Well MY court that is.......meaning my conscience and rationality in deciding whether or not my long term Dead is Dead character of nearly 300 hours is to be ended due to an unforeseen and unfairly overpowered npc in game. I'm talking one of those rare times you come up against a normal looking npc that unexpectedly is able to deal at least three times normal damage. On Legendary and on Dead is Dead it's a game breaker for me

So, my reasoning in examining all the evidence and cases of other people's allowable re-starts comes down to a thought process that plays out with pros and cons not unlike a televised court room drama.

So with that theme in mind, I present you with.....


HIGH COURT BUILDINGS
Conscience Square
Mindcester
1st September 2015

Day one. The pre-trial in The case of Ulda Versus the State of Mind

Judge Rt Hon Ruthless Conscience Presiding

The unflinching barely blinking hanging judge shows no emotion as he takes his seat.
Before him the two briefs sit calmly at their desks. On one side the slick and precise prosecution on the other the rather less precise and slightly emotional defence.
The judge glances slightly to the Bailiff and in moments the Accused is ushered in to stand in the Dock. Beside her stands her user.

Judge Conscience "Please state you name and position for the court"
Ulda stands proudly bolt upright almost a full head above the chubby guy at her left elbow " I am Ulda, avatar of Rick"

Judge Conscience fires a melting stare at the guy "and you are Rick correct?"
Rick states much less boldly " um yes your Honour, I am part of Ulda's psyche and I stand by her"

The Judge leans forward ever so slightly "Very well......Ulda, you are charged with a most serious offence". The hanging judge fiddles briefly with some small half moon spectacles and fits them halfway down his long steep nose. He raises a paper to reading distance. " you are charged with continuing to exist beyond you natural point of death during Dead is Dead". He lowers the paper and stares at the beautiful Nord woman " How do you plead?"

Ulda casts a glance down at Rick as he squeezes her hand " Not guilty your Honour ".

" Indeed!" Says the judge with a flat tone barely disguising his incredulity. The judge then looks to Rick with an anolytical stare. "And you Rick.....whilst not technically on trial here today, you are a material factor in these precedings and should bare that in mind"

Rick bristles, but restrains his tone. " Your Honour I fully appreciate the seriousness of my role and I will accept the finding of this court"

The hanging judge peers down at the two Briefs shuffling their papers as if that alone was their purpose. "Approach the bench"
The Prosecution and Defence stand before the judge, beside each other and close enough to smell the judges aniseed breath.

Judge Conscience " the Accused and her user intend to put up a defence as is their right by my law. This case need not go to trial by jury IF either of you can convince me beyond any doubt that she and her user are either innocent of the charges brought or guilty without question. We shall retire to my chambers" The two briefs follow the judge into the small room leading from a door behind and to one side of his chair. The door is closed and the bailiff motions Ulda and Rick to sit on the small wooden stools behind them.

The small room is panelled in dark Oak and a large rubber plant stands in the corner behind the important chair. In the other corner an ornamental upright block of polished granite, black engraved with the words ' the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth'. The judge sits at his desk and adjusts a brass ornament as if it mattered. The two briefs sit in green punched leather tub chairs of the chesterfield style. their legs crossed in mirror image.

Judge Conscience rests his elbows on the heavy dark wood and brings his finger tips together just in front of his nose " Gentlemen.....the defendant is known to me as this is not the first time she has passed through my court. However, her previous transgressions must not be taken into account here." With the slightest of theatre he gestures an open hand to the Prosecution " you may begin"

Prosecutor " Your honour the facts are simple and clear. Ulda, whilst conducting a Dark Brotherhood quest, was shot by a Dawnstar Sanctuary Guardian by a single arrow causing instant death.......your honour she was killed and yet stands before us. A clear contravention of the rules of Dead is Dead "

The judge gives a barely perceptible nod and turns to the Defence " well?"

