Dude, what the hell!

Alright, so before I rolled my latest character, I decided to purchase Dawnguard, because the new weapon and faction options seemed really awesome. So, I take care of that, load into my new game and begin. Seven hours later, I'm doing my thing in Whiterun, and all of a sudden I see people with weapons out near the front gates going buck-wild on each other. It turns out, a Master Vampire* straight-up ran into Whiterun, said, "whattup guise," and murdered Jon Battle-Born and Sigurd! I had to interfere with my warhammer and crush his skull, considering he murdered two people.

How is this going to mess up my new game if these dudes are going to roll into town and kill actual citizens, and probably even a quest giver at some point? How many others experienced this, and how prevalent is it? And to clarify, I have not completed any missions in the Dawnguard questline.

Fucking vampires. Christ.

EDIT 1: Now, I'm trying to figure out if I should reload my save to before this occurred, preventing possible quest issues, or just roll with it and accept it as a part of my game, any [possible] quest issues be damned.

Quest givers can't die. Haven't been able to since Oblivion.

Quest-givers can't be killed until the quests they're tied to are completed. They just drop to one knee for a minute or two, then get back up with full health.

Until you finish dawnguard be prepared for vampire attacks on cities and also being randomly ambushed by groups of them in the wild.

A gargoyle killed the girl outside of Warmaidens for me. I reloaded but only because she's a shopkeeper. And because I feed on her when she sleeps. Her and the Mage in Dragonsreach because he's a prick.

@MariachiMacabre: @Demoskinos: Damn! How many ambush you at a time? Also, will these bodies stay here in the middle of the city forever, or do I have to manually move them?

Nothing like that ever happened to me. There would be random vampire attacks -- which got annoying -- but they always focused on me and my companion. If I was in a town, the guards would join in and help make short work of them.

Stuff like that happened to me in the main game, but with dragons. I would fast travel to a town, and the town's guard and citizens would already be battling against a dragon.

That sounds awesome. I wish I had dawnguard and the drive to play through Skyrim again.

@MariachiMacabre: @Demoskinos: Damn! How many ambush you at a time? Also, will these bodies stay here in the middle of the city forever, or do I have to manually move them?

@Napalm

@MariachiMacabre: @Demoskinos: Damn! How many ambush you at a time? Also, will these bodies stay here in the middle of the city forever, or do I have to manually move them?

Usually, for me, it's a Master Vampire, his Thrall and a Gargoyle. And yeah, the bodies usually stick around forever. They've been there for 70 hours for me. I just moved them under the bridge at the city gates.

Some quest givers can be killed, but the quests that are tied to them are still able to be gotten in another way.

For Example If 'Person A' gets killed, then 'Person B' becomes the new quest giver.

@Dagbiker said:

Some quest givers can be killed, but the quests that are tied to them are still able to be gotten in another way.

For Example If 'Person A' gets killed, then 'Person B' becomes the new quest giver.

Adrianne of Warmaiden's died, actually. I didn't notice until I initiated the, "who makes your armors?" response with Ulfberth War-Bear. I hadn't completed her sidequest, asking to get the weapon she grafted for Jarl Balgruuf, which is the reason I reloaded a save. The vampire attack was still the same, and the same two Whiterun citizens died.

Most of the attacks I've had have happened at the dawnguard hq which is pretty funny since its supposed to be super secret. They do occasionally show up in Whiterun and promptly get beaten to death by all the citizens there. I don't mean killed with weapons, everybody just sort of punches them to death. I think it might be some sort of scripting goof or something.

I had this happen at White Run. The lady in front of Warmaiden died too. I ended up opening the console and resurrecting her lol

Also, not sure if this is before or after Dawn Guard but you'll run into Werewolves too. I turned into a Werewolf and killed some bandits behind White Run and waited out the transformation time by adding some Perks to my Werewolf tree. When I transformed back I did a Dragon Shout that let me see living creatures nearby and saw what looked like a bandit. I took out my bow but I didn't attack right away because I thought she was a hunter (they wear similar looking armor). When I got close to her (I was sneaking since I have 100 sneak) she sensed me immediately. She said, "Is someone there?" and transformed into a Werewolf right in front of me. It was crazy!

