Can't heal Valdr, He's dead!

[GeoForce]

How can I get the line about healing Valdr out of my quest list? I went into the cave before I healed him and he was dead when I returned. Now it's a darn nuisance to see that still listed. I would set it as complete in console, but can't figure out if it was even a numbered quest.

[Gold]

just use console on him, go to his dead body, press the ` key and click on his dead body and type in "resurrect" then heal him

[smr1957]

Originally posted by Gold:

just use console on him, go to his dead body, press the ` key and click on his dead body and type in "resurrect" then heal him

Please stop passing along bad and dangerous advice! It has been repeated time and time again in the forum DO NOT USE RESURRECT ON UNIQUE OR NAMED NPCs!

"Console is a debug tool. It does not pass event and AI scripts, or undo scripts that have been already been ran. I have stressed several times that using resurrect is among those commands that you should never use in Skyrim.

If the character you resurrected was dead, then using the command does not undo death scripts that have already been ran. Game AI gets confused and in 99% of cases you will just have a no-good character wandering around. In worse cases, death scritps will have run other scripts and suddenly "alive" character starts to cause conflicts in the game.

If the character you "resurrected" is alive (and in this case a quest character), then scripts affecting to this character now has double targets, messing up the game AI royally.

Load a save from before using unsafe console command. Do not try to undo it in any other way, because Skyrim stores script data to save files and there is absolutely no way to clean them 100% from them. Even Bethesda didn't manage to do so." - Ilja

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854985133583/

AND:
"If you don't know what you're doing, using console commands can cause your game to malfunction! Executing the wrong command can cause your game to stop working normally; furthermore, you may not become aware of such malfunctions right away, and you may not be able to trace their cause. They can cause problems like making quests impossible to complete, altering your game's display, all kinds of game behaviors, your ability to play your character, and your ability to play the game at all. Solutions are not always easy, and may involve losing saved games or reinstalling your game.
Create a permanent saved game before using the console. (This mitigates only some kinds of risks.) If you need to use the console to fix a glitch, try to use the least powerful command possible."
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Console - cited by cfs111
Mini tutorial on the console here;
General Discussion and Tutorial Pages
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/485622866435280490/
(Under Contents by Post Number, see: 3. Console Mini Tutorial - cfs111 - Posts # 76-81 - starting here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/485622866435280490/?ctp=6#c485622866440267682 )

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854987583992/#c451848855002328904

ALSO:
Player.placeatme and Resurrect
Two commands that should never be used on unique NPCs.

Player.placeatme
From: http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Form_ID
"...the command player.placeatme <BaseID> will create a new copy of an object and place it at the player's position. This is fine with most items or generic creatures.With unique NPCs however, a second copy will usually cause problems with quests and such. In that case, one could move the NPC to the player with the command sequence:
prid <RefID>
moveto player
For most items, creating extra copies does no harm, so player.additem <BaseID> <quantity> can be used to add the desired quantity of items to the player's inventory. Quest-specific items, however, will suffer from the same problems as unique NPCs, since the quest will often be tied to specific RefIDs for objects, not their BaseIDs. Also, RefIDs can only be used if the object in question is loaded into memory; visiting the cell of the object can assure this. See the console article for further commands and uses of form IDs for other types of things."

Resurrecting Named Characters
When an NPC dies, the game runs a death script - this cannot be undone. The only way to "revive" an NPC that the game has marked as dead is to load a previous save from before the NPC died. While resurrecting with the console may seem to work, the game still sees the NPC as dead, so dialogue, actions, and quests that depend upon that NPC will not run. Also, you should be extremely careful when using console commands, as they can break your game - and if you do use a command, always make a hard save before using the command.

(Note: These two mods help prevent NPCs being killed by Vampire or Dragon attacks:
When Vampires Attack by Arthmoor - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28235/?
Run For Your Lives by Arthmoor - http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23906/? )

"You should never resurrect any named characters in Skryim. Game runs death scripts for each of them. Using resurrect command does not undo these scripts and there is no known way to reverse them.

Resurrecting character that has death script records in save file usually ends up badly. In best case scenario you get a useless NPC that is not tied to any quest and is cut out of the progress. In worse case scenario you get NPC that is comes constantly more and more bugged, tangling game scripts even further and ends up making a real mess out of your game.

Resurrect is among commands that has been classed as dangerous and should not be used in a game. It is a developer test command and should be treated as such. If you already made a mistake of using that command, then load a save before that." - Ilja

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/405692758710158199/#c405692758710646756

Ilja:
"Skyrim runs death scripts to all named characters. Resurrecting them through console does not undo the script. As far as game knows, -character- is dead and remains that way.

Effects for using Resurrect command vary. Some characters may act and talk as usual, but very often - especially with merchants and quest characters - game will get bugged, when it is no longer running scripts to dead characters, but those (as being "resurrected") are trying to cause scripts to run."
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/351660338700199057/#c351660338700216175

AND:

"Problems with resurrect have bee documented far and wide in this forum. You will notice the conflict sooner or later, especially if merchant character dies."
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/351660338700199057/#c351660338700279973

See also:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854987583992/#c451848855002328904

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/451848854985133583/


REGARDING RECYCLEACTOR:

"Recycleactor does refresh the character, but as far as I know, it does not undo death scripts.