The brief unfolds his leg and sits upright with a nervous cough. " Your honour......the case is not so simple as my learned friend would have you believe. There are well documented cases where the reloading of a deceased character may be permitted. It is my belief that my client was unfairly killed in such a manner that she falls into one of those rare cases"

Prosecutor interjects " M'Lud this is nonsense, there was no external influence that caused her user to misguide her.....she was simply shot by an in game npc and now he wants her to walk away from that!" His tone reflects his annoyance

Judge conscience quietens the irritated brief with a single raised finger, and looks back to the Defence. His brow furrows. The Defence in contrast to the prosecution's outburst, lowers his tone, serious and flat.

" Your honour.......it is well known that unexpected in game glitches, bugs, coding errors and such can result in an unfortunate death and it is considered perfectly acceptable under such conditions to effect a re-load. The deadly arrow that killed my client could not possibly have resulted in her death were it not in fact bugged or rigged in some abnormal fashion. Her armour was proven to be more than sufficient in subsequent tests against that very same archer. Clearly either the arrow or its npc archer was temporarily grossly overpowered"

The judge considers it for a moment and looks back to the prosecution. " is that possible, a glitched arrow or npc."

The prosecuting brief gives a twisted smile " No M'Lud. Well, not impossible I grant you, but there is another mechanism my colleague here neglects to mention. We have something called an Extra damage perk awarded to a few selected npcs to keep the users on their toes. It is a perfectly acceptable feature of normal game play and though it can prove quite deadly, it does not fall outside of the rule book. It's programmed you see, coded, not a glitch at all"

Defence " your Honour it might be a coded temporary perk or an unfortunate bug......there's no way to know since upon death the game is reloaded automatically wiping away the evidence. You could be sending an innocent woman to her death on the basis of this mere hypothesis"

The hanging judge sits back in his chair. A snort escapes him. " Armour tests, extra perks, glitches....There is clearly enough here for a full trial.........we shall return to court"

The tall backed chair shifts slightly as the judge eases his big frame into it. The briefs now back at their small desks eye each other suspiciously. The Bailiff speaks to Ulda and Rick " Stand please"

The judge looks straight ahead then after a pause adjusts his gaze into Ulda's blue eyes. " Ulda, avatar of Rick. After deliberation this court finds sufficient cause to warrant a full trial......in the mean time you will not materialise within the game world nor take part in any activity........you are suspended". The Gavel bangs down hard and Rick gives an involuntary start.

Rick turns to Ulda and gives her a big hug. She looks down and smiles " Still alive then.......for now"
Rick steps back. His wet eyes meet hers and his faltering whisper conveys more than words " I'll liaise with our brief at once.....we have twenty four hours"


Tune in soon for more nail biting real time court room drama where the npcs are real and judgements final......

Well, good reading regardless of outcome...

You reloaded it many times and found that she did get one-shotted again, however rarely it happened. So it wasn't an isolated case. That said, I doubt anyone will judge you if you do keep going with her.

I'm glad I don't play dead is dead, cause I just got one-shotted 4 times by the same soul gem...

I don't get how a lesser soul gem suddenly surpasses any mage in Skyrim when put on a pedestal. Really, you can only add so much damage to destruction spells (+50% from perks, +25% from certain masks, +50% from shalidor's insight: destruction, which is very rare and fortify destruction potions) while these pedestal soul gems actually level.

Bethesda likes their overpowered traps more than destruction magic that actually deals damage ):<

/endrant

I can agree with that! the soul gem trap close to the dragon South of Riften is 100% deadly a good percentage of the time. The interesting thing about it is that sometimes you can knock it down with an arrow, and other times the arrow will pass right through it. Same thing is true with unrelenting force as well.

I WILL judge. And I say Necromancy! Sacrilege! BLASPHEMY!!!

Rick, by all means go for it buddy. I may not be familiar with whatever you guys over the DiD thread are smoking, but nobody should throw 300hrs in the trash bin

The thing is, it's rather a bit more complicated than that.

