I had hoped Bethesda would decide to revert back to Morrowind's "kill everyone at your own risk" philosophy.

"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed..."

I completely agree i had to make a new character because an assassin who can't kill half the NPC's just isn't worth playing so now i have to be law abiding so much for open world. I see nothing wrong with the morrowind solution or at least a choice of skyrim or morrowind NPC mortality.

I dont see how there would be a problem it does pop up and say "Oooo you -ed up re-load unless you don't care"

i have to say that overall im much happier with this than it's predicessor but haven't played it in about two weeks and don't feel inclined to until i know i can play the character i want to. I never thought i would have to research a TES game before buying it but i think thats what this has come to.

Or better yet, the next step in Radiant Story that was teased to us this time. If an NPC for a minor quest is slain either a new one should be generated or the quest should direct you to a backup NPC such as a second in command or a partner.

Immortal NPCs have no place in a game that claims you can do whatever you want. Yeah, as long as you behave in cities, that is. And I hope that Stromcloak camp doesn't annoy you, 'cause the leader is invincible! They should have gone the New Vegas route and made the player live with the consequences of his choices, save for absolutely plot-critical NPCs (like Esbern and the Graybeards). Everybody else should fall to my psychopathic PC's fury. And if they get torched by a dragon and make me fail a quest, even better. At least those damn lizards will have some actual impact into the world save annoying me every time I fast-travel and dropping impossibly heavy loot. At the very least, have a Morrowind-style message appear. You have been warned, continue playing only if you want to finish X quest.

Then again, this is Bethesda were are talking about. They are much less fans of actual consequences than Obsidian.

Almost every Stormcloak camp has one immortal NPC. It's funny how after the civil war quest you are told it would be helpful to clear out any camps you encounter yet cannot.
This killed some of the immersion for me honestly.

I wish I could shorten the civil war questline by walking up to Ulfric and shout him apart myself.

This is what ticked me off the most is this. cant wait to turn essentil npcs to unessentil ( when the cs is done )

I always thought that the "essential characters" solution was a little ham-fisted, over-simplified, and clumsy. Fallout: New Vegas showed that a better solution is quite possible within the framework of the same game engine. That said, I personally don't run up against this problem very often, since I don't usually go on killing sprees in Skyrim (or Oblivion) - I have other games for that purpose.

The only time this reared its ugly head to annoy me was during the investigation of the forsworn assassinations in Markath. When I was confronted by the group of corrupt guards (both murderers and accessory to murder) I expected that I could deal with this situation either by letting them throw me in jail and seeing what was going on in there before breaking out - or by killing them and presenting the evidence I had collected to someone in authority who was not involved in this corruption scandal. However, when I tried refusing to be arrested, we were instantly joined by an essential character (Vigilant Tyranus), who apparently heard me unsheathe my sword from two streets away and hurried over to make sure that I could not kill all the witnesses of my "crime". Thus I could not actually fight the corrupt guards without every single non-corrupt guard in the city attacking me on sight, as soon as I left the scene - the only "option" I had was to submit meekly to a bunch of crooked murdering cops, and I was very annoyed. If you're going to railroad me this badly, why even give me the conversation option to resist? For that matter, why not make the whole thing a cut-scene, if you only ever allow one way for it to play out?

I don't really care, do they bother you?

Ummm, no...

First off the game manual actually says they are immortal. Secondly, I've had followers solo an something like 15 Drauger's...he feel to 1 knee about 5000000 times, but eventually he won.

They are immortal unless you kill them on accident/purpose.

I'm sorry but this is the most hysterical glitch I've ever heard of.
That deserves an award.

Why would you want to kill them?

I agree. My assassin wanted to kill that guy in Windhelm who keeps mouthing off.
Can I make them non essential with the PC console, or do I need to wait for a mod?

I just [censored] hate these immortal npcs, most of the skyrim is immortal, they could just go and kill the alduin themselves, because they can't die so what's the point of dragonborn?

I wouldn't mind some immortal npcs like esbern or greybeards, but what's the point of immortal side quest characters?! WTF?

I've finished all the stormcloak quests, and ulfric tells me that if I see some imperial camps I should know what to do... So i kill them all but I can't kill these [censored] captains!

Also I've finished the dark brotherhood quests, and in my next gameplay I want to kill them all because they're just psychos and make me sick but I guess I won't be able to because they will be immortal.

It's so annoying...

Then some guy asks me what I'm starin at in the tavern, so I get mad and want to kill him but guess what? He's immortal...

