For example, i kill character A, who is involved in a quest which i havent started yet; what will happen? Would the character definitely be an essential NPC (he'll revive after being killed) or i cant start the quest in the future? Because i have this feeling of murdering lots of people :flamethrower: and i wouldnt want to hurt my chances of a nice quest

The character has to be non-essential for them to be able to die. But yea, if you kill a non-essential character who is required for a quest, that quest will not start or in some cases end the way it would. Mazoga the Orc is a great example. Kill her (or if she gets killed) and the quest will not finish "properly".

Some NPCs (non-player characters) are essential, though. These chars cannot die, because their associated quests would die along with them. Instead, they go unconscious. Kinda lame sometimes. :confused:

Yes, Bethesda solved this "problem" by simply preventing you from killing quest NPCs.

And yes, I think it's a somewhat strange and lame approach. But it's hard to see what alternative was available. They could do something like have an indication that the NPC is quest related (maybe a scroll over icon). But the problem with that is that some NPCs might be killed by other NPCs or Creatures, robbing you of that quest.

Plus people can get killed by say a bear in the wilderness, and that wouldn't be good if they were required for the main quest or something, like Savlian said.

If you're on the PC you can make people 'essential' yourself using the command console. This is useful for NPCs you like and don't want to get killed.

The other day I discovered a body on the way to Bruma - an NPC, not a bandit. I didn't kill him and I wasn't around when he died so I can only assume it was a wolf or something and he couldn't defend himself. He only had a dagger on him and it wasn't equipped. Poor bloke. I'd never met him before, but I'd be devastated if it was an NPC I actually liked.

I love it when this happens. There's just this dead body, nobody around, no creature that could have killed it. This is one of the best features of Oblivion imo...this sort of randomness!




They coulda maybe had some essential NPCs act like chickens. Like if there's any sort of combat, they go off and hide somewhere. :bolt: But I understand this would take a lot of programming which Bethesda probably couldn't accomplish at the time for a variety of reasons. I'm also hearing Skyrim is gonna have some sort of ways around essential NPCs which isn't as basic (lame) as Oblivion's, but I forget how it's supposed to work. I know with some NPCs, like if it's a shopkeeper that gets killed, a family member of him or her can possibly take over the shop.

So i cant go killing anyone i see then?
The unconscious thing's pretty fun sometimes, when they're getting up i can either pickpocket em and they wont notice or i could slash em again