Yup. Run around naked with arrows sticking out of your head. "Oh, only -10 health. I'm good!"

When someone with a 2 handed battle-ax and cleaves right into your chest. . . well that's only -35 damage right? I'm a level 20, that's nothing.

If you shot someone in the leg and they started limping, shot them in the hand and they drop their weapon/shield (or just become weaker at swinging/blocking) or if you shot them in the head they are instantly killed would be awesome but might make the game too easy. Unless you also suffer the effects I suppose. I like this idea because it's weird when you shoot an enemy a few times in the head/throat and see that it's done barely any damage. I think it'd just be hard to balance it out because if a headshot means that an enemy instantly dies then the game might become a bit too easy, but more realistic. I think if you do succeed at getting the headshot and the enemy is unarmoured or in a spot that hits the skin you deserve a reward for the accuracy which should be instant death. I'd rather not have any type of V.A.T.S. though because I don't want the game to become too familiar with Fallout. I'd like to be able to cripple enemies by slicing a leg or arm off but instead of instantly dieing like in Fallout they bleed to death or you can finish them off as they're crawling and screaming. If I was running with a big warhammer and I could smash someones legs with a sweep and watch them drop in pain and then finish them off with a blow to the head that would be awesome. Maybe add spears/halberds too. I like the idea of crippling or injuring enemies which drop onto the ground, in Skyrim they heal and get up and try to kill you again after they have already begged for mercy. I'd prefer it if they stayed on the ground longer and cowered in fear if you walked up to them, and then you have the choice of killing them in a ground finisher. Maybe slicing or breaking both legs and while they crawl on the ground you can walk up and put them out of their missery or leave to rot. I think this would be amazing.

I just like the idea of being crippled or getting crippled or blurred vision and other effects. So if you unsuccessfully block or dodge a hit you suffer, but if you dodge or block a hit and/or hit them successfully they suffer. That way it's kill or be killed instead of those fights that last forever on Master no matter how or where you hit them. One thing that does annoy me is when you aren't fully detected and you shoot an arrow at an enemy and they do this instant side stepping dodge which attracts their attention.

I'd like this realism styled mode.

This, to a degree. Though it would be difficult to build a "hit box" around the armor, it is absolutely possible. If your arms are exposed... Well, they're exposed and they're a fine target. Crippling should be instigated through damage to the joints, not the limbs themselves. Oh man, I'm sorry guys... But an arrow in the knee is a lot more damaging than an arrow to the thigh.

Armor would be the biggest variable to a successful headshot/crippling shot. Fur and leather could possibly have a 50/50 chance of penetration. Steel, iron or the other "hard" armors could use a 80/20 chance of successful penetration. 80% of the time, the arrow may hit at such an angle that a metallic helmet could easily deflect it.

The biggest difficulty would be balancing that with the armors themselves. Locational crippling by a successful hit is a must, but the armors should respectively follow the same 50/50 paradigm for soft armors and the 80/20 paradigm for hardened armors.

EDIT: Unfortunately, clothes or robes would offer no protection against penetration and would be entirely for the roleplay value.
EDIT2: Perhaps a thigh/leg shot could slow you down for 5 seconds, or a shoulder/arm shot could slow down bow draw speed and weapon swing speed.
EDIT3: A successful joint shot would end in a crippling blow outright.
Haha, EDIT4: How about if you get clubbed in the head it could blur your vision for 5 seconds too? That'd cause a realistic amount of disorrientation.

Wow, people actually want head-shot to be insta-kill? Let me round up some arguments:

- This would do too archery what the charm spell in oblivion did to speech. That is, make it nearly useless. Look, a bandit boss appears! Let me just shoot her in the head with my iron bow and arrows, despite my poor archery skill, right?

- By this logic pretty much anything would be one-shot kills. Real fun to fight them ice-mages then, because if a arrow in your head kills me in one hit, why would not an ice spear too my torso?

- This isn't a medieval Call of duty, as others have said. It isn't about your skill, but your chars.

Hi there Antongranis! Hope you're having a great day.

You raise legitimate points. But the way I see it the problem is overarching and lies somewhere else: failure ratio. It's too darn hard to miss a shot, much harder than in real life, or so I would guess. Bring the chance to miss up to more realistic levels, which should increase with distance and vary according to choice of bow and arrow types, and maybe you'll realize the scenario isn't as dramatic. I, for one, am not advocating instant kills, since we all know sucessfull head-shots do not equate to death in real life. They do, however, usually mean far greater damage than a shot to your pinky.

duude, even new vegas is more rpg then skyrim

me too. Honestly I think it would work well if we could aim sword swings at a persons head and do more dmg. I like it in fallout (even if you didnt use vats you could still do locational damage people) and while I know melee weapons didn't do locational dmg IN VATS I am fairly certain I recall chopping off a few dudes heads and arms when thats where I was aiming.

I think this would be a pretty neat feature in a TES game. I mean not with vats but with the idea of locational damage. It was pretty nice how you could cripple people in Fallout by targetting certain limbs and that added a tactical element to the game besides *point at head* such as with larger enemies like deathclaws. It could be something you think about when fighting a bad ass enemy that you could potentially cripple his sword arm or leg in an attemot to weaken him, or just go for his neck area for increased damage.

Also I am sure I am not the only person to mention this, but with weapon physic calculations and scanning it would ass a nice element of realism to the game as well as add the possibility of showing wounds on enemies as an option. How nice would it be that when you slash a guy in the chest you literally see a scraqe (doesnt have to be increcibly deep or anything) across his chest?

