For years this has been my pet peeve, there needs to be the chance of scoring a 1 hit kill on an enemy, no matter how powerful they are. Naturally it'll be a percentage chance and will only happen sometimes, or if you hit them in a key area. Also softer targets, as in lightly armoured or non armoured targets it'd be easier to score a hit kill. It really bothers me that I can shoot a bandit in the eye with a poison tipped arrow just for him to laugh it off and tell me how badly he's going to kill me, or enjoy spending my gold.

I actually found myself cranking the difficulty all the way down just to get these one hit kills with the bow for things to feel oddly enough more realistic. I just think it'd be cool to be in the fight of your life against a strong opponent, like in the arena in Oblivion and all of a sudden take one good swing and behead my enemy, or shoot them in the throat with my bow and see them drop. It'd be that classic "YES!" moment like scoring a big goal in a play off game or something. What do you guys think? Again this wouldn't happen all the time and would vary on what opponent you're fighting, also how worn down they may be may help your chances. But if a mighty warrior with almost godlike abilities takes on a Bandit I think you should be able to drop them with one crushing blow on occasion.

I'm with you on this.

I like it as long as you're not able to get lucky and one hit a dragon at level 1. It would need to be very well balanced.

As long as they can do it to me and Its almost impossible for me to kill a dragon or something powerful in 1 hit then yes to one hit kills.

I very much agree.

For dueling with people, this should definitely be in, but it should be contingent on WHERE you hit them and WHERE their armor is.

If you cut someone's jugular, they're dead, period. But if they are wearing a thick piece of armor right where you hit them, unless you go through it they shouldn't die.

No to having it random. But if I can put an arrow in someones eye, they should be rather dead.

And it has to be applied to the player as well.

i dont know about some of u guys, but i've scored a couple of one hit kills with an arrow. granted it was an enchanted bow/arrow with poison on it lol..but yet i want more one hit kills!!!

I figure the difficulty will be more like Fallout in that with the right equipment and skill, you'll be able to one hit lower or even medium level enemies. Also with the return of Critical Hits, we'll most likely see 'one-hits' on the occasional higher level enemy. Anything more than that, I'm against.

I think this will be in with enemies in caves only being able to scale a certain amount. If you went into a level 1-10 cave at level 1 and locked it at level 1 then came back at level 30 they had better die in one hit. If I'm wrong I hope they do this.

Would definitely like to see something like this implemented in the game. It'd make playing a stealth character a lot more authentic - sneaking up behind someone and plunging a dagger into their vital organs should really mean an instant death for that person.

I like that the devs are going halfway on it at least, since they are incorporating finishing moves, aren't they?

Yes, but instead of random, it should be based off skill.

And no for dragons.

I absolutely HATED that, especially on my Khajiit assassin. I too tuned the difficulty down when I wanted to RP a tiny bit, as it always made me annoyed when I'd hit a guard from behind with a Sneak Critical and....now he's asking me to pay the fine(CRIMINAL SCUM!). I have high hopes there will be some form of one-hit kill perks in Skyrim, I can see the possibility increasing/decreasing depending on if the enemy your fighting is of lower/higher level, respectably.

For all the assassins out there, I agree with the chance, even if it's remote, of 1 swing, 1 kill.

If they return some form of critical strike to the series, it will be no problem.

Naturally it'd have to be balanced, basically if it's a sneak attack the chance increases dramatically, chances would also increase accord to your skill with that particular weapon, as well as the governing skills for that type of combat. Also where you're hitting them would have an effect, you aren't going to score an instant kill off of a shot to the shoulder, but if I strike you in the face with a war hammer, odds are a little better you'll die from it.

I just think it'd be wonderful with someone who has their archery skill quite high and the best bow and arrows to be able to take out 5 lazy bandits without know what just happened to them.

I'm against critical strikes and random chances. But an arrow to an unprotected human head/neck should be fatal.

I approve this message.

Not so much for the automatic 1 hit kills, but attacks to certain areas of the body should do more damage then others and thus should make killing in 1 hit a bit more possible on certain types of enemy. Then again, 1 hit kills were possible on some enemy in Oblivion on normal difficulty anyway, necromancers/conjurers were not too difficult to one hit kill with a sneak attack from a long sword, from a bow tho... then again one of the changes in Skyrim is that bows will do more damage. So it might be a bit more possible to one hit kill (via the use of poisons too). Daggers also do far more sneak attack damage then in Oblivion so it's very possible daggers may also be able to do some nice sneak attack kills.

No thanks to infinitely powerful shots by random luck. It will just turn the game into a reloading game. Some randomness, pluss/minus, sure. As long as it feels justified.

Its called Sneak X3

I Hate one hit Kills and i Hate Difficulty Settings.

I Always play Games on Easy and did it with Oblivion, yet when i was hat Level 5 so to speak, i could kill any Tough Creature or Guy with a 1 Hit Kill by shooting him with my Bow and Arrows

I want Skyrim to be Easy and Difficult by itself and as i progress through by making my Character Stronger, then 1 Hit Kills should come up.

I mean, am i Seriously gonna kill a Dragon on Easy with a 1 Hit Kill by shooting him with a Bow and Arrow.

Dont play on easy, problem solved.

But really OHK's only happen when it makes sense, there shouldn't even be 0.0001% chance of killing a dragon one hit with a dagger, but there should be 99.999% chance of killing a rat one hit with an axe.

Great topic, I agree with every thing said in the OP.

Skyrim please don't be delayed...

From the trailer, im prety sure you might get a 1 hit stealth move, there is deffinatly a scene when you sneek up behind some one grab their head and go for the throat