Sometimes I will go forever without getting a single special animation. Other times I will decapitate/run through a bunch of guys in a row. The description for the perks that say stuff like "sideways power attacks will sometimes decapitate enemies" are total BS because it seems to have nothing to do with power attacks.

No idea. I don't ever want them wasting my time....

I prefer them to break the monotony. Without them the combat seems like something straight out of 1999.

Oh, no, it's MUCH better than whatever I was playing back then.... hmmm. BG 2 probably.

I think it would depend on whether your next strike will kill the person, so instead of the enemies just falling down to the floor dead, you get this nice cutscene

Well, it'll only happen if the thing you're killing is the last thing in combat with you*. It also only happens when the enemy is at low enough health that you could potentially kill it in one more hit. Beyond that, it seems like a random number generator deciding whether or not it happens.

* This does not apply to NPCs performing finishing moves.

I'm wondering just how many animations there are.
I've only see a few while dual-weilding.

I think it's more tied to both how much life your enemy has left, as well as how much your next attack is going to exceed said life total.

I get the animations all of the time, and I love them. It gives a sense of realism to the act of slaughtering my Assassin's enemies.

At least in BG all the mechanics were completely transparent instead of seemingly random like these kill animations.

I don't honestly remember that as a specific with either BG game.... but it doesn't really matter now most likely.

Yeah it seems to happen a lot with assassin type characters, possibly because like Velorian mentioned it tends to happen when you are in combat with only one enemy. I get a special animation almost 100% of the time with backstab kills.

I just did the "Battle for Whiterun" quest with my 2h character at lvl 51 and was 1-shotting all the fodder-type enemies easily and didn't get a single special animation. So I don't think it has much to do with how much your next hit is going to exceed their remaining life by.

I see them... somewhat often, not to the point where they get on my nerves.

It's always satisfying to see my sword suddenly go plunging through a frostbite spider's head.

It's a random number that you can change with the console. For example, typing: set killmoverandom to 100
in the console will make every 'last enemy' you kill use a cutscene. Obviously, typing in a zero instead of a hundred will turn them off completely.

-Loth

Really. Can I put this into the .ini file instead of mutzing with the console every time I open the game?

I'm not sure. Probably not, because that would be too easy.
-Loth

Are we sure this is something that resets every time you reload the game? Like, for example, if you change the timescale, the game remembers it (in that save, anyway).

Heh. I'm not sure about anything - other than that I REALLY dislke stupid cut-scene crap that adds nothing to my game play....