How did J'zargo die? O.o

[Hect]

So, when I was playing Skyrim today, I got ambushed by bandits near my house in.. Falk.. (Heck, I don't know the English name.) let's just go with "Falkenring". Well, the fight ended up being quite difficult as I'm playing on Legendary mode. At some point, I used the Cyclone shout to launch some bandits into the air, ended up hitting J'zargo in the process.

Well, after the fight, he was no-where to be found. I'm used to have my followers disappear and come back when I gained 10 levels or even more.. :P But this time, he didn't come back. So I actually went out to investigate the close proximity of my hours and found the corpse of my dear J'zargo with 0 HP. :P

My main question is: How did this happen? He's essential, I believe.. how did he die? Did he hit the ground to hard? Reviving he won't be a problem, praise the "Resurrect" command.. but still. I'm kinda used to encounter strange glitches during a playthrough, but this one, I did not expect.

Screenshot: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=657734616

One J'zargo, one prayer.. may his soul rest in Sovngarde.

[Charmy]

Cyclone shout can kill with hit low hp npc, and yes he probably died from hitting the ground. Sorry for bad english

[Hect]

First edit: Used the "Resurrect" command. He got back on his feet, all my stuff despawned and he's no longer a follower. Hitting him results in getting a bounty of 40 septims in Winterhold and he tries to flee. Will have to load an earlier save file.

@ResTer: An essential NPC shouldn't die when he hits the ground. He was incapitated, he wouldn't even have gotten launched into the air in the first place. O.o So that's weird.. I'm well aware of that hitting the ground after getting launched into the air can kill a NPC in Skyrim, but essential NPC's only can die during an scripted event. :P

[The Rock God]

Unless you have a mod that makes him so, J'zargo isn't essential as a follower.

[Hect]

He really isn't..? Oh man, all this time and I haven't realised it. This furry is a beast! Now he's even better than before.

[Chellsea]

As far as I know, only a few special followers (like Serana or Ralof) are essential. The thing with other followers is, that when they fall on their knees due to low HP, the enemy doesn't finish them off, instead, they start attacking you. However, the follower can still be killed, if you accidentaly hit them with a shout that does damage, or do something like push them off the mountain. That's what happened to J'Zargo in this case

[TorrentXL]

All folowers die when their hp is brought to 0 by the player. If you are very powerfull, it is very much possible to 1 hit your followers. One way to prevent this is to get companions insight from the black books of the dragonborn dlc.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Some NPC's are Essential, which means they are invincible and can't be killed.

Many important NPC's are marked as Protected, which is another form of Essential. They usually can't be killed by other NPC's, unless they are somehow hit by a strong area attack that depletes their remaining health when they are in bleedout mode.

NPC's will usually ignore Protected NPC's when they drop to their knee and go into bleedout mode. Protected NPC's can easily be killed at any time by the player when they are in bleedout, so you have to be careful with them around.

[Liz (Albi)]

J'zargo isnt a essential NPC he can be easily killed by the player. He is also not in the follower guild and can only be a follower if mods are downloaded. Resurrect command should work but if it doesnt find the NPC's id help "J'zargo" once that id is there do player.placeatme (ID) it will make a replica of J'zargo.

[TorrentXL]

J'Zargo, onmund and the dark elf woman, can be followers if you finish there personal quests.

[Ac1180]

Utilising console commands you can set him as essential "setessential <baseID> 1" 1 makes him immortal also dont have him targeted when doing the console command.

[Ghostee]

I am deeply sorry for your loss.
Rest in peace, J'zargo.

To keep the items you gave your follower from disappearing, type: resurrect "1"
They will retain the items you gave them before they died. (You may have to hire them again after resurrection, though.)

[Hect]

Well, I've reloaded an earlier save! And yes, I've never noticed that J'zargo isn't essential. Now I'm 200% careful.. might end up replacing him with Frea from the Dragonborn DLC, as he does 0 damage on Legendary mode. :P (And I need a reliable follower for my Dragonborn DLC playthrough on YouTube.. she's essential, I think. So that might be helpful.) I really hope that I don't have to complete the main questline to get her. That would suck..

I've already convinced her to join me, but when I tell her to follow, she simply states that her village needs her at the moment. And now that Herma-Mora killed her father, she's 1337% mad at me and tells me to bash the ♥♥♥♥ out of Miraak.. :P

Oh well, but that's what makes this game so great.

[Bomb Bloke]

You've indeed got to clear the Dragonborn questline before you can take on Frea as a "regular" follower.

Difficulty level only affects your damage (both in and out); followers are unaffected. Frea does level higher than J'zargo, though, assuming the unofficial patch is installed (without it he's uncapped, same as she is - with it he caps at level 30, same as the other college students).

[Hect]

Yes, I'm aware of that J'zargo is uncapped, just like Frea. As I'm Lvl 46, I need a strong follower. More so, because Legendary mode is actually pretty hard. :P

And yes, I've seen some statistics regarding the difficulties and the damage output of both the player and the enemies. I believe one does three times less damage while playing on Legendary? At the same time the enemy hits two times harder.

However, I still don't find it difficult enough. Got any tips to increase the overall difficulty? I wanted to search for a few mods yesterday, couldn't find any. The search engine of the Steam Workshop seems kinda buggy sometimes..

[MysticMalevolence]

Originally posted by Reverence:

He is also not in the follower guild and can only be a follower if mods are downloaded.

He becomes a follower after you complete his quest...