I've created a new character - a vigiliant style paladin. So I use cloth + alteration for my basic armour, but I do have a conventional shield for blocking (Shields do not negate your mage armour bonus). I also have an alteration mod that makes alteration even stronger and longer, overall i have around 200 hitpoints, 350 armour, and 50 block skill at level 13, master difficulty.

My blocking is sufficient that if an enemy hits my shield I take around 5% damage. I also have rapid reflexes so if an enemy power attacks while I'm blocking I am at least aware of it. I've been playing with a very cautious approach, generally hiding behind my shield until I'm certain I have a window in which to attack - and of course being a paladinly character I can use restoration to restore my health (Which I do often, I try keep it above 66%).



Trying to do the first companion quest was a nightmare; i got impaled by the silver hand no less than 17 times. Ok, so maybe my character is just weak you say. Well here's the thing, without my shield up, they hit me for 20-30% damage, if a power attack got through it could hit for 60-90% damage. With my shield up they hit me for around 5% damage per hit. Now, remember, there's no way for them to power attack me without noticing when my shield is up as the rapid reflex perk slows time for me, and their basic strike is not enough to outright kill me. Therefore the only way they can 1-shot me from 90% health is I were to be a complete numpty and let them land an un-mitigated power attack. HOWEVER, in practice, what'd happen is that at random intervals enemies would TRY power attack me with my shield up, and instead of it going into slo-mo/blocking it, it'd instantly cut to cut-scene mode, and they'd impale me (Not a decapitation proc), cut straight to loading screen.



Ok, so what's going on?

Now, remember if the damage is calculated ON HIT, all finishing blows would form a double strike; you land one hit that depletes their health to 0, and then a second finishing blow attack. This doesn't happen, if a finishing blow works, you click the button and you're IMMEDIATLY treated to a close up cut scene of the kill.

What i believe is happening, is that the enemy decides to perform a power attack; if it connects, the attack would deal enough damage to kill me. the operative phrase here is "If it connects". The game has already calculated that the hit would be fatal if it lands, so in the name of dramatics instead of processing an actual attack, it disregards that the player could dodge (due to rapid reflexes), or even that you are currently blocking and skips straight to cut-scene mode to deliver the pre-empted "fatal blow". Your only defence against this is to make sure you have a BIG hitpoint pool, and keep it topped right up, so that the game can never "decide" that the next hit would be fatal and rob you of the chance to defend yourself.

if anything, it's a very good reason to use dual wielding or a two handed weapon instead of speccing into block and packing LOTS of armour instead of using weaker armour and a shield. Because the computer can and will disregard your shield entirely, while conversely if you use a 2 handed weapon you will likely get insta-kill procs against enemies that could've blocked you.



...fix this [censored] plox

Or, you could wear armor. Honestly I've never heard of a Paladin that wasn't in heavy armor anyway.

Perhaps at Master difficulty they do more power attacks and thus more fatals. Maybe your timing is off on the blocking? Hard to tell if this is a bug or by design really.

ya, logic would have to dictate that in order for an animation to kick in, the game has to know before the action is displayed on screen whether it will be a kill or not. honestly don't know how you would go about fixing that. wonder if it figures it out on normal non-killing hits too.

Vigilants of Stendarr? ;p (They don't even use a shield which is funny seeing how they all wear +blocking amulets xD)

The armour is irrelevant, I have 350 armour rating at level 13, which is really isn't bad. If I were to wear dwarven armour it'd be about the same. The problem stems from the fact it takes a power attack that'd be fatal if it connects, and uses that to "assume" the attack wasn't dodged.



Best solution is to simply prevent finishing blows from being procced if the target (or just the player even) is blocking. Since NPC's don't get rapid reflexes, and a power attack will bust through a shield anyway it seems like it only really needs to be done for players, especially since the outcome is only really a source of frustration for the player. I've yet to hear of an NPC protesting a cheapshot kill ;p

Modding this might be easy after CK or impossible, depending on how much we can alter game mechanics. But I have to agree that this is a design flaw either way. They should bring you down to zero health and then "add" the finishing move afterwards -- showing your char stunned in place with zero health as the animation plays. This would prevent "unfair" instadeaths... IMO, the only game mechanic that should ignore health/armor should be chars that have decap perked.

-Loth

Edit: We could go so far as to make every PC death caused by humanoid weaponry proc a kill animation, thus you would only get instakilled when you are actually killed, and it would be sorta dramatic as well. IF the CK will let us, that is...

