Entire thread is spoiler: Thieves Guild armor quandary

primesuspect

I finally completed the last of the "special" jobs for Delvin last night and became the official leader of the Thieves Guild.

Here's what's confusing me:

I'm not sure if you have to become a Nightingale to complete the Thieves Guild quests... Perhaps I did them backwards. I became a Nightingale early in the game, and just assumed it was the natural progression of the Thieves Guild questline. So when I was rewarded with the Guild Master armor set, I was like... Oooh, this should be better than the Nightingale set.

It's not. Even improved to Legendary, the Nightingale set is still better than the Guild Master set, by far.

Did I do them in the wrong order? Can you become the leader of the Thieves Guild without doing the Nightingale quest line? It doesn't make any sense to me: The Nightingale quest line involves getting rid of Mercer and bringing Karliah back to the guild, and Karliah and Brynjolf are the ones that decide to promote you to guild leader, so it seems like it's in the right order. Mercer has to be gone in order for you to become leader anyway...

So I guess the point is: Why would all that culminate in a reward that is lesser than what they gave you way earlier in the quest line? It doesn't make sense to me.

Snarkasm

It makes sense if you consider the fact that the Nightingales are a secret elite branch of the thieves, and nobody's supposed to know you are one. That's like thinking that the Coast Guard has better toys than the SEALs. It's pretty great for thieves' armor, but Nightingales are like special branch. It's only natural it'd be better.

primesuspect

By the end of the quest, the Nightingale secret is "out" to the entire guild. Karliah and Brynjolf walk around in their armor too. In fact, if you talk to Karliah after you become the leader, she even mentions it explicitly: The secret is out, it's no big deal to wear your armor around here (it ever was?)

I guess all was I hoping for was the normal RPG convention of progressively better gear rewards. This just seems weird. They gave me this amazing elite armor set that's not as good as the one they already gave me way earlier. The only thing it's good for is making my mannequins look good. Just seems weird, in the "why did they bother" sense.

Snarkasm

I think you just found an edge case. I hadn't really considered (and I bet a lot of others didn't either) continuing to do all of the seemingly endless tasks the Thieves have you do. Apparently they're not endless, and thus at the end they have to give you something, but they're bound by the story they've already invented - that the Nightingales are a superior group.

I might be reading too much into it, though.

Snarkasm

Well, hang on. I finished them today. I can't get anything above Flawless on leather right now (87 smithing + 20%), but my Guild Master armor is 60 at flawless, while my Nightingale is 55 at flawless.

My legendary glass armor is 68, but that doesn't give me the sweet perks the other armors do, at least not yet. Plus I don't see the need for that much armor when I'm sneaky sneaky. Your Guild Master armor is really lower than your Nightingale, though?

I wonder if your level when you receive it factors into its initial stats.

Snarkasm

Set bonuses are killer.

Guild Master armor ratings per piece at Flawless: 60/21/21/27
Nightingale armor ratings per piece at Flawless: 55/20/20/25
Ancient Shrouded armor ratings per piece at Flawless: 54/22/25/22

And yet, overall armor ratings when all pieces are applied (and nothing else), as shown by the Armor Rating field at the bottom of the inventory screen:

Guild Master: 129 - no set bonus
Nightingale: 145 - 25-point set bonus
Ancient Shrouded: 148 - 25-point set bonus

This stinks a little bit, because my ideal setup is ancient or Nightingale boots (silent), Guild Master armor (+ capacity), ancient gloves (double sneak attack damage) and ancient cowl or Krosis (+35% bow damage for ancient, +20% on lockpicking/archery/alchemy). But if I use that setup, I only get 129 armor, dead even with the GM set.

I find no use for 100% poison resistance, pickpocket, lockpicking success, better prices, or illusion cost reduction, which is why I'm less willing to just use a full set. - sigh -

I kind of love that there are decisions like this.


//Edit:

Also interesting: it appears there's a bug with the ancient shrouded cowl that will let you stack it with another headpiece. In this manner, I can get a 170 armor rating with the Nightingale full set + ancient cowl, or I can use nightingale armor/boots/hood along with ancient shrouded gloves/cowl for a 147 rating. Or hey, even GM armor/Night boots + hood/ancient cowl + gloves for 152.

I think we have a winner.

primesuspect

304 with the Guild Master:



388 with the Nightingale:

Snarkasm

Shyikes. And look at all your gold! Jebus.

Too many different variables to compare, I guess. Looks like you're probably on a higher difficulty than I am and have perks in armor that I don't.

primesuspect

Yeah, I own every house fully decked out so I have nothing more to spend my gold on. So it just accumulates like crazy.

When you perk up in smithing, your ability to improve armor doubles. That probably explains a lot about my armor vs. yours.

fatcat

I really should upgrade my armor, I think it is like 38