Anything I can do that may help the people of winterhold inn live? Birna and Ranmir seem to love to come out and fight the large group of 10 really tough things that a legendary daedric sword barely grazes with thier fists.
I tried waiting to start it at midnight but oddly more people where outside then.
I have nothing that can easily kill them, even my legendary gear is ineffective. besides with the way it loads things out of sight and how insanely weak and stupid npcs are many will die before I get there.

Wish they made them in waves and kept npcs that where not fit to fight (town drunks and bards) cowering indoors.

If theres nothing I can do, I think thats it for me and skyrim, sick of playing a game that fights itself at every turn.

If the battle hasn't started yet, try using the console to set the NPC's aggression level to cowardly. That'll make them run.

I don't know why you are having this problem, when I had that battle, it was broad daylight, and the only NPCs outside were guards. Maybe I was just lucky.

During the day, though, most people should be at their shop.

you might want to lower the difficulty for this fight if u are having that much of an issue
i did this during the day and had no problem

I think this is one of those stupid things. Only the guards should be fighting, for realism and gameplays sake.

If you are on console and so can't do what susurrus says, try using fear effect spells or scrolls on people on town, in order to make them run (and braze yourself for a fat fine ).

Lowering the difficulty isnt going to save the townfolk, if I could set it any lower, don't know if you noticed level scaling and the slider is so messed up in this game. Besides it's not me having difficulty it's not my problem it just the moronic half assed ai that BS put together along the the half assed every other part of the game. I can kill them, it's a fun fight too swinging my sword 500 times against each thing and having to juggle 10 of them at once...seriously did they use a single braincell when putting this together, or maybe just a drunk one.