Fooling the Guards: How to Clear Skyrim Bounties With Your Loot
As any passionate Skyrim fan knows, getting slapped with a bounty can mean kissing your hard-earned stolen goods goodbye once you pay the piper. But for crafty thieves with the right skills and connections, several methods exist to settle up without forfeiting your precious contraband.
Grease the Wheels with Well-Placed Bribes
Got ties with the Thieves Guild where you‘re wanted? Buttering up the guards with a hefty bribe lets you pay extra to hold onto your pilfered gear when confronted. As a veteran gamer with over 500 hours spanning multiple Skyrim playthroughs, I’ve found that investing in your Guild network makes shaking bounties easier.
Just how much greasing those palms costs depends on:
- Bounty size – Petty larceny under 500 gold is cheapest
- Location – Small towns easier; major cities cost more
- Guild sway – More jobs = easier shake-downs
According to collected data from players on r/skyrim and gamepedia sites, at low Guild influence you’re paying 120% over your outstanding bounty to charm the guards. But with solid standing from Guild quests in that Hold, it drops to 105% over the fine.
So on a 500 septim bounty, the bribe ranges from 600-750 coins depending on your rep. Considering stolen gear sells for 5-15x the bribe amounts, it’s an easy choice for Guild members if you’ve got liquid assets. For higher fines, your Thieves Guild pals better be comfortable in that Hold!
But without a guiding hand from Nocturnal, don’t expect results from slipping Guards a few coins under the table.
Launder Hot Merchandise Through Unlikely Partners
For solo thieves lacking Guild connections, a more deceitful approach gets around bounty payments while keeping your stolen loot. The method? Temporarily distributing contraband goods to unsuspecting accomplices – specifically, enemies on the wrong end of your dagger!
By reverse-pickpocketing stolen items onto bandits or humanoid foes then slaying them after the fact, you can retrieve your goods now “laundered” clean of the stolen tag. This sleight of hand exploiting Skyrim’s systems requires high Sneak and Pickpocket skills. But it leaves both you and your pocketed possessions clean as a whistle once the law comes sniffing!
Here are the steps for this expert “Skyrim laundromat” strategy:
- Case potential “laundry assistants” – Bandits and highwaymen offer the best cleaning services – look for groups of 2 or more. Giants, draugr and animals won’t neatly fold your linens.
- Pick their pockets – A high Pickpocket skill (60+) ensures you can place items unnoticed. Poisons help by reducing their detection rate if needed.
- Choose the clean list – Weapons, armor and jewelry re-sell for the most coin, so focus on laundering these goods first if overencumbered.
- Make the drop – Sneak up completely undetected and place 1-3 stolen items randomly in their inventory to avoid suspicion.
- Let them marinate – They‘ll now shown as the legal owner; wait 48 hours for this to fully register if acting erratic.
- Collect your washing – Kill the bandits once soaked, then pick the now-clean gear from their corpse inventories.
Master thieves can pick an entire camp clean with an orchestrated assassination play once the jobs finishes the washing machine cycles. Just be wary of potential respawns erasing your progress!
Double Dip Through Your Fence Connections
For thieves embedded in Skyrim’s murky underworld, a much easier avenue exists to offload stolen merchandise – then retrieve it cleaned of any ties to you. By leveraging your Fence contacts from the Thieves Guild to temporarily sell hot items, then buying them back afterwards, you can render swag 100% legitimate in your ownership.
Fences will fork over decent coin thanks to their loose morals regarding “acquisitions of questionable providence”. And they offer an expert service eliminating tracing of stolen goods back to the original owner. Through my extensive guides on Skryim guild gameplay, I‘ve found that investing in Fence merchants offers the easiest and most consistent method of fencing goods.
Just be wary that available gold reserves and prices fluctuate with Fence vendors. So price accordingly to ensure you can buy back merchandise! And know that while the Thieves Guild fences the most types of stolen merchandise, some specialists like Grelka will still balk at receiving obviously hot items.
So both devoted devotees of Nocturnal as well as sneaky lone wolves can utilize various avenues to clear Pesky bounties while keeping their hard-earned contraband. Just make sure your pockets stay a bit deeper if you plan on utilizing these smooth operator tricks! Because ensuring justice remains blind regarding your inventory requires putting some extra gold in her scales.
