So im playing this dead is dead character and i've come a long way with him and did not die once. Been acing it, then suddently I go to do a companion quest in Sunderstone gorge and this mage kills me with one hit of fireball. I didnt even see that my health was low or anything. It was instant death. I went back in there to the cave to see how the [censored] I got killed by one fireball and did not die this time. I even stood in the face of the same mages that blasted me before and let them hit me about three times. My health got low but definitely did not die.

Its a level 29 character with 280 health and I've been playing the game for a good amount of time and killing way tougher enemies than those mages in Sunderstone Gorge. I've also been fighting in Solstheim and the enemies there are way tougher.. so im really puzzled as to why the hell I instantly died from a weak enemy that shouldnt kill me like that..

My question is, does the game have like a forced death or something? Did they get tired of me not dying and decided to just kill me? or maybe it miscalculated the damage or the player's amount of health. What sort of spell would instantly kill a 28 character with 280 health? (like even the spells the dragon priests do in he Dragonborn DLC didnt wreck me like that! and I was at a lower level than when I died., So what the [censored]?) The mage was like an adept level.. not even a boss NPC.

Game's difficulty is normal. I am not using any combat mods other than deadly mutilation and the dance of death. Has this happened with anyone here before? Really annoyed because I invested so much in that character and I didnt even understand how he died..

I know that the game has these killcams that happen on the player (where your head gets cut off for example or a dragon just grabs you and throws you) and a lot of times those killcams could be triggered even if you really shouldnt die from them. Could this be a similar case with the mage blasting me with the fireball? I enabled player immunity to killcams in the dance of death specifically so that I don't die because of a stupid killcam, but im not sure if it extends to mages firing at you.