I'm not doing the DB quests in my current game, but I killed a Crowded Roads NPC after accidentally hitting it and not being able to yield. Lucien showed up and I ended up with the Blade of Woe. I didn't realize that you could kill him during the first meeting. If I do a little roleplay and sleep at an inn, move him to me with the console, and then kill him while still on A Knife in the Dark, will the the DB questline end properly? Will this cause any problems?

Thanks

You can only kill him the first time when he appears, later he's essential and can't be killed. If you kill him, you can't pursue the questline.

You can kill him during the first meeting. I've done that. That closes the Dark Brotherhood quest line. But you can kill him then.

You can't kill him after killing Rufio because he is essential.

I think the OP is asking if using the console to show have Lucien appear before killing Rufio and then Killing Lucien will have any negative effects. Probably not. Once you kill Lucien you should get a pop up message saying that the Dark Brotherhood quest line is closed to you. If you get that then my guess is everything is okay.

Like others said, you can kill him in your first meeting with him. When he dies, a message will show up to inform you that you can no longer do the Dark Brotherhood. After that, enjoy.

I'm not sure if Lucien's body will ever vanish, so...you could use him as a potential storage unit if you'd like.

Yes, the body does not go away (unless you use the console to get rid of it), so you could use it for storage. I've never found the need for "corpse storage" in Oblivion, because of the large number of safe (and infinitely large) containers.

If you know a visit from L.L. is going to happen, and plan to kill him, you can intentionally sleep in a place where it won't be a problem to have a corpse lying around. Some of my characters have used remote campsites for the purpose. Nothing worse than going to a nice hotel, and finding a dead guy lying in your room.

In my Barb-Ann's world, L.L. is permanently burning in the bandit campfire outside Vilverin.

Why would you want to kill such a good friend anyway?

Every time I play a non-murderous character, I look forward to slaying that low-life.

Barb-Ann not only killed him, she threw his corpse in the fire to roast. One of my "angrier" characters stripped him naked and dragged him out in the middle of the road. He's lying in the dirt in dozens of places all around Cyrodiil. Good times with my good friend.

If I was a judging man, I'd suggest that you sound hypocritical.

At least you can party on with your good friend Lachance.

Way I see it, a good character murdering Lucien is exacting justice for all the victims Lucien claimed. This same Lucien would've killed your character if he was contracted to do so by the Night Mother.

He may be your good friend but he is not my good friend. I could never accept a cold-blooded killer as a friend. One of my characters might be twisted enough to want him as a friend but I never would.

This is how I see him, too.

And I don't see him acting like a "friend" in the game, either. He recruits an assassin, gives that assassin orders, and appears only when he wants something.

I do hope you're not being serious. I had taken your previous comment as being made in fun.

I believe that the way the game handles entry to the Dark Brotherhood is its single greatest flaw, much worse than the leveling issues or other commonly cited problems.

The problem is that the game counts accidental "friendly fire" incidents, sneak attacks on vampires, and too-quick attacks on certain scripted enemies (like Seridur) as Murder. Then it compounds the problem by giving the player-character no way to refuse Lucien Lachance's "offer," forcing a quest-marked weapon into your inventory, and an unwanted quest entry into your journal. This is an unforgivable flaw in the construction of a roleplaying game.

The only way out of the Dark Brotherhood quest line for a noble or lawful character is to kill the murderous assassin who has sneaked into your bedroom in the middle of the night.

I was joking, do not fear.

It is a flaw I had never thought about, but now that you mention it, it is a rather large oversight.

Also killing The Grey Prince after finishing his quest counts as murder.

The irony... murdering someone because they head an organization of murderers

What the quest dialog needs is an option for the PC to say "You fool, I'm with the Morag Tong!" Then the fight to the death.

A non-murderous character? But don't you have to... you know. In order to meet him.

And all that still isn't half as bad as what does happen to him in the end of the questline.

No, you can meet him by having an ally in the Battle of Kvatch jump in front of you when you're trying to hit a scamp. Or by accidentally shooting an innocent Orc Adventurer in a dungeon. Or because of an action that your Conjured Summon took.

I feel that it's not fair that the game forces "murderer" onto your character this way, but the only practical solution for a "good" character to avoid the DB "connection" is killing LL when he visits you. (Or pretending that you're not carrying an assassin's knife around for the rest of the game. Or modding that knife out of your inventory.)

Pretty sure there's a pouch in my character's backpack just for junk. Think there's a knife in there, and some amulet

I'm sure there is. And an awful lot of characters have them.

The Amulet of Kings, by chance?

That reminds me of the time that I accidentally killed Alawen when she was standing out at her campsite. I was not paying attention to where I was as I made my way through the wilderness in the darkness and saw a 'Bandit' in front of me. Ha! There went my Marksman trainer....

Oh yeah, that would be good!

I figured out how to do this. Load a save from before he visited you, murder someone if necessary, and sleep. If you don't have an earlier save you can just start a new game and do it in that save. When he appears, open the console and click on him so his name is shown at the top of the screen.

Now when you load your main save you should still have him targeted for console commands. Use the "kill" command and he'll die just as if you had killed him when he first appeared as far as the quest is concerned. The quest line will end and you'll be able to drop the Blade of Woe. If you want to leave his corpse somewhere and/or loot it, use "enable" and "moveto player" first.

I plan to bust into Farragut, "kill" him there, and use the Decorator Assistant mod to plant the Blade of Woe in his chest.