Fixing a Quest Item Issue on XBox 360

[Haravikk]

Okay so I'm doing the "Book of Love" quest and I'm at the final stage of it (reunite the two ghosts). Now, I've encountered every other bug in this insanely unreliable quest stage, but have run into the only issue I haven't experienced before; I've accidentally picked up an Amulet of Mara at some point (without noticing), which means it's now impossible for me to put on the correct amulet of mara for continuing the quest.

This is all thanks to Skyrim's utterly broken method of handling mixed item state stacks; because one of the three amulets is a quest item, I can't drop, transfer or sell the non-quest amulets. But in spite of this the quest amulet isn't the one that my character will put on when I try to wear it.
Since I didn't actually notice picking up the extra amulet (must have been on someone's body or in a chest or something) I've long since passed any point where I can reload a previous save.

I tried getting myself arrested in the hopes that the non-quest amulets would be in the prisoner belongings chest (so I could just leave them there), but unfortunately they're retained by the game as the stack, so upon escaping I simply get all three back and have the same problem as before, and of course since I'm playing the 360 version of the game I have no access to console commands, so I'm not sure what else I can do, but I was really hoping to get the extra magic resistance bonus.


In the past I've managed to transfer an Oblivion saved game from my 360 to play under the PC version of Oblivion, is it possible I could do something that way? I don't have a PC copy of Skyrim (my machine isn't really good enough to play it on), but if I were able to get the save file off my XBox then are there any options such as a save game editor, or a kind soul who'd be willing to fire up their game with my save-file, use console commands to get rid of the non-quest amulets then re-save and send it back? Would that even work?

Sorry if it seems trivial, but I've been playing this character for a while now and was really hoping to turn in this quest. Why Bethesda couldn't patch the nonsensical handling of item stacks is entirely beyond me; all they needed to do is have quest items appear as their own entry or something. *sighs*

[Aarah]

You asked this a while ago, so may have already solved the problem.

You could try dropping the amulets, one at a time, until you have non left. (Dont drop them all at the same time as they will group together. Just drop one, then completely exit the menu. Then repeat for the other two. They will then end up in 3 separate locations on the ground). Then pick up just one of them and put it on. If no quest info comes up, then drop it and try it with another one.

[Musicman247]

If you have a friend with PC Skyrim you could try giving them your save file to alter. However, I believe this would break the terms you agreed to when purchasing an Xbox and the game.

Since all are stacked together it seems the game won't allow any of them to be dropped, since they are all marked as quest items. I don't see any way around this without reverting to a previous save, unfortunately.

[Haravikk]

If you have a friend with PC Skyrim you could try giving them your save file to alter. However, I believe this would break the terms you agreed to when purchasing an Xbox and the game.

Hmm, I wasn't aware that something like this would be against the terms and conditions. I've used tools to export a save file to PC from Oblivion in the past, but never modified it, but then I suppose that makes it different from modifying a save, even to fix a bug?

Thanks for the replies though, but my character's now level 45 so I'm running out of stuff to do with it, so not really worth getting the magic resistance bonus anymore

[Aarah]

Yeh, the bonus isnt much, nothing u cant achieve with enchantments.

(Sorry for my useless advice, when you did say that you couldnt drop the amulets! For some reason I read it as you could only drop them in a group. Duh)

[baratron]

I have absolutely no idea if this would work, and it might be completely useless as a suggestion, but if you have Hearthfire maybe you could try making a Shrine to Mara in one of your houses? And that might clear out your Amulet of Mara stack?

Of course, even if it did work, there's no guarantee it would remove an Amulet that you don't want - sod's law rather dictates that it would probably take the one marked as a quest item! But it's worth a try if you're desperate.