Guards, Fighter's Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood will pay their respects to their fallen comrades. I'm not so sure how to handle burying their bodies though, like when and how. My thoughts so far are to have the person burn the body to ashes once all the items have them taken from the body.

@ phoenix1213: Very interesting idea! I'll see if I can work this in for future versions as it will be complicated to do. But I really like the idea

Will the NPC's responsibility influence when and if they loot dead bodies? I mean, a nice citizen of the IC probably won't loot some dead body it finds on the streets, or maybe only when no guards are around.

Yes. Good citizens will not loot a corpse before respects have been paid and a certain amount of time has passed. On the other hand, low-responsibility NPCs will not adhere to such courteousness and may loot the body as soon as they see it. Same goes for NPCs in combat looking for a quick weapon or shield.

I have not set any restrictions on NPCs ability to loot (except for guards). Should some types of people refrain from looting? If so in what situations?

Hmm.. I'm thinking it will be cool for looting to be considered a crime and allowing NPCs to see someone loot report that to the guards. What do you guys think?

Yes, it would be cool, but it could break some quests, seeing as guards will just kill whoever has a bounty, and not send them to jail.

*Hmm... on the one hand it would seem disrespectful on the other hand like mentioned above you could argue that they're taking it to give to family or other personal reasons... but I would still have to go with no.
*No
*Not sure if this is how it is already didn't read everything you have them doing/planned, but I would say they only loot stuff that's on the ground in combat, and then they go rifling through bodies when they get out of it. Because realistically you wouldn't have time to loot a corpse during a fight anyway.

Also, just based on the (funny) video, the NPC's should walk not sprint to each corpse they check, if you can change/force that.

Hey guys, I need some input for this mod:

1. Should friends loot each others bodies?
yes, if they need something for the fight to avenge their friend.
2. Should guards be able to loot?
Yes, I think they should be able to loot anyone they kill. a perk to compensate for their poor pay except for the Imperial guard
3. Should there be a "cool down" period before a body can be looted?
if you make it to make it optional. I think you should be able to grab a weapon or money during a cooled but not armor. you can snatch of money and weapons but armor, you actually have to take the time to get it off.
4. Should NPCs be able to loot any item on the ground or just weapons and sheilds near dead bodies?
Any item... depending on what npc and their current inventory.
5. Should NPCs bury their friends?
I think they should move them out of the road and if they have no friends left the guard should do the same.
6. What should I call the mod since "Finders Keepers" is already taken?
keep it "finders keepers"

in cities, I think the guards if they've killed someone and they should strip the bodies and sell the stuff{adding the money made into their pock is divided among how many guards are present during the kill}, if they don't know who killed they should strip the body and put it in a evidence box.(after a set period of time, they should sell whatever's in the evidence box) {maybe allowing them to buy better weapons eventually }

You're right. I'll leave it as is then... or at least until I integrate it with BRAINS and the guards killing NPCs over crimes behavior can be fixed.


Yes, I just made them run so it would be obvious that they were looting during my test runs.


Unfortunately this is simply not feasible at the moment. I will see about having guards deliver loot to an evidence box, but that's about as complex as I want the mod to get.

I'd still like to know if you guys think NPCs should fight over loot? For instance if they both try looting a weapon on the ground at the same time and the NPCs don't like each other, they'll fight for it. If so, should they fist fight? Should they fight with the weapon they found?

Let the tougher one stage a hold up sometime after the other picks up the weapon

Fighting will be good, though you'll need to make sure it make sense. 2 NPCs starting a fight in the middle of a city for no apparent reason will look more like a bug than an intended feature. Make one of them say the Steal topic - That should spruce things up. Let both of the fellows play the pick up animation and then call the "saying"

LOL that's a great idea! Now if only OBSE v0018 would come out so I don't have to code these pseudo setpackagetarget functions..

Ok. I've made it so that NPCs will fight if you loot an item they were about to loot and the item is worth more than 50 gold and their disposition toward you is under 50. Do those values sound okay?

No, 50 is someone that likes you but not quite friends. i think something lower like 35.


and so the AI takes another step closer to what Bethesda had planned to have.....

What? it's not like he would kill you over it hehe?okay 35 it is. Now I'm working on the ability for you and NPCs to yield in a fight over loot thereby giving up the loot you or the NPC just took.

actually, you could make it a bit higher if the loot is if its over like 1000, that would cause even friends to argue. but say he started beating you up, and you hit him a few times (say 50% health) he would stop and let you hve the stuff then. 50 gold is like pocket change to some, but is heaps to others (beggers or upper class people).

Its actually quite hard to figure it out, maybe you can put confidence, agreession, energy and (that other one) into it aswell, as they would all effect how they would act if they lost an item. a cowardly unenergectic NPC isnt going to fight over a bit of gold.


There are so many factor you could add in, so you'll have to decide which make sense and which you shouldnt bother with.

I've added a poll, please vote! This mod has become a lot more complex than I had originally thought so your votes will help me with the direction and completion of the mod. thanks in advance!

