Gray Cowl of Nocturnal just stopped working

[JMO]

I am playing Special Edition with the Anniversary Edition updates. That's it. No mods at all (And I accidentally posted this in the wrong forum before)

I've relied maybe too heavily on the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal. Recently I was in in a tower and realized it wasn't seeing any the Forsworn around me through the walls. Then I fast traveled to a few towns and looked at Civilians with it. Nope, no effect

I even fast traveled to WhiteRun. And the guards did not care that I was wearing it. They didn't attack at all. Just made small talk.

I looked at it in inventory. No way to charge it.

I tried removing it and re-equipping it. Still no effect. I even tried dropping it and picking it back up. The only effect putting it on has now is to my armor.

Does anyone know what might be the cause?

I do have a save a couple of levels ago where it still worked so I can go back to that if I must

[alexander_dougherty]

I know the bow of shadows has a similar bug, maybe some CC stuff is only designed for short-term use (ie badly made)

[JMO]

Bow of Shadows too? Oh great, my other favorite piece of gear :-)

Anyway, I went back to the previous save and started working on leveling up again. So far, so good. And I noticed one interesting thing along the way:

One of the quests I had to re-do was the mission that made me a Thane of WhiteRun. I was saving and checking every step of the way, to see if any particular action made the cowl lose its powers.

This is how I learned that once you become Thane, the guards of WhiteRun no longer attack you when you're wearing the Cowl. It still works, mind you. But I guess Thane-hood trumps its powers.

Just to be sure I fast traveled to another city and those guards still attack me...

[Perplex]

Yea a lot of the CC items without reloadable effects stop working when their hidden charges are used up it seems. Or for some other reason because after a while all of them stop working as they should. And i mean all of them.

[alexander_dougherty]

Първоначално публикувано от Perplex:

Yea a lot of the CC items without reloadable effects stop working when their hidden charges are used up it seems. Or for soem other reason because after a while all of them stop working as they should. And i mean all of them.

Didn't know it was all of them, shame some of them are quite cool.
Still the quests are fun....

[JMO]

i am not so sure they have a number of charges though.

Because since I gave up and went back a few saves and started using my working Gray Cowl again, I have used it far more times than I had used when it stopped working. And its still working just fine.

I think it was just a glitch

[Perplex]

Първоначално публикувано от alexander_dougherty:

Първоначално публикувано от Perplex:

Yea a lot of the CC items without reloadable effects stop working when their hidden charges are used up it seems. Or for soem other reason because after a while all of them stop working as they should. And i mean all of them.

Didn't know it was all of them, shame some of them are quite cool.
Still the quests are fun....

Yea, but it is one of the reason i dont even try to use them anymore. They just stop working randomly and thats that.

[JMO]

It would probably be more fair if it only had a certain number of charges. To me the Cowl is the most overpowered item I've ever encountered. Being able to know where enemies are through walls it a complete game changer. That's why its low coin value also makes no sense to me.

[JMO]

FYI: After many, many hours since, I'm here to tell you that whatever caused my Gray Cowl to stop working, it wasn't some "number of charges". I've used it countless more times since I went back to previous save and got it working again. I've it it for hours beyond what I had used it then. It's still working.

So whatever caused it to stop in the first place must have been a bug. It certainly wasn't based on the amount of usage