Is there a legal way to obtain hold guard armour?
Okay, I admit, I'm a huge fan of the Hold Guard Armour, especially the colour schemes, OMG awesome, but I was wondering, is there a way to obtain it without looting it from a corpse or stealing it?
I'd just like to mention as well, I included both killing and coming across dead guards as looting from the corpse.
No. The only way to get most of the hold guards armors is by killing them, or stealing from them with the Perfect Touch perk.
Or you could just get an npc to come and murder them for you :P
There are a few armors you can get other ways.
List of hold specific armor
For completion sake this list contains not only the armors but also the shields and helmets.
Also, Adrianne Avenicci in Whiterun and Lucan Valerius in Riverwood sell only the Whiterun Guard's Armor.
Stormcloak armour is different though as they don't wear 'Stormcloak boots' they wear fur ones.
The stormcloak armour ID's are below:
Hide Helmet - 00013913
Scaled Helmet - 0001B3A1
Stormcloak Helmet - 000A6D79
Stormcloak Cuirass - 000A6D7B
Fur Gauntlets - 000A6D7D
Fur Boots - 000A6D7F
Hold armor list
And the Eastmarch Guard Helmet cannot be acquired at all without console spawning.
The Eastmarch helmets ID: 0010559d
Console spawning
If on a PC, you could spawn in the armour or maybe there is a mod to allow you to do so.
To find ID's to spawn in armour on a PC, click here. Hold Guard Armor from Elder Scrolls Wikia.
Then click your wanted armour set, look for the armour and under the picture is an ID.
Hope this helped.
You can get the armor and helm from the first dragon you kill, story wise, while the shield can be pick-pocketed from a guard or looted from a dead guard who feel during a fight, like when they fight vampires, a dragon or Stormcloaks (they, sometimes, attack the WR guards in Rorikstead). I kinda wish you got a WR shield from a quest like that one you get for a quest in Solitude.
You can get a set of Whiterun Guard armor legally (sans the shield), in the inventory of the very first dragon you fight, the one that Jarl Balgruff send you, Irileth, and some guards to go kill. You'll notice that the guards at the tower that was attacked say that a few of their friends tried to run for it and were eaten by the dragon. The basis is that the armor belonged to one of them, since it is in the inventory of that dragon.
There is a Whiterun shield in Jarl Balgruff's room that you can easily steal.
Tip: if you want to remove its "stolen" status:
put it in a chest and tell your follower to take all from that chest. I'd recommend an empty or nearly empty chest for this. Once you take it from them, it will no longer be counted as "stolen".
A set of Markarth Guard's armor can be obtained while doing a quest for the Thieves Guild, where you must get a charcoal rubbing of some falmer runes. You can get it either by killing one of the few guards present in that area (it will not count as illegal, so no bounty on you), or by looting it from some who are already dead, in an area with poison gas of some sort (you will continuously take damage while there, so you'll know it when you see it).
If you side with the Imperials and take over Riften, then some former Riften Guards (still wearing their armor) will occasionally attack the imperial troops stationed there as guards, similar to how unnamed thieves will aggro the Riften Guards. You can loot the armor from them once they're killed by the imperial soldiers.
For Solitude Guard armor, there are a few lone guards outside of the gates that can be stealth killed for no bounty (nobody sees it, it didn't happen :D). You can get a specially enchanted Solitude Guard's shield as a quest reward for that quest that involves stopping Potema from returning from the dead.