Yeah you can, you need to type something like setessential and type in their reference id (which takes long time to find so I don't do it)
But I'm not totally sure what command you need to type in so just type in skyrim console commands in google and you'll find it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4kEVRZU6oE&feature=channel_video_title I'd much rather have the system from Morrowind, at least for anything close to you. Like if there are problems with NPC's dying when the player is away then there should be a check where if an essential NPC is X many meters away from you then it should be set to "immortal" but as you approach the immortality should be switched off giving you a chance to save the NPC if needed or the choice to kill it if you wish to. Of course with a message telling you just how much you messed up in case you do kill an essential NPC

yeah ffs this is really annoying why at all do this no character should be immune to pc attacks fairenough immune to dragons and bandits, but if i start the fight im finishing it. if they really need invicible npc they should give up and yeild once you beat them down. why do you put this ppl in situations where combat is exspected thats [censored] [censored] game design...not somthing i say about beth very often but skyrim has some very [censored] design desisions.

That's why I think that there should be a 'safety switch' in options.
When it's on, important NPCs are immortal; when it's off, everyone can be killed, but you will get the message that an important NPC has been killed just like in Morrowind (even if he is not killed by you or near you).
That will offer so much more freedom which game needs since it's pretty limiting and linear for a sandbox.

How about being told by Ulfric to raid Imperial camps only to find that every one is staffed by an invincible Legate?

I honestly can't wait for a mod that takes the essential flag off most NPCs.

Let us FAIL QUESTS again for once Bethesda.

The game should have it so quest based NPCS are invulnerable to everything BUT attacks from the player.
Like followers, but without them being able to be killed by splash damage from other NPCs or traps.

The same people [censored]ing about NPC's being immortal would be the same people [censored]ing when they kill off every single NPC and cannot complete quests or sell loot. You have to have immortal's for the sole purpose of not totally ruining the game. If they had the same setup as morrowind what happens when you kill off the alternate? Do they have to come up with a million alternatives just so they please the murderers? There has to be a line drawn and that choice is up to Bethesda.

This works, along with a "No Essential NPCs" mod from nexus. The mod by itself only goes so far.

Skyrim.ini

[GamePlay]
bEssentialTakeNoDamage=0

Needless to say, I've ruined a good amount of quests this way. It was worth it for the whole 'immersion' factor, and making my character not feel useless compared to all these invincible NPCs. A few quests require this invincibility (knockout feature triggered) for the scripts to function properly, though, so I just make a save and put the line back to =1 temporarily.

You don't have to ask "what happens" about it, as has been mentioned they just die, too bad for the player, he made a mistake. It worked fine in Morrowind and would work fine in Skyrim just as long as they made sure NPC's wouldn't die while the player was far away, allowing the player and other creatures & NPC's to kill them though when he or she (the player) gets closer.

Shortly after finishing the Imperial quest line and squashing the Stormcloak rebellion, I am instructed that I should wipe out any remaining Stormcloak cells that I happen to find around Skyrim.

Heading to some random cave, I walk by a Stormcloak camp. Dutifully, I head in and kill all the rebels...except 1. He just keeps getting up after going to a knee multiple times. I try to run, but he keeps drawing my companion back into the fight. I finally just run away, letting them continue to knock each other down to one knee for a while, figuring Vorstag will follow me once I go into the cave.

So that'll be the last time I do my duty as an Imperial soldier.

There should be no immortals...

That is a poor solution to a screwy quest system...

That has been a universal complaint since day-1 in all games...

What is so hard about NOT using specific people to turn quests in...

One dies, another takes his/her place. Bob is dead, turn quest in to his wife, cousin, sister, friend, the yarl...
"Thank-you for returning Bob's helmet. We will see that it is returned to his grave, or his family gets it."
"Go kill the leader of the bandits, outside of Whiterun." {No name, just "Leader Bob", who doesn't exist until you find the location, who is temporarily immortal, and timid to anyone except you, until you first hit him.}

There is nothing wrong with a seemingly infinite supply of guards that come from out-of-view, to replace every "needed" guard position, when one is killed.
There is nothing wrong with a seemingly infinite supply of citizens, occupying recently unoccupied homes when the previous owner is killed.
There is nothing wrong with "Civilized" populations resorting to pushing-back seemingly unbeatable foes, when the foe has just wiped-out half the guard population... Driving them back with less fight aggro and more defence aggro.
There is nothing wrong with updating the quest, when it is easy to detect that the returning person is no longer within the world. (Or failing it if that person is killed by the quest-holder.)

There is TONS that will go wrong, when immortality is portrayed. (First of all, if they are immortal, why aren't they the ones doing the quests. Second... if anyone should be immortal, it should be the player... Um, but no... that is unrealistic... it is better to make them keep saving and reloading when they die forever, that is close enough to being immortal. Save us the trouble, and make us immortal, and have to flee and heal, like them.)

Not only are they immortal, they act immortal, not mortal...

You bring someone to near-death, that near-dead person should loose aggro... Feared for thier life...
You bring someone to near-death, that bringer-of-near-death should loose interest and aggro... Since that person who just nearly-died, should be retreating and not a challange...


LOL, run around getting all indestructable NPC's to chase you... and take them into a massive war of indestructable other enemy NPC's... "The never-ending war."