Is there a mod that will fix their primitive AI to stop the suicidal behavior? They are always jumping right in front of me when I am being attacked by wildlife and then slapping me with bounty.

Oblivion is superior in this regard because Oblivion guards will give a warning before hitting you with bounty for an accidental hit on the guards. They also don't just appear out of nowhere the way the Morrowind guards do.

Morrowind guards poor AI is annoying. Is there a fix?

Seems to me you came for trouble, and got more than you bargained for.

No, I didn't come for trouble. I was defending myself from a cliffracer at the edge if town with a short blade. I hit it once. I drew my weapon back and released a second time and a guard appeared in front of me as the weapon was going forward and got hit. Based on that one hit, he slapped me with a fine. It's poor AI, which I guess is understandable in an 11 year old game, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

What I usually do if I am attacked in town or close enough to town that I suspect I'm in the guards' radius is just back off and let the creature follow me into town or, if already in, attack. In other words, I do nothing and let the guards jump in and handle it. Never lost any health points or gold doing this, just the thrill of killing the creature myself. And, there are loads of cliffracers to attack you outside of town. My rule of thumb is that if I'm too close to town to sleep there, I'm too close to fight there.

Thanks. That sounds like the best way to deal with the situation. I think I will start doing it as well. Fighting creatures in town is just a no win situation the way the guards jump in front of your blade.

I think we've all been harassed by Guard AI for the last 10 years

Nothing comes to mind except http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=6006

It's not what you're looking for, but it will at least help protect against the DB assassins, and various quests.

I'm thinking that there is a mod that adds even more Guard AI.... but I can't recall it right now

You could tell I was frustrated with the guards? yeah, pretty frustrated after it happened twice in a short of period of time. The first time was Hla Odd. Fighting a slaughter fish when a guard dropped off a dock onto my head and slapped me with an immediate bounty. Really annoying if you have stolen quest items in your inventory.

Looks like that mod though does exactly the opposite of what I want. It makes te guards more protective and I'd rather they just stayed out of my way, unless I commit a crime. I should write a mod and call it "less protective guards" but it might be complex because the wildlife might attack townsfolk who would be defenseless without the guards rushing in to protect them.

I think just ignoring wildlife in town, running away from it, and letting the guards take care of it themselves may be the way to go.

Actually, guard AI is the pinnacle of success in achieving realistic intelligent behavior.

For example: How many times have you been paid to escort someone, only to be confronted with a hostile creature during the trip? Invariably, you try to position yourself between the hostile and the person you're paid to protect and quite often, the person who is supposed to let you do your job tries to jump in and attack, sometimes even hitting you with a damaging attack or spell in the process. When that happens, tell me that you wouldn't raise the price of your services if you had the option, and that you wouldn't punch them in the nose for not staying out of the way and letting you do your job if it wasn't a crime and wouldn't screw up your quest.

Be honest; You can't.

Consider that the guards are paid to... well, guard. That's what they do. And as a citizen, you're one of the people they're paid to guard. They place themselves between the danger and the person they're being paid to protect (you) and try to kill what's attacking the person they're supposed to be defending (you) when suddenly, a citizen (you) rushes in to attack and ends up hitting them with a damaging spell or attack. That's when they charge a fine to the person that didn't stay out of the way and let them do their job (you).

So, you're walking home from the movies one day and a mugger jumps out and attacks. Two police officers nearby see the attack and come over to arrest the mugger. While they're trying to apprehend the mugger, you pull out a pistol and accidentally shoot one of the policemen in the leg. Do they:

A) Tell you, "Don't worry about it. We get shot in the line of duty all the time."

B) Let you off with a warning and only take action when you shoot the policeman a second time.

C) Arrest the mugger for his crime and fine you for interfering in police business.

D) Beat you like Rodney King for shooting one of them in the leg when they were trying to do their jobs.

