Issue: Missing/Dead NPCs

[Flamephoenix78]

Hey, so I have done multiple playthroughs of Skyrim, but an issue I recently ran into was how to deal with NPCs in the game who just randomly go missing or die offscreen, while I am somewhere else. I have ran into NPCs dying while getting attacked by vampires, but in those cases I immediately reload the game to travel somewhere else or kill the vampires before they harm anyone. In my current playthrough, however, I ran into this problem with both Jorgen and Lami in Morthal; I had fast traveled from Dawnstar to do a quest in Morthal, and when I entered Lami's Alchemy shop, she wasn't there. I waited a couple of days, did some other misc quests (leaving the area for days), and she still wasn't at the shop or her home. The situation was the same for her husband Jorgen, and neither were in their home.

I decided to see whether they had died at some point, and sure enough, after making a save before using the moveto player command, both their naked bodies appeared at my feet. Now, at this point, I was torn on what to do, as I have heard several times that using commands such as 'resurrect' or 'recycleactor' (or any command, for that matter) breaks the game indefinitely, which is precisely why I made a save before doing all these commands. I decided to try out the recycleactor and resurrect commands after making my save, and they appaeared to work. Using the recycleactor command on Lami as well as Jorgen, their npcs both appeared alive once again and began going about their usual daily routines, and they were both naked until I used the resurrect command on each of them too.

My question is, am I safe continue to play my game having used these commands (as once again, they appear to have done their job), or should I find another way to fix this issue and just continue playing my game with both NPCs dead? I'm not bothered by continuing to play the game without solving the problem as long as the time passed since their deaths doesn't prevent me from reviving them.

Thanks

[fauxpas]

Although its possible that you got lucky; I'd personally reload from before you used the console because there simply isn't any way to "undo" the death scripts of named NPCs so your game is reading them as both dead and alive at the same time, which is never a good thing.

[Flamephoenix78]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Although its possible that you got lucky; I'd personally reload from before you used the console because there simply isn't any way to "undo" the death scripts of named NPCs so your game is reading them as both dead and alive at the same time, which is never a good thing.

So there really isn't a way to undo the NPC's deaths, and I should just continue playing with them dead? I hear what you're saying, but I'm not fully convinced that there isn't a way to safely bring them back to life and undo their deaths; Skyrim has just too many random occurences for NPCs to die in for that to hold true; especially in this case as they randomly died with no explanation or evidence of a dragon attack or vampire attack.

I originally got the idea of using such commands from a poster on reddit, who many others seemed to have also gotten results from with their dead npcs. In his post, he only mentioned using the recycleactor command, but regardless many other users who replied to his post seemed to have had no issues with it.

[fauxpas]

Originally posted by Fierytitan78:

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Although its possible that you got lucky; I'd personally reload from before you used the console because there simply isn't any way to "undo" the death scripts of named NPCs so your game is reading them as both dead and alive at the same time, which is never a good thing.

So there really isn't a way to undo the NPC's deaths, and I should just continue playing with them dead? I hear what you're saying, but I'm not fully convinced that there isn't a way to safely bring them back to life and undo their deaths; Skyrim has just too many random occurences for NPCs to die in for that to hold true; especially in this case as they randomly died with no explanation or evidence of a dragon attack or vampire attack.

I originally got the idea of using such commands from a poster on reddit, who many others seemed to have also gotten results from with their dead npcs. In his post, he only mentioned using the recycleactor command, but regardless many other users who replied to his post seemed to have had no issues with it.

No, there really isn't any way to undo the death scripts. But with that said; its your game, so do whatever you want, just understand that you've introduced instablity into the script triggers and that it might be tens of hours before the errors pile up enough to eat your save and at that point the answer will be the same; reload from before you messed around with the console because it was never meant to be a gameplay aid and doesn't clean up after itself well.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Fierytitan78:

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Although its possible that you got lucky; I'd personally reload from before you used the console because there simply isn't any way to "undo" the death scripts of named NPCs so your game is reading them as both dead and alive at the same time, which is never a good thing.

So there really isn't a way to undo the NPC's deaths, and I should just continue playing with them dead? I hear what you're saying, but I'm not fully convinced that there isn't a way to safely bring them back to life and undo their deaths; Skyrim has just too many random occurences for NPCs to die in for that to hold true

Just because you wish something not to be true doesn't make it so.

[Alliecienti]

Hopefully you weren't stuck "holding the bag" as it were with Lami's quest to bring her a copy of that book when she died. That quest is boinked now unless you wanna try mucking around in the console again. One mistake is all it takes to have all sorts of nasty repercussions.

Best to just as Meridia says "let the dead rest in peace" and move on to something else.

[mpd1958]

Let them rest in peace. Also try the mod "Run for your Lives" on Nexus.

[Flamephoenix78]

Do you think if I loaded my game back to when they were both still alive, and just stayed around Morthal for a bit longer they wouldn't disappear and die like they did? Or is that what you guys meant when you said to reload a save? Because I thought you just meant to reload a save of before I used any commands, which I could do, but I haven't done a lot since I last saw Lami and Jorgen alive (which is actually right after I had finished Laid To Rest).

[fauxpas]

Either one works.

[Flamephoenix78]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

Either one works.

Alright, I'll try loading a save from when I last saw both alive then.

[fauxpas]

You can also look into the "Run for your lives" mod as well, but make a hard save that you keep forever before installing it because while you can add mods midplay, you CAN NOT remove them.

[Flamephoenix78]

Originally posted by fauxpas:

You can also look into the "Run for your lives" mod as well, but make a hard save that you keep forever before installing it because while you can add mods midplay, you CAN NOT remove them.

I haven't yet looked into that mod, but what is it exactly? Also, is it available on Steam Workshop? I haven't been able to use Nexus for a long time since they required a program that always fails to install on my pc.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Fierytitan78:

Originally posted by fauxpas:

You can also look into the "Run for your lives" mod as well, but make a hard save that you keep forever before installing it because while you can add mods midplay, you CAN NOT remove them.

I haven't yet looked into that mod, but what is it exactly? Also, is it available on Steam Workshop? I haven't been able to use Nexus for a long time since they required a program that always fails to install on my pc.

It makes NPCs run away instead of fighting battles they can't win.