Equip states

Equippable items and abilities can be in one of several states:

Pins and bans apply to followers. The player’s equipment uses ordinary equip / unequip controls.

Pinned

Pinning an object forces the follower to equip it, and prevents them from unequipping it.

Weapon pinning

Pinned objects can be overridden by tactics, but are restored after combat ends.

Pinning is motivated by the fact that something equipped normally can be overridden by the game. For example, if a follower is equipped with an Iron Sword, but is given a Steel Sword, they will automatically equip the Steel Sword, as it’s evaluated to be better.

How the game decides a piece of equipment is “better” is a source of much frustration. Often, it’s simply which item has better base stats. A pair of boots with better enchantment but worse armor, for example, won’t be worn. It gets worse with outfits, the default equipment followers come with, which don’t show up in normal inventory and cannot be (normally) removed. In the base game, a follower won’t replace an outfit piece with a superior version of the same equipment.

Shadowed

A pinned object shadows other objects that occupy the same slot.

Armor shadowing

A shadowed object is grayed out. On hover over its name, a shadowed object will show which object is pinned. Shadowed objects can still be equipped directly, which unpins the pinned object. There is no need to unpin first.

The AI won’t use shadowed objects, but tactics can still equip them.

Banned

Banning an object prevents it from being equipped.

Weapon banning

Banned objects can be equipped by tactics, but are unequipped after combat ends.

The AI won’t use banned objects. This is useful for preventing a follower from using a particular weapon, casting a certain spell, etc.

Ban / unban all

Click the ban button beside Filter to ban all items or spells in the filtered list. When all are already banned, click it again to unban them. Clear the filter to apply it to the whole list.

This control is available on a follower’s Weapons, Armor, and Arrows lists, and on each school’s list in the Magic tab.

Ban or unban all filtered weapons

Unavailable

An object the follower cannot equip is unavailable.

Unavailable objects cannot be equipped by tactics.

Many NPC spells are restricted to a particular hand. Below, Raise Zombie can only be equipped in the right hand, while Revenant can only be equipped in the left.

Spell unavailable hand

Some spells require a certain skill level to use. Below, Blood Javelin requires Destruction of 75, while the follower only has 51. Therefore, both hands are unavailable. Every effect’s skill requirement counts, as it does for the game’s AI. Hover over the spell to see the level it needs; its details page greys the effect that requires it.

Spell unavailable level