So I've been traveling from city to city and town to town buying up petty soul gems to increase my enchanting level.

Vampires have been attacking the cities if I arrive at night which is cool, I stand back and watch the fight and loot the bodies. But I'm getting worried. In Whiterun, Belethor, Amren, Anoriath, Severio Pelagia and Adrianne Avenicci have been murdered. Whiterun seems fine without them so far...Ysolda now works in Belethor's.

But aren't vampires supposed to attack just at night? I was in Riverwood today at 11am or thereabouts, and a vampire attack occurred. I ran for it since I'm unarmoured and hid inside Faendal's for 24 hours... when I emerged the next day, I found the bodies of Sven, Alvor, Gerdur, and Sigrid.

So that's quite a hit the NPC pool.

I'm not too worried about missing out on some minor quests but are these vampire attacks going to cause serious problems later with so many NPC's being killed? Also I thought making sure to travel by day would ensure no vampire attacks would occur but judging by my Riverwood massacre this is not the case?

I would like to accept the consequences and not reload or revive the dead NPC's... but like I said, I'm worried about so many of them being killed off. So should I be worried, or should I just continue to sit back and enjoy the chaos?

I've noticed this aswell, many of the major quests have essential NPCs thankfully. If you are worried about loosing NPCs then you will just have to load a recent save.

That's the downside of Dawnguard. Your favorite NPC might just fall victim to one of these vampire attacks. I agree I'd rather see vamp attacks happen just at night. What difficulty is your game at, OP? I wonder if that's making a difference. I've got mine set at default, so far there has been only one NPC (owner of Warmaidens, whatever his name is) who has been offed by a random vampire attack.

Off-topic (kinda) but my current character almost fell victim to a pack of hell hounds. 3 of those [censored]ers came after her...scared us both to near-death!

Its a silly addition to the Dawnguard add-on which is a pain at low levels. Seeing how there is usually a vampire lord and most of the citizens are low levels they are killed pretty easily. Although most of the people they kill are unimportant and have no quests seeing as most quest givers are essential (practically half the NPCs).

I just unistall Dawnguard so it doesn't happen.

You're not alone in your concern. Here's another thread on this topic from a couple of days ago: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1416449-should-i-remove-dg-before-i-start-new-game/

I have it set on Expert. The vamps are quite powerful...if there's scaling involved, my character is level 20, so perhaps the vampires are just way too strong for the towns to handle.

I'm playing a no death character right now which is why I'm level 20 and have never donned any armour or done much fighting at all. Just leveling on enchantments and smithing right now. So I avoid the vampires like the plague. Twice now they've started attacking me and because this is no death and I have no armour or potions or weapons equipped, I totally freak and start running into walls and crying out curse words. It's a lot of fun. Luckily I've managed to get away every time thus far.

Yeah I considered disabling Dawnguard temporarily. But the attacks are sort of fun to watch and if there are a bunch of bodies on the ground afterwards I can take all their things and sell it all to buy more iron ingots and petty soulgems. I just can't help but think I'm screwing myself over in the long run when so many named NPC's are lying on the ground dead afterwards! I have so many keys in my inventory, it's crazy. I'll never need to pick another lock again. heh

Dawnguard has its pluses and minuses, just like everything else. I like the fact that more locations to explore get added to the game. New creatures get added, and I have also enjoyed the questline (what portions I did of the questline). DG also introduces Serana, who is hands-down the best NPC in the game...the only one I've seen (so far) who really seems spontaneous and fun to be around.

...but having some of the better town NPCs just die is harsh! But you see, that's one of the reasons I have multiple characters. If an NPC who I really like dies in one character's game, he or she will still exist in another.

Yep, vampire attacks are the reason I unchecked DG from the loading list, before starting my latest character, otherwise I don't think I'd be able to focus on the MQ.

I love the attacks, too. Anything that adds some randomness to the game is something I'm interested in, especially since the townspeople get dull after awhile (....I work for Belethor! At the General Goods store! Me: I know cuz you've TOLD ME 67 TIMES NOW!)

But like I said, there's a downside. You are on Expert difficulty...I would change that before I would get rid of the DLC altogether.

Yeah, since this is not my main character I'm not too concerned about the NPCs dying...except that I might miss out on too much. I really like Ysolda being in Belethor's shop instead of Belethor because I don't have to listen to him every time I go in there now. And now when I need a blacksmith I speak to the Warbear guy or the guy who works at the Skyforge, and no longer have to hear, "Let's just say, I advise the adviser."

Funny you mention the "I work for Belethor!" guy because I can't stand him. I wish some vampires would come kill him next. He's always in my way when I'm trying to chop wood!

He's just kinda dumb, but I don't mind him. I really wish they would get Nazeem in my games! You know? The guy who always says "do you get to the Cloud District very often? OH what am I saying? Of course you don't"....

I've had at least 2 characters make an attempt at Nazeem's life! Off-off-topic: that would be cool having Ysolda run a shop. She really really wants to do something productive, I've noticed.

Kill Belethor and she'll take over

Nazeem is dead in my game too. I just realised I haven't heard the cloud district comment in forever. His wife is dead too.

I apologise for the silly question but...

Are you fast travelling to those locations?

Oh, certainly. My circuit has been Riften, Solitude, Markarth, Riverwood, Whiterun. I got to them via the carriage driver first. They have all suffered attacks and lost NPC's.

Since posting this and doing some thinking I've decided rather than travel around the cities and risk any more deaths I'll stick to Whiterun and just wait for the court wizard to replenish his stash of petties.

Or kill Hulda at the Bannered Mare.

BTW As someone who is contemplating getting DG, is this a major thing or just an annoyance?

It's serious enough problem that, besides this thread and the thread I linked to above, there are two other threads discussing the issue here on the front page alone:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1417284-vampire-raids-seriously-bugged/

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1413317-vampires-and-their-ridiculous-raiding/

And yet a third on page two:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1415164-will-bethesda-do-anything-about-vampire-raids-killing-shopkeepers-and-other-vital-npcs/