I just wanted to say this is very annoying especially sense the city dwellers are incapable of defended themselves against the vampires. I do not like this part of Dawnguard at all its insane having master vampires and the travelers killing everybody in town and I have to reload so my world does not suffer from the lack of NPCs to make the cities at least interesting.

Seeing as this is your first time ill merely say "Its the main reason why so many people have ditched the DLC alltogether".

It was done purely to raise the stakes...only to find that Radiant AI had said stakes rammed through their skulls long before Dawnguard began.

The only thing I can suggest, short of removing the DLC is to follow the Dawnguard main quest as soon as possible, while minimalising contact with cities until completion.

Which platform are you on? (I'm on PC and started using http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21615 as soon as I started the quests. Does the work nicely.)

Welcome to Dawnguard. Usually, the city guards take care of them before I even get there. Either that, are the vampires spawn right in front of me and are killed before they even take a single step, or they never spawn and attack the cities. I've completed the questline, and throughout that time, I only lost one NPC to the vampire attacks, but it was just some worthless miner in Markarth (was hoping the vampires killed all of the scum in that wretched city really).

I am just lucky.

Oh good, another wave of these topics. The vampire attacks are very easy to deal with. An attack can trigger if you enter a city, re-enter a city from one of the buildings (your home, for example), and you can trigger one at the stables when you leave out of the front gate. Just save before doing any one of those. If you lose an NPC you need (like a shopkeeper), just reload that recent save. Because of the random nature of the attacks, the game will re-roll when you enter again and the attack may not happen at all the next time. The vampires always spawn in the same places, too, depending on where you enter a city. When I would enter Solitude, the attack would be going on by the Halls of the Dead. If you were leaving the Blue Palace, the attack will occur at the front gates. That is when NPCs are in the greatest danger, is when you are so far away. If you know that you will be pretty far from the front gate, then stay at the damn inn until morning. Daytime vamp attacks are most certainly a bug and I've never seen one in a walled city. Apparently finding a way to deal with them yourself is too much trouble and you want Bethesda to baby you. Tough.

I plan on using this mod thanks to you pointing it out Seems to work I take it?

Morthal is already short 2-3 guards after two vampires and one lord showed up while I was there. At least the Jarl's daughter survived. I'd have been REALLY pissed off. Was about to hit up the local smith and craft an army worth of armor and reverse pickpocket weapons and armor on everyone haha.

Funny...people suggest similar levels of needless lunacy when dealing with bugs like ore not being minable till you exit then re-enter a mine or spinable puzzle pillars not spinning on activation till you save then re-load.

But this bull****...this youre okay with?

Lol at the hilarity of this post. I did not say I wanted Bethesda to baby me maybe you have not checked or seen what I post I am all for making this game better but this is just a bad design decision. That is all I will say to the ignorance of your post, good day.

I am not new to Dawnguard I just am voicing my disgust with the design of the add on. I will be looking into mods for a change to address this but I am waiting until 1 either the current mod is tested and stable or if a better one is released. I am careful about which mods to use.

The vampires attacking and killing the populace is annoying as the townspeople are incapable of defending themselves one master vampire or a traveler can kill everybody I have watched just to see the damage they cause.

The vampires are dealt with easily by me yes but I despise having to run around and kill the vampires before the kill everybody in town.

Also

He is one of those that is ok with everything Bethesda does I am sure.

However I am not and I voice bad design decisions and the game breaking bugs that Sky wallows in.

You say you can deal with the vampires yet you complain about the attacks, do you not see the irony in that statement ? Unless your one of the unlucky bunch that seem to have an issue with how often it happens then svck it up buttercup. Deal with it your in a war, check every corner when entering a city and be ready to defend it oooorrrrr avoid cities and towns unless absolutely necessary until you complete Dawnguard, they do stop once you complete the quest line.

Buttercup??? This is getting amusing.

I can deal with them yes but its a chore defending the stupid townspeople.


I understand its a war they just seem to appear to frequently and I am only in the beginning of the quest. I did not know they stop after the war which makes sense. Thank you for that I assumed it would just be another annoying part of the game like the frequent dragons.

Actually they are exactly the same as dragons. They start off a little bit at the start, get worse the farther into the quest you go, and die off once you complete it. I hardly ever get a attack in a city or town now, only out in the wild/on the roads.
It's really starting to seem like I'm the only one who thinks this feature kicks some major ass, I like the constant feeling of attack you have throughout the entire quest, the sense of urgency when a attack happens. 100+ hours sunk into Dawnguard and only lost 2 souls. But I triple check cities and towns, post myself at the main gate for an hour ( in game ) etc...etc... My safety measures are extreme but I was shell shocked by the mysterious traveler, he's the reason I lost 2 souls and it was a VERY unexpected/exciting encounter.

lol buttercup, I'm glad you took that with a grain of salt. I was going to throw " nut up or shut up " in there but I thought that might have pushed it too far.

To me it just seems the townspeople are morons and they jump in front of me and it gets very irritating especially sense I am a mage so it gets very frustrating trying to fight with my spells if we had touch spells it would not really be an issue but there is none and its easy to kill the townspeople with one incinerate. Then some vampires have the ice storm spell and we all know how powerful the enemies magic is in this game. That is why I have an issue with it.

