Utterly ridiculous.

My character is now Level 32. I'm playing on the default difficulty level. I travel to Windhelm to adopt Sofie and buy some stuff. As I end my conversation with Sofie, a guard comes up to me and says, "We need to do something about these vampire attacks!"

Huh? Oh no . . . not again!

Suspecting the worse - an attack on the city, incompetent guards, blood in the streets . . . you get the idea - I ran through the streets of Windhelm. Sure enough, a battle was taking place right in front of the Palace of the Kings! I gulped a handy bottle of liquid one-hand skill and grabbed my trusty Katana of Fire (which delivers a whopping 102 damage plus 29 fire damage) and joined the fray like a kid at a water park!

I killed the first Master Vampire in one swing. To be fair, he was already injured.

The second took me a bit longer. Out of the corner of my eye I could see two of those damned (and I mean this purely in the spiritual sense) black dogs attacking the guards. I put down my vampire just as my liquid skill wore off, and was forced to take on the NEXT Master Vampire with nothing but raw courage and what I heretofore thought was an extremely overpowered weapon. In the midst of the fray, I struck Helgrid by accident. Immediately, I incurred a bounty. Me! A bounty! And when I finally did send that bloodsvcker into the dark abyss where he belonged, why that old bat of a priestess came after me, swinging a weapon like I wasn't perfectly capable of slaughtering her in two swings!

Fortunately, I restrained myself. Being an Imperial, I cast a soothing spell on her and she came to her senses, but still huffed off like she was the top cat in a feline street fight. Whatever. Then I took stock of the death toll.

And the following is NOT an exaggeration (as difficult as that might be to believe):

Three Master Vampires. Three.

Three Death Hounds.

Two Vampire Thralls.

Tobjorn Shatter-Shield. (Ouch - the expert trainer in two-handed).

Two other Nord citizens whose names escape me because, well, they just weren't important enough to remember.

Three Windhelm (Stormcloak) guards.

It was a sobering moment. It made me pause and think long and hard about what I wanted out of a video game, in much the same way that a glimpse of hagraven claws will make you think about what you want out of life. Or so I'm told. Sure, I'd cut down three Master Vampires and almost cut down a seventy-year-old priestess, but that kind of an accomplishment only gives a person so many bragging rights. And while all human - and Elven - life is valuable, the lump in my throat was there because I had no idea how the hell I was now going to level up two-hand now!

Seriously, Bethesda, I enjoy a roleplay as much as the next nerd - and probably more than many do - but you're killing off the population of my entire cities. And not just the occasional vagrant and beggar but, dammit, the useful people, too! You want to spam a vampire? Fine. You want to spam 2 or 3? Fine. But 5!! And accompanied by two hounds? C'mon, I can't be everywhere at once.

For the love of Talos, gimme a break!

I concur with this. When I first played DG, I was unaware of how the random attacks would work. There I am, strolling out of Whiterun, when I come upon a fight taking place. Like any good citizen I stop to watch, not daring to help out the poor guard at the risk of incurring a bounty, when I sudden realise this is no ordinary fight. There is a large black dog (which I later learnt was a Death Hound) charging in out of no where. I draw my greatsword and easily dispatch it. I then turn to the guard and his opponent when another figure emerges from the other end of town - a vampire thrall! I dispatch him easy enough and again turn back to help and.... Belethor is dead... Just like that. After what seemed like an eternity fighting off randomly spawning baddies, I assess what the damage is.

I had never seen so many slaughtered NPCs in a town since the Forsworn broke out of Cidhna Mine!

I'm all for a challenge but I mean, come on!

Just don't travel to or in a city at night.

Good advice, that.

But not terribly practical - or even possible. I can take a carriage from one city, say, Riften and by the time I get to Solitude, it's dark. Who knows what happened? We were attacked by bandits, the wheel broke, or maybe it was just that the driver took one too many potty breaks. Now I arrive at the city and despite all my best efforts to the contrary, it's the middle of the night.

Let the mayhem begin.

What I would do is before I traveled to a city, whatever method it was, I would save first, then travel to the city. If I arrived after dark, then I would reload and then wait an number of hours before traveling. Also, I would FT to a place near the city, if it was dark, then I would wait, then walk or FT jump to the city.

I had one town, a settlement really, depopulated by a Vampire Attack. I was not going to let that happen again. I know the NPCs getting killed is a major pain, however if there was a Vampire menace for real, restrictions on night travel/activities would be expected or prudent.

Note, if you want to have city attacks, but minimize the NPC fallout, then work with the scripts that make the NPCs commute. They usually commute at 6PM and 8PM. Since the attacks usually happen near the city gates, this means all the commuters get caught up in the battle. So, do this, either time your arrival to be after 10PM, or wait in the town, in a house, until 6 PM, then wait again until 8PM, then wait again until 10PM. This will get the NPCs on their commute, then home. This way, the only NPCs that should be caught up are respawning guards.

All I can say is: Dawnguard is not compatible with Skyrim. Do not install Dawnguard until you are ready to do the quest straight through without stopping in cities. Or, if you are on the PC, there is a mod that turns off random vampire raids on cities.

Added: MaxBat, I just wanted to let you know that I like your writing. Very well done.

You know, I'm getting that feeling. It's almost like . . . a different game . . . but within the same game. If you're still working the main quest, you've got vampires, you've got dragons, you've got those damn Frostbite Spiders with thousands of eyes just looking at you all creepy like . . . egggh. Hell, half of Skyrim is dead and the rest of immigrating to Cyrodiil!

One thing I'm curious about though is this:

If you complete the Dawnguard quest by killing Mister X (yes, I know his real name . . . no, it's not Mr. X . . . but, hey, no spoiler alert), do the vampire attacks stop? Sort of like the Dark Brotherhood quest in Morrowind? You kill everyone and the assassins stop coming for you?

