I recently played fallout nv a lot in my entire playtime a important charater never died unless I killed them.

I think you're right. Everyone should be able to die. The only problem is, with all the realism and scheduling that the new creation engine gives to the NPC's in Skyrim, it may become too unpredictable to know whether an NPC is gonna live happily in peace, or be blown to crap by a dragon who just happens to [censored] a town.

Yes, it does allow for more realism allowing the essential NPCs to die by any means, because it allows the player to learn from mistakes, and perhaps make way to protect certain people. But the only reason it worked so well in Morrowind was because people never moved. They walked around a bit, but they never left their homes. They couldn't walk through doors. And they couldn't really fight very well against, say, a winged twilight that happened to follow me to a town.

In short, it's a good idea, but there are going to be too many variables for it not to be annoying when you get a random message appear that someone important has died, and you need to reload, when you're miles away from them, and you, potentially, haven't even met them yet.

Although, to counteract my own argument there, the new radiant ai system does allow for fail-safe's, right? Like when they talked about if you killed a shopkeeper, then a few days later. the widow, or sibling of that shopkeeper would take over the shop, as a way to continue the flow of gaming and economy. So maybe, for quest characters and essential NPC's, there could be a person that steps in for them if they bite the dust. Someone who 'assumes' the role of essential to keep the quest flowing smoothly without breaking the game apart by forcing you to reload. Maybe...

I don't care whether there will be essentials or not as long as Bethesda finds a good solution. But if there will be essentials: please make it possible to shoot arrows in their heads (so the arrows stay in the head).

I'm sorry but I simply don't believe most of you people when you say stuff regarding your Morrowind game experience. I constantly hear things like "Oh we need Essential NPC's because in Morrowind my quest were all screwed up because they were always dying and my game was broken!"
Quite frankly, I call bull squat. I have played Morrowind GOTY since 2003 on the Xbox, and I have never, EVER had one single essential NPC of ANY quest die from any other thing besides myself. It's just not that plausible with Morrowinds style pathing. Peoeple don't just randomly start fighting each other, nor do they randomly walk into the wilderness. NPC's stood still. That's pretty much it. They didn't kill each other.
Maybe it's a mod conflicting with your game, maybe it's some sort of weird bug on the PC version only, but after 7 years of playing this game *and I play this game all the time, over 2000 hours played* I have not had one essential NPC die in Morrowind unless I myself killed it. I think 7 years and 2000 hours played is a good test sample, so I'm going to go ahead and believe that you people are just making things up, or you have some sort of mod that causes these essential NPC's to just "die all the time". :rolleyes:

Also, I really wish people would read post. It's been stated many times that you can get around this by making essential NPC's take killing blows from only YOU, and any other thing that brings it's health below 1 would knock it out, Oblivion style. Leaving YOU the choice of killing for good, but making it so certain NPC's cannot die unless you decide so.

Edit, the ONLY exception, and I mean the only exception, is the Medium Armor trainer that was supposed to be outside of Tel Fyr, he's not in the game, on my version of the game, just simply not there, he wasn't added into the game from what Iv'e read. But even that isn't an issue of essential NPC's dying.

This seems like the most practical solution. The only possible issue with that is watching two NPCs beating each other up forever.



This wasn't a problem in Morrowind at all, but in Oblivion it would cause major issues. Whenever I had a bounty over my head I now have the habit of instantly reloading my previous save. If I got in a fight with the guards, generally in the market district because that's where I steal, NPCs who like me help me out and those who don't fight me. So now my "friends" get themselves killed and my enemies are very likely to get whacked because they were in the way. Therefore, if they were immune to each other but not you it would solve every problem.

Easy solution here: make "essential status" work to protect an NPC ONLY from attackers that aren't the player. Or, y'know, just fix the AI so we don't get laughable situations where they constantly engage in friendly fire a la Oblivion, where it was a common occurrence to spot a pair of Imperial Rangers dueling. NPCs could kill each other in Morrowind... They just didn't unless they had good reason to; their aim seemed to be a lot better, and they didn't take deep offense and try to kill others over things like stealing bread.

And, as many have noted... There's still "save and reload." Anyone who's NOT using savegames is likely a very, very hardcoe Rogue-Like player, and fully accepts it when a quirk in the game makes it unwinnable.


If memory serves, the AI in Oblivion was set up so that if an NPC couldn't make a dent in their target after a while, they'd instead panic and run away. This same function would probably work just as well in the event of invincible NPCs: they'd give up and run away. Certainly not any more hilarious than the aforementioned dueling rangers.

i think its needed in some cases because i slaughtered hieronimus lex and adamus long time before intiating the thieves guild and if they had stayed dead i wouldn't be able to complete the thieves guild and this was before i even knew there was a thieves guild.

and i refuse to go to jail and guards follow you to the ends of the earth and i'm low on cash/needed stolen goods. knock out lex kill other guards .. beat down hex upon consiounceness and escape

For all the complaints on both sides, I still hold with those who favor NPCs who can die.

