First of all, many of the buildings are wood with a thatched roof - not ideal in the face of a dragon attack. Second, as someone pointed out, Nords do not run away! I did a minor quest for the alchemist in Falkreith. I was walking towards her with the ingredients she had asked for when a dragon swooped down and vaped her. Faintly annoying, but I like the general principle that dragons can kill bystanders. But I've never had an attack in a walled city yet - the nearest I've had is Solitude stables - just after I'd handed all my armour and weapons over to someone as part of an important quest. I learned an importnat lesson there. Nope, keep the attacks coming.

A dragon killed Alvon or Alvor, the blacksmith form Riverwood.

As I suggested before, my solution is to disable random dragon encounters as soon as I start the mainquest. This way I don't have to worry about dragons ruining my day. There are 10 dragon altars and several burial sites so, even without ever killing a random spawned one, I counted 19 souls in my bag: more than enough to 'activate' all the worthwhile shouts.

A more elaborate solution would be to restrict random dragon spawning only to areas far from settlements, in the same way dangerous animals are not spawned near them. Of course a dragon can wander or even follow beasts for some distance and that means there there will always be a chance that it stumbles upon a settlement.

It's annoying but more realistic and immersive imo. You can't always save everyone no matter how good a hero you are, sometimes people die

I really hate this as well. Random dragon attacks killing NPCs causes some quests to become broken or unavailable.

For me having an npc die during a dragon attack was one of the defining moments of many years of gaming, on par with the first time I had to choose between Ash or Kaiden in Mass Effect, and really brought home why I so dearly love Rpgs.
The game had pretty much just come out, I was something like 50+ hours in, it was the early hours of the morning, Skyrim had completely and utterly engrossed me. I had come to care about the people, I'd help out at the mill, cook food at the hearth, drink ale in the taverns, I knew this world and I was apart of it.

I'd stopped in Riverwood to buy supplies from Alvor, the man who'd taught me smithing, I'd met his wife and daughter, good, kind hearted folk.
When the dragon attacked, the people of Riverwood fought back, not warriors these people just simple people living simple lives but they were not going to stand and watch all they held dear reduced to ashes.
These people took me in and made me feel welcome in their village, I cared about them and I was terrified they would be hurt as courage alone makes a poor shield.
I tried my best to take the beast down as quickly as possible before anyone was seriously harmed.
I failed.
When, at last the creature lay dead, it's soul absorbed, I turned to find Alvor's body. He had died fighting to protect his wife, his daughter, his home and his friends.
In the silence as I stared at his lifeless form a single tear rolled down my cheek and I swore every gods damned dragon in Skyrim would pay.

but is it realistic and immersive to see everyone from kids to elderly to pursue this death by running after the dragon? that's the problem.

lol that was epic

i like it.
if you don't... reload.

people talk about all the essential characters, but, then a real example comes along WITH CONSEQUENCES and there is grumbling.

depending on how i'm playing, DiD for example, it is great to see meaningful npc's get snuffed. (i used to complain about the merchants in fallout3, as well.) at least the option is there to have people die and i must face the consequences. i'll reload if that's not the style i'm playing. no big.

i think starting a game and just living with the results is something people should try more often. i know it's taken my perfectionist gaming style many years to overcome!! it's not like you can't reload.

and, if you think reloading is wrong, then, why would you feel in-game death and consequences is wrong??

It would be cool graves stones appear in cemeteries for died followers and NPCs. Hard to keep track of all the dead ppl sometimes.

uh, ya.

people have been making shrines and memorials for years. followers have been around for years.

the ability to create our own in-game (consoles) testimonials should (have been) be implemented.

This is the best comment I've read so far anywhere in this forum.

You guys should check out my newest and best topic yet its my main topic http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1338766-the-skyrim-dragon-topic/page__fromsearch__1

Yeah you know I too get annoyed when NPCs die, thinking of the whole quest failed and, potentially failed. But, after some time playing, and getting into the lore/RPlaying, I found it very coherent for them to die, even... several should, and must die... so then in the next eras, there will be epic stories about how tragic was the return of dragons, in a worldly perspective the figure of the dragonborn as their only salvation - a dragonblooded hero, brave in his ways - and not some quick tale about a hundred dragons spawning that hadnt kill anyone but a couple beggars...