When faced with a character death in Did, there is the consideration of course of the hours invested in the character, the REAL pain of starting all over again and investing the effort of building up the character. Then there is the question of personal integrity to consider "If I reload, can I say definitively that I played DiD all the way and the character never died." That is the question that brings up the also REAL loss of time. How many hours might a player have invested in DiD play total with all characters? A thousand? Two thousand? Perhaps much more? ...and if just this once, I ignore the death, have all of those hours been wasted? I mean, if it ends up being a cheat, couldn't the player have ignored the death with the very first character or perhaps the second and continued on?

In my case, when faced with a question of final death or reload, I think of all the characters that have gone before, some of whom I really liked and enjoyed. Yet, when they were killed, I started anew and they faded into obscurity (save for those in the DiD graveyard) so, if a death occurs, and I excuse it or let it slide without good logical reason, it's (in a sense) a betrayal of those other characters, but even worse, it's a betrayal to myself. If I cannot hold true to a purpose in a game, what does that say about me in life?

Oh, and "Boots of Escape" Bwahhahhhahhaha... That's great!

Why would you say it is "unfair" that your toon was killed by a single arrow?

In the absence of an understanding of that I'd have to say quite unequivocally that, "Your toon was killed. If you reload it is not a dead is dead playthrough."

Not a big deal really, but the term "dead IS dead" does not seem to me to mean "dead might be dead."

Not to sound like an [censored]; I've done DiD and I've got attached to toons. But from a purist standpoint, these are the difficult "psychic" challenges we sign up for when we decided to play a DiD playthrough. Me personally, for toons I really identify with, I don't play a "pure" DiD style for exactly the reasons exemplified in your story. Rather, I tend to play with toons that I find "interesting" but I might not actually "like" much less "love." That way when they do die it is more like the feeling when you hit the downhill on a rollercoaster rather than the feeling when your loyal old pet dies.

Next time I guess don't do stuff that will put you in the sights of a one-shotter NPC?

You may also like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgYEuJ5u1K0

As Neil said this is not something to be taken lightly. The Court case as it unfolds will examine these issues.

At its simplest DiD play demands a dead char to simply not ever be used again. Full stop. Ah if life were only that clear cut!
You see a few people would find things happening outside of their control that resulted in char death and so shout foul.

For example you put your controller down, left on pause while you make a drink. Come back three minutes later to find your little kid/baby brother/ visiting friends child controller in hand and your char fading from view on rocks at the bottom of a cliff. Reload? Well it ain't your fault so yeah!
Ok, how about your playing real late at night, stupid late, way past tiredness late. Suddenly you awaken after a half minute of drifting off to find your char drowning and suddenly it's too late! Reload ? Well it's your own fault, but being asleep is not being in control so er well yeah reload!
Ok....something more taxing......you char is running and climbing across those jagged mountain terrains when stupidly you get your char stuck in a vee groove thats really deep! Can't jump on a steep slope.....can't sprint out......can't climb out. Your char is simply totally stuck and it's all your fault for not being careful....in real life they'd die of thirst/ starvation in days......so they might as well be dead anyway. Reload? Lots of people would!

There are hundreds of such scenarios where you can get your char killed, but for most people a reload is in order despite being DiD. So suddenly it ain't so simple.......

Now it gets really tricky. Your fighting a dragon....let's say um at Northwind Summit! It lands to bite your char, so you run into an empty shack and stand at the back. The dragon can't get its head through the door so your safe.....suddenly the dragon does get its head through a doorway that's way too small for it because the doorframe is not acting solid....even though it was when you touched it. The beast chows down and your char gets a kill cam........Reload? Well yeah cos it ain't fair that the doorframe glitched and let the beast in ( this has happened BTW).....so glitches and coding errors are also valid excuses to reload then!

One more...Ok. Another dragon fight. It lands but your amongst a load of trees. The beast is way too big to get between the tree trunks and it can't possible stretch its neck like rubber around the trunks to reach.....CHOMP! Dead. Reload?

