From my experience across 4 characters and nearly 200 hours played, it ALL depends on your armor rating + armor skill.

If you have low armor value the enemy will have a much higher chance to 'roll' a 1 shot / decapitation hit because you do not have the necessary armor OR large enough health pool to negate their potential damage (per single hit).


Lets see a possible scenario (accurate to the best of my knowledge and understanding, so take it with a grain of salt)

You have:





You meet a Bandit leader, he is more powerful than your average run of the mil creature as after all, he is a leader.

Lets say the leader has the POTENTIAL to hit for 200 (with his nice 2 hand weapon)

You both come face to face, you get a couple of good blows off, but the leader is able to hit you with his massive 2 hand weapon dealing his potential 200 damage.


~Now lets break this down~
Outcome (OCM) = Current Health(HP) - Incoming Damage (DMG)

Incoming damage(DMG)= 200 (the value which the leader hit you for) - your mitigation (through armor)

as previously stated 250 armor = ~37% of physical damage mitigation

Therefore you only actually receive 63% of the leader potential 200 damage

And so;

DMG = 200 * 0.63
= 126
You ACTUALLY get hit for 126 damage

Assuming you started your ordeal with the bandit leader at full heath.

OCM = HP - DMG
=230 - 126

OCM = 104.

That is to say, after 1 hit you now have only 104 health points remaining, But you manage to stay alive.




But now, due to what ever reason you go hit once more by the leader and you get hit for the same amount of damage as you previously did and this results in you death

OCM = HP - DMG

= 104 - 126
OCM = -22

THEN there's a % chance that you will either be decapitated /special animated death or just knocked to the ground like a rag doll.



This is why you get 1 or two shotted and that is why you can 1 or two shot enemies.

Though the values are widely different in-game this is the simple mechanic that is in place, except that there are modifiers in place (ie on master difficulty enemies hit for 'xyz' amount more; eg 3.0 x more OR 300% more )



So what can we conclude?

Increased amount of armor = greater amount of damage mitigated (up to the cap of 85%, i.e your armor will only ever stop a maximum of 85% of the damage per hit)

Increased armor perks/ skill level = increased amounts of armor.

If you need to stop being 1 shotted you need to increase armor, increase the % of the damage your shield blocks AND OR increase your health pool (HP)

Now obviously, for some creatures their DMG will be too great for you to prevent them from simply 1 shotting you.



Sometimes the game is developed so that you werent meant to survive that hit and encourages you to use Different tactics in order to succeed (such as using a summoned creature to take the damage from the monster)

I like it

Remnds me of old Baldurs Gate. Those battles required some strategy and often a few reloads

:D

I like it too, it encourages you to upgrade your gear and progress. But you still have the ability to overcome said encounters and proceed, though at a greater difficulty / more of a challenge

stop playing on master.

Yes
For example theres a 6th House Base near Seyda Neen that 1 of my early characters decided to explore at 2nd level. Fortunately I managed to survive my 1st encounter in there and teleport out but unless you'll played the game before theres nothing to warn you that you have entered somewhere much too tough for a low level character.
Mind you those inhabitants were mostly taken from levelled lists but the weakest creatures from a 6th House Base list are more than a match for a low-level character
Less extremely since bandits aren't level-scaled and their gear isn't level-scaled theres no reliable way of telling how tough a bandit is. A bandit of 6th level like Bolthor Hairybreeks (easy to come across on your 1st journey to Balmora) can wipe the floor with most 1st or 2nd level characters. Not a bad thing IMO but it does best suit a rather cautious style of play

It's not a master thing.

I've had it happen to me too. Once with a nasty forsworn magey type chick who one shotted me with some spell she used on me (I swear she shouted at me). A bandit killed me twice with his super fancy axe of death before I figured out it wasn't a fluke and I started taking him seriously and another guy got me too. These weren't bosses they were right in the middle or at the beginning of a dungeon. I've had less problems with bosses, or at least the appropriate amount of problems with them.

Hlaalu Ancestral Vaults with a low level Khajit thief.. harsh, harsh lessons learned :mohawk:

You guys are completely missing the point.

It is NOT the bosses in the dungeons, but trash mobs that become incredibly powerful.

Let me just reiterate that.

It's NOT the bosses in the dungeons I am talking about.

Bandit Leaders, Vampire Masters and all that jazz I am completely fine with. Yes, they are tough, as they should be. But they are usually not tough in the 2 hits and you are dead, even if you wear full heavy armor with high skill and perks. The bosses seem to scale just fine, at least in my experience. In any case, when I come across them I know not to soak up their hits but play smart using cover, stepping out of range from their power attacks and all that.

It's when you come into a room with, for instance in the forts, two or three trash mobs. Two of them you can eliminate fast, but the 3rd one is like a boss x 3 and will punch you to death faster than you can say lemon-pie.

Everyone seems to think I mean the regular bosses... please reread it

Lots of player characters can one-shot enemies, yet when enemies can do it, folks get upset? Why? Or do you mean with scaling?

It's all about adapting to the situation and learning from it afterwards. Once I finally clear a dungeon after multiple attempts I relize what skill made me lack the requirement for it. For example. I like to attack from a distance then close in, once the tough melee damage dealer unloads on me I notice my health diminishing quickly, to prevent this I put skills into Heavy Armor/Block anything to reduce the dmg on me. Once I feel I have leveled to the situation I can put it into offensive skills.

I know what you mean, I got into a fight with one random enemy and I destroyed his buddy in 2 hits, but when he got on me then it was an intense battle, he had about 10 times more HP and dmg was quite high, it's actually quite fun to me, I skill up in the defensive skills rather then throwing everything into the offensive, and provide the offense when my defense is enough. "The best defense is a good offensive."

