avoiding bounties

[Malak]

So my friend says to avoid getting a bounty for murder, that even the victim cannot detect you. That makes no sense if they are alone and they are dead. How would anyone know?? If you do something like Congure Flame Atronach and then run, does that work?

[Trigger]

Check out this mod " ASSASSIN'S POTIONS " you reverse pickpocket a potion into someones inventory and go stand across from that person then cast the spell that will make that person go into their inventory and drink the potion then fall down dead

[Malak]

You can also just put poison in their inventory, correct?

[Trigger]

yes, poisons that will kill them when you cast the spell to make them drink it, you DO NOT get the blame

[gnewna]

If you attack someone who is alone, you will get the 40 bounty in that hold notice flash up. If you then kill them it will say "last witness killed, bounty of 40 septims removed from [holdname]" or words to that effect. On the other hand, if someone else sees you, you will now have a bounty of 1000 (for murder). That someone can include some animals. You can, sometimes, be detected doing stuff even if you are in a room by yourself with the door shut, unless you're successfully sneaking (e.g. I've stolen stuff in my room at the Winking Skeever after the inn keeper went back downstairs, and I shut the door, and heard him yell 'hey!' and got a bounty - reloaded, went into 'stealth mode' and took the same items, got away with it - well, until the Hired Thugs came after me...) so I presume that might also be the case if you murder someone in one room of a house while someone is awake in another room.

Originally posted by Trigger:

yes, poisons that will kill them when you cast the spell to make them drink it, you DO NOT get the blame

Well, sure, if you want to use mods to get around the game mechanics. You can also just use console commands to kill someone. But the OP was asking how the actual game works with regards to bounties.

[Malak]

Yes, I use the "shut the door first" trick all the time, but I must have been lucky because I just run over and grab all the goodies. Thanks for the tip, though. I love it when you walk into a shop and then go into their bedroom and they follow you with glaring eyes. lol

[gnewna]

Originally posted by Malak:

Yes, I use the "shut the door first" trick all the time, but I must have been lucky because I just run over and grab all the goodies. Thanks for the tip, though. I love it when you walk into a shop and then go into their bedroom and they follow you with glaring eyes. lol

Yeah, a lot of the time it works fine, but I guess the innkeeper whose name I still can't remember has particularly good hearing ;)

I was most disappointed, on my vampire playthrough, to realise that I couldn't get up to Nazeem's bedroom in the Drunken Huntsman without the proprietor following me up (even though I was successfully sneaking, from what I remember)... Although admittedly I don't think I tried again when my sneak skill got better.

[Malak]

You can also use your follower to block them entering the room and take stuff out of sight of the door.

[la_nague]

there is a bug where animals can be witnesses.

[gnewna]

I don't think that's a bug. It's *silly*, but as far as I'm aware, it's intentional.

[Gralzeim]

Horses can also be witnesses. Gotta be careful around them.

http://awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=012312

[Malak]

I heard even chickens.

[la_nague]

all domesticated animals. Dogs, sheep, chicken, cow etc


i personally call it a bug, i dont think cows make good witnessess in a murder investigation.

[Malak]

Two sub-questions: If you are invisible do you get caught? And if you use a rune and no one sees you place it - do you get blamed?

[DragonMaster]

Originally posted by gnewna:

If you attack someone who is alone, you will get the 40 bounty in that hold notice flash up. If you then kill them it will say "last witness killed, bounty of 40 septims removed from [holdname]" or words to that effect. On the other hand, if someone else sees you, you will now have a bounty of 1000 (for murder). That someone can include some animals. You can, sometimes, be detected doing stuff even if you are in a room by yourself with the door shut, unless you're successfully sneaking (e.g. I've stolen stuff in my room at the Winking Skeever after the inn keeper went back downstairs, and I shut the door, and heard him yell 'hey!' and got a bounty - reloaded, went into 'stealth mode' and took the same items, got away with it - well, until the Hired Thugs came after me...) so I presume that might also be the case if you murder someone in one room of a house while someone is awake in another room.

Originally posted by Trigger:

yes, poisons that will kill them when you cast the spell to make them drink it, you DO NOT get the blame

Well, sure, if you want to use mods to get around the game mechanics. You can also just use console commands to kill someone. But the OP was asking how the actual game works with regards to bounties.

Now I don't know about all that there because I kill That " Ms. Kind" women in Honor hall all the time and don't kill any one else and I've yet to get any sort of bounty at all. Only time I ever got the 1k septum bounty is when I killed someone and the guards saw me. Just like that one woman you have to kill in Solitude during the DB quest I killed her and didn't get no bounty what so ever.

[gnewna]

Originally posted by DragonMaster:

Now I don't know about all that there because I kill That " Ms. Kind" women in Honor hall all the time and don't kill any one else and I've yet to get any sort of bounty at all. Only time I ever got the 1k septum bounty is when I killed someone and the guards saw me. Just like that one woman you have to kill in Solitude during the DB quest I killed her and didn't get no bounty what so ever.

There's no bounty for killing Grelod, you can kill her in full sight of everyone in the orphanage and all that happens is the kids are overjoyed and Constance freaks out. No guards are called, nobody attacks you. Special (and somewhat annoying, if you find out after having bothered to kill her stealthily, I suppose) case. (She also only has one point of health. You can punch her in the face and it kills her.) Depends on how you go about killing the Solitude woman, if you fast travel away instantly or if you are very sneaky, you won't get a bounty, but otherwise you should do, even on my fairly high stealth characters I generally can't get away undetected unless I fast travel (and I have to have my finger on the M key while I prepare my shot in order to do it quickly enough, although I imagine this would be different depending on where you attack from/how you do it). Perhaps your game glitched, or perhaps you were sneakier than you thought?