Also, you should be careful with random groups of "people" just hanging out on the side of a road or in the middle of nowhere. Right before I killed those bandits and ran into that Werewolf woman I Dragon Shouted to see who was nearby (Aura Whisper) and saw a group of 3 people just hanging out behind White Run. I sneaked (I tried to type snuck but apparently that didn't fly with spell check) up to them and saw that they were members of The Vigilants of Stendarr. I was like, "Oh awesome. These guys are cool with me", so I stood up and was about to talk to them. Next thing I know The "Vigilants of Stendarr" turned to ash and I was attacked by Vampires who were disguised as them. That was also awesome!

... why reload just cause you didnt finish one sidequest. That is ridiculous.

Personally just find it cool when dragons and vampires run around killing citizens and changing my game for me.

a good idea would be to fight them at the gate or outside of town if you don't want your friends and such to possibly die as collateral damage to the conflict. you can expect these attacks very sporadically, but as long as you're there at the fight when it starts to make sure things don't get out of hand, no one should end up dying.

as an aside, there was apparently a vampire attack in front of Mistveil Keep on one of my trips to Riften, and somehow Maven managed to aggro the guards. Well of course she's essential, but because she was in conflict, the rest of the Black-Briars aggroed the guards too, and Maven spent like 10 minutes being beaten, then getting back up and continuing. I reloaded because it seemed tedious to try and let that all play out by itself, and if any guards respawned or another essential guy aggroed maven they might sit there fighting forever.

@JackG100 said:

... why reload just cause you didnt finish one sidequest. That is ridiculous.

Yes, because reloading a save two minutes prior is such a preposterous fucking idea. Stop talking.

@Example1013 said:

a good idea would be to fight them at the gate or outside of town if you don't want your friends and such to possibly die as collateral damage to the conflict. you can expect these attacks very sporadically, but as long as you're there at the fight when it starts to make sure things don't get out of hand, no one should end up dying.

The vampires already were doing damage out of sight when I entered the city. Only when people were running with weapons out did I know that something was happening and at that point, even though he went down quickly, two people still ended up dead.

reading this thread made me want to try out to be a vampire hunter instead of being vampire lord.

@Napalm: Yeah, in a game like Skyrim where awesome things happen it is a ridiculous idea to reload just cause some NPC died and denied you the satisfaction of delivering a sword to her father.

@Napalm: I don't know the specifics of how the vampires spawn, but most of the encounters I've had in cities has involved them coming after me (although I have had a couple cases like you mentioned). If something like that happens, it's a good bet that you're "due" for a vampire attack, and the next town you enter will trigger one, so you need to just try and find a spot where you can fight them away from any non-essential NPCs that you want to keep alive.

@Example1013: I had a couple more outside of towns. Another one was outside of Whiterun. Those Khajiit don't fuck around. They took him and his hellhounds down in a hot second.

Ironicially for me. I was in Markarth when the vampire attacked and he killed the women who's suppose to die when you first enter the city (by the guy with the dagger). I had saved her and was quite smug with myself but to see her corpse go 15 foot across the path into the stream just made me sad but realised it was always her fate.

I fast traveled to Whiterun after starting Dawnguard and didn't notice any townsfolk had been killed.

A few (real) days later I noticed Belethor wasn't showing up to work on time...or at all.

A few more (real) days later I decided to do a Hall of the Dead tour and see if I could visit all the NPCs I accidentally and intentionally lead to their end.

I found Belethor. :(

does anyone know, if i don't go into towns at all until the dawnguard line is finished, will that prevent the carnage from taking place or does it happen anyway?

I don't think they attack until you actually join the dawnguard. But I'm not 100% sure.

@HH said:

does anyone know, if i don't go into towns at all until the dawnguard line is finished, will that prevent the carnage from taking place or does it happen anyway?

The random attacks only occur when you're present, and at night. Fast Traveling to a town during the day is safe, but keep your guard up at night. If the attack doesn't happen within the first minute of entering the town, you're good.

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

I don't think they attack until you actually join the dawnguard. But I'm not 100% sure.

They do attack as soon as you reach level 10 on a new character. Or they start attacking as soon as you load the content on an old character. That's one of the ways the game can tell you where to find Fort Dawnguard - a vampire attack happens and a guard shows up after talking about this new vampire menace. Quest pops and you're off and running.

