Certain NPCs are occasionally found dead, surrounded by guards and other NPCs, and remain that way for hours. Norma Walders seems to be the most frequently dead NPC.

It would be nice to see merchants/quest givers given Immortality, which can be removed by a DM if a player has a valid reason to attack and possibly kill the NPC.

I like this idea as I've recently ran into the same problem quite often. I think it was Arkov who said there were some problems with this when it first came up on IRC. Not sure of what those were, but if a way around them can be figured out, then I'd be all for this.

if you accidently hostile the npc though, you're dead.

Because you can't win.

You could log, or use and invis potion.

ExileStrife if you accidently hostile the npc though, you're dead.

Snoteye

ExileStrife if you accidently hostile the npc though, you're dead.

Again, Arkov believed a plot NPC wouldn't attack back. Otherwise, you're right.

This is true. If they are marked as Plot-characters, they are invulnerable, and won't attack you. You could also clear the OnAttacked script.

I like the idea. Dead NPC's sucks, not only because you can't do a certain quest, but also because dead people laying in the streets over a longer period of time is just unrealistic.

I totally second this too. If a PC really plans to have an NPC assassinated, they should get DM supervision anyway, and as soon as a DM is present, they can toggle the NPC invulnerability off.

It's a win-win-win situation really.

There are a number of issues with, but it may be worth doing nevertheless.

- It can be easy to forget to turn off invulnerability in a situation in which they should be invulnerable. And I'm not even positive that you CAN correctly turn off invulnerability when it's originally set in the toolset (confirmation would be welcome).

- In the event of a faction problem, there can be problems

- In the past, this was a good way for me to identify problem-players. Basically I got an alert when this happened, and I could then zoom to the player and either explain our rules/help them understand what EfU was about/ban as needed.

But we'll look into making some adjustments, since I gather this is a problem when Dms aren't around.

Using the "new" (forgot what patch it was from) immortality flag the NPC can still take damage, but can't have less than 1 HP. Plot/Immortal NPCs won't attack back if their OnDamaged/OnAttacked/OnCastSpellAt script tells them to clear their actions and do nothing.

The DM chooser has the Immortal toggle, but only Invulnerable is available from the radial menu. I don't know whether or not the chooser can toggle off Immortality/Plot from a creature that's painted down as such, although it should. A DM Immortality toggle widget wouldn't be difficult to script in the event that the DM client lacks the power, but that's an additional tool for DMs to keep track of and remember.

I tend to really dislike immortal NPC's. Players have a tendency to drag hostiles into them. We used to have a lot of immortal NPC's. This was a constant problem. A few who are still immortal still end up fighting stuff players ran from.

Really I think there is no single NPC that is necessary. There are lots of shops, and lots of quests. If you can't do one quest, find another. I don't think I've ever seen anyone at a point they ran out of quests.

Trye but it can be a bit annoying to go on a quest and when you come back to find the Npc that gives it dead admitadly this has only happend to me once. So how about a script that makes a quest giver invulnerable whilst a group takes the quest.

Thrawn brought up a good point which at least I hadn't thought of. That does sound lame, but I'm not sure if it would necessarily be a problem with all the NPCs. I've seen for example Herald dead a couple of times, and he's the only NPC that can send those city wide messages. Also, I don't think there's any quests near enough to him that people would actually drag enemies there.

To me, seeing Norma or other similar NPCs dead just takes off from the immersion, especially since those situations are impossible to handle in an IC way, forcing you to come up with excuses and the like.

In game, a DM can toggle off the "Plot" invulnerability (which makes them simply take no damage), if an NPC is set to "Immortal" (where their HP can drop but never below 1), then there is nothing that can be done about it.

NPC like Lord Bunge probably should not be unkillable since I see PCs often flee there, but Norma and the Herald are quite far off, and any PC running from monsters there would get help from other PCs rather sooner than later anyway, whereas I'm not sure if the NPC watchmen are even caring about that, so I sort of fail to see how that could be easily exploited. And yes, the point does remain that Jafar is the only NPC who can do town-wide sendings. Maybe just give him more HP then (because, uh.. he's fat) and a real, real mean bodyguard? Tiny Myrta just doesn't seem to cut it :)

Right me if I'm wrong, but if the OnAttacked etc. scripts is cleared, won't the NPC just stand there regardless of what faction attacks it? I might be wrong though.

I guess the problem is that it still distracts monsters/hostile NPC by standing there and acting as a punching bag,even without actually ever killing them, giving the PCs a chance to run away furhter or pick the mobs off from afar with well placed sneak attacks.

By using the "Selection Tool" a DM actually can toggle the immortality and plot flag of any creature he has selected. A possible solution for NPC might be to put a script into their OnPhysicalAttacked and OnSpellCastAt event slots that checks for the current hitpoints. If they are at 1 and there's a potentially mortal blow render the NPC unconscious for some rounds (knock them to the ground by playing the death animation and set a flag on 'em which is asked for in all the other NPC scripts - if the flag is TRUE, skip the script immediately).

After a set period of time the NPC may recover to full hitpoints again. Set the flag to FALSE by deleting the variable. And all scripts start functioning as normal.

Norma just needs a bodyguard. Her big hulking, very stupid son should stand guard over her with a huge club.

should'nt the halberd wielding private nearby be able to do something, I mean he does stand there for a reason

I like Merc-Artax's suggestion. If the NPC could be subdued for a turn or two, without getting killed, all would be well and dandy. PCs could still exploit it by luring enemies into the area, but if the NPC had a pathetic amount of hp (say 1-10), it would be subdued immediatly, and the enemies would have a go at the idiotic PC again. Also, noone could xp-farm said NPC, as it will never really die.

Howland But we'll look into making some adjustments, since I gather this is a problem when Dms aren't around.

Godspeed, Delron