Shop keepers and merchants need to be regarded as essential npcs and should not be able to be killed by dragons or rogue vampires this is rediculous and should be fixed!

No, instead the shopkeepers and merchants should be made to run from vampires and dragons. Having them just be unkillable is a weak solution.

Last thing we need are more essential NPC's. Just load up a save before they died and save them.

This. The entire "essential" concept could be thrown out if Nazeem didn't try to be a hero and fight a dragon with his dagger.

No, I say throw out the whole essential system and just make smarter NPCs.

I completely agree, I think merchants are a lot more essential than a lot of other "essential NPC's".

I'm just saying, if I want to hunt down and kill every jarl in Skyrim I should be able too, even if it ruins many opportunities for me, that's the price players should should have to pay for the way they play.

no essential NPC's and allow droppable quest items.

There ya go. This one. Weak NPCs should be programed to run and hide. Let the guards handle it.


Agree. Plus, I've had chars in the past who (for whatever reason) get into fights with various NPCs, including the occasoinal shopkeper. This is all RP stuff. It would border on game-breaking to have uber shopkeepers running shops.

What does everyone think of the "protected" status that some NPC's can have? It's like a temporary Essential status I believe, but the player can still kill them. Could that be implemented effectively enough to please players like the OP, while keeping players like me happy?

Merchants should be protected, that is they can be killed by the player but not by monsters/NPCs.

i would prefer no essential NPC's because I really want to kill maven.

I think the best solution is for shopkeepers and merchants to be killable, but that the game should spawn a replacement NPC to take over their duties. Give them a generic shopkeeper greeting package, assign them an alias voice and let things go on from there. I don't want to see more essential characters, but I agree that the function of merchants is fairly essential.

You would be able to. Protected NPC's aren't safe from being killed by the player, just other NPC's.