You could be working for the Dark Brotherhood, you could just be sneaking around a cave killing bandits that don't see you, or maybe you are just the friendly neighborhood serial killer, but there will come a time when you need to kill an non-hostile NPC. I thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of assassination move that instantly kills unsuspecting non-hostile NPCs. I wasn't to keen on just hitting a "friendly" NPC with my blade only to have them get angry and attack back. Not too stealthy. Shouldn't I have been able to do something to outright kill them by surprise, like slitting their throat or a knife to their back? Even the best warriors can be killed in their sleep.

I guess this could be way overpowered so here is what I have in mind. The first thing is if you kill a non-hostile NPC like this without sneaking, then you did a high profile act. Other NPC might see or hear you do it and will act accordingly. They will report you to a guard, attack you, run away, or do something else. If you use sneak, you might get away with the act depending on your sneak skill. Did it give away your position? Was there another factor, like your marksman skill wasn't good enough, so you missed the vital area and only wounded your target. In either case the NPC has to be taken by surprise to perform an assassination. That way you don't instantly kill anyone else after the fact.

i think fallout has a perk that does this, allows you to instantly kill someone in their sleep.

i wouldn't mind something similiar if it had a cool first-person animation and only could be done on some npcs. not all.

I like the idea! Being undetected should bring up an option menu with pickpocket or assassinate. Depending on your equipped weapon you will pull off different assassination moves. I am not sure what that would be exactly for a warhammer or similar, but this could have real potential. The success of the assassination attempt would be determined by a combination of your sneak skill, and the skill of whatever weapon you had equipped.

Mister Sandman was a perk that alowed you to kill any sleeping NPC undetected and gave bonus XP too. Since TES doesn't have perks i wonder how that would be implemented, since the mechanics of the perk were a little different to abilities.

I'm not just talking about using it while sneaking, but also being able to use it on your best friend in broad daylight. Its just the difference between a high-profile act and a low-profile one. As for the sleeping thing, I don't want to just do it while they are sleeping. That was just an example. If you are in an underground bunker and you have no one else around except for you and your trusting soon to be victim, then it really wouldn't matter if you killed them without sneaking. However if you need to kill someone that is always around other people, you might want to use sneak so you aren't discovered after the fact. In Oblivion, you did a high-profile murder for the Dark Brotherhood to send a clear message to the Imperial Watch.

This just came to me. Perhaps you could dispose of a body before anyone could investigate. In Morrowind you could dispose of a body, but I would like it to be done a little more realistically instead of it just disappearing. If you pull that off people might not be alarmed to your presence, and you can continue to assassinate the rest of them or get away without evidence being left.

I think a Deadly Reflex-style throat slit (or a less gory alternative like a backstab) would work well and add another layer to stealth.

How about a sneak-powerattack that you can do with daggers/shortswords? Just give it the basic 2.5x damage multipliers the other powerattacks get, but let this one also have the melee sneak modifier (x6 for example). So in effect it would get a x15 modifier. This would also make daggers/shortswords the weapon to choose for a sneaky melee character instead of a longsword.

Succesful sneak attacks on a sleeping person should always be fatal. :shrug:

I especially think it should be done with sleeping NPCs. It seemed silly to just start hacking and slashing them when they are lying on their bed, fast asleep... It would also give a nice to plan an attack: when are they asleep, alone at home etc...

This is what they totally should have done for oblivion.

The only issue i have with the oblivion style approach to sneaking was that at 100 sneak you could basically be crouched right in front of someone's nose and still be hidden, which i mean, yeah you'd be good at hiding, but at some point you're gong to fill up your opponent's field of vision and then they have no choice but to see you.
I liked the basic idea of the Mr Sandman perk in FO3, but it was just way too buggy in practice. It would go into the scripted 3rd person animation which was always annoying, you'd suddenly be standing on top of them as they sleep in tehir bed, your head would clip through any obstructions like a bunkbed or whatever, and then it would totally glitch out a times for a bunch of different reasons.

My ideal plan: you get an extra say, 10x or 15x damage multiplier when using a short blade to attack a sleeping opponent when in sneak mode. you get the instant kill effectiveness you'd expect from that sort of attack without a major change to the system they used in Oblivion, plus you don't deal with the bugs that come with some scripted interaction.