I can't see why it would, seeing that it basically just restores the character. That character may be "refreshed", but death scripts and stand-in triggers should still be active." - Ilja

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/405692758710158199/#c405692758710784953

IN ADDITION:
Explanation of Resurrect function:
by Ilja
"I think it is best to explain resurrect a bit further. I might actually make a full post about it.

Biggest risks come down to scenes. Each character participating scenes has an alias. These aliases are required to be filled by Papyrus, when the scene starts. Here are few common cases about how the use of console can affect to them.

Scene starts, but character is dead. There is no character to fill alias. If script does not intercept the event, then Papyrus will try to fill the alias - over and over again. This will reserve all available Papyrus time, often preventing other scripts from running.

In this case locating the missing character, resurrecting them and bringing them to scene to fill alias can be helpful. Of course, you would need to have a log and know what you are looking at, including how to get rid of such character later, so that using console would not break the game even further.

Second scenario. Scene starts. Game considers one of the participants dead, but player has actually resurrected that character. Scripts may bring this character in to scene and attempts to fill alias. This may or may not work, depending on scene and other scripts (including mod scripts) running around.

Again, Papyrus will get stuck, trying to figure out which alias it needs to fill. Solution sounds easy: load a previous save and kill the character.

Reality is not that easy. Scene may have been initialized several saves ago, if you have been running around the area. Script to cut it may fail, because it is going against Bethesda's design, while trying to fill alias for a present "dead" character. Again: you might have to start making logs and trying to figure out when and where the scene got stuck - if you even figure out what is going on.

The more characters you have resurrected, the more changes the game has to use at some point initialize a scene. This also means that game has even more changes to fail filling aliases and completing the scene.

Civil War is a PITA in this. There are plenty of scenes and civilian characters are prompted to locations around times. This means that game will try to fill more than few aliases at the same time. Each character that is affected - and not necessarily even a quest giver or merchant - will be positioned.

For example: Battle of Whiterun, where some characters you have moved away from the city through HF DLC (or mods) will be there to get involved. If game finds such characters, then it will bring them in to scenes. Them being "dead" may still cause game to attempt fill aliases and cause Papyrus exceed it's limits.

I really do not recommend resurrecting characters, just because you can. If you do resurrect a character, then do that only for 1st scenario (if you know what you are doing) and then get rid of them for good. Otherwise: find and load an earlier save, where scene is not stuck."

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/133256959379908095/?tscn=1487016428#c133256959380839601

and:

"I think that one of the problems here is that people do not know what scenes are. They are not necesarily a grand events.

Let's take Ysolda for example. She has few very well known conversations in Whiterun Marketplace.
- Did you raice your prices Carlotta? (With Carlotta)
- Are you still working at the Bannered Mare? (With Olfina.)

Those are examples of scenes. They repeat themselves ever day, if your character is present to initialize them.

Death script will prevent scenes from running. Resurrecting any of the characters in these scenes (Ysolda, Carlotta or Oflina) has a change of causing aliases to try filling themselves again and fail.

Every city you visit has several few scenes around. You can see people turning to speak to each other, do something together etc. They repeat daily, or after certain events in game. These scenes are meant to make the world feel more alive.

You have all seen these secens and you all know they repeat themselves. Stop a while to think how many times you have seen them happening in your game. Each time is a potential risk, with resurrected character related to these scenes, or larger event scenes.

I have lost count how many times someone in this forum has complained about making a "harmless resurrect of poor Ysolda" and then messing up the game royally. Her essential flag is removed after A Night to Remember and she can die.

She is involved in Whiterun Civil War scene, has at least two daily scenes and is a replacement option for three stores in Whiterun. That makes her one of the most dangerous characters to get resurrected in the game.

There are other examples of equally big problems, but think that explanation around Ysolda is enouogh.

Almost every mod that adds extra characers and events have some sort of scenes included. These may be restricted to custom characters, or interaction may happen between vanilla characters. Papyrus does not know the difference. Each of them counts."
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/133256959379908095/?tscn=1487015775#c133257324786127579

[GeoForce]

While I might appreciate the extended tutorial and caveats, I had no intention of resurecting the guy. As for using the console debug, the only times I have ever used it (Mainly I consider it a cheat) was to correct the crimson ninroot count bug and to remove some books stuck in my inventory which were apparently not really there though listing as so..

I still would like to know how to remove this impossible to do line from my quest list. How in hell can I set the thing to failed or otherwise remove it?

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by geoforsy:

While I might appreciate the extended tutorial and caveats, I had no intention of resurecting the guy. As for using the console debug, the only times I have ever used it (Mainly I consider it a cheat) was to correct the crimson ninroot count bug and to remove some books stuck in my inventory which were apparently not really there though listing as so..

I still would like to know how to remove this impossible to do line from my quest list. How in hell can I set the thing to failed or otherwise remove it?

If it's the quest I think it is, you just have to talk to the quest giver and tell them Valdr is dead, it then completes the quest, at least that was what I did when I got it (if it is the same quest).

[Uncle64]

There is also one other option, load the save before, you did enter the cave.

[gim200]

I found way this FXXKNG BUG.
SIMPLE. JUST BEFORE GOING VALDR, OPEN CONSOLE, USE THIS CHEAT!

Setessential <valdr base id> 1

This mean valdr be immotal.
U can heal him, talk him!