Lately I have been going on adventures with my little A-Team of followers. KoTN knight, Battle horn castle guard, and Ice atronach from wizards tower. But nearly every other battle I have to reload because I killed one of my followers with my enchanted sword in the heat of battle. This svcks because it seems although my followers are literally jumping in front of my blade in mid swing. Is this a problem for anyone else?

I suggested long ago some type of mod where you could toggle Friendly Fire "on" and "off" on friendly chars that are following you. With FF off, you couldn't hit your friends (as if they were ghosts trying to hit them with a normal weapon), and spells would just pass through them.

I have lost several allies when they jump in front of a spell or an arrow in mid-flight.

yeah i got the problem...

I believe this would not be too hard to fix with a Mod-- if memory serves, the "Special Combat" flag in the Faction Menu stops an NPC reacting to being attacked by someone in the same Faction... I can't remember for certain, but if so, then it would not be too hard to make a Mod that runs a Script to add a new Faction to each NPC who could become a follower... May even have been done already.

If it's done, I haven't found it...

No, no one else ever has a problem with this! You're just a total klutz! And if you believe that...you're way too trusting.

Let's put it this way: even Oblvion's npc's have a problem with hitting and killing their allies. If you're on PC you could make your allies essential or maybe add a resurrection spell. If not, all you can do is keep reloading.

Mara

I never use melee followers, for exactly that reason.

I would be surprising if anyone doesn't have a problem with followers being hit or killed.

A great game, but followers are implemented very poorly. Their AI seems to have them rush in front of any attack you make just as you can't stop it.

That's the main reason I don't like followers of any kind in this game.

Other reasons is that the combat AI is awful. Followers will just rush any enemy or groups of enemies. I guess they think "Oh look a half dozen of high level Ogres, and I don't have any armor on and a steel dagger. I guess I'll rush into them and attack a point blank range."

And they are weak, particularly at higher levels. Enemies scale much better than followers.

But hitting followers during battles is probably the single most annoying thing about this game for me.

I never use followers; but on that note people helping me in quests usually get accidentally dominated

I nearly always make followers essential, for that reason.

Hard NOT to hit? I try to kill them rather than the monster. It's hard NOT to hit the monster, he keeps getting in the way.

Even horses suffer from this.

If they cannot be told to wait, I just let them die. Idiots in crap gear charging headlong into battle. Ugh.

Yes, it is a common problem in vanilla. My char prefers to adventure without NPCs. When she does a quest that involves a follower and a 'wait here, dummy' option is not available, she will generally go clear wherever they need to go before she takes them on. There are however, a few quests that require a bit more creativity. When forced to fight alongside an ally, she will generally take on the role of casting healing spells on her follower and let him do the fighting as she tries to keep him alive.

There is a console command to make any NPC you want essential, as drewb pointed out above, so they won't die.

There is another console command to make any NPC you want ignore friendly hits, so they won't attack you.

Both can be found in the UESP http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Console_Command_Tutorial

I always ran into that problem with followers. I recently started using the CM Comapnions mod and made my own Archer type companions. Now I occasionally have the opposite problem: they sometimes fire just as I'm positioning myself to do the same and I get hit with their arrow. :shrug:

Yes. So much that I would prefer something like VATS in the next Elder Scrolls.

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of battling in the presence of followers. It's so bad, it almost seems intentional.

I invariably get around it by reloading and changing strategy... all so that I can say I did it 'honestly'. :laugh:

This happens all too often and is particularly annoying when I hit my horse and it decides to try and kill, me thus leaving me stranded (I use a mod that disables fast travel).

Unless that mod also disables your legs, you're hardly left stranded.

No need to be a smart-ass you know what I meant :wink_smile: (In case you didn't it means I have to walk the rest of the way to my destination which is usually quite far away)