In a quest I'm making, the player is exploring a dungeon and trying to find the rest of this research party. I thought it would be cool to have the player be just a little too late: the NPC dies as you walk down the hallway to the room the NPC is in and you can hear his cry of death. The problem is I don't want the NPC to Havok settle. I want the NPC to be hunched over a table.

How can I get it so that the player is alerted (through both subtitle and sound) that this NPC has died? Thanks.

Make two identical versions of this NPC. Have one be hunched over the table. Have the other one do the shouting and dying, then disable them before the player can see them.

Use a trigger box, when the player enters it the death cry sound is played. Done

Thanks for the quick replies. I had thought of this earlier but then I realized that if someone were to cast a Detect Life spell, they'd see two bodies, wouldn't they? One standing and one hunched over. It would break the realism.

If you use Mr A's idea yea mate. Trigger box though, will just play the sound file when you enter. No need for a second body

But that wouldn't display subtitles, would it?

And detect life detects life, not dead bodies, I assume, yes? Meaning they'd see the standing person, then that would fade and when the player entered the room they'd be hunched on the table. It may not be 100% perfect, but I don't think anyone would realize or think it was odd.

This is true. Anyone with no audio, like deaf people, wouldn't know they were too late to save someone until they saw the body.

My latest idea is to use a four-sided box made of occlusion planes around the NPC that will be disabled. Think that'll work?

I don't think that would work at all.

Just add another small room above or below that one, then put the talking NPC in there. Make them not affect stealth (A checkbox in the actor window) and friends with the player and not aggressive, and then disable them when they're done and not needed. You can also put an audio override on them (Done in the topic window) so that they're audible from a farther distance, and it displays subtitles from farther.

Talking activator?

I didn't think about this. Like when a Daedra is talking to the player? I have no idea how to do that.