Be it knowing that a character is going to screw you over, or simply creating a dike of a character that kills everyone (even if it's family. If I interpret the baby generation and timeskip vault dweller right), sometimes you just want to kill a character, only to have them kneel down for a few seconds before getting back up.

Don't do that. At all.

With the characters that you really want alive, Have them run for their lives (only really aplicable if they're likely to get away. The dog might) Or have them get incapacitated (like, lying on the floor, not kneeling). Then the player has the option of finishing them off.

If you absolutely have to have a character essential, then have it

A- Really good at escaping on low health

B- knocked out completely, to come too in a few hours.

C- Generic and replaceable. Wipe the memory, Randomise the name, scramble the face, add a modifier to the voice so it sounds different.

Biggest problem with this is line of succesion. If you kill Uncle Bob who gives MQ 1, then have Aunty Sue take over only to be killed by a werebear 2 seconds later to then be replaced by cousin It who just happens to get your stray missile in his face.......................they would need just 200 NPC to stand ready to replace Uncle Bob alone if chaos reigns free.

That aside, if you dont mind permantly locking up your MQ or Side Quests then sure, make everyone killable, just know the consequences might be that you are left alone with nothing but a box with three handpuppets as the last company in the entire wasteland.

Or they could just have a path similar to the independent path in NV. Its not that difficult.

For me to enjoy playing a video game all NPC's must be killable. They need to die from other NPC's and other ways.

you still f your MQ if you kill Yes man and he doesnt get replaced by a new one. Doable to replace a robot sure, but Uncle Bob Jr and Uncle Bob Jr2 and Uncle..................a wel you get the idea, human characters showing up just fine and healthy or getting replaced by otyhers when you kill them can create a system of locked up quest to which there is no end. Still i do agree with you, they should be killable, just means you cant progress anny quest related to them, i doubt anny relative of a character is going to look at you nicly for killing his/her entire village, only to then hire you to kill some rats in the basemant

Don't worry - professional mental care is available!

killing npcs should be perfectly possible, if i dont like someone let me put a bullet in his teeth and face the consequences. beth, we understand that killing something might have consequences, the people who dont are too young to play the game anyway!

What? This is a video game not real life and Fallout is a video game with violence. I don't understand why you had to say this.

He's just pulling your tail, as a joke.

ps: i can atest to the affectiveness of that counciling