Skyrim:Muffle (effect)

	Muffle
School	Illusion
Type	Defensive
Enchanting
ID	00092a57
Base Cost	105
Items	Feet
Availability (Click on any item for details)
Apparel

Enchanting description: Wearer is muffled and moves silently.

Muffle is an effect that reduces both the noise your armor makes when you move and the noise generated by your own footsteps when you move. The "moves silently" description that appears on Muffle items is not entirely accurate; Muffle provides a multiplier equal to (1 - Total_Muffle_Magnitude) to your total worn armor weight when calculating the noise made by armor, meaning at a magnitude of 1.0+ your armor makes no noise whatsoever. All muffle effects stack additively. Values over 1.0 have no additional benefit.^{[verification needed — see talk page]}

Enchanting

The following items use this effect. You can learn how to enchant custom items with Muffle if you find one of the following items and disenchant it:

• All varieties of Boots of Muffling

Artifacts and unique items that use the effect but cannot be disenchanted include:

• Ancient Shrouded Boots
• Cicero's Boots
• Ebony Mail
• Jester's Boots
• Nightingale Boots
• Predator's Grace
• Shrouded Boots
• Shrouded Shoes

Spells

The following spells use the Muffle group of effects. Following each spell is the specific variant of the effect that it uses:

• Muffle: Muffle (0008f3eb; MuffleFFSelf).
  • The magnitude of this spell is 1, meaning a 100% reduction in armor noise.
  • Unless you have the Quiet Casting perk from the Illusion skill tree, casting the spell will make noise, so be sure to cast the spell before you are around hostiles, or they will seek out where the sound came from

Perks

• 50% Muffle is also available via the Muffled Movement perk.
• 100% Muffle is also available via the Silence perk.

Notes

• If the Daedric Plate^CC is installed, the boots that are retrieved from the Bounty Hunter during the quest Beyond the Grave can have the Muffle enchantment, even at level 1. This provides the best odds for getting the Muffle enchantment because there are relatively few boot enchantments competing with Muffle at level 1. The enchantment appears to be generated at the start of the quest, so if you are seeking the Muffle enchantment, you should save before starting it.
• The magnitude of the Muffle effect is significant. However, the magnitude of enchantments and spells is not displayed in-game. Most built-in enchanted items have a magnitude of 0.5, meaning they are only 50% effective.
• The actual effectiveness of the Muffle effect for magnitudes below 1.0 depends on armor weight, i.e. 50% of the noise of Daedric is still much higher than 100% of the noise of Elven.
• All custom-enchanted Muffle effects have a magnitude of 1.0, regardless of skill level or soul gem used, making them greatly superior to most built-in enchanted Muffle items.
• Vendors will start carrying Boots of Muffling at level 11.
• When both invisible and completely muffled (muffle magnitude of 1.0 or more) you are undetectable to most enemies to the point that you can even walk, run, sprint, and jump around in front of hostile NPCs without being noticed.
• Muffle can make players almost undetectable to the Falmer, which rely mostly on hearing to detect enemies. However, Sneak skill is still taken in account when sneaking around them, as a poor Sneak skill combined with muffled footwear still holds a good chance of being detected by them.
• Muffle is one of the few spells that allows the player to gain skill experience out of combat or without a valid secondary target, and because it is a low-level spell, it can trivialize the process of boosting Illusion.
• Muffle is one of the few Illusion effects that do not have a potion variant (such as Fear, Invisibility, etc.).
• Muffle is one of two enchantments that do not increase in power with increased Enchanting skill or perks. The other is Waterbreathing. Whether you have a 15 or 100 Enchanting skill or use a Petty or Grand/Black Soul Gem, the enchantment's power will always be the same. It also does not increase in power if you drink a Fortify Restoration potion before equipping an item with the enchantment.

Bugs

• The probability of finding a disenchantable item with the Muffle effect is extremely low. Because it is a "fixed" effect that does not scale with your level, the probability of finding one is further reduced as you advance in level. This is due to the fact that items with "more valuable" enchantments are given increasingly dominant odds. As a result, if you haven't obtained a Muffle item by level 70, you will probably be unable to obtain one because the probability is so small that it is close to zero. Furthermore, there are no guaranteed locations for disenchantable items of Muffle in the original version of the game. It can only be found via merchants or random loot.
  • You can use the console command player.additem 00092a75 to directly add a pair of steel boots of muffle to your inventory, which you can then disenchant to learn the effect.
  • You can use the Atronach Forge to obtain a random enchanted piece of Daedric armor, which has an equal chance of being a pair of Daedric Boots of Muffling as any other Daedric armor. Since it is random, make sure to save before activating the forge if you want to get that specific item. Your chances of getting the boots on any given attempt with this method are about 1%, regardless of your level.
  • The Scorched Hammer in Riften is your best bet to find the boots randomly, since it has more enchanted armor, on average, than any other vendor.
  • Rustleif in Dawnstar has a good chance to carry boots of Muffling.