OK, got chain lightning yesterday, and love the spell - especially with the stagger perk.

I also use it on single targets because of the amount of damage it does.

There's only one problem, the spell jumps to your follower (in my case Lydia). I've killed her more times yesterday than in the previous 4 weeks (usually using my bow on another character).

So, now I can't really use the spell, even if I tell her to wait in another room, the moment the battle starts she's there.

So, any chance this could get fixed. Prevent spells from jumping to followers (and also if you tell followers to wait somewhere, it means wait, not rush into the fight lol).

Thanks,

E

Certainly is annoying that one, for now though you could try using http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1782 as a workaround to killing her all the time, makes her essential like a quest npc and unkillable (just kneels and regens).

This is the inherent trade off with using a companion, or even fighting around otherwise friendly npcs. Personally, I think they should be set to ignore friendly hits (they blast YOU all the time, right?), but they aren't. So you simply can't use aoe attacks around friendlies. It's as simple as that. If you want to aoe, you have to solo it, or tell your follower to park it out of range. From a "realism" standpoint, it makes sense that aoe damage doesn't discriminate. If you toss a grenade, it's going to blow up whatever is in range, it doesn't pick and choose its targets. Even though runes are only set off by enemies, anyone in range when it goes off will take the damage. There's nothing really to "fix" there. Mod it to your taste perhaps, but it's not broken.

I hate getting into group melees because I can do absolutely nothing without likely catching a murder. The only thing you can safely do is run around tossing heals to keep people up because otherwise they'll take every opporunity they can to run in front of your arrow or axe swing to get themselves killed by you. You just have to work with it.

The Storm Call Shout will also kill your companions. Given the current state of the game, I don't believe this was intentional.

I just learned this a few days ago as well. I'm sure its broken. I agree that Shouts should not have friendly fire.

However, I'm ok with AE magic spells causing damage to friendlies. I think its a decent trade off. At level 45ish, i feel it may be time to leave my follower and just depend on my double atronachs, which are good cannon fodder and easily replaceable.
With 2 pets and a follower, Mjoll the Lioness (who also uses the Sanguine Rose i gave her ) I have a small army at my disposable!

My magic is hardly needed at times, as my companions rip through large amounts of mobs with ease. Especialy 2 Dremora Lords

Perhaps later they could add a switch to Difficulty that only enables Friendly Fire on settings above Adept?

My Frost Atronach was killing my dog Meeko so often I had to make him essential or lose him. The Atronach has a few AoE attacks. The problem is with bugged/bad AI in combination with low health -- Meeko would get low on health too easily and be "finished off" by my Frost Atronach.

Reminds me of the days, pre-mods, I made Dogmeat from FO3 essential because he kept dying. Not like these dogs do much damage or can really "tank" (setting them essential just means they don't die when they have <1 health, they still act like they're non-essential with kneeling, fleeing, etc.)

Also, ANY spell that is cast in the general direction of the companion will hurt and eventually kill them. Just in case no one has noticed this... Is this really an issue for people? If you do an area of effect spell and your companion is somehow in the area of effect, why should your companion not be affected? Have they become magically immune to your spells/shouts? Really...? This is an issue? Wow...

The problem is Bethesda has god awful AI. So the companions are complete morons. In almost every instance Bethesda does things to make up for the bad AI. Like give the enemy extra mana, unlimited arrows and so forth, but when it comes to this REPEATED problem Bethesda will not simply make them ignore damage from the player. It is especially bad in melee. The computer AI will move around so erratic without even considering where you are that they get hit all the time. Why hasn't Bethesda either done anything to improve AI or at the very least make them immune to our hits?

Actually the mages don't really have any good spells later on the game, that would allow any companions to join him (or her). Any spell that does some damage like level 25 and over is an area damage or like the chain-lightning bolt spells, or even the frost storm. Basically if you are a mage, forget about companions, because you either gonna kill them and also kill any other NPCs who weren't supposed to be the target. I have set in jail 3 times already for having guards, townsfolk and others caught in the heat of the battle. At certain points I just give up the fight and run away , because even the heal-other spells work on the enemies and it's not easy to target an individual with them when they are jumping all over the place, so I end up healing the enemy and they kill off my companion or my allies. It gets frustrating, it's kinda like later in the game, if you are a mage, you are only allowed to carry a rocket launcher or a flame thrower and do it far far away from everything and everybody.

Which Adept level destruction spells would you recommend mages with companions cast?

Really it's all about the horrible AI and lack of an easy way to tell your companions "get out of the way!"

This is one of the mods I'm waiting for with the CK. If there's no specific AI behavior for "move back" or "move back and switch to ranged attacks", then you can most likely just tell them to Flee for X seconds. Will need scripting which is currently impossible without the CK.

Bad AI should never be a game feature, it should never be intentional that you just have to "deal with it" without doing stuff like making my poor dog Meeko essential. Mages arguably need followers MORE, but their focus on AoE damage makes it much harder to actually use them.

I don't have a problem with, let's say, a fireball spell doing AOE damage and hurting your follower. This spell is the true definition of AOE. It hits and goes splat. If you're too close, SOL.

However, chain lightning should jump from bad guy to bad guy, and if there are no more bad guys, then stop. Chain lightning is not an area spell.

Not to mention they are immune to 1 school of magic so you can just spam that type of AE spell. =P

Nothing like a Frost Atronach standing there while ice storms whirl around him.