This sounds like a reasonable solution to me, and, even though people will disagree, I even feel it is necessary for a sandbox game.

Immortal NPCs are completely against the whole promise of freedom, action-consequence and ''immersion'' that Bethesda vaunts so much. I disagree with several of their design approaches, but none come as close to being as outright bad as this one. Having the Blades and Greybeards immortal until they are no longer needed? Fine, the plot has to advance somehow (and even then, I would suggest that the Greybeards just use the Voice to instantly kill the player rather than being immortal, but whatever). Anybody else should be completwly free to kill. Oh, it makes the town angry? Oh it breaks a quest? Oh, it makes X faction hate me forever? GOOD. That's called action and consequences. This is what makes an RPG. Not how many shapes of nose my character can potentially sport.

If the issue is dragons or other nasties killing them, OK, just make them invincible unless killed by the player. Would still be bizzare to see them just kneel while the big lizard attempts to burn a random civilian to a crisp, but at least my killing sprees have some impact on the world beyond a small bounty and a stern look from the guards.

And yeah, the camp leaders are the very worst. Having my super-badass, dragon-commanding, giant-massacring, Deadric armor clad self run from a run of the mill Stormcloak seargent because I cannot kill him is absolutely stupid, and there's no excuses in all the world for that. It kill my ''immersion'' far more than not being able to pick up random junk would.

I hate Maul. I want him dead. I kill him and kill him and kill him and he just gets back up with full health. Funny how the Riften guards watch me attcking him over and over and never lift a finger.

i think I ought to be able to kill any NPC who tells me to piss off.

Word.

How is it our fault? I like to RP a chaotic evil character sometimes, this character doesn't care about running most of the quests anyway he just likes killing folk and running up as high of a bounty as possible. The game is even designed to be played like this to some degree as once you run up a high enough bounty some holds will start sending mercenaries and thugs after you, sometimes the dark brotherhood will send guys after you too, I have even been jumped by a random thalmor hit squad in the middle of a forest. The one thing that I absolutely cannot stand though is when I clear out of a camp of people and there always seems to atleast one guy who is completely invulnerable, it ruins my immersion and makes it annoying to finish exploring the camp after I cleared it out.

Hell, even when I play good characters this is still a problem. I joined the stormcloaks and so its my job to clear out imperial encampments, yet in many of these camps exists atleast one NPC that cannot be killed and simply will not stop attacking me. Thats BS! How are you supposed to be a war with somebody when they have guys who don't die? It makes no sense, none!

Thank you.

+100000000000000

No need for this thread anymore.

Except if you play on Xbox or PS3, sadly.

and neither do idiots, so you can leave now

OT: immortal NPCs are annoying and should not exist. NV did not let NPCs die when they were not in the same cell (i followed a boomer into some death claws filled place [he glitched out to get there] and he died almost instantly, i waited and let him get out on his own and he showed up safe and sound) i say it again, bethesda could learn a lot from obsidian

i have yet to encounter one, at least, i have yet to try and kill innocent people and citizens. so

Is that a joke? Your personally attacked 2/3 of this board with your stupid comment.

i could just as easily report you for flame baiting and trolling, since that is what you delibratly did, i will gladly take any punishment the mods decide to not give me for telling you off like you desurved, cry-baby (i wanted to say something worse but i dont like to make people cry, if trolls can be people that is)

Really simple fix.

Have an option that all essential characters can only be killed by the player and give a message like in Morrowind that says fate was changed.

The problem is... one dragon attack on any off the cities will mean that half of the game is lost.

I mean, imagine one on Solitude... if it kill two named npcs, it will probably break a few quests

Good. Maybe then, they will actually be threatening in a way, enough to motivate us to down them quicker and with more precision.

If certain quest givers aren't given essential status then the game could be broken. If Whiterun's Jarl whether it's Baulgruff or the other guy gets killed you can't complete the main quest, I see that as a huge problem. Making the game run effectively with it's quests has to come 1st before Immersion. The only reason that New Vegas was able to pull it off was because it's important quest givers were in places that enemies wouldn't be able to reach. A Raider isn't going to reach Colonal Moore or Caesar but that might not be the case with other characters in Skyrim. It's spilled milk on the floor but I'd rather have that system in place then a system where a good amount of Skyrim's quests could be killed off because of a Dragon or some other creature attacks a city or a village.

Apparently dead NPCs are a bigger problem.

Imagine Delphine getting killed by the dragon early in the MQ... Catch my drift?


Then again, you could get a message saying:

"An essential character has died. You cannot complete the following quest(s) without them."

***List broken quests***

Load Previous Save / Continue Anyway

The problem with this is that quests with NPC companions turn into babysitting.

I think the majority, if not all, of the NPCs should be mortal. But when you kill one pivotal to a quest, you should be given a notification that you've failed the associated quest (like in Fallout).

The problem is that the quests are designed like a house of cards. There is absolutely no breathing room. Fallout:New Vegas managed to incorporate a "Anyone can be killed" policy, which was speculated to fail since Oblivion/Fallout 3 relied on invulnerable NPCs.

Child-killing is not a permissible topic on the forums.

Any comments about killing, hurting, or abusing children will be deleted and the poster will be warned.

Well you are a DlCK aren't you... console players make up the majority of their sales so get a clue.

If radiant story had been implemented like it was supposed to, this wouldn't be much of an issue.


He doesn't need to get a clue, you do. hes mostly right. unless its a problem that can be fixed in official patches, console players don't really have room to complain. they should have baught a more expensive PC and played the game on a REAL gaming machine instead of a worthless little toy with outdated tech such as an Xbox 360 or a PS3. I know the bottom line is an issue here but if console players want to complain, they have no room to. PC players have no room to complain except that the CK isn't out yet. I'm waiting patiently for it myself.

In just a little while us PC Skyrim players will be modding the heck out of our game to make our experience of this game more enjoyable, and amazing. and console players will be stuck with the same game they had when they bought it.

Skyrim is a waste of money for console owning consumers, cause eventually the game will no longer be as fun as it used to be because there is nothing new. this is not just fact merely because I say so.

I wish we could fail some more minor quests, just let us mess up our chance of ever doing that if we want to, it also bothers me that there is one immortal npc at every stormcloak and imperial camp.

The empire camps make the least amount of sense. After doing all the stormcloak quests (at least the main one) and driving the legion out, I was even told by Ulrich that there are still many imperial camps hidden across Skyrim and that if I have come across one of these camps that I'll "know what to do".

well. I've had Lydia killed by enemies while I polished off others in Melee and wasn't in possible range to accidently hit her myself. So either its lies or I have a favorable glitch.