This has improved since Oblivion, at least in FO3/NV it was better. I have yet to find a dead NPC in NV that I was not directly reponsible for.

If the game can kill an NPC that I might need, I would like them to be marked Essential so that does not happen. Until I kill them.

However if I am going along and find out the game killed an NPC before I could get what I needed, that would svck big time. Sure, you can have the quest related duties handed off to someone else, but that can get old real fast. Especially if there is only one NPC in the town that you have to deal with for all your quests.

As long as the essestials can defend themselves and not die against anything but me.

Only for... Well, I cant really think of any, maybe like one or two greybeards, but since in sound of skyrim, they said esbern (max von sydow) did death lines/ sounds/ etc... So, in my POV, he's really the only completely essentail character (that we currently know of at this very moment, other then akatosh/ alduin/ though he would die I believe) [and if their was some list of important character i was unawair of, sorry...] So, yeah.....

So, pretty much, greybeards and maybe (i was going to say people in guilds, but if they died, like guild leaders, then people under them would just be forced to become guild leader, I would assume...) [and maybe someone can tell me Im wrong, and make me play morrowind to make me feel better, but if not then good for me, eh...]

Yep, this is really the only possible issue there was in Morrowind. Of course, in most cases you got the "thread of prophecy has been severed..." message upon their death. In a few quests the quests actually were scripted to compensate.

Ironically, the one place in either MW/OB where I had an issue with important NPCs dying... Was Martin repeatedly going suicidal on me at the Battle of Bruma. I had to reload and play through that several times before he survived. His "invulnerable" status got turned off when he needed it most... Yet somehow, most people got through the game anyway.

What I did, (I was going to say, not do the Kvatch encounter, but then I actually read your post, and it said bruma... Was Martin at Bruma? Well Derp, I barely even played OB, because it wasnt overly good) [I loved the game, but not the gates, and the leveling.... I just made new characters after each time I got stuck in a gate/ wanted to play different...] Derp, well now I sorta agree on the essential thing, but only on MQ neccesary peoples, like esbern (and anyone else like that....)

Don't forget that they probably improved the AI system. If there are essential NPCs, I will get the game on PC to make them less... invincible.

I intentionally left out more details to try to avoid spoilers. Since it seems there are people here who've NOT played through the MQ:


Yep, the only real reason for invulnerability to protect the player is due to the NPCs' own rampant stupidity they exercised in Oblivion. As nice an idea as the original version of RadiantAI was... It was very, very rough around the edges. Simply fixing it so that they'd stop killing each other for nothing, and giving them a semblance of self-preservation would do wonders for preventing those sort of scenarios.

If you do not do proper IFF its your problem, not mine and moderatly beth problem.
I don t want your inadequate behavior to screw my game.

People come crying about crapping theyr own pants and ask the others to whipe their ass clean
Since oblivion we got shafted with a tube that goes out of our pants pooers don t dirty themselves and can be happy.
But the smart players got also shafted and are pissed with a good reason.

If you want to make something to avoid essential NPC killing, just:
1) Don t make them travel with the player
2) Don t make them wiffy, if wiffy give them a helluva ton of HP with coward attitude, or at least apply total scale leveling in accordance to the zone they are getting in;
or Allow an option while starting a game in the gui:
Immortal esential NPC.
So the happy trigger can do happy whatever when this is checked
And the one who plays with a little more brain can be happy too and avoid immertion breaking aberations, just give them a warning things are screwed and ask if they want to continue, like in Morrowind.

I think they pull a Sheogorath with the greybeards. If you attack them they make your head explode with the Voice.

In my current play through I saw a guard attacking Ma'iq. If he wasn't essential than that would have been the last I seen of that funny Khajti.

I was once tracking down the orsimer guy who sells the manor in Skingrad and located him outside when (I swear, I am not making this up) I saw him fall through the bridge to Skingrad castle. I know it's not really an example of NPCs trying to earn themselves a Darwin Award, but it is another essential example of why essential status is essential.

What's going to protect you from when the game decides to glitch? And this is by no means an isolated incident either.

While I was doing the Alteration master quest (the one where you have to stay underwater for three game hours with Tooth-in-the-Sea). Everything seemed to be going alright when he started to make a convincing belly-up goldfish impersonation. Since there wasn't any creatures in the immediate vicinity I didn't understand right away, but it dawned on me. 'Did he just drown? He did, he drowned. How the heck does an Argonian drown?' was my train of thought.