Now your ready to consider the real issue here..........it's been well discussed already......but every once in a while, and it is rare, you will meet a npc that looks normal and might be a regular bandit or thug or whatever, but they deal a whopping devastating blow that kills you outright.
I'm talking more than Orc berserk rage. I mean like at least three times the maximum theoretical damage. You are stunned and that sound is your jaw hitting the floor. A real WTF moment. Now even if you don't play DiD it might mean you lose hours of play and great finds.....frustrating right? But imagine if you'd proudly kept that char alive for 300 hours only to be obliterated by what can only be some fluke glitch.....oh right well Reload of course, ? I mean that can't be natural right?
But after testing it by constantly reloading for well over an hour eventually it does in fact happen again just once! Is that still a glitch....well it could be! But then you research and find npc s can be awarded a secret behind the scenes "extra damage Perk" that gives them anything from a half to three times extra hitting power. That would explain your char's unfortunate death.....but not why it's not reliably repeatable and it's not proof that you did suffer from exactly that issue.

But your Char IS dead and IF you reload it MUST be for the right reasons and not because your looking for an excuse to do so.
FWIW all those frivolous " not my fault " reasons I mentioned first that mean people sometimes reload on DiD......I don't
So this IS serious to me!

As I said the court will examine the pertinent issues in the case, but Ulda's life is on the line, at least for this 300 hr incarnation of her......


@ Anthropoid.....hopefully the above will illustrate there are accepted exceptions to the DiD rule.....however in answer to your " don't put yourself in the sights of a ' one shotter' npc". You have to understand this was a regular npc at least like all the others that appeared the same......no indication that it could in any way deal massively abnormal damage. It wasn't a 'one shotter' but it just did, I've faced Draugr Deathlords with the ebony bow that do less damage.
BTW and FWIW...I'm no newb to the style I'm well used to losing my char over and over. Infact in skyrim I've heard Arvel screaming from that spider web well in excess of 240 times.....it's not that I can't cope with losing a char to a single arrow. IF it was a fair kill and that my friend is the issue! We shall see. The trial continues tomorrow.......

1. No, it's my fault if I fail to save, and then leave the game for someone else to mess up.

2. No, clearly it was me that fell asleep on the keyboard, so I'll accept the blame for that, and learn from it.

3. I can't see how this one is even a problem. Just fast travel to a nearby location. On the off chance that there's an enemy nearby, preventing fast travel, just reload. Getting stuck in scenery is a game glitch, and your character is NOT DEAD.

4. You're dead, so you can't see that, in order to get you, the powerful dragon smashed the doorframe so he could get his head in and eat the tasty tidbit. You're dead because you chose to hide in a tasty tidbit container.

5. You think a couple of trees are going to stop a dragon?

6. Your problem is that you're playing at Legendary (a difficulty level that didn't exist when the game was designed and balanced) combined with Dead-is-Dead, which the game was never designed for at all. This is the risk of DiD. This is the whole point of playing DiD. You're Dead, eventually.

I don't know why, but Rick loves to use me and my chars as examples, especially if it's what he sees as "bad behavior".

Anyway, this statement is wrong, because I use a mod that keeps the camera running for at least 30 seconds after death. My character might have been dead, but I could still see that the building was completely intact. The case was thoroughly discussed, and even Vatrou decided in the end that walls are either penetrated and broken, or they are not in fact actually penetrated at all. which leaves it as a glitch. In a reasonable universe, if collision works against me and cannot be negated, then it cannot be simply negated in my enemy's favor. Could a dragon smash through a wooden wall? Certainly. Could the dragon smash through a wooden wall and then leave that wall somehow miraculously intact? No friggin way.

Oh, I know that. I was joking, but there was a point to the joke: You KNOW that dragons can get past the collision boxes of the buildings and trees. If you rely on game collision to protect you, you'll die a lot.

