Now, before moderators get up in arms over this subject, I want to make it clear that I want or present nothing but a civil discussion on aspects of the system that may pose interference to future gameplay.

In one interview, it was mentioned that if we committed a crime, it was possible to clear ourselves of any bounty, by removing witnesses to the said act. This alone is a non issue until you propose the idea that certain creatures of Skyrim, cannot be harmed. I.e Children. Now, I have two little nephews who I would protect very seriously if it came down to it, so before anyone gets up in arms, I am simply trying to point out that in a system where it boasts being able to take out witnesses, it becomes impossible to clear your name when you can't take out one of them because it so happened to be a child.

Now, with that said, I am sure many of you are familiar with Fallout 3. But how many of you are aware of the EXP glitch? If you're not familiar, the idea was that if you attacked a child while they were asleep and you were in stealth mode, it would count as a kill in spite of the child being perfectly fine. You could do this numerous times and gain mass amounts of experience by simply exploiting the system. Thus, the very idea that children were affectively immortal, was game breaking.

And don't get me started on the apparently unpredictable Dragon's of Skyrim, who at any point could attack a small village, leaving everything in it's wake, dead. Except....

((But jokes aside, discuss.))

P.S and remember, keep it civil.

Hi, all children-related discussion goes here: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1227045-children-in-skyrim-restricted-discussion/page__hl__children

It's impossible to discuss these issues, considering the mass amounts of posts focused on what the initial first post states. Therefore, I made a new thread.

I think you may be misremembering the interview. Once your crime is reported, you can't clear your bounty by killing the witness. It's my understanding that you have to kill the witness before they report it.

The main point should be that if you're going to commit a crime, don't have any witnesses. Otherwise you're going to be in a bit of trouble.

That's what I meant. So, the point still stands that a child can report the act and because you cannot have the ability to stop him, a bounty goes on your head.

This would effectively be possible in Skyrim, but it is just as efficient as beating up your own summon, plus hitting a child will assuredly give you a bounty. That is hardly game-breaking.

As to the first comment, I'm sure that will be an issue, but one that we will simply have to avoid. In Vix's excellent post about his experience at the Eurogamer expo he only saw one child throughout his 40 minutes of gameplay, so I doubt they will be the ubiquitous invincible tattletales that you suggest.

I don't see how this qualifies as a glitch. It may seem unfair, but let's be somewhat realistic about it. Would you even consider killing a kid in real life to cover up a robbery? Because if so, you'd be a very dumb criminal. Completely ignoring the moral problems, you'd be creating a massive manhunt for a killer.

There are other ways to remove the bounty besides the most obvious way.

what about a bribe system to fix this issue of course there would be instants that this would not work eg killing the kids parents or murder in general

This is also the medieval times. People killed their own brothers, just so they could have the throne. You're speaking with the mentality of 21st century person. If a person is roleplaying a character that has no remorse, that simply wouldn't bother them. Personally, I play the hero type. But if I wanted to go the other route, I wouldn't think twice because this is a game and not real life.

What if they set children to not be witnesses?

Also, this thing gonna get locked down.

And you can prove this for a game that is not out yet? Just below your post, a bribe suggestion was posted, which is a great idea. But, we don't even know if it's even implemented.

They've always had ways of removing a bounty.

Spells. Poisons.

We aren't talking about simply hitting a child. We are talking about taking out a witness. As per your example, what if you snuck into a families home? They might be more prevalent there.

And can you please post said thread?

Unless they have a spell to erase their memory, the only spell I can think of is the one to calm them and calming someone doesn't mean they can't report it. As for poisons, if you're referring to things like sleep potions, that also does not prevent them from getting up and telling someone.

Remember, you can drop a sword in the woods and some guy may just return it to you awhile later, in force, or in kindness. So, the same can be said for someone who reports you not right then, but later when you're already gone and out of sight.

Thats true, but it still all depends on if the Guards are telepathic or not. If they fix that I think we can live with not being able to eliminate the child witness.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1232710-my-eurogamer-experience-part-2/
that is part 2, but he links the first thread which has his account. He answers questions throughout the thread about his experience. Its a good read

People take this "unkillable children" thing way too far.

There always were invulnerable people in TES, this isn't the first time!


For the assassin thing: Don't do it near children, or even better, DON'T GET CAUGHT AT ALL!
For the glitch thing, there are/will be a lot worse exploits, this has nothing to do with children.
And for dragons, they've been designed in such way, they won't raze entire cities (mostly because I doubt they can even do that)


Why doesn't somebody complain how dogs will ruin the game too, or something, this children thing is getting ridiculous.

All child discussion goes in http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1227045-children-in-skyrim-restricted-discussion/page__hl__children thread.

This isn't necessarily about children, I just saw those features as major gameplay issues. If you foresee anything else, please post away.

As for what you said:

1. That won't always be easy to do/say in the beginning of your game. My first experience with Oblivion was being desperate for a weapon because I kept getting killed by wolves. Desperate times equal desperate measures.
2. That was just an example of what was done, due to children being immortal in Fallout. It has everything to do with that point.
3. I said a town, not a city. Like a little rural village you might come across on your way to a bigger place.

I already covered this in my second post.