...Last time I checked attacking a person sleeping was about as much multiplied damage as attacking somebody in sneak mode. Damage is multliplied. I don't think there should be any kind of instakill if your not strong enough.

but think about it, even if you're a weakling having an opponent who's asleep will be easier -- and arguably guarenteed -- to kill, than someone you're merely hiding behind. If they're awake but oblivious they may not notice you, but you still need some decent skill to slit their throat, puncture their heart, or what have you without them raising an alarm in the last breaths. It takes almost no skill whatsoever to draw a sharp blade across a sleeping victim's neck and sever the windpipe and then stand next to them watching them flail and grasp their neck as they gargle softly while their lungs fill with blood and you smile to youself, thinking about how easy it actually was to snuff out the life from the delicate body in front of you that is now twitching with eyes white as they roll back, a thick syrup of blood gently splashing from the deftly laid wound while the final whisps of life fight with futility against the inevetable creeping cold of stiff calculated death.

Yeah, pretty much this. If you get close enough to be able to kill them with a dagger, it should be an instant kill.

Locational damage would allow this. Obviously it's easier to aim for a vital area when your target is not attacking you (is passive). As far as animation goes, some unique ones for passive targets like backstabs, throat slits, or two handed downward thrusts would be cool.

I like the ideas of only getting the assassination multipliers for using a dagger or short blade. In OB there was never any reason to use a dagger beyond roleplaying aspects.

I also thought it would be cool if you could poison an NPC's drink or food or place a poisoned item in their inventory and follow them around until they die.

I like the idea a lot, it would just be awesome! One game that I play that does this is Halo : Reach I know its a shooter but it does assassinations great, take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FQ-jxcMzXc

But I think something more like the assassinations in assassins creed would be more appropriate and realistic, the ones in Halo : Reach were made to be cinematic and make you feel bad@$$ :flamethrower:

Got a bit carried away?

Yes, assassinations should be like this. However there are still the creatures that cannot be insta killed, like undeads and monsters.

As Shadow Stryker said, anyone could kill a sleeping person. If you remain hidden ofcourse. If he hears you, then he ain't sleeping no more.

But I do not want to see something like Demon's Souls backstabbings where you backstab anyone by simply running against them and pressing attack, that would be terrible.

I can't help but agree entirely. It doesn't make sense to put a lot of effort into killing someone if there's no reason to. A sleeping target should definately be able to be insta-killed. A stab in the heart, or a cut throat would be laughably easy and each of those are fatal wounds.

I don't think there needs to be animations for it necessarily, but I would definately love to see this in the game.

That's kind of what I have in mind. Something when you trigger the assassination, a special assassination move happens instead of it just looking like you are hacking and slashing as normal. Thanks for posting this.

:nod: Makes the most sense. Being sneaky give you a chance to approach a NPC that won't move about too much (or wake up) ; starting from that, well, there's a distinction if you hit him square across the throat (instant death, beyond a reasonable amount of physical strength) or slash the arm (NPC raises merry hell, but receives a health drop proportional to where you hit him, and to your strength). Same principle with arrows. No matter how good or strong or sturdy the NPC is, if they got an arrow sticking out their heart, then why the hell are they still dancing about.

*edit* I disagree with a special assassination move, though. Seems way too flawless, a.k.a boring. Maybe some form of perk that would make aiming easier and quicker, as you become more skilled ? Dunno.

The idea of having a special "assassination" ability or huge multiplier while sneaking is somewhat broken imo. This of course being because the sneak skill in bethesda games is somewhat broken. There are many instances that you can exploit where you are in direct lighting and/or plain sight and you may become undetected for a brief moment and quickly select an NPC and peform said assassination move. I recall being able to do this countless times in Oblivion, Fallout 3, and New Vegas where I could just nudge into a wall slightly or something similar and become hidden for a split second and be able to pick someone's pocket or steal an item because the game is paused when you are looking through containers.

In order for assassinations to be implemented I think the first thing that has to happen is the removal of time stopping menu/container/dialogue screens. Also, an idea I have to make the idea of assassinations more balanced is to increase the amount of time undetected required to make the assassination ability possible. Something similar to "Manhunt" where the idea is to stalk an enemy for a longer time to get a better kill, except you have to stalk your target or remain undetected around them for a set period of time before you can get the option to perform a sneak kill.

I don't care if you're a 9 year old, if you stab someone in the back with a knife, they're gonna be terribly injured.

Make sure you add a skill check in their and it'd be great

Succed check you get the kill
(depending on equipment/sneak/ correspondent weapon skill)

Maces/blunt weapons would add a knock out option. Once their knocked out you have a 100% chance of a insta kill.

Fail and the opponent will fight/fly/or cower.

That would be best, in my opinion.Ive stolen many things by just hugging a wall and clicking a container the second im undetected.