Morning All!

Last night I saw 3 people taking a prisioner up the road. Sorry I'm not home, type was tlike Thur.. something. The head "woman" was nasty, and thought very highly of herself. Said the prisoner knew where there was a cult of Talos worshipers.
He was going to be put to death if he didn't tell.

Have you got to the point in the game where you actually feel sorry for a guy? Even if it's just a game? Just weird.

I saved, then spoke to the last guy/guard that said the Talos god was just a man and no one should worship a man, I should walk away.
At first I agreed, but then saved, then finished the conversation. Said I can worship anyone I want. That pissed him off and I had to kill him.
Sven and I killed the other two, and freed the prisoner.

I thought about it for a while and didn't want another bounty on me so I reloased the last save and walked away.

What do you all do? Does it matter if I killed all of them and free the prisoner?

sounds like the thalmor

murder them, arrogant morons

i always free the prisoners

and you dont get a bounty, the prisoner surviving doesnt count as a witness

and since they attack you first with most dialogue options there isnt anything to worry about

It depends, often Niamh will leave them alone and slip past.
Sometimes though she will snipe all of them, including the prisoner...

...just depends on the circumstances and her frame of mind.

Near Whiterun a Thalmor was escorting a prisoner. So I freed that poor man giving him a very good weapon. I was fighting the Thalmor when suddenly the "poor man" started punching me with his fists. Since then I just pass near ignoring them.

My Khajiit and Dunmer assassin's always seem to accidentally kill them whist having a friendly sparring match... it's unfortunate, really.

I mean, the Thalmor are known throughout Skyrim for their diplomatic abilities, their air of benevolence in the desire to help others, the friendly smiles and waves as they pass by you on the roads. Their generally pleasant demeanor just makes it such a melancholy day when training accidents like these happen.

I routinely leave small gifts of money at the door of their Embassy as my way of saying "sorry", and to help support the family of such a well-mannered, loving agent.


P.S. I wrote all of this without gagging... or vomiting.

Apparently it was a bug, because when I attacked the thalmor keeping a prisoner, I got 1000 gold bounty, the prisoner ran away and I killed the thalmor...

Goad them into attacking first and that shouldn't happen.

Yep, at the beginning of the game at least the Thalmor have a "right" to be there doing what they're doing, if you attack them just on principle it will be considered a crime. (I don't know if this changes in Stormcloack territory if/when you join the Stormcloaks, on the other hand I've never come across Thalmor in Stormcloak territory so....)

If however you engage the prisoner and free him, they will attack you without further provocation. I'm not clear on how this works with regard to it being reported as a crime if the only surviving witness is the prisoner. Doesn't seem logical that he would narc on you, but then again...

If however you engage the Thalmor in conversation and pick the "wrong" responses - which is not difficult, they are just looking for a reason to kill you - they will attack you and whatever you do will clearly be self-defense and you can kill all of them with no repercussions.

Sadly for me this usually resulted in the prisoner being killed as well in the free-for-all but lately I must be getting better because they are surviving and now I find I can talk to them and free them after it's all over, which I didn't even know was possible before. I guess because they always ended up dead.

But that way I don't get a sneak attack advantage!

My current character hasn't taken sides in the Civil war yet so any Stormcloaks or Imperials I see on the road I leave alone. The Thalmor on the other hand are way too easy to goad into starting a fight, which my Nord will gladly finish for them.

You're in skyrim. The nords don't take kindly to all this sneak business. Get out there and stab them in the face.

Thanks, and yes it was Thalmor. Right near Whiterun where I was hunting deer and elk, my favorite passtime. Gives me plenty of leather to enhance the stuff we steal from the dead bandit's bodies.

Darn, I should go back and see if I can find them again.
Too long ago to reload and redo all I've done since.

There were 3 of them. I spoke to the last guy and the others kept on walking. After a friendly conversation he attacked me. WTH? Sven and I dispatched him rather quickly.
We then ran up to the other last one and did the same. He got ticked at me too when I got flip with him. No sense of humor

We should have a lot more dialogue then what we have in the game.

Next I shot the leader in the back with an arrow just for the fun of it. She somehow got an Ice dude to attack me which I flamed while Sven was busy with her. Then Sven was atacking me until I killed her too. When I put my sword away, Sven did too and his attack ended.

I ran to the prisoner and chose to free him and gave him some fine clothing and a sword I had and nice boots. You know? Set 'em up right. He ran off.
I didn't want the other Thalmor hunting me down so I reloaded and walked away. Shame, it was perfect.

as a worshiper of talos it is my duty to destroy the Thalmor.

as a supporter of the Empire it is my duty to kill Stormcloaks.

killing them all usually results in no bounty due to no witnesses.