You think the dragons are ok they appear every 72 hours and that is irritating even if you dont fast travel that is still to frequent I think.

Lol I could see it was a joke its hard to tell on the forums but the emoticons help.

Yeah I can see your issue there, I'm a sword and board fan. Makes it much easier to deal with the fangers, do you mind carrying a weapon as a mage ? You can always keep a Dawnguard war axe for back up just for the vampire attacks, you can enchant it on top of the extra benefit it has against the fangers. I enchanted mine with fire and drain stamina on top of the extra 10% damage it does to vampires, it makes quick work of the fangers once it's been enchanted and smithed.

second edit :

Seriously if people cannot manage to quickly kill a few fairly weak vampires after playing Skyrim all this time, they better go get that mod, because they are just not up to the playing standard the DLC requires.

A bit of challenge and some wimp off with a lame excuse, there is nothing wrong with expecting the player to actually defend the towns against vampire attacks. They fail, there should be some disadvantage to not getting it right.

And the townspeople are quite capable of defending themselves if given a chance, but a bit of help from the player would ensure they survive. It is up to the player what type of help they are going to provide. Those not good at fighting could get around it other ways. Without resorting to mods because they want to cheat.

Yeah its just irritating like I have said and the AI makes the NPCs run in front of me. The thing is with my mage I roleplay and I do not use weapons so it does get tedious defending the townspeople when they are suicidal.

I have a few of the weapons you mentioned but I do not use them because I roleplay a mage currently with Dawnguard.
Its a challenge because the people run in front of me casting incinerate no thats just poor AI have you even read this thread or did you skim threw it?

I do kill the vampires as I have said lol but the AI in the city makes the people get in my way I also just watched once and a traveler and a master vampire killed everyone that shows me they are incapable of defending themselves more so if just one spell kills them in one hit like I witnessed the master vamp kill like three or four people in Markarth with ice storm. The townspeople are inept they need you to defend them.

You can use console commands to make npcs essesntial

Did not think of that but also its not that big of deal if they clear up after the quest ends so its not really a serious issue that persist indefinitely as one poster above said.

None of my characters are mages, but instead of trying to kill the vampires, maybe you could concentrate on healing the townspeople? Or conjur up something better at fighting and still concentrate on keeping NPC's alive. Try out a spell to get them to run, clearing the area for you to use destruction spells. If you do not want your mage to have weapons, do you have any objections to giving better weapons to your NPC's? Some rare ones do not even own a knife to fight with and will use their fists. None of mine ever needed it, but have you tried giving your NPC's a good supply of health potions? Followers will use them if needed, no reason to think potential vampire victims would not. Now some say you throw something in front of an NPC they will pounce on it, I never had any luck and just reverse pickpocketed everything I wanted on my NPC's. If you observe who is around at what times when you first enter the town you will have an idea who needs extra protection. I never bothered with the guards, they always respawned.

And even a mage can always have a follower tagging along who is good with a sword.

Yeah I have healed the townspeople I am very powerful in restoration but the master vamp can one shot villagers with his ice storm that is a problem and I try to get him with the thundertbolt to drain his magic so he doe snot obliterate two people at once. I usually do not travel with a companion but its a thought to deal with the vampires another thing I have not thought of is reverse pick pocketing potions on the vampire victims: never even crossed my mind thank you for that tid bit of useful feedback. I have ran up and attacked with conjured weapons when I had to but I do not have them perked because that is not my focus I have also used summons to help distract the vampires, but if that vampire has ice storm that spell has an area of effect and can still instantly kill a towns person instantly.

Like I said before this is an intended feature that's bugged for a lot of people. The vampire attacks are suppose to stop after you complete the main quest.

You either need to get faster at detecting them or need to find a way to kill the dangerious ones faster. Do you have any spells that work on vampires alone? My two high level characters are excellent archers, lacking on magicka strength so never relied on spells, but I would think the Dawnguard faction were given some spells suitable. If you fast travel to the right location, you will get a few seconds to kill the most dangerious vampire before they can attack. If you want to experiment a bit and reload occasionally you would be able to work out the best location to fast travel too. Most places it is the front gate, Riften it is not. If it gets too annoying, just finish the Dawnguard questline and your town attacks should stop.

And there'll be a third when (or if) it's released on PS3 After that, it'll propably keep getting mentioned in "epic fails of Skyrim" threads. Along with the UI, destruction magic, smithing, and whetever they can think (not all the way trough) of in the next DLCs

i have been going after the more powerful vamps and even more so the ones with area effect spells and I hit them with lightning spells to drain their magic. I will say when I fought the traveler and the master vampire with ice storm that was the fight where they tore the city apart very easily I have not had that happen again. The spells that Dawnguard added I have yet to try if the new sun spells damage the populace maybe thats something I should test huh. I also know there is a few seconds window for the vampires to attack I made this thread with the thought in mind of the traveler and he summoned a gargoyle and the master vampire with the ice storm spell. This fight happened in Markarth the traveler was by the front gate and the master vamp was way over to the left by the mine killing shop keeps and everybody else in his path.