Why dragons appear in cities. Dragons have random spawn points. Some are near cities. I have tested this. If you fast travel or use a horse a buggy to travel and land just outside a major city wait a second before going in. Hear a roar? Ok stay away from city, a dragon is coming. If you go in the city so will he. If you fast travel straight to the inside of a city and the dragon spawns, guess where he is coming.... This is even true walking to a city, the dragon can spawn outside, the important thing is to not go in. They can also spawn as you leave... which is why they spawn so often at the college, everything you walk through a door is a chance for them to come.


And even following that people will die. They will kill anyone outside the city as well. Really... people who are not guards, warriors, advanced mages, etc. should run away. Modesi died for me, he doesn't even have a weapon..... A dragon should automatically instill X fear in everyone, like when you get attacked by 5 bandits and kill 4 without getting hit then drop the last ones health in half. He will run in terror. Same concept, if you don't even have a weapon a dragon should be VERY scary. Maybe instill fear level 10 in everyone it sees. Guards, warriors, mages ect won't run, but townfolk will.

Well, for some of us the issue isn't that dragon's attack and potentially kill npcs, it's that the npcs (well, some at least) are horribly scripted in how they react to a dragon attack.

I get that some npcs would aid in the battle (e.g., Eorlund in the OP, Alvor mentioned in another), and therefore are more likely to get killed. But when the average citizen rushes the dragon with nothing but clothes and a dagger (or their fists) *while* there are several guards and two heavily armed mercenaries (i.e., me and my companion) already engaging the flying demon, it becomes less a matter of accepting random consequences than accepting poorly implemented AI.

I, for one, don't reload because I don't like random consequences. Quite the opposite, I enjoy it. I want to be a part of Skyrim, not control it. I do however bemoan the crappy npc scripting evident in the ocassional dragon attack.

Yeah, that sounds about right from my experience. I almost always stop and check out the sky before entering a city nowadays (another way to check is to see if Wait is unavailable).


You know, that's a great idea. Attaching a lvl. 10 fear to dragons would seem a relatively easy way for the developers to fix some of the problems.

I say a simple fix would be to make a new status, similar to Essential.

Under this new status, no Named NPC can "die" to a Dragon.They "die" and disappear, but return like, 5 days later, under the excuse that they were "injured".
If you walk by they could say "That last Dragon attack was pretty bad, I wound up injured. But I'm back on my feet now" or if they like you, "Don't worry, I'm alright friend. Dragon only injured me. I'm fine now."

However Guards, Bandits, Forsworn, etc can all be killed by Dragons.

With the Creation Kit coming out for the PC version, I'm sure someone will create a mod that will enable an option in the settings (without editing files,) to either prevent Random Dragon Encounters (RDE,) or at least limit RDE to outside of X,Y areas on the World Map. Along with this, I'm also sure someone will edit the NPC AI to head to closed housing if unarmed and/or essential to gameplay.

This said, I'm sure something will be done.

As for Xbox, it's pretty much a SOL.

I actually like it like it is now, makes the game more intense. What suspense is there on a world besieged by dragons where noone ever dies ... boooring.

to me:
making the npc is killable by dragon is acceptable,

BUT ...


this is the problem, and it make no sense.
average citizen/npc should runaway/hide, instead of fighting. this need a fix.

They could probably just replace the dead npc with stuff like "belathor the second" or whatever, the model can be the same for all i care as long as there's someone to trade with.

Then have stuck dead end quests in your journal because you can not delete them. It would probably be better if you could and get the quests from the replacement NPCs later.

The problem is not dragon killing people. The problem is there is no viable mechanic to replace them. Killing everyone in a tavern, will leave you with a city with no tavern. Forever. Which is just not real. They tried to replace some of the npc's, but its handpicking, and doesnt work as a global solution.

no way that would be stupid to patch this. I disagree 100%.

unless your only 1 character do everything person, then ok, maybe a get mod to fix this.

otherwise I like this. It changes the whole game for my character. Also only 2 of my characters even have dragons active. only 1 dragon has actually torn up a town (riverwood).