One of my pet peeves is the way collision boxes affect arrows and ranged spells. If you're partially behind a wall, but can put your crosshairs on an enemy, your arrow ought to go there, right? Wrong, it hits the wall's collision box, and bounces away. But meanwhile, if you hide behind the same wall, an enemy's arrows have no trouble passing close to it, or even through the edge of it, to hit you.

But we know this, don't we? This is the reality of how the game works. If I blow my stealth cover by hitting an invisible wall with an arrow, and get charged by an angry guy with a big hammer, I've been affected by a game glitch that I know about, and that is part of the "reality" of the game world.

I don't play at high difficulty like you guys, but I've been playing DiD since Daggerfall, and often with gimped "interesting" characters. I've lost a lot of characters to glitchy collision boxes. I lost my character in the last DiD competition because she got stuck on a rock she was trying to jump up on. I didn't try to blame it on the game. I was doing something risky, and I ran afoul of a sticky rock.

"If nothing goes wrong, this will be easy. Oops."

I have no problem admitting that I'm not a "purist". I play for enjoyment, and that is the beginning and end of my positions on many in-game things. that being said, however...If my character had died fighting the Falmer in my story yesterday, I would have deleted the save games, and been on my way. If my character falls off a cliff, or dies valiantly while standing against a sea of troubles, then I'll accept it more or less gracefully, after turning the air in the vicinity of my computer blue...

BUT... You see I don't care if I know about a possible game glitch or not. What I'm more concerned with is the consistency with which the glitch occurs. Your arrow hitting collision is a great example. I KNOW if I try to shoot an arrow or a spell anywhere close to an object , the arrow will hit the collision box at least 90% of the time. That is a consistent glitch that I can plan on, and I don't fault the game (other than some more blue air around my computer, and nuns down the street hastily crossing themselves and checking under the bed for demons).

The problem is that if a glitch is NOT consistent, you can't plan on it any more than you can plan on an airplane landing on your car during your morning commute, resulting in you being late at the office. If that happens, do you explain to the boss that you forgot your airplane repellent, or do you say "You might not believe this, but..." (it helps if you bring the plane's prop with you, eh?). So the question is, should the boss fire you because in the past airplanes have been know to land on cars, and you should have avoided it?

I can count the number of times a dragon has reached through a wall to grab me easily. Once. Yet, I've taken cover from dragons behind both walls and trees many times, so is the glitch really consistent? You may have your own answer, but my answer is no, it is not consistent, and if its not consistent, it can't be planned on. If it can't be planned on, then for me, it's not going to count. That's MY court's decision. In the end of course, it's up to me... ... and I play DiD for me, not for anyone else, and anyone elses opinion is just that... an opinion, and you know what they say about that, eh?

Glargg......What! I don't even know where to start....gosh.....All of it !

Maybe you don't reload but there are plenty of talks about this and people who think it's quite ok in past posts.....I must refer you to the DiD thread page one where it's specifically states out outside interference is an allowable cause to reload !

As for Fast a travelling out of a scenery trap.....well firstly mate that only works outside....try it when your stuck in a hole or on the scenery inside a tomb......before you say poppycock I'll refer you to Greywinter watch....a small troll cave under the Ritual Stone. Go behind the green bush on the upper platform and see if you can get outta that ! Second ......Fast Travel is even more despicable than reloading !

Points 4 and 5 oh c'mon. Stop messin around....this is serious you know.......I think you already get the point, but I'll humour you for the benefit of onlookers.........glitches and bugs that shouldn't be there and may come and go can and do end up causing your char death.

In the quoted case those sheds would appear perfect refuges from the dragon. Bethesda are always literal they don't put prat traps in.....in other words if it looks like a safe haven then top dollar it's meant to be. And not as you say ' Tidbit container'. But then you find it isn't simply because of unintentional bugging out. That is a game error. A not disimilar game error can make an Apparantly solid bridge become a fall through death trap.....is that not reload able either......yes I took my horse onto dragon bridge once and it simply fell through!

