Conjuration follower keeps breaking my stealth—how do you manage this?

[RiftenWanderer]

Playing a sneaky character on my second run (level 32, Legendary difficulty) and I've been experimenting with Conjuration instead of taking a real follower. Problem is my summoned atronach / dremora lord keeps attacking stuff I'm trying to pickpocket or sneak past, and it tanks my entire approach. Do you just... not use conjured followers for stealth runs, or is there a playstyle I'm missing? Wondering if I should swap back to a human follower who at least understands "stay here" commands.

 

[TamrielTactician]

Conjured followers are honestly just not great for stealth, yeah. The issue is they're on a timer anyway, so you're not really gaining much compared to a real follower - except you lose the ability to tell them to wait or manage their aggression.

Your best bet if you want to keep the conjuration theme: summon stuff after you've already committed to combat. Use that early stealth to get positioning, pickpocket what you need, then pop a dremora lord when things go loud. That way you're actually using conjuration for what it's good at (burst damage / tanking) instead of fighting against it.

If you really want a follower for a sneaky build, honestly just grab a humanoid one and tell them to wait outside the dungeon / building. Serana works great if you've done the DLC questline - she's got good damage and you can dismiss her whenever. Or one of the Companions if you want someone less attached to a specific quest.

The perks that make conjuration actually shine (the ones that extend duration and let you summon two creatures at once) don't help with stealth anyway. They're more for a pure mage or a battlemage playstyle. For sneaking on Legendary, you're better off leaning into Illusion instead if you want school-based support - invisibility and muffle are way more useful for what you're doing than having a summon that breaks your cover.

 

[WhiterunModder]

Yeah, that's the right call. The other thing that bites you on Legendary specifically: even a dismissed follower sitting outside can sometimes aggro stuff if a patrol wanders too close, but at least they're not actively swinging at your pickpocket target mid-lockpick. With a summon, you've got zero control - it just exists and does summon things.

If you're dead set on keeping conjuration in your build though, ngl there's a middle ground nobody mentions. Grab the perk that lets you summon two atronachs at once (or dremoras, whatever), but use them as a planned distraction for specific fights you know are coming - like, you scout ahead, see guards clustered in a room, summon before you enter, let them whale on each other while you slip past to the objective. It's clunky but it works. Just don't expect it to replace a real follower for general dungeon crawling.

Honestly though, if you're on PC and have MO2 set up, there are mods that let you toggle follower aggression or make summons respect certain zones, but I'm guessing you're on console based on the setup. Vanilla Skyrim just wasn't designed for summons to play nice with stealth, so the previous reply nailed it - use them after you commit, not before.