Voted, though the 1st question was really hard

Thanks shadeMe, I couldn't have done this mod without your help (or for that matter SHOUT! and BRAINS too)

to the poll, I answered guards -> evidence chest, but I really want to see NPCs fight over loot, too (but only if it can be done in a way that won't cause NPCs to start faction fights) (for example, in a purely vanilla game on my 360 a few weeks ago I was doing the mage guild initiation quest where I had to pretend to be a merchant and find out who was killing them. the two mages that were following me jumped the altmer after she started attacking me. a guard saw the two mages (the good guys) attack the one that ambushed me (the bad guy) and proceeded to kill them. a dozen tries later (I wanted them to live) I finally waited a few mins before the guard was way off down the road).

I also answered I want this mod now (but wanted to emphasize that I don't want it now that emphatically). I just don't care so much about the feature that they have to loot during combat--if you get that done and want to include it initially go for it, but I don't want you to feel that you have to have it included or have to not include it.

Man , How do I select all those options in the first poll ? ?? ? I can wait , but I can't wait either ! So many truely inspiring mods are coming out . The golden age of OB Modding is still in its prime

All of them...equally

I voted "NPCs will bury their friends bodies" though, because I'm interested on the mechanic of this. Will disable script simply be applied on dead NPCs, will there be burying animation instead, and will dead NPCs be buried near chapel or near their last...living spot?

Well, this can't be totally avoided but I am designing the AI to yield and give the loot to the stronger opponent. Of course guards will still step in if they see one NPC assaulting another over loot and friends may even help each other out but this is all default vanilla behavior and I think it suits the situation well. What will be really cool is seeing say bandits fight each other over loot and possibly kill each other if the item is worth killing someone for.

Wow, thanks! I'll take that as a giant compliment

At first, I simply meant that the bodies would be disabled a certain period after people have paid their respects and/or all the loot has been stripped off the body. Bodies already disappear by default in cells that reset but 1) bodies will stay in non-resetting cells and 2) bodies will stay longer in cells you visit often. At the most, I will include simple burying animations, but I feel going beyond that would be a different mod (and one that I frankly am not too interested in making).

How much should an item be worth to be worth killing over? 1000 gold? I'll make it so that if it's under this value, NPCs will stop beating each other up when their health reaches 75% or 50%.

I'm not sure, perhaps as high as 2000, but I'd like first to know though. You do take faction relationship into account, don't you? I mean, two NPCs in the same faction with high disposition (maybe applied as well to those with mid to mid-low disposition) between them should not fight each others over some loots, perhaps the most "respected" or higher-ranked NPC should get priority or some random probability to choose which NPC get the loot. Even between outlaws, there used to be a phrase "honor among thieves".

Fighting amongst themselves over an item might cause them to be distracted from an even greater threat (outsider). Also, I'm not sure exactly how that will be implemented, what I mean is the player have to be close enough to actually let the game "process" the "fighting for loots" scenario, am I right? I can't think (at least right now) where this 'scenario' most likely to occur. In a dungeon filled with Bandits and Marauders, both factions will certainly (by default) fight each others to the death, or perhaps among citizens after a group of outlaws charge into town? But that might http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8hetpJxXSw...

Factions will not be taken into account, more simply it will be based on the value of the loot, disposition, and responsibility. This way, bandits and marauders will still be able to fight each other over the loot (because they have low responsibility) while two mages guild members would not fight each other since they have higher responsibility and they get a disposition bonus for being in the same faction. If others see fit, I will make it so that thieves guild members won't fight each other over loot for fear of expulsion from the guild. Actually, perhaps I should make it so that MG, FG, and TG all won't fight another member from the same guild..

Who gets to keep the loot? I'm trying to make this simple right now, when BRAINS comes out its more intelligent decision making will be incorporated in Finders Keepers. Right now the NPC who takes the loot is the one who is winning the fight (measured by who is losing hp slower). I might also factor in each NPCs level, but I don't think it is very important at the moment.

NPCs will be smart enough not to fight over loot when there are threats around (evaluating combat situations in the main principle of http://tinyurl.com/sycBRAINSwhich this mod is a part of). The fighting over loot scenario will happen whenever two NPCs try to pick up the same loot item at the same time. The cell must be loaded for this behavior to occur so it will definitely happen if the NPCs are in the same interior or exterior cell as the player and it may even happen outside of the current cell if your game is configured to load surrounding cells (at least that's my guess).

About the "side-effects" yes, it is a possibility that NPCs will get in a faction war, but if it does happen it will be rare and NPCs will yield to each other fairly quickly anyways unless the item is worth killing over.

I guess responsibility based behavior makes more sense. And you mentioned BRAINS there... you're still working on that too, aren't you?

Yup, they shouldn't, at least in my opinion. One of the other effects is this might cause certain questlines to be broken due to death NPCs in the Guild.


Heh, I never know NPCs can yield, or ever yield in my game for that matter