@JackG100 said:

@Napalm: Yeah, in a game like Skyrim where awesome things happen it is a ridiculous idea to reload just cause some NPC died and denied you the satisfaction of delivering a sword to her father.

Yeah, how dare he play his game in the way he sees fit?

@ShaggE said:

@JackG100 said:

@Napalm: Yeah, in a game like Skyrim where awesome things happen it is a ridiculous idea to reload just cause some NPC died and denied you the satisfaction of delivering a sword to her father.

Yeah, how dare he play his game in the way he sees fit?

Yeah that's a dumb criticism.

Though this does sound pretty awesome.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@ShaggE said:

@JackG100 said:

@Napalm: Yeah, in a game like Skyrim where awesome things happen it is a ridiculous idea to reload just cause some NPC died and denied you the satisfaction of delivering a sword to her father.

Yeah, how dare he play his game in the way he sees fit?

Yeah that's a dumb criticism.

Though this does sound pretty awesome.

He can play the game however he want, but IMO you miss out on some of the cool random things that makes your game your own by reloading it whenever something doesnt happen like you want it to. Not many games enables fun things like these to happen so I find it disappointing that the ordinary gamers out there just reload to undo things like that. I had a dragon land in Riften and kill most of the NPCs there, I thought it was awesome.

@Oldirtybearon said:

They do attack as soon as you reach level 10 on a new character.

Okay, this makes sense. I had powerleveled in the cave at the very beginning, so when I got out into Riverwood, I was at level eleven or twelve, so I had already been talked to by the fellow in the Dawngaurd and was already seeing world events happen in relation to that.

@JackG100 said:

[...] disappointing that the ordinary gamers out there just reload to undo things like that. I had a dragon land in Riften and kill most of the NPCs there, I thought it was awesome.

Yeah, those world events are awesome if you've completed the game and now there isn't much left to do. But for me starting a new game, I don't want to be shut out of content early because I didn't know these vampires would start massacring everybody, (and somehow a quest giver ended up dead, which was the reason why I reloaded). I confirmed the people the vampires had killed weren't important, so I let them stay dead.

@Napalm said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

They do attack as soon as you reach level 10 on a new character.

Okay, this makes sense. I had powerleveled in the cave at the very beginning, so when I got out into Riverwood, I was at level eleven or twelve, so I had already been talked to by the fellow in the Dawngaurd and was already seeing world events happen in relation to that.

Wait what? How the hell do you power level during Unbound?

@Oldirtybearon said:

@Napalm said:

@Oldirtybearon said:

They do attack as soon as you reach level 10 on a new character.

Okay, this makes sense. I had powerleveled in the cave at the very beginning, so when I got out into Riverwood, I was at level eleven or twelve, so I had already been talked to by the fellow in the Dawngaurd and was already seeing world events happen in relation to that.

Wait what? How the hell do you power level during Unbound?

Follow Hadvar into the dungeon and you'll eventually reach the cave where you have to get past a bear. Just keep whacking Hadvar with whatever weapon type you want to level. It kind of takes a while, but it works as intended. You get your levels pretty fast. I ended up being level fifty with one handed and two handed weapons when I got to Riverwood. It doesn't mean much, though, since you're still low in everything else, and even in smithing, you still have to use those to be able to craft better weapons.

@Mike76x said:

A few more (real) days later I decided to do a Hall of the Dead tour and see if I could visit all the NPCs I accidentally and intentionally lead to their end.

I found Belethor. :(

Whoa, whoa. You can see who's dead or been killed by you in the Hall Of The Dead? If so, does it only worked for named NPCs and not, you know, "Traveler" who's just out in the wild who you slaughtered because you wanted his shit?

@Napalm said:

Whoa, whoa. You can see who's dead or been killed by you in the Hall Of The Dead? If so, does it only worked for named NPCs and not, you know, "Traveler" who's just out in the wild who you slaughtered because you wanted his shit?

It's only the townsfolk that end up in the hall(s) of the dead.

Belethor was killed in a vampire attack

Amren was just dead in the street one day with a crowd around his body

Uthgurd the Unbroken was following me. I forgot I had a follower and she startled me... I broke her.

Thats just Whiterun, I don't remember the other towns right now.

@Mike76x said:

Uthgurd the Unbroken was following me. I forgot I had a follower and she startled me... I broke her.

You're a terrible human being.