Considering that you have real intelligence, and the guards have artificial intelligence, if the guards do exactly what you would do (if you could get away with it) when your situations are reversed, and do basically what a guard in the real world would also do under similar circumstances, doesn't that mean their artificial intelligence is pretty darn close to the real thing? That's not to say I don't completely understand your frustration, but the guard AI isn't really all that horrible. It may be annoying, but it isn't particularly poor. Quite frankly, letting you off with a friendly warning after you stick your sword through some unlucky guard's belly because you don't let them do their job seems to be the less realistic AI option, even if it IS more player-friendly.

OMG, Toccatta, stop. You're killing me! LOL

The problem with your Police officer anology is that it would be like me and a mugger have guns pointed at each other, and are firing at each other. No police officer in his right mind is going to jump between us and get caught in the crossfire. Not unless they are secret service and I am the president. Similarly, no guard in their right mind would rush in front of someone actively swinging a sword during a swing.

It would be one thing if I came up to assist a guard and accidently hit them. That's not what I am complaining about here. The issue is guards rushing up from out of nowhere and jumping in front if your sword mid swing.

The game forces third person view because that is the only way to see if a guard is rushing to your "aid" in time to break off the attack and not hit them.

I have tried just letting the guards deal with the wildlife but sometimes they just stand there with their thumbs in their pockets. So, I've switched to third person view in or near cities. That is the only way to see if a guard is running up from behind or the side and is about to impale himself on your blade.

@Tocatta, This is assuming you live in a country like the U.S. where it's common (and legal) to own, carry around, and in certain situations, shoot firearms. In Canada the gun laws are extremely strict and even if you get a permit to own a gun they are only legal to be used in certain situations, such as hunting, or at a firing range. I can not think of any situation where your example would play out here without you getting arrested simply for having a gun with you. The closest anology I can think of is if two people were in a fist fight, and then, like the guards in Morrowind, a police officer ran between the two people and ended up getting punched. It would be quite idiotic for the police officer to then fine that person for accidentally hitting them when what they were doing was self defense.

I fail to see the problem with this, just wait for the wildlife to kill the guard(s) and then go kill the wildlife after the guards are out of your way.

How about posting guards at the entrances to cities? That way, they are more likely to spot the angry animal, and therefore are more likely to deal with it for you.

The problem is the wildlife chases me instead of the guards. I run back and forth right in front of the guards being chased by a wild guar or whatever happens to be chasing me and te guards just stand there doing nothing. At some point I need to deal with the situation.

If the guards would either (1) never intervene or (2) always intervene, it would be easier to deal with, but their behavior seems totally random. Sometimes they jump in the middle, sometimes they do nothing. If they do nothing and the wildlife keeps pursuing my character, he's going to eventually need to deal with it.

Third person seems like the best of a bad situation, when it comes to wildlife in the city when the guard seems to do nothing an the wildlife is pursuing you. That way you may get some warning if the guards change their mind and decide to jump in at the last minute.

Maybe they are just cowards since both times try jumped in front of me they waited until the wildlife was on its last legs.

After playing the game for 11 years, I have never once had problems with the guards like this.

Stop doing any combat in towns. Problem solved

Why do you have wildlife within the towns?
Must be a mod. Unless you are letting creatures follow you into town, and that's just asking for trouble.

It happens for me sometimes that an animal comes into town, and it's not because of mods as far as I know. If they have spawned close to the town, they sometimes come close enough to draw the guards' attention. What I've noticed is that guards will attack any hostile animal, but when an NPC is hostile, they do nothing.

About 6-8 months ago I was doing some experimenting relating to this and I drew some conclusions. If you are close enough to a guard when you draw aggro, the guard WILL jump in. This may or may not relate to AI distance setting. If you are outside this distance when you draw aggro, the guards will not care at all unless you manage to cross a cell boundary...then sometimes they care.

Hmm. When my character is very low level (1 to sometimes 3), and I am attacked outside the town by a creature I know (or suspect) I am not well enough dressed or armed to handle, I tend to run back into Seyda Neen and stand next to the closest NPC I can find. Before the creature gets close enough to hit me, a guard always jumps in and takes care of the creature. That was in vanilla. Since then, I have installed the Protective Guards mod and they are even quicker to react.

