Hi,

So, I played a couple characters, one a light-armor/cloth mage, the other a heavy armor wearing, smithing, 2-handed Red Guard berserker. I pretty frequently got finishing moves *against me* by opponents as the mage, but I think it's only ever happened to me once in heavy armor - no beheadings, no dragons grabbing me in their jaws, no getting launched by giants, etc.

So, does that mean that finishing moves first calculate how much damage would be done, and only happen if you would have died anyhow, as opposed to being an auto-death?

There was a thread about this some time ago, and if i remember correctly the conlcusion was that it is calculted purely by enemy's attack and your hitpoints. Armor, blocking or other bonuses aren't taken into account, but it's not automatic death.

On personal experience, one of my previous characters would get one-hit-killed by Ancient Dragons if her HP was anything below 100%, but they did not do that if it was 100%.

I also wonder, what triggers the finishers. It seems that the chance of it happening is calculated before the hit actually happens. There were times with my mage when the enemy is very low on health and running towards me. I have a fireball ready to blast him to pieces, I just let him get a little closer for a more dramatic effect, when suddenly my character freezes, the enemy takes a second or two to come closer to me and then does a finishing move on me.

Yes, again if remember correctly, in that thread it was also said that the instakill is decided when the enemy starts it's attack, not when it connects.

In my experience finishers are triggered by critical strikes that would have killed the opponent had it connected.

However, there seems to be a separate damage calculation check (using the same numbers and rules as the normal check at weapon impact) that happens as soon as you press the attack button. If this check says that the attack will be a critical strike and it would kill the opponent if it connected, then there will be a chance that the finisher will be displayed, otherwise the normal attack animation will be played out.

That seems consistent with what I'm seeing - I think because of my smithed, heavy armor, and my high health, that first calculation almost never would have killed me, even if it's a critical strike, but instead reduces me to like 50% health (most normal attacks take off maybe 5 or 10% of my health; crits seem to do 40-50).