I always engage one thalmor in conversation which lets the others get ahead. I pick the wrong response and then let him/her attack me. I kill em and then repeat. This results in the prisoner usually remaining unharmed. Its funny how dull these guys are. I'll kill one and dress in their armor and talk to the next and they don't seem to notice I'm wearing their missing commrad's armor.

I usually leave imperials or stormcloak groups alone, those do seem to result in bounties.

Are you sure about that? I've attacked thalmors, without talking to them, no bounty (not even one that went away when everyone was dead). This wasn't in the beginning of the game, but since that character stays out of the war, the status of the thalmor should be the same as in the beginning, shouldn't it. (Well, she DID do Diplomatic Immunity and also slaughtered everyone at Northwatch Keep, if that changed anything...)

But with loads of giggling?
I do my best at eradicating any of these patrols. But why use words when a few images can tell a few thousand words.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578955258334958708/8F9ACBE2C1DF7DB8DD0C97F5D8FF9ED33F5ECC5E/, http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578955258317161811/738B5D8D1902BD3825C7566D1E126032A681E1ED/, http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578955258319201426/862ED98331BFC295A8BC29E542C7A8B9CCB15F9F/.

I always free the prisoner, which turns the Thalmor/Imperials hostile. If I get a bounty, it's usually because I accidentally hit the prisoner.

If you kill the Thalmor/Imperial captors, no one comes after you in retaliation. Just try to not fight them around guards, or you'll be fighting them too.

Honestly I don't know exactly how the game determines bounties, I mean I know how it should work in theory but it always ends up seeming like a crap shoot to me. I've had bounties that I suspect derived from a freed Stormcloak prisoner who reported my "crime" of killing his Imperial captors, and I ended up being attacked on sight on entering the Palace of the Kings of all places. Sometimes the bounties make no sense to me, either because I couldn't figure out who the witness was or because whoever I killed should by all rights have been counted as an enemy even if I killed them without provocation.

I did kill a Thalmor patrol unprovoked once and there were no witnesses left alive, and any bounty should have been cleared, but a few clicks up the road I was attacked on sight by an Imperial patrol. This was in Imperial country before the end of the war and I was playing the Legion side of things. Did I somehow have a bounty that the Imperial soldiers were reacting to? Were they attacking me because I'd just attacked Thalmor that were lawfully doing what the Empire had agreed they could do? I don't know. Like I said, it just seems like a crap shoot sometimes.

And I'm pretty sure I got a bounty once for an unprovoked attack on one of the enemy camps that remain after the war is over, despite the fact that I was doing exactly what I was told to do in the last standing orders received from the commander in chief of the side I fought for. That never makes sense to me... If I won the war for either side and was told to eliminate the armed remnants of the enemy wherever I found them, then there should be no penalty for doing that even if I sneak up and kill them all in their sleep. Nevertheless I now approach enemy camps and wait for them to get agitated enough to go aggro on me first.

Bounties for killing Thalmor agents are entirely dependent upon how close you are to a city in my experience.

I've killed wandering Thalmor patrols whilst deep in the wilderness, no bounty.

Kill another patrol near Whiterun (but without being close enough to a Guard that their scum-sense starts tingling), 2000 gold bounty.

It's pretty weird...

Only bounty I ever got on a Thallie patrol was when I forgot to manipulate the dialog first.... If you goad them into attacking you, there's never a bounty.

The bounty and faction system in this game is a mess. I rack up bounties for killing members of enemy factions during the Civil War all the time. Even provoking an enemy courier into attacking results in my character being tagged as a murderer. I actually ended up with a 1000g bounty during the Battle for Whiterun. And oddly enough, my character is rarely KOS in enemy encampments. Did Bethesda playtest this AT ALL?!!

No matter what option you choose with regards to your Talos worship, they will attack you. If they attack you first, you will never get a bounty.

I've gotten a 5 + 40 bounty for the damn magic kill-cam missing the target and my dual-cast Fireball went and exploded a chicken in Winterhold. I was angry and laughing at the same time, due to being a super squishy mage and the guards decided to put an axe to my head. Over a chicken. That also had died another time due to the cart I jumped into spazzing out and hitting it hard enough to kill it. No bounty for that, even thou the guard was right next to the chicken.

Well of course not, obviously the cart got the bounty for that.

Epilogue: The cart was tried in Department 187 of the Superior Court of the Province of Skyrim, in and for the City and Hold of Winterhold, where it was convicted of the crime of poultricide and sent to the provincial prison, Cidhna Mine, in Markarth. The story you have just read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

*hysterical laughter* Thanks, I needed that!