it, and then there's nothing I can't get away with if I DO have it.

Feels like combining the Nightingale Boots with the Shrouded gloves will be the single most OP thing in the game >>

[Kasane Randell MFer]

Nightingale boots just do muffled and somethign else, I think it's lockpicking or something, don't remember, havent been doing Thieves guild stuff in ages. But yeah, that with Shroud gloves are OP just for the backstab buff. I think it also might work with bows, but I don't think it does.

illusion spells add so much, they have the muffle spell, which greatly makes your stealth better right off the bat till you find boots that offer muffle on them, ie thieves guild or dark brotherhood, or even a random boot item that has the enchantment. PLus once you get high enough illusion, 75, you get the invisibilty spell, which just makes stealth melee assassin type chracters even more OP.

And to be honest, I never bothered with any spells in skyrim until like, 4 years ago. I mostly did non magicka stuff. But when I did start, it was just illusion spells, and I found them to be the most "OP" spells. They can manipulate so much on the field that it's better for utility reasons over other schools of magicka, besides Restoration and Alteration. Conjuration is also great, but Destruction is just....boring to me.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Percy Lyn:

So, I've played through Skyrim quite a few times, and I've never found myself deeming Stealth "worth it" aside from just playing a stealth archer. It's nice for pickpocketing, it's nice for archery, but it never seemed like I could get within 20 feet of an enemy without them noticing me even when I'd specifically trained Sneak up to the upper-70's and was wearing light armor with practically empty inventory, sticking to the shadows.

Put simply, it was nearly completely worthless if I ever wanted to play a character specialized in direct confrontation.

Now, over the past few days I decided to take a stab at the Thieves Guild storyline because I'd never gone further than the quest where you have to fight Hamelyn. I went through it all and found "hey, these quests are actually pretty well-designed for stealth. Too bad it's pretty much only these quests.

Dark Brotherhood quests can be stealthed too, requires planning for some, but you can do them stealthily.

[casualsailor]

I can sneak right by enemies without drawing attention. Here is Major Slack trolling the boss of Bleakfalls Barrow. His char stands in the corner and the Draugr Scourge Lord walks right up to his face and can't see him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lsq4L2s9YI&t=1298s

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

I can sneak right by enemies without drawing attention. Here is Major Slack trolling the boss of Bleakfalls Barrow. His char stands in the corner and the Draugr Scourge Lord walks right up to his face and can't see him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lsq4L2s9YI&t=1298s

Fun one is when you start fighting them, then go back into stealth, and they can't spot you from five feet away.

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by alexander_dougherty:

Originally posted by casualsailor:

I can sneak right by enemies without drawing attention. Here is Major Slack trolling the boss of Bleakfalls Barrow. His char stands in the corner and the Draugr Scourge Lord walks right up to his face and can't see him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lsq4L2s9YI&t=1298s

Fun one is when you start fighting them, then go back into stealth, and they can't spot you from five feet away.

Yeah, I don't know how many times I've stood up to start looting only to realize there was someone sitting in a chair or laying in a bed who noticed me and I've crouched back down and had them walk right up to where I was and look right at me without noticing.

[Boboscus]

If you want to be an assassin, then illusion assassin build works the best, use invisibility to go around and one shot everything with 30x damage buff.

[ManiacOverlord]

I'm not even using illusion yet. I'm just using sneak with the muffled boots and a dagger.
This is absolutely asinine. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I wish I'd tried this earlier in my skyrim career.
Every single point of damage on the dagger you use matters. Iron dagger, at only 5 damage? roughly 150 damage in a single stab. Upgrade to dwarven dagger and smith it for 16 damage? 480 in a single stab. This is ludicrous.

I twoshotted a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Dwarven Centurion. I could probably take it on on Legendary and not die. What the ♥♥♥♥.

Stealth is broken as all ♥♥♥♥ but it's fun as hell coz if you ♥♥♥♥ up you're mincemeat. I love it.

[MysticMalevolence]

Yeah, that's how muffle works and has always worked. 100% sound reduction. I think there are armor perks that have the same effect?

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by Dylan the Cartographer:

Yeah, that's how muffle works and has always worked. 100% sound reduction. I think there are armor perks that have the same effect?

The Muffle perk under Steath grants 50% reduction to sound from armor. The Muffled Enchant is available only for boots and grants another 50% reduction. So, with both you are essentially silent.

There is also a Muffle spell under Illusion which by itself makes you 100% silent but it only lasts for 180 sec.

[EM3ʸᵉᵉᵗ]

stealth lets you do something very satisfying in the reach a briarheart has never been so fun to obtain

[ManiacOverlord]

....Aaaand I think I've found the limitation.
Are ash spawns IMMUNE TO BACKSTABS? I literally cannot get a critical hit to proc on them.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Percy Lyn:

....Aaaand I think I've found the limitation.
Are ash spawns IMMUNE TO BACKSTABS? I literally cannot get a critical hit to proc on them.

Well they are made of ASH, nothing there to get a critical hit on, although what Storm Atronachs have to be vulnerable has given me pause once or twice.