You say you don't want guards reacting more, Turija, but it sounds to me that you would probably appreciate the added protection ingame. Your post even states it would be your second choice.

And, as for the policemen and mugger anology, let's think that over a little more carefully. In the US, a policeman arriving at a fight between two citizens, whether it is hand-to-hand, knives or guns, isn't going to know who is the aggressor and who is the defender. Neither will be wearing a sign. Therefore, they will attempt to stop both fighters by whatever means necessary and then try to work out the circumstances. Trust me. If you shot a police officer in the leg during this fight whether you were defending yourself or not, you would be disarmed and arrested at least until after an investigation and probably until after a hearing. If you refused to give up your weapon, you would be shot. If you accidently injured an innocent bystander or a policeman in this fight, you would - at best - go to jail.

The issue here isn't whether, in a modern society, you would go to jail if a police officer were accidently injured while you were legitimately defending yourself.

The issue is the suicidal behavior of guards in Morrowing where they literally throw themselves on your sword. I am not sure making them more protective is the answer I am looking for.

Trust me. In a modern society, a policeman won't know if you are the victim or the mugger if he arrives on the scene after you start fighting. He will assume that one of you is going to hurt or kill the other and he won't stand around waiting to see who wins the fight. He will, indeed, attempt to break it up immediately. Not on your sword, though. With his own gun or baton. And, if he says, "Drop your weapon", I highly suggest you do as he asks - immediately.

And, for the game. If you don't know whether the guard will react or not, then you have a choice: Trust the guard will take care of it, or drop your stolen items as soon as you suspect you've hit the guard. (Or, you can hunt for them and steal them back again when the guard takes them away from you. They do not drop out of the game. There is always a barrel or crate someplace close to the jail/prison used by that guard. Find it, sneak in and retrieve your items.)

Again, I don't really see the relevance of modern society, but the guard shouting a warning in Morrowind would be nice because then you could avoid hitting them. That's the problem in Morrowind. No way to avoid hitting them if you play in first person because of the way they throw themselves in front of you without warning. You have to be in third person to see them coming.

The problem with your idea of dropping stolen stuff is (1) there is no good way to remember what might be stolen since once you steal an item, every instance of that item in the game is forever flagged as stolen (so you have to remember every item ever stolen); (2) even if you are playing a non thief, any item ever stored in a container in Glinith's shack or any other claimed home will be marked as stolen and (3) there is no time between accidentally hitting the guard and getting the guard fine/jail/resist arrest dialog to stash your stuff.

Unlike Oblivion, you cannot press block and activate guard to get the option to submit after you have resisted, can you?

In my game guards will yell things before running into combat, such as "aha!" and "take that!", if you listen for these, you'll be able to tell a guard is on their way.

That makes sense. It is consistent with my experience as well. If I am attacked in town, say by a cliffracer who spawned just outside if town and flew in for a bite while I was shopping at a local merchant, the guards react. If I lead a wild guar into town, the guards don't react.

Thanks for that. Not sure if I would have put two and two together on my own. Knowing that their reaction is based on whether they are in close procimity at the moment I draw the aggro will help me predict the guards behavior.

Now that you mention it, I do remember hearing some yelling and wondering who was yelling at me. It's kinda hard to hear though so I may stick with third person while in town. Then I will get visual and auditory clues that some crazy guard is approaching.

I thought someone made a MWSE mod that allowed yielding. I tried searching for it.
(I was hoping someone would have mentioned it by now)

Am I thinking of a different game?

There was a crime-enhanced mod that allowed you to yield by putting down your weapon and clearing your ready-spell, but that was a MWE mod, not MWSE... and the author stopped developing it when it became pretty clear that MWE was going the way of BetaMax and HD-DVD. Maybe that was what you were thinking of?