Steward combat is somehow worse than I remembered

[RiftenWanderer]

So I just finished building out Lakeview Manor on my current playthrough and hired Rayya as steward, and I watched her get absolutely demolished by a single bandit during a homestead attack. Like, she had full Daedric armor and a two-handed sword and still managed to die in like six seconds while I was fighting two other guys.

Is this just how stewards work or did I mess something up? She's not even a follower so I can't give her better gear or perks or anything. My previous stewards at other homesteads seemed fine but maybe I just got lucky and never noticed how bad they actually are in a fight.

Does anyone else's steward just completely fall apart during attacks, or should I be doing something different when hiring them?

 

[NordOfSolitude]

Stewards are just genuinely terrible in combat, yeah. They have basically no combat AI and their stats are way lower than actual followers even if they're wearing the same gear. Rayya especially seems to get melted constantly - I've had the same experience where she dies in seconds despite looking decked out.

The annoying part is you can't really fix it since they're not followers and you can't level them up or give them perks. Best you can do is maybe try to tank the attacks yourself and keep them out of the thick of it, but that's not really a solution. Some people just disable homestead attacks in the settings or use mods if they're on PC, but if you want to keep them enabled you're basically just accepting your steward is going to be a liability.

Have you considered just not hiring a steward? You lose the ability to store stuff remotely but at least you won't watch them get destroyed every other week.