'Cause if that's the case, I think it's time for me to keep the kids with the Stewart, and have Serana and I cut loose on a vampire killing spree!

And in the future, I'll just add Dawnguard when I'm ready to play it.

@ cap_and_gown: Thanks!

yea i had to remove it as well b/c i got tired of losing valuable people. i had a dragon attack and a vampire attack at the same time that left Riverwood a ghost town. I ended up going back to my previous save cause i just didn't want to lose that many people. at first it wasn't that bad, it seemed that the good people of Whiterun could hold their own, but as the game progressed, they started dying off and i just don't like that. so for now, no dawnguard.

Yes, they stop. Unless you have a rare bug. Some people say they have seen them continue. But most (including myself) find that the attacks stop.

Okay, another - probably dumb question. Let's just say - and the fewer questions here the better - that my character has a house in Falkreath Hold. And in that house, way down in the bottom in a safe, there's an Elder Scroll. Yeah, I know! An Elder Scroll!

The scroll hasn't achieved it's manifest purpose in the MQ. So the question is this:

Do I need to complete that quest in the MQ of Skyrim BEFORE I use the ES quest in DG? It wouldn't be a huge pain, but while I'm running around doing that, vampires are attacking my cities and that's not good.

You can complete the quests in which ever order you wish. They designers took this into account.

The attacks stop unless you deliberately want to make them happen by doing the sun thing, then there's a chance they can happen.

Doesn't help when you have bugs that cause daytime attacks

I haven't brought DG yet, largely because of the vampire attacks on cities. Hoping the mod 'Dawnguard no vampire attacks' might solve the issue.

finish the dlc then if its that annoying...
they end after you beat harkon

I play on master level, have Dawnguard since 3 weeks and I've been attacked many times by vampires in cities...not a single civilian death, only some guards.
Started DG at level 35 ended it at lvl 47 or something like that...

I understand that some people don't like the vampire attacks. I just want to say, in my opinion, though not perfect they are a good thing.

My first attack was in Falkreath. Low level, hadn't started Dawnguard. Approaching the west gate I spotted an almighty scrap going down and it was a genuine...'WTF!!!' moment. After a quick scan of who was involved, I piled in. I got my ass kicked a bit and afterwards a couple of townsfolk lay dead...I just stood for a minute, totally immersed, thinking, 'Damn...I need to do something about these vampires right now...'

It's true Bethesda may need to tweak the AI a bit, so for instance some low level npc's turn and run. That would be a good idea. But on the whole the attacks are a good experience that help make the world feel 'real'.

Every main walled city has a stables outside you can fast travel too. I just travel there and use wait to make it daylight before entering the city. (

I just roll play it as with the vampire threat the town guards do not let anyone through the gates after dark. So I have to camp outside of town if I arrive before daybreak. Even better if the traders are there. Party night with the cats by the campfire!

I will often use the wait function as a substitue for Roll playing camping in the wild. find a nice spot and bed down for the night. If there is a bed I can use at a camp great but wait and sleep are both the same as far as the game goes so I roll play them as the same thing.

Non walled towns I will Fast travel to a near by cave or something and just walk there. Can't be too close though because the Vampires could spawn and you wouldn't know it until you got to town and find the dead ones. either that or wait in my current location long enough where I can be sure I arrive during the day.

Frankly, I don't fast travel that much. I usually just walk, ride my horse, or take a carriage. So let's be clear, these attacks are occurring without my fast traveling into the city. You might as well say: don't go into a city at night ... Ever.


I think they're a good thing, too, generally. I don't even have a problem with the random quality or the way the quest starts. I agree that they make the world feel real. I also agree they are not perfect.


You are awesome, sir, just awesome.

MaxBat: you know perfectly well that these attack don't just occur at night. Your thread "Curved Swords" (very well written, btw) is all about a daylight encounter. All my own encounters in Whiterun have been the during the day since that is the only time I have ever entered the city.

That is true. And when the attack did occur, a woman shouted, "It's the middle of the day," or words to that effect. This makes me think the daytime attacks are not bugs but a design decision by Bethesda. Whiterun seems to attract vampires - there was another attack right outside the gates, by the stables, but it was easily put down by the Khajiit caravan.

Also, I was in Riften recently and there was an attack during the day. Again, no loss of life - except for the vampires.

Edit: I wrote the original post as a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. I do think some of the attacks are a bit much. For the most part, I've been able to kill the vampires and I have in my collection 37 sets of vampire armor from the city attacks alone. So far, only a few innocents have died.

The attacks have forced me to be more aggressive (and less passive) in my gameplay. Now I keep my swords and bows poisoned all the time. They fully tempered and improved, and every one is enchanted. Since I've done this, I'm basically one-hitting or two-hitting vampires and no one has died. But you do have exercise caution and keep an eye out for the nasty buggers ...

To paraphrase CCNA: If there was a Vampire menace for real, precautions would be expected or prudent.

The worst part, was the vampire attacks taking out shop owners, blacksmiths, etc

I believe, in one town, out of the 5 shops, i have 2 , that actually have people running them, other 3 stores are vacant, as those peeps died


wouldn't be bad if they respawned or some else took their place, but nope, an empty store.

Arthmoor has made a mod that makes people run inside during dragon attacks. It called "Run for your life".

I sure would like to have a mod like that for Vampire attacks.

Sounds perfect, except being on the 360, I can't make use of it

Well, one thing is for sure, those attacks made me paranoid, whenever I arrive to the city at night, I check gates or places where they usually appear. But even if I do that, there are few dead NPCs sometimes