How do i reset NPC's after they have been long dead?

[Vallaes]

The thing is due the stupid vampire attacks some NPC's are dead, i could resurrect them many gameplay hours later but they are now not more the vendors of their shops like Belethor or like Ghorza the smith in Markath. Ysolda is now vendor and the resurrected (recycleactored) Belethor stands next to her and has just "How is buisness?" and other stuff to talk to him but he is not the vendor.

The same thing with Ghorza she was dead and her student is now vendor for her, i tried to kill him with command to reset his status because recycleactor did not work to reset him back to student status and her to vendor status, but i need her because of a mod for Snow Elf weapons and generally i would like to have the usual vendors to be the vendors.

How to i reset Ysolda and Belethor same as Ghorza and that student to their standard status? Recycleactor does not make that and killing student and recycleactor him made just the smith empty now no one is smith or vendor there.

[Ilja]

Do not resurrect them. Game records character deaths and runs specific scripts for some of them. This scripts will not be disabled when character gets resurrected. That is what causing your problem.

To avoid these things in the future, install recommended mods Run For Your Lives and When Vampires Attack to your game, so that civilians will take cover from the battle, instead of joining it. Both links are included in my bug and problem fixing post, also included inside pinned topics of this forum.

Small list of little big mods for Skyrim
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/34094415774892758/

[Vallaes]

But there must be a way to restore their former status now.

I need those stupid snow elve weapons from her!

[Ilja]

So far I have not found reliable way to undo scripts trough console or otherwise. Done changes are indeed scritps and not quest stages, affecting to more characters than one.

[gnewna]

"Well sometimes, dead is better. The person you put up there ain't the person that comes back. It might look like that person, but it ain't that person, because whatever lives on the ground beyond the Pet Sematary ain't human at all."

In short, there isn't any way to safely and completely bring back NPCs who have died. However, as far as I know, the merchant inventory for the replacement merchant *should* be the same as the original NPC's inventory, have you checked whether the apprentice/replacement actually has the weapons you need? If not, then the safest thing is probably to find out the console codes for the items you want and add them to his inventory. Before doing this, you should probably revert to a save before you started re-animating dead NPCs, as it can cause weird issues in your game.

So, to add the items to his inventory... Let's assume the item you want is called "snow elf sword". Open the console and type

help "snow elf sword"

You will probably only get one or two item codes, from memory it should have WEAP next to it (I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure - it's been a while). For example, let's assume the code is 3B00578C1 (I think that's the right amount of digits). Next, you need to click on the merchant. You should see their console reference in the middle of the console part of the screen. If they're vanilla (like the Markarth guy) it should start with a bunch of leading 0s. Once you have selected the merchant, type the following:

additem 3B00578C1 1

(With the appropriate code that you found from looking up the item in place of the 3B00578C1 and if you want to buy more than one item, simply change the 1 at the end of the line to however many.)

You should then see the item in his inventory when you ask what he has for sale.

Tl;dr version:

open console and type:
help "name of thing you're looking up"
click on merchant and type:
additem

 1
(or however many you want to buy.)

(You could, of course, also just add them to your inventory with the console, but you may as well do it this way so you've bought them pretty much legit.)

[LordZeusCannon]

There is a way to revive belethor and it worked for me.this is how you do it:
Type:
prid 0001A672
moveto player
enable
resurrect
addtofaction 51596 1
addtofaction 51599 1


This made him get up off the ground in front of me, go into his store and I am able to trade with him just like he never died.

[LordZeusCannon]

Now I just need to find out whatever battleborn's ID is so I can revive him as well the guy that says you've been a good friend to me that means something

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Bifröst:

How to i reset Ysolda and Belethor same as Ghorza and that student to their standard status?

You don't. Once they're dead and their death script has kicked in, there's nothing you can do about it. It will be baked in your save game and there's no way to change it.

[Belanos]

Originally posted by Lord Zeus Cannon:

There is a way to revive belethor and it worked for me.this is how you do it:
Type:
prid 0001A672
moveto player
enable
resurrect
addtofaction 51596 1
addtofaction 51599 1


This made him get up off the ground in front of me, go into his store and I am able to trade with him just like he never died.

That's probably because you resurrected him before his death script had kicked in. Once that happens, Ysolda takes over his store and becomes the trader.

[smr1957]

And for those of you who still don't get it and refuse to believe Belanos (one of the forum's frequent and reliable posters), here's this:

"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/

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

Resurrecting Named Characters
"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

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

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

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/351660338700199057/#c351660338700279973

http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/351660338700199057/#c351660338700216175

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

Also see: Explanation of Resurrect function by Ilja:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/133256959379908095/?tscn=1487016428#c133256959380839601

[LordZeusCannon]

Originally posted by Belanos:

Originally posted by Lord Zeus Cannon:

There is a way to revive belethor and it worked for me.this is how you do it:
Type:
prid 0001A672
moveto player
enable
resurrect
addtofaction 51596 1
addtofaction 51599 1


This made him get up off the ground in front of me, go into his store and I am able to trade with him just like he never died.

That's probably because you resurrected him before his death script had kicked in. Once that happens, Ysolda takes over his store and becomes the trader.

just so i can put this straight. you obviously didnt try it, cuz belethor had his own coffin in my game and he had been dead for weeks of in game days. it works, trust me

[LordZeusCannon]

also, i had no idea where his body was cuz it dissapeared at some point after being killed by vampires. also, using the same method i have revived Idolaf Battle-Born using his ID # and minus the addtofaction