Not sure if I would want that. I mean one hit with a knife or sword rarely kills instantly or an arrow either for that matter. I would like to see some locational damage though. It is just a little bit silly to see NPCs walking around with a big smile and an arrow straight through the head.

Yes, I would use such a mod but, as others have said, I'd only use it if combat was heavily tweaked to accomodote to a 1-hit-1-kill system.

Currently hitting is too easy because opponents barely block and being hit is almost as easy because there is no dodging mechanic (think of quick steps backwards/ to the sides if pressing the jump button with the weapons drawn) and blocking / casting wards is not as responsive as it should.

Can you make it precise enough that the "one hit kill" isn't dependent on "roll dice to see if the hit bypasses defenses" ?

If yes, then yes maybe but it will feel very much like an action game more than a RPG I bet. If not, no way.

I currently play a mod that increases damage significantly. It's not one hit kill but it definitely makes combat more deadly. Works well IMHO. I would also like a mod where damage impacts capabilities of both the player and NPCs. After a certain point (let's say 50%) as damage increases speed and damage output decrease.

I'm playing on master with 0 hp input as a vampire...needless to say im basically one-hit if i get touched.

my point being is you can basically get this effect without any kind of mod, sometimes you can take 2-3 hits othertimes you get the death animation on yourself.

I assume you disabled the cap on damage resistence in the game, regardless of the armor rating...which the defacto cap is around 550 I think. I don't think weapons have any cap though.

Also, the only reason why I wouldn't use this is because of fatality/finisher moves. If anyone has ever been on the receiving end of these they know that regardless of whether you WOULD have blocked or possibly even dodged, you become locked in the fatal animation. In other words the game decides you are going to get slammed at the START of an enemy's attack, not when it actually would connect.

I had that happen in the most frustrating way possible, my health bar was really low, I could hear the Heartbeat sound letting me know it was dangerously low, I just finished casting Heal II,
and I got to watch in 3rd person as I was killed while the heal spell was swirling all around me and healing me.

I guess it's kind of funny now.

I think adding bleed damage instead of one hit kill might work better. Or bleed damage on top of critical damage.

I think a random one hit kill would be irritating.

Same here. Live and learn. Or, die and learn, in this case.

Based on the fact that you are simply outclassed by that NPC, I guess.

I like it. Better luck next time.

That sounds like a good idea to me.

Playing one? I made one for Oblivion. Mauloch then made an http://tes.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=5540.

Good fun!

I'm interested. I would play it dead is dead for the challenge.

I'm planning some new spells that have an instant kill effect to them. I'm hoping to balance them in a way as to where they would instantly kill a lower level character but take a certain amount of time to kill a character equal to the casters level and longer on higher characters. That way you have time to possibly kill the caster before the spell can kill you but if you are much lower level you had better run like hell and hope you can get away before the sorcerer casts the spell at you. Not even sure if this is possible, I'm hoping so with some decent scripting. Anyway would anyone think this would be interesting? I'd like any feedback if willing.

...why? What is the point of that?

I'll likely try my hand at making a balanced hardcoe mod for personal use. I think there are a couple key factors that you have to incorporate in a mod like this.

- Shields block all damage, all the time (excluding arrows and magic)
- crouching increases armor rating (or something similar to simulate a smaller target)
- 60/40 chance of being killed in one hit/more than one hit (much like a successful "roll" will keep you alive) where getting the 40% chance causes a bleed effect that steadily drains health

I'm sure there are more things that can be done to make this as balanced as possible I just can't think of them right now

I used a mod for New Vegas that greatly increased damage. Some guns were one-hit kills. I'm not sure I'd use one for Skyrim, though. I'm not sure it's all that realistic, either. It's been a while and the details are a but fuzzy, but some time ago I read an article about an excevation of a battle site burial. They talked at lenght about some of the tramatic injuries, including smashed skulls from a sword to the face, blades that when through the arm and into the chests and a skeleton that had both legs cut off by apparently a single blow. It went on to say, though, that the large majority of the skeletons showed little to no trauma to the bones, meaning most of the damage had been to soft tissue and they had likely just bled out.

So I probably wouldn't go for one hit kills, but I might go for bleed damage and more severe criticals, for those swords to the faces.

I disagree. There's plenty to be done reguarding the combat system that can make it more realistic (read: tactile) while still being fun. I'm exploring methods in my mod in my signature. Namely, making weapon/armor types the leading factor in determining damage amount, and making the skill itself control aspects of weapon speed, weapon control (i.e. aim drift, recoil when making hits, etc), fatigue usage, etc.

Unless you meant "realistic" purely in terms of damage values (i.e. getting hit with any sword will pretty much kill you and vice versa).

It's a challenge.

I had a similar situation but with alchemy. I hit the menu just as the fatality animation must have started and, although I healed myself to full it made no difference. Since I play dead is dead rules, I was ready to punch my screen and froth at the mouth, but oh well.

The thing is though that a lot of the 1-hit mods turn games into sniper/ranged fests. I can tell you right now the only way you will live in such a world is to learn to use a bow and sneak well. I used Fallout 3 and New Vegas mods that made it so basicallty 1 (maybe 2) hits ended your existence, but it fit perfectly with that survivalist world. It also made my beloved hunting rifle useful .

