I think back stab is broken, very very rarely i get the proper animation of my guy slitting there throat etc,but 99% of the time i sneak up behind them with my dagger and my guy swings like an idiot doing normal damage,they then proceed to hand me my ass as im a wimpy sneaky git not a big tuff warrior,this also happens with my bow but not very often,but with a dagger it just doesn't seem to know im doing a sneak attack.

Yea, especially when they are asleep.

Personally, i think that there should just be a different key to do a backstab/throat slit.

Yeh something is wrong a separate back stab key could work.

I assume you guys have the Backstab and Assasin's Blade perks? Without them you just get a critical hit, which isn't that impressive with a dagger.

The animations play when the victim dies from the damage done, not vice versa. I get either the troat-slitting or kidney-stabbing animation at about half of the sneak attacks done with one blade (i.e. one button pressed, even when dual wielding)

I never get an animation when doing a double-sweep. Seems like the x30 damage of a double-dagger backstab is so devastating that it sends most victim's corpses flying away before my char can grab them.

The thing that annoys me the most is the screaming for your supposedly silent kills. Especially annoying when the NPC is sleeping and people around the house wake up. Clumsy implementation.

I have the assassin perk yeh ,the problem is it doesnt seem to think im back stabbing most the time it just does a normal attack,im not even getting the message to say 6x etc.As a side note are you the JOG that made the mods for Drakensang game ???.

Yeh this aswell they ALWAYS scream so much for silent kills lol.

What's really strange for me..

in the heat of battle vs a mean guy in a cave.. i was doing the whole panic'd run away because a single blow from him was killing me mostly due to being such a lowbie at the time
i managed to whirlwind myself around a pillar and next thing i new i was at his backside as he was spinning around to hit me, i managed to get a jab in with my dual daggers... only the moment i hit the key, it cut to a quick action scene in which i stuck both into the kidney zone and proceeded to remove his head at the neck...

I'm not entirely sure.. but i haven't been able to do that since.. i had ZERO sneak skills, and really no progress into the game, it was pretty damn epic cutscene.... but seemed like it wasn't appropriate for what i did.

my experience with cutting throats is that you have to sneak to him and attack while moving. dont stand still or you ll get the x15 damage instead. as for those sleeping, honestly i dont know i never had any particular cutrscene/animation.... should i ?

It just seems the whole snaek kill thing is broken sometimes it works others it dont,sometimes it works when it shouldnt and then it dont work when it should,i have shot a deer with my bow from on top of a rock the deer isnt aware of me it doesnt die because the game just does normal bow damage,not x2x3 ETC just normal damage it should be a crit at x2x3 ETC but most times it works,but its realy annoying when you sneak up on a guard and it does a normal attack and then you die.

When I backstab sleeping NPCs they fall through their beds. Hurray for this brand new engine with WORSE physics than Oblivion.