@Neil. Got a persecution complex? Do you think I kinda pick on you? That particular case happened to be ideal for my point......but you got it all wrong buddy......it was nothing to do with YOUR incident...which I had forgotten. I've been chomped in those shacks myself.....once for real as it were and a few times subsequently testing it out! I even got trapped in there once by the dirt mount created when the dragon crashed.... The dirt was like knee high......but that was enough to prevent me getting out even in sneak. Yes I had to reload.....was that wrong too?

Anyways.....what gives? ? ? You know it's hard enough trying to explain to people OUTSIDE the DiD community as to why this is an issue and what's at stake......so y'know, thanks for the support an all guys......

I've had five beers, and I'm up past my bedtime. I just rode my horse off a cliff.

I could make excuses and say "Oh, its not my fault . . ."

Or I could just say, "This isn't a DiD character, so I'm not deleting it."

See, it's simple: Dead is Dead; Reloading is not DiD. Both are fun, and both have their place, but one just simply is not the other.

If you like your toon, keep playing it! But I wouldn't consider it a DiD character. DiD characters are special: they NEVER have died. If they died but you excused it for some reason, well it isn't really DiD.

I too have had characters one shot by archers then reloaded and had them survive several shots from the same archer.

I don't play a lot of DiD, but I do play some, and my understanding of the way it works is that you only reload after death of the death was the result of a glitch. That's how I've always played it. Granted, I'd probably also reload if I set the controller down and some outside force caused the character's death because that would not be a death that occurred during gameplay.

Of course it's up to you whether to consider this situation a glitch. It's a single player game, so you are the one who will have to live with the decision.

Sorry Anthropoid, but your just not getting it m8.......have a look at page one of the DiD thread. No one is saying that falling of a cliff is a reload excuse...thats your fault plain and simple. But what if while standing on the cliff edge it decided to become non solid? Cos that's what we're talking about.....you just go oh well no matter?....make a new char without a blink of an eye. Well in that case It sounds like you only ever played short lived chars that you've no more investment in than a few hours......no different to a reload really.......

Um.....what is a Toon? shes a statuesque beautiful blonde Nord warrioress......not Daffy Duck

I've recreated my char hundreds of times and I don't blink if she's killed by a spider, falls off a ledge, whacked by a bandit or Draugr there all known dangers and you pit your skills against their survival.......but an inexplicable massive hit from a npc that you subsequently prove can't take even half your chars health time and time again. But on that one fateful moment for some reason that could be a glitch....that npc is awarded the strength of superman and instantly kills your 300 hour char......and you just accept that without question....really?

I take it you didn't notice the smiley face grin at the end of my sentence there, eh? It wasn't meant to be a serious statement. In fact though, I did think of my case first simply because that was the case that got Vatrou to specifically address that glitch in the rules. If I was mistaken, sorry 'bout that.

I uh, kinda thought I HAD been supportive, eh?

Yes Neil...thank you....in your post to Glargg that crossed in the ether...I see you explained your take on random glitches that result in death.

There seems to be a lot of Flak under my wings...I do rather wonder if it's all worth the effort.

This particular incarnation of Ulda would be very painful to lose.....and of course it will be my decision. I simply penned out the 'court' case as an amusing way to show how, whatever decision I come to, has been arrived at. And I suppose to show that, humour aside, I do not take the matter lightly...... either way!

Perhaps you guys would be more kindly disposed to just wishing her good luck !

We may have slightly different views of gaming. But anything that remotely resembles a human that I "play" or control in a game is a "toon." Meaning it is a cartoon; it isn't real. It may strike a chord in my psyche or make me feel strong feelings, which is fine. I've had that and it is a worthwhile experience. But it is a toon nonetheless. You don't have to agree with me on that point, but I also don't have to agree with you.