Um I agree with above poster. I never heard of a paladin that doesn't wear heavy armor. I mean one of the major points is to be able to absorb damage right? I can understand using alteration to supplement your defense but never as your sole means by which protect against damage. Either way though this is your game you play as you want.

However from my own perspective and experiences the reason why alteration is practical for mages to protect themselves and not warriors is because mages are ranged fighters who can use other spells to CC (crowd control) enemies to keep them at a distance. The point of alteration is to protect against accidents and the occasional hit, not to try to tank the damage outright. It wouldn't make sense if a person in cloth is a more effective tank than a guy decked out in full heavy armor and shield unless said mage in cloth happens to use dragon hide but that is only for 30 seconds.

Ive had npc kill animations on me when im at 75% health and there around 10%. They should limit npc killing blows to when your below 15 or 20%.

well that might work but even before the game was released didn't they say timing was much more important to blocking now, that you couldn't just hold block? if timing is an issue to determine if a block will be successful it still needs to be calculated before the action is displayed.

Yeah, but that was before they finalized the bashing mechanic... Blocking was supposed to only last for a few seconds, thus the "timing" concept, but then it was scrapped in favor of the current game mechanics.
-Loth

And I've dealt a death blow when the enemy was at full health.

You have to all keep in mind that there's a lot of math that goes into this stuff, and just because it doesn't work out the way you think it should means its broken. Heavy armor and alteration work in two different ways apparently, and you're going to have to deal with it or mod it.

They did SAY that, but blocking is blocking, You hold block, attacks against the shield stagger the attacker

The key difference is that if you try block a power attack, it not only breaks through the block, but it's guaranteed to stagger the defender and not the attacker. So if you try holding block standing there like a lemon, the chances are good the AI will take that into account and try break through it with a power attack instead of just staggering himself. (Which is where rapid reflexes comes into play... or not, if the game rolls the dice and concludes this blow is going to kill you)

Yeah, the killing animation is apparently decided before blocking and other dmage resistance is calculated. I have to kill Elder Dragons from Elsweyr to prevent the killing animation if my health is at all below 100%.

NPCs can land critical strikes on you as well, apparently.

Start learning to move out of the way of the blow more often.

That never works. You do not get a chance to move out of the way. The kill animation is instant and has insane range on 2h users.

For you, I suppose.

I played through much of the game thinking that NPCs didn't have kill animations, then I finally got surprised around level 40.

If you'd READ what I wrote, the flaw in the system is the death cam is decided before the blow is landed. So you are not allowed to dodge/block or rapid-reflex out of the way, the moment the enemy begins his attack the cut-scene begins, and you die automaticlly.





What difficulty are you playing in/what level of uberness is your gear. if you have high damage mitigation/large health pool/lower difficulty it's rare to proc.

I never experienced this until i made a mage, suddently this is happening quite abit with high level melee using two handers and dragons.
I was going on my merry way, blasting evrything in a dungeon with Ice Storms generally feeling like a god untill a bandit marauder runs up to me and the killing blow animation starts.
What pisses me off tho are dragons, if you hide behind a pillar and the AI wants to bite you, the animation will play regardless if you're in line of sight or not and you'll see a nice cinematic of a dragon sticking it's head through solid rock to eat you. Drives me nuts.

Does this happen when using stoneflesh? You mentioned alteration in your OP

yeah it stills feel like some dice are being thrown in background when power attacks are use cuz i try 4 cutscene every kill so i get them down to sliver and do power attack only about 30%time it cums up even though i have both cutscene perks

Stoneflesh is accounted for properly I believe like any armour class. The killer detail is the dodge/block factor, that the finishing blow is calaculated on the assumption the player doesn't dodge it, which is why two handed weapons are especially bad for this as they have a long reach but slow attack (ie easy to dodge, but easy to die if it hits), a player COULD dodge it but they're not given the chance if the death-cam is activated

If you have enough armour rating then the damage won't be fatal and no camera will be used

I think the reverse applies also ( the player can do the same to an npc), have you noticed being able to trigger a kill animation just by using bash? I use a 2h axe and I've noticed the last few times I've gotten kill animations when I was bashing rather than attacking. I Need to test it some more but if a bash can trigger a kill animation that'd be kinda odd.

The kill animation is triggered by the attack command. Not the hit. It doesn't calculate anything else.

If a critical might be able to finish the enemy off, spam the attack button. Even if you're not able to swing(Still following through from the last swing), eventually you seem to get the finisher to activate anyways.

Really negates the point of blocking I think, especially on the higher difficulties if the actual attack is calculated before the damage/damage reduction etc.

Do spells work the same way then?