Essential status is essentially essential for essential npc, mostly because it essentially gives you essential protection from not just NPC stupidity but from unforeseen problems. Still not convinced of the essential importance of essential status? Read further for the final example (for this post).

This situation is like a situation where you somehow offend a DM in a D&D campaign and they decide to show you just who is the boss, but I assure you it happened for real and it happened in Oblivion. In the quest "Nothing You Can Possess" I agreed to meet the NPC Claude Maric in the Tiber Septim Hotel to discus our mutual employer. And when I open the door to enter I saw it, a minotaur lord towering over me in the lobby. I had heard it was possible for them to wind up there but until that very moment I had never seen it with my own eyes (indeed, I have never seen it since either). What followed was a chaotic battle with a pissed off minotaur in a closed space. It killed the proprietress, some of her guests and nearly killed Maric.

There is a serious problem with removing it though. Even if the player can kill them, generally the only time that happens is if ones going on a rampage for fun or does it accidently. The Morrowind option of "you should probably reload" is fine and all, but looking past the fact that its an intrusion into your gameplay, it opens up the possibility of royally [censored] up your entire game.

I love to play for really long sessions at a time, ill devote a weekend to just playing a game or spend a couple hours after my day is over playing. Now imagine one hasnt saved the game manually for quite a while, a few hours or so. I do it on occassion, when your playing you just dont notice or think about it. Should you accidently kill someone important or put them in a situation where they will get killed (I had a rogue summoned creater kill a guard in Kvatch just before I saved, making it truely unavoidable) without you saving earlier. Or in the heat of the moment you go through a door, you auto-save and the person's fate of death is sealed.

You've just lost HOURS of gameplay. It happens to me every now and then, somthing bad happens and it auto-saves on me, with my real save being quite a ways back. I cannot imagine an easier way to get alot of people VERY pissed off and upset. The message coming up breaks immersion on its own, but if it wernt just a suggestion and forced you to reload, there is still room for crazy situations where the last auto-save is [censored], and being forced to reload is such a waste of time, why not just have essential NPC's stay in?

The satisfaction of killing an annoying character is undeniable, but its not really satisfactory to instantly be forced to reload. The best one can hope for is just beating the crap out of them, that way your safe from seriously screwing up your game, which is a very big possibility with true killable essentials.

If course every essential should be a case by case basis, after they've fulfiled their purpose they can die, if they have a family member they can die, if they arnt really that important anyway they can die, ect... Its a very slippery slope removing essential status, and knowing the Elder Scrolls series, that chance of someone important messing up your game due to death is just too high to remove it completely

If i'm not mistaken Oblivion had the reload save game option as well I remember killing Martin when opening the Great Gate in OB and that message popped up.

I think everything should be killable by you at least so some significant NPC doesn't go get himself eaten by a dragon.

The problem with not having essentials is not knowing they're essential untill they are essential.

He wasn't terribly funny in Oblivion; mostly he sat there so gamesas could thumb their nose at the player and BOAST how they didn't listen to their fans whatsoever. Less "funny" and more "funny aneurysm," because to the last one, everything he boasted about gamesas ignoring fans... Wound up being to the detriment to the game, now that we look at it in hindsight. I used the console to remove his invulnerability (which served little point as he wasn't part of a quest!) and killed him so he'd stop annoying me.


Except that it won't protect an NPC that, y'know, falls through the floor when INSIDE a building: there's no ground to catch them. That's a HORRIBLE example you've brought there: "we need this feature to compensate for the game being so buggy!" How about a more elegant fix, such as making NPCs immune to falling damage if they're not under attack?


How about bugfixing the game so it doesn't have hideously glaring flaws like this in the first place? Plus, I have some doubts on whether all of your tales are real... But nonetheless, y'know, in years past, it was kinda EXPECTED that a game wouldn't have tons of bugs that'd wind up breaking the game at random for most people.

The first thing you describe is a very well documented glitch and the reason why all sites on Oblivion implore you to do his quest as quickly as you can, and use fast travel to that area.

The second thing is lesser well known, but also a known bug. What happened was that the Minotaur got 'lost' out in the world somewhere. Fell through the ground probably. What happens then is that the game 'teleports' that NPC to map coordinate 0.0, wich is the Tiber Septim hotel.
People have had daedra show up there.

On essential status, it has been said many times before..
All that needs to be done is make (important) NPC's unkillable except by the PC, or when they are supposed to.
All other instances they should fall unconscious.

No essential NPC's in my game please, no NPC's I cannot kill. And especially not with a floaty crown symbol. Its one big gameplay spoiler if you just have to go somewhere to see who's important for future quests.

Essential NPCs are just annoying.

Yeah I noticed a few times in Fallout 3 it would say "Dad is unconscious" after I rescued him. And I was no where near him at all and I was like "thank goodness".