If I'm just trying to play a DiD character by myself, without any interaction with a forum, I might well agree that factors "beyond my control" could be legitimately used as an excuse to reload. But I'd still feel a lingering sense of "discomfort" in the back of my mind that "this toon already died, so it isn't serious."

That is just how I see it. Nobody else has to agree

Well, I'll certainly wish her luck! I'm rooting for her, eh?

I have great admiration for dead is dead players. I've never attempted it in Skyrim but I've done it in other games, it takes tremendous attention to detail and although I'm a good player, I always end up having tendancies of being reckless or clumsy.

Although I know Skyrim like the back of my hand now so I probably should give it a go when the time is right.

I actually didn't know there are bugs like that in the game. If you tested it out and your theory is proven correct and it was a bug then I don't see why not.

Certain bugs I would consider legit. If I was playing my usual thief / assassin character and I got one-shotted by a an OP guard at level 70 because I broke the law. I would consider my character dead because I actually don't consider that a bug despite the fact the community says it is. I really do believe guards were meant to be OP in the late game so you don't end up slaughtering all of Skyrim without a decent fight. It would be a bug to me if the guards in late game were leveled normally like everything else, because we all know how powerful our characters get.

Of course that isn't the same bug you are talking about. In my situation, I broke the law, so it's my fault for not swallowing an invisibility potion or running away to a good spot fast enough despite the fact they could one-shot me.

Let me ask you this, if a legendary dragon snuck up behind me in the air and I had no clue he was behind me and blew one shot of fire at me and I died in like 2 seconds. Is my character dead and dead? Because I don't give my assassin characters more than 250 health max and I play on master, so that could happen.

Well if you artificially limit your health as the game levels up then yeah you're gonna die........I would have said the guards aren't OP, you're just under protected for that level. I normally have 250 health by level 16

In my case I had armour cap gear and 620 health at level 55........so I was very well covered and the npc in question couldn't normally even halve my health. Your dragon question yes your dead because the dragon is operating at its normal output and you are not upto it. That just being simply outmatched by an enemy that is known to be powerful.

The court must decide if it was a glitch or bug rather than an evil dirty, but allowable npc perk. And wether or not those kill perks should be ever taken into consideration!

I don't need to remind anyone that if it was a kill perk and if they crop up at random every so many load ups then were saying our chars are being denied the chance to live out their lives regardless of their level, armour or ability of their user.........it's a GUARRANTEED game breaker for DiD and that's why it might be fair to consider disallowing their apparant use. Proving it is very very difficult !

Simply being one shot by a known to be powerful enemy.....even one you didn't see.....for example you're in a tomb and a Draugr Deathlord with the ebony bow pegs you. On legendary you need about 500 health and AR 400 just to have a chance of sponging that arrow.....they are that bad. But that would be a perfectly fair kill. The Death Lord is operating as expected.....normal.....and with an often used weapon. I've lost a few chars to those undead super marksmen and I've no problem with that!

So one more convincer! How about you sack a Bandit filled Fort. A dozen outside bandits including a couple of Outlaws, but your level 18 and well,armoured with 270 health. A bandit hits you and drops your health to 220. You heal up and an Outlaw drops your health to 180, you heal up, so far so good. Suddenly a simple regular bandit hits you And your Dead. WTF how? Well he did a power attack doubling his damage to 100, but you should still have 170 Heath then. Ah but no......Bethesda included a mechanism that chose this one npc at random and gave him a one use only random perk that tripled his damage out put. Giving him 300 damage with his power attack. You've only got 270.....so....Dead. Now maybe you had that char on the go and unkilled for 4 months and maybe they had lots of rare gear....water breathing helmet etc. are you gonna just svck it up. Now look at the big picture......you want to use you unkilled char to do the big quest lines and maybe some DLC before they 'retire' and you know your good enough to achieve that........but now you know you'll never be allowed to complete your dream because of a stupid idea the developer had to make a guaranteed kill the player perk that happens randomly, but definitely. Like I said. Game breaker.

I'm saying no more until the trial......