There's still plenty of other rpg elements they have that didn't make it to Skyrim because of limitations like graphics and trying to appeal to mainstream people.

That's why I don't get how those people became Guards from getting shot in the knee. I thought it could possibly ruin their entire life if you damage their knee but they become fighting guards.

The hardest thing about realistic deaths would be trying to balance it out, that's why I think the whole purpose is to be unrealistic. Headshot insta-kills may seem realistic but it would make the game way too easy. Maybe just a damage multiplier would do. But who knows. I still enjoy the game and I like the idea of crippling or blurring effects.

I would like location damage, but if it doesn't come, i'm ok with it. i play TES for the game world, the sense of adventure. not the actual combat, though if they improve combat i won't complain.

Couldn't agree more. However, new Vegas is a great rpg, so I hope you aren't saying it is low, yet Skyrim is lower...

Hi there Captain_Ginyu!

I wouldn't know about that since I haven't played NV. Judging from some of the comments there is much fear TES will loose its RPG identity if it embraces locational damge. I can sympathize but such apprehension is alien to me. Look at it this way. In real life and from time immemorial, how have people coped with potential shots to their vital parts? They have protected those parts more securely, they have developed combat tactics to defend them. As enemy combat gets more sophiticated and closer to a real life scenario, it paves the way for locational damage. Sure, we may be foresaking some treasured part of the RPG heritage, bu we will be embracing more complex, more satisfying and more fun gameplay.

You're exactly right. In my arguement of more compelling armor, I didn't mean that headshots should mean insta-kills.

But a headshot should eliminate at least 50% of an enemy's health. And the headshot shouldn't be guaranteed if they're wearing a soft or hard helmet.

Hello Z, I couldnt agree more with you.

So can someone mod this? or is this something we will have to wait for the next TES installment?

I hope someone can come up with the proper hit bonus for vital shots, even if its simply, a 100% chance for critical when hitting the head of an enemy.

Something has to be rewarded for controlled combat, as apposed to flailing weapons and scoring the same way. The key would be to finding that sweetspot!

I play a Stealth type of character, and I pride myself on my timing and precision, its how I RP this character..

I honestly dont see any drawbacks to adding this feature to this game, or any game for that matter.. locational damage is a great feature! Tactics and accuracy should always play a part in combat! not in just this game but every game.


P.S. Can someone from the mod community comment on the difficulty to adding such a mod?

I hated V.A.T.S and refused to use it, I only ever played Fallout 3 GOTY and Fallout New Vegas, but after starting a character with VATS on... it felt like a cope out, an easy aim trigger or something, couldn't stand it... but they wouldn't have to implement something like VATS to implement locational damage... I damaged plenty of body parts without VATS, using melee as well as ranged. If locational damage ever got put in, wonderful, but if it doesn't... still wonderful, I don care that much =P

it irritates me to no end hopefully in the next game they include location damage but have the magnitude of that damage based on your skill level with the weapon you are doing said damage with. just so you cant run through the game effortlessly at level one if your a good sniper. also cripplable limbs was one feature of fallouts i wished elder scrolls would adopt it could give combat a new feel thats for sure

As someone said earlier , CAN THIS BECOME A MOD ?

Comparing apples to oranges ftw.

You do realize that these things are design decisions, yes? Locational damage is not some Uber Feature that all combat must be. For some games, it's good. For others, it's not.

Different games, different styles, different goals.


(for that matter.... locational damage with super-weakspots... like head insta-kill.... would be boring as hell. Run up to guy, hit him in head. He dies. Next guy, hit him in the head. He dies. Next guy..... blah, blah, blah. People are already complaining it's too easy, and that the game shouldn't be 1-shotting things.)


re: VATS. Loved VATS in Fallout. One, it was a nice callback to the earlier games' combat system. Two, the slow-mo scenes were fun. Three, there were situations where I just couldn't hit things, so I used VATS to do it. (like, hyper animals at point black range, moving too fast for me to aim decently. Yes, I'm not some uber FPS player. Deal with it. )

It's been awhile but I remember we'd play with an option of if we rolled 19 or 20 we could cause instant kill damage. But I think we just made that up. People have no idea how far gaming has come since then and therefore don't appreciate it as much. They seem to think that if they can imagine it, then it should be in the game.

ice-spear to the torso?
Shatters against armor

A war-hammer to the head?
Breaks the horn of a horned helmet


A fireball?
Weak spell singes the eyebrows

1. In-game, ice-spears dosent shatter against armour. It goes into your chest, destroying heart and lungs and got knows what. Dead.

2. Are you kidding? you don't survive such a blow. And if you do, you be so confused you be an easy target. Not that anyone would actually use a horned helmet in a fight.

3. Depends on the spell.

Well... It's an RPG with numbers.
Enemy has X in health and you have Y in damage with Z, you need to hit the enemy ? times to kill it.

I'm fine with that.
What bothers me is that X is ridiculously high for enemies and Y is too low for them, ending up with me never dying and them taking forever to kill by chipping away at their health.

RPG's shouldn't be too realistic with damage.
I do think that they should have used locational damage for heads though, that only makes sense.

that would make it even easier

Aiming for specific body parts have been a part of RPGs for a while. D&D even has a feat for it.

people tend to forget one important fact: RPG or no, Skyrim is not a shooter. Oh sure you tend to shoot magic and arrows, but you're going to use melee weapons more often.

And you cannot aim with melee weapons. Have you ever hit anything other than the head and torso of the enemy?

You cannot add any manner of RPG element into this, unless it is about something like VATS, and not even player skill take any hold here as it relies more on luck, than skill.