Its somehow irritating how much damage falmer nightstalkers deal.(even with draconscale armor on)
Or dualweapon foresworn.

Fare more even compared with bandit bosses.

Good bosses require a couple of reloads and different strategies to win. Its a great feeling to beat them!

:D

I'm having similar problems with my mage. There are some fights I have to restore a couple of times, and eventually change from robes into light armor, and instead of using spells, go to a 2H - to kill the mob faster before Lydia and I are killed.

It's usually a mob of 3 or 4, with one or two of them being very powerful mages.

Ya, the difficulty spikes in this game can be huge. Its mostly mages and 2 handed welders that do insane amounts of damage on higher difficulties, so if you see those you know to watch out.

I feel as though the ones with disarm are the worse. I didn't have much trouble against that boss, but I hate it when they disarm me.

And yeah, some creatures, who are not bosses still seem way to strong. I hate it when I enter a room with two Gloomlurkers, who can kill me quickly and seem to always ignore my summon and go to me. I breeze by the rest of the enemies, and sometimes I can kill the boss easier than some mobs.

Indeed. Always save before bosses. You'll know they're coming if you see a word-wall ahead.

Two particular baddies that have killed me due to my underestimation of them? Both Mages.

The Necromancer at the end of Meridia's dungeon, and yet another necromancer (Seeing a pattern?), named Skalia Al-Guld, in a barrow that I cannot recall the name of.

They both shot that silly ice wall at me, and I was dead in two hits. Beware bastardized Necromancers! =O

I know the sort of enemy the OP is referring to; there's often a couple of, for lack of a better term, 'mini-bosses' partway through the larger interiors, such as Caster Adepts or Bandit Marauders, but unless you know that particular location already you only find out that your target is not a run-of-the-mill NPC of that type after you hit him/her. The Bandit ones, at least, are kind enough to display a huge 2H weapon (usually a Claymore) on their backs, but the Mages are sneaky little buggers; you usually don't realize it's a tough one until he blasts you in the face with a Bolt attack of some kind, at which point he usually kills you unless you have good magic resistance.

I tend not to have a problem with either sort of opponent, but then I tend to play sneaky archer types. It's hard enough for them to find me under normal circumstances, and doesn't get any easier after they develop a severe case of 'arrow-eye'. I should probably try with a Heavy Armor Sword-user, however I play Dead-is-Dead which makes it not really practical to do so since a fatality means I delete the character.

I don't mind bosses being powerful, although there are a few (notably Dragon Priests) that overdo it a bit, since they are the leader of their group and as such are presumably the best of the lot at what they do. I do, however, think there's something to be said for a down-scaling mechanism for bosses at low levels; anyone who has fought the boss at the end of Bleak Falls Barrow at such levels knows what I mean, as that's a massive difficulty spike if using low-end equipment. As that's basically the starter dungeon it's meant to be easy, which makes me question the scaling on said boss under those circumstances.

I like to have a challenge.

One or two enemies in a few dungeons are completely out of touch with the games difficulty scale, and passing them off as "bosses" doesn't really fly with me considering dragons are bosses but I know a few of the Arch-Conjurers, Volkihars and Briar Hearts would wreck any dragon I've faced. Ironically 10 minutes after defeating Alduin my character had his ass handed to him by a Volkihar. I will say this: all of them DO seem to have some form of weakness;

- Briar Hearts can be pickpocketed for an instant kill.

- Casters get roflsmashed by the Shield Charge perk. It's actually hilarious since you can just sprint into them repeatedly till they die (by this stage your shield will half any elemental damage you take when raised so you wont be 1 shotted).

- Bandit Chief's (the 2 handed ones hit like a [censored] truck on master) can be reduced to a minor annoyance through disarms.

- As for bow wielding Draugr Overlords at level 55+, just try not to get hit since doing so usually results in you sailing through the air with a confused look on your face before the auto reload takes place.

- Dragon Priests don't care how badass you think you are, they will continue to use their fully perked backpedal skill tree to annoy the living [censored] out of you as they tend to backpedal around the same speed my character sprints. All the while launching crazy amounts of damage at you, with a nice damage shield to finish you off when you finally DO reach them. Immune to knockdown effects. I think this is an easter egg put in by a sadistic dev to let you know how everything felt in Oblivion and Morrowind when you exploited the backpedal speeds, so you only have yourselves to blame for this.

I was doing the companion quest where u go to gallows rock and holy **** was that last boss hard... I was playing on expert and if i didn't block his first hit he got 75% of my health and then instantly killed me with finishing move... After a couple unsuccessful attempts i lowered the difficulty to adept and the boss was too easy... so apparently the damage goes up pretty hard if you move to higher difficulty... Seriously how could someone say the game is too easy on master? They must've exploited the game somehow...

Don't listen to them, like a lot of people on these forums they are full of [censored].

I know how you feel.

Eight generic dragur on my tail...running low on health, waiting for magicka to charge. Two of them get taken out by one of those spike wall traps, I take out four more with fire spells and a few swings from my ax, one of them is a spellcaster, switch to lightning, take him out. Health is halfway up. One lonely dragur with a two handed sword. I charge him, bashing at his skull with my ax while dodging his attacks, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen swings and his health is barely chipped, I check to make sure he is just another generic dragur mob; he is. He lands his first blow on me and my body goes limp sliding across the floor.

Yeah, that's very true. We have people saying all the dungeons are the same, and that all loot and enemies scale with you.

Liars, everywhere.

Somebody turned the Sarcasmatron all the way up.