So basicaly, I got almost no finishing moves. I'm a "sneaky bastard" type of character and I had killed like hundreds of enemies with a backstab (Drak Brotherhood gloves mode ON ), also sometimes in tight situations I had to slain dozens of people with mah axe an' shield. Still, last time I saw a finishing move was like, when I was on level 3, killing bandits in the first watchtower. No sneak kill finishers, nor the normal fight finishers - in sneak mode just an ordinary ''ass slash" attack, in normal combat just the ''click-until-they-die" with no eye-candy belly-drilling, face-to-axe'ing, throat slicing etc.
Playin' on a PC.

What am I doing wrong?

I think finishers only work if you do a power attack, not just with ordinary attacks.

Either that or you might have installed a mod that disables finishers??

I keep hearing that power attack theory, but I can proc a finisher by just tapping the attack button, i.e. normal attack. :/

Wish we knew everything in the background about when a finisher will proc.

Same has been happening to me lately, it's probably because you get caught up in the moment of battle that your pressing the button so fast, it nullifies the experience.

Since you're on PC, try this: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9063

Ah I see, I haven't been playing lately so I couldn't remember.

Well perhaps my second theory? It happens a lot when installing mods that do multiple things, you end up with something you didn't know it included.

Which mods (if any) do you have installed OP?

The description in that page says that they took the backstab finisher out because it was buggy with the new system.

Try this one then. I use it to great effect

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10291


if the 120 option still doesn't give you enough killmoves, go to console and type in "set killmoverandom to" with the higher number you want afterwards

I've noticed two instances where it happens but first I'll say that "assassination" finishers I'm not so sure on. Maybe if you kill all of their health on the one slice it works. Not sure.

In normal combat it will happen from two things -
1. Some may not know what I mean, but if you have the advantage in a melee sword fight, it seems to trigger. By advantage, I mean upper hand, you have overwhelmed them, and then the finisher starts.
2. When you do a powerful attack, not just a power attack, although power attacks can trigger them. I mean when their health is about half way and a good amount of health is taken away by your attack. This does not, in my experience, mean you have to empty their health. I have sliced and slashed someone with a iron dagger, doing almost no damage, and after about halfway through their health, if I have the advantage or I get a nice slash in there, and triggered a finisher. The amount of damage I would have done with the dagger would be not enough to deplete the rest of his/her health but I instant-kill the baddie.

I wouldn't know, I don't backstab people, but this mod let's you set the chance of a killmove to 100% when all conditions are met. I get killmoves all the time and it's awesome.

If you have an enchantment on your sword (or dagger) that is way more powerful than your weapon it won't do it (For me atleast).
Ex: I found a fork and knife (they can be equipped as a weapon >) and wen't out to test them out on a few bandits and since there damage is only 2 & 3 I put an enchantment on them that did 64 some damage. After that I had a really hard time getting finishing moves.

So wait.... your were (before the enchantment) slicing people throats with a dinner fork/knife?

Well, the only mod I use right now i the Colorful Light for No Shadows option (the light stays while the shadows are entirely off - for pure FPS increase). I prefer to play without mods for now - I had bad experiance from Oblivion and new fallouts (you know, you download one mod, then second one, third and in a blink of an eye you end up wasting more time installing mods than playing actual game).

Power Atack, normal attack, left, right, back, forward - no difference at all. Deadric or steel, damage x30 also no change :\

Will try this throughout the game. Thanks.

So, there are no official or fully believable source of data on finishing moves? Hm, seems deeper than I though. Still, if there are any other ideas, post them here. I'll gladly try anything.

Are you doing a dual wield attack? You won't get a finishing move with a dual wield attack, unless you mod it in. My sneak character gets the throat slit animation all the time when he only uses one of his daggers. If he attacks with both at the same time, he gets no finishing move.

I keep reading "Where are my fishing moves?" and cannot help it but imagine how I throw a hook and sinker with a rod out onto a lake and in slow motion - a fishing move. If it had fishing with rods in the game then I would like to have a slow motion cam whenever I manage to place my sinker very close to a school of fishes.

single dagger of course. I was dual wielding only at the very beginning - there was no real difference in combat so I stayed with only one.

Hey people! I have no friggin idea how, but the finishers are back! I just slit throat of like 6 bandits in a row! Looks like finishing moves were scared by posting their problem on forum, so they started to cooperate again xD

From my Dragon fighting experience it seems the kill moves occur when you are directly in front of them, fighting head to head, and your health is getting low. With a pile of health I don't seem to get them so much.

http://carnagepro.com/pics/diedragon.jpg

There is a mod to remove blur in the kill moves:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=11757&searchtext=

Pushing towards the opponent while attacking seems to work for me. Almost like you bump them to set them up and then GANK!

good news

They work with regular attacks as well, however it seems the closer to an enemy you are the higher chance it is to become a finising move. My stealth attacks are alwasy finishers, I walk up just an inch from them and attack.