However, should you give her a melee weapon to carry, she will likely use that instead. So if you want to achieve this, mods are your best bet.ĮDIT: You could try using commands, or pickpocketing her to remove her base equipment, leaving her only with her bow and arrows. However, with the AI the way it is, this does not have very much functionality, as she is primarily a melee AI, so she'll tend to whip out her sword and swing that around anyway. The mod offers high performance and is focussed on the vanilla look and feel but with more intensity and variation and is extremely lore-friendly and great for immersive gameplay. So if you take any high-damage melee weapons away from her, and give her a high-damage bow instead, she will prefer the bow. This mod is one of the best mods of Skyrim and a must have for anyone looking to have a more immersive Skyrim experience with the weather really adding to the feel of the gameplay. That being said, if you give an AI a weapon of greater damage output, they will prefer that weapon.
Lydia is a Strength/Melee character type, therefore she would prefer to use melee weapons. With mods possibly, depending on the mods that are out there.īasically there are "Build-types" with the AI in the game, that lean towards certain traits in the character skill tree.