Skyrim….love it, but oh those bugs. I’m in the final stage of the Battle for Solitude, with Ulfric and Galmar inside the castle. There’s a conversation between these two and Legate Rikke, who eventually attacks me (along with General Tullius). He goes into submission quickly, but Rikke can’t be killed. I can bring her to the floor with no health left, but within a few seconds, she will regain a full health bar, and start to fight again. Multiple takedowns have no effect.

I can sheath my weapon and she will stop fighting, and there are even a couple of dialogue options available with her, but this changes nothing. Attacking her again produces the same outcome.

I checked uesp.net and found that this problem is common, but fixes nonexistent. I’ve tried the reload bit, tried entering the castle by a different door, and tried loading stages of the quest with the console. The issue I ran into there was that only the first and last stage numbers are accepted on the console (the other intermediate stage numbers won’t work), and when I enter the final stage number (with setstage CWSiegeObj 9000) the game updates with “Battle for Solitude Failed” and nothing changes in my quest log. I’ve also tried the “resetquest CWSiegeObj” command, and this gives me the message “Location set >>0.00” (or something very similar to that, but nothing happens in any case)

I’m not that familiar with the console, and I’m wondering if I’m using it properly here (although I did use it earlier in the game with a Thieves Guild quest, and it updated the game for me that time)

Does anyone here know of a fix I can try? I searched this forum for something, but didn’t find anything specific. If someone knows a link, please post it. I’ve been off adventuring since this problem occurred, but I would really like to get back and finish that Liberation of Skyrim quest.

It kind of messes up the MQ, too. Is there a way to set Rikke as non-essential?

On pc? Sure. Otherwise, no.

I had this problem on both the 360 and the PS3. It hasn't plagued my PC version, yet. I don't know about the recent version, but I know that in 1.2 whenever I couldn't kill her, I'd make a new save right over her crouched body, reload that save, then power attack. About 1/3 of the time, it would do the kill cam and kill her. I hope that helps you.

EDIT: I have the 1.4 version now, and she hasn't been essential at the end of the quest, so I can't confirm whether this works for the current version or not.

have you tried the kill command through the console? Maybe that will work?

UPDATE: QUEST COMPLETE ! Thanks for your comments everyone, but I did manage to make it work, FINALLY. And BTW, I had tried using the console to kill Rikke before, but as an essential NPC, I couldn't take her out that way (don't know how to make an NPC non-essential).

In the end, I made it work by changing into a Werewolf just before I entered Castle Dour with Ulfric and Galmar, using the lower courtyard entrance door (had been using the upper one at top of stairs). I just hung back in this entrance chamber and watched while Ulfric and Galmar entered the room ahead and began the cutscene talking to Rikke and Tullius. They attacked and killed Rikke (yes!).

After Rikke died, Tullius came toward me to attack, but I moved away because I didn’t have much health left (had lost most of it outside before entry, and of course as a Werewolf had no way to replenish it with spells or potions), but Ulfric soon stunned him to the floor.

At this point, my beast spell wore off, and I was able to re-equip my armor and weapons. The scene played out, and I let Ulfric kill Tullius. The rest of the quest with Ulfric’s speech outside in the courtyard played without a hitch.

Hope this helps someone facing this bug in their game. I’m getting close to finishing my first playthrough now (level 55), and will play on the side of the Imperials on the second run. I am totally addicted to this game !

Kinda had a feeling the kill command wouldn't work if she was still flagged as essential. Glad you found a way around the problem.

VERY creative, gravelcords! Glad you got it done....