I did the same with New Vegas. We might have even been using the same mod. Combined with my recoil mod and the BAR was a beast. It made for some crazy scary fire fights, especially with the radar turned off. But yeah, you're right. It required a lot of sneaking, sniping, fighting from cover and a high degree of situational awareness. But New Vegas and FO3 primarily revolved around ranged combat.

Skyrim, however, is primarily a melee game. One hit kills means whoever swings first wins. If they swing just a fraction of a second sooner than you, you're dead. So archery or ranged magic would become almost essential just to survive.

Useless without parry and dodge moves for player/AI

Not necessarily. If the swing is interrupted by a bash or blocked by a shield then the combat would continue. Only clean hits would mean 'dead'. And this brings me to the point I made in a previous post: in Skyrim, landing a clean hit is too easy. If you spam regular attacks against an enemy he will respond by spaming normal attacks against you! (instead of by raising his shield and blocking, which would be far more logical). Also, if you try to powerattack an enemy, they will almost never try to bash you to interrupt your attack.

So if the AI was tweaked so that getting a clean hit was a challenge in itself, then a system where clean hits deal a lot of damage would make sense. As the game is now, such system would make fights really boring (IMO).

I was so tempted to get Dead Money specifically for the BAR. My grandfather used it during WW2 and I felt an urge to use one as well...but honestly that DLC didn't seem worth it like Zion and the Divide were (which I did get). It is alright though, I favored the Hunting Shotgun for its versatility in ammo and, well, the shells I put on my custom raider armor's bandoleer pushes me toward using a shotty for logic reasons .

Killing immediately wouldn't be necessary. The point would be for one strike to be able to kill you... even if it takes a while.



My idea would be to make the the success/failure of a strike based MOSTLY upon what weapon is used against what armor. However, I do see adding a "dice roll" to the equation in a limited role. Basically, an iron dagger strike would ALWAYS succeed on an unarmored/unblocking target. It would NEVER succeed against a target wearing Daedric armor. It may receive a high chance to succeed against leather armor, while receiving a low chance to succeed against steel armor. A Daedric battleaxe strike would pretty much always be successful against anything really save for ebony, Daedric, or dragon. On those, there would at least be a decent chance of protecting against such a strike, though it may still be low.



I would prefer to set every weapon's "damage stat" to 0. All damage should be implemented through actual damage enchantments such as bleeding. I may be mistaken, but wouldn't that minimize the finishing moves?



Indeed. I'm already experimenting with bleeding damage. Seems to be working quite well. Shouldn't be much need for anything else.



Yes, blocking should virtually offer complete protection from melee strikes (heavy weapons may still break through). I would think that shields should block arrows also. I would hope that shields could also block a lot of magic, but that's another issue altogether



That's true. But it's a double-edged sword. NPC archers will be just as lethal as you are. And an arrow most likely will not drop an enemy immediately like in the movies. So be ready for very angry NPC's that you just shot to be charging as fast as they are able to. Not to mention that you're usually going to be fighting multiple enemies, so you'd better be fast if you rely solely on a bow.

I do figure it will take a lot longer to bleed out from an arrow than it would for a sword slash, so you'll want to hit each target with multiple arrows. We need to get the whole "Boromir's Last Stand" vibe going



That is exactly the case. "Defense wins championships." Imagine Skyrim to play like Ninja Gaiden. It's MUCH more important to avoid getting hit than to actually hit the enemy.

Also, a "clean" hit would mean a successful strike. Just because a target may be completely unaware of an attacker, his armor is still in effect. A weapon must break through the armor for a strike to be successful. Again, an iron dagger will NEVER break through Daedric armor no matter how solid the blow.

I think the idea is great if (as previously stated) combat is changed to be more fair, and the critical hit calculation can be done after blocks, healing, etc. Combat magnetism needs to be turned off (already possible, I think), and the angle of attack has be tightened up, too. There are several mods that already make blocking more important.

If everything is taken care of, then it would definitely be worth checking out, might even turn into an essential. The only other thing I'd worry about, which has also already been pointed out, is the lack of body part discimination. One of the issues that I have with headshot and one-hit kill mods, especially in regards to realism, is that in a game, you have to hit a 500 x 500 pixel (or bigger) blob to score a headshot. In real life, a fair percent of that blob is the danger zone, but the rest is ears, hair, cheeks, etc. So we end up with a situation where we're cutting off an enemy's head with a strike to the big toe. But I could probably ignore that part if the rest of it is well done.

Kagesegei, with regards to bleeding that might work, but wouldn't that break the smithing game mechanic? To my knowledge you can't increase the enchantment of a weapon...though perhaps with a mod where a kill happens with 1 hit, who needs to increase damage anyway (dead or deader, hehe).

As for the archery situation, movies are very inaccurate in showing someone taking an arrow and still be able to move around let alone fight. Even if you are able to overcome the pain (which isn't unreasonable if one accounts for adrenaline), the physical shaft of the arrow might lock up join movement. Just imagine taking an arrow right in forearm between the two bones, you will not be able to twist your arm with that shaft blocking it. I would hate to even think what it would do to you if you had an arrow in the knee (trollface ).