Just wondering what people want, do you think there should be an option to turn unconciouse people off or do you just want it like in Oblivion or like in Morrowind were no one went unconcious.

I think it should be like morrowind but even if you kill him you could fail whatever the essential pc is linked to. it should give u a message to tell u your screwed though.

people could become unconcius in oblivion.(people that where esential to the mainquest couldnt die.)i would like the unconcouis thin to not exsist(even with children.)in less its ensentail to the game.

I think there should be a way to turn unkillable essential NPCs off, but quest NPCs should still be marked. In Morrowind it was WAY too easy to break guild quests or even the main quest by killing the wrong NPC, accidentally or otherwise.

i think you should be able to kill whoever you want its your game do what you want

You could knock people unconscious in Morrowind. Just drain their fatigue using spells or hand-to-hand combat. Done.

Of course that's not what you meant.

I think important npcs should have a special icon when you target them and be unkillable by NPCs only.

I've never thought of something like that before but it sounds cool, I like it!

Bah. No lame immersion-destroying immortal unkillable characters. Instead, consequences! If the main quest is broken because you thought it was cool to kill an entire town, whose idea was that? Yep, yours! So who should have to svck it up and live with it? You guessed it- you, the person who broke the quest!

Enough of this bloody handholding and coddling already.

yeah because everyone one loves killing someone important to the main quest, playing for 40 hours, and then realizing you have to lose 40 hours of gameplay or even start a new character becuase you can't complete the main quest

what you want is what I like to call bad game design

however I would like it handled a little more subtle than in oblivion. Let me kill every character but at least give me a heads up if I've broken any major guild quests or the main quests

true.but what if your in the main quest fightng a dragon with an npc who is essintial to the mainquest and he gets killed in the fight.thats not coddling thats just a game

Important characters only killable by the PC. That way it's your own carelessness that does you in instead of outside sources.

To be fair to Morrowind, it did tell you when you killed an NPC important to the main quest. And it also allowed a backdoor way of finishing the main quest. Beyond that, if you kill an otherwise important NPC that's kind of your fault and the consequences are whatever the consequences will be. It works in Morrowind because the NPCs don't fight one another.

In Oblivion on the other hand Radient AI (lol) has the unintended consequence of NPCs doing stupid things like fighting guards and killing each other for no reason, which was the whole point of unkillable NPCs in the first place. The "crown" icon combined with a "warning, reload" popup should have been enough for the player to know not to kill this "important" npc.

The ability to knock people unconscious rather than kill them would make for a nice option, especially for semi-pacifist/monk type characters.

I don't want "essential" NPC's to go unconscious in Skyrim. That said, I think they should stick with having the crosshairs turn to a crown or some such like they did in Oblivion as a warning. However, two things would have to happen for this to work.

Bethesda would have to fix the AI (which I'm sure they're doing) so that towns, along with their essential NPC's, don't get massacred when another NPC steals something. (Bravil.)

It would also help if quests had more options. If you kill a quest essential NPC that shouldn't be the end in most cases. There would need to be alternate ways of approaching and completing quests. But this would be a good thing to work on anyway.

Perhaps there could be a semi-random chance of knocking unconscious, depending on the weapon. I'm also imagining finishing off downed enemies with a quick slip of a short sword... or leaving them alive (i'm thinking orc thug... ambush merchants and rob the very clothes off their backs)

You should be able to carry unconscious people back to your house, and hold them for ransom. Or eat them...

Since this conversation has moved away from essential NPCs and into a knockout mechanic:

Oblivion actually DID have a weapon that was designed to knock out NPCs: the Truncheon of Submission. It was a wooden club with Damage Fatigue 50 points and Restore Health 20 points. It was a crude way of implementing it, but it was there.

However, I would like to see a true knockout option for stealthy thief characters. Maybe you could have a blackjack (thinking of the Thief games here) or something that you can use to knock someone unconscious for a few minutes with a sneak attack. Just long enough to sneak in and steal whatever you can get your hands on.

Essential characters should fall unconscious when killed by an NPC, and should stay in that state of an in-game hour or so. You shouldn't get annoying messages on your screen about it, but when the PC kills an essential character (forever), you should get a warning.

Yeah...I DON'T want "quest essential" NPCs who can only be knocked out.

But I DO want people to actually be knocked out, and not just straight up killed. Now, most people get knocked out due to blunt force trauma to the head (maces if they don't hit hard enough to kill, fists, falling on the ground) but people also get "knocked out" from blood loss or simple shock.

I know a lot of games if you don't finish a person off with a coup de grace, they stand back up after a while. I'd like to see that SOMETIMES. Of course, in those games the people go right back to attacking you. I'd like to see some people run away when they wake up, or ask for mercy.

No essential NPCs at all, would be a challenge though. Kill the wrong person, and the mainquest goes limbo and you cannot play anymore. Have to load a save from before the murder.

Didn't Fallout: New Vegas allow you to kill every single NPC except for one?

I can't stand the 'Unconcious' characters from Oblivion.


Honestly, you don't get hit 6-7 times with a huge axe and fall over unconcious...

That works out fine- but it'll cause howls from the "ZOMG stop trying to add crap from that prehistoric Morrowind already!!1!!!" crowd. See, that's how it was done in Morrowind...with some minor issues, like there being several NPCs who would trigger the "You have broken the thread of prophecy..." message despite having nothing to do with the main quest, side quests, or for that matter any quests that were actually included in the finished game.

Removing the invisible barriers and handholding that prevents the player from doing something stupid is hardly what I would call bad game design, if you kill an important quest giver then its your own damn fault, why the hell did you feel the need to kill him anyway? Freedom does not come without consequence, if you want to kill everyone in town the game should let you however dont expect to be able to do this without some severe consequences.

That being said you do know that in Morrowind if you killed an important NPC you would get a message that tells you that you have ruined the main quest dont you?

As for the subject at hand I would like to see the ability to knock people unconcious but not in the way the OP is implying. What I want is stealth takedowns where I can subdue my enemy with a non lethal takedown, would be handy for thief missions where you cant kill anyone, somewhat like this mod.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9655

Yes please...i need unconscious people in order to supplement my lack of courtship skills.

No, make everyone killable, as everyone in real life is killable. Make it like how Morrowind was. It'd give you a message saying you screwed up and had better reload if you want to finish the main quest, or continue and live in the doom world you have created.