Guards are strange.

[Insertclevername]

Solitude guard: "Favor the bow, eh? I'm a swordsman myself."

When I'm wearing orichalcum armor and have the Shield of Ysgramor and my Skyforge Steel Sword equipped.. The only thing that would make him thing I'm a bowman is a quiver of arrows on my back, and that is filled to the brim, suggesting that I rarely use it (mainly only have it for dragons, although I recently got Dragonrend, so it may not see use at all anymore). Guards are strange.

[Insufferable Smartypants]

They can magically examine your character sheet and see your higher level skills, just like in Oblivion.

"You have the HANDS of an illusionist!"

[Vita, Mortis, Careo]

Originally posted by Insertfunnyname:

Solitude guard: "Favor the bow, eh? I'm a swordsman myself."

When I'm wearing orichalcum armor and have the Shield of Ysgramor and my Skyforge Steel Sword equipped.. The only thing that would make him thing I'm a bowman is a quiver of arrows on my back, and that is filled to the brim, suggesting that I rarely use it (mainly only have it for dragons, although I recently got Dragonrend, so it may not see use at all anymore). Guards are strange.

We were just talking about this sort of thing in another thread. Guards magically seem to know that you use a bow even if you aren't carrying one. Kill a dragon and burn its skin off right in front of him? "Citizen...."

[Insertclevername]

Originally posted by Insufferable Smartypants:

They can magically examine your character sheet and see your higher level skills, just like in Oblivion.

"You have the HANDS of an illusionist!"

Thing is, my archery skill is 38, when my one-handed skill is 72...

[voehringer_nitron]

They start saying those lines when the appropriate skill is over 30. I get guards talking to me about bows, light armor, enchanting, one handed weapons, lockpicking, sneak, enchanting, alchemy, conjuration. I dont know if any of them have mentioned smithing, even though my skill is almost 90.

[Insertclevername]

Is it a skill that determines what blacksmiths recommend for you, or is it your race? Because I've gotten "You want some armor? I got some elven stuff around here" from Alvor when I first reached Riverwood on my wood elf, and "Iron or steel is what you need, leave that fancy elven stuff to the elves" on my nord.

[papajack_papajohn]

My guards are all female, half naked due to the armor they wear, and are always asking me if I'm a conjurer can I conjure them up a mead or ale.

[wepfhwepfhp]

If you have all skills to 100, gueard will think you favor i.e. illusion magic, and make a comment about it, while you may have just level it up for level and don't use it at all

More strange when guards says that he is like you, doesn't like those clunky two handed weapons while having greatsword on his back xD

[gnewna]

Originally posted by papajack_papajohn:

My guards are all female, half naked due to the armor they wear, and are always asking me if I'm a conjurer can I conjure them up a mead or ale.

They're probably freezing.

Originally posted by Insertfunnyname:

Is it a skill that determines what blacksmiths recommend for you, or is it your race? Because I've gotten "You want some armor? I got some elven stuff around here" from Alvor when I first reached Riverwood on my wood elf, and "Iron or steel is what you need, leave that fancy elven stuff to the elves" on my nord.

Yep, that's a race thing.

By the way, there's a really good mod called Guard Dialogue Overhaul at the Nexus which changes what guards say to be a bit more logical. I think they still sometimes come out with 'oh, I see you favour [a weapon skill which actually happens to be your least used one]' and so on, but they also tend to get a bit more respectful as you progress, have more lines available to them, notice if you're Thane and so on. It does have a slight side effect of giving some of the lines to other NPCs who use the same voice type (e.g. several of the innkeepers/bar staff and some of the priests) which occasionally seems a bit weird, such as when a priest in Solitude starts on about 'those werewolf tales being true', but it's mostly not a bad thing, just it may make you do the odd double-take.

[Zefram Cochrane]

Originally posted by gnewna:

It does have a slight side effect of giving some of the lines to other NPCs who use the same voice type (e.g. several of the innkeepers/bar staff and some of the priests) which occasionally seems a bit weird, such as when a priest in Solitude starts on about 'those werewolf tales being true', but it's mostly not a bad thing, just it may make you do the odd double-take.

Luckily theres a console command to turn that off it does get a bit disconcerting to hear Gerdur tallking like a guard... the guards seem to comment on whatever weapon I'm equipped with at the time not sure if thats vanilla or not its been so long since I've gone vanilla on their dialogue.

[Navarre]

Originally posted by Zefram Cochrane:

Luckily theres a console command to turn that off

Set GDOExtraNPCs to 0, if someone is wondering.

I used it a few days ago and still have the note under my eyes, might as well share.