Protected companions

[st.stephen59]

Hi. Is there a way to change essential companions like Arissa, Sofia, Vilja, and Inigo to protected.
I think that their creators missed the point in terms of gameplay in making their beloved characters essentialy immortal. If they cannot die then in certain situations you will tend to leave them to their fate, knowing that the big ugly troll cannot kill them, whilst you see the sense in calling the runnaway ploy. Whereas if they are protected you must change your game plan in order to keep them around.

[gnewna]

Vilja certainly has a dialogue option for this, I think Inigo and Arissa do, not sure about Sofia. Pretty sure Vilja is protected by default, actually, but I could be wrong. Somewhere in the "travel together" dialogue tree, IIRC.

[gnewna]

""Can Arissa die?"
Only during a certain segment of her introduction quest. It is a choice the player must make and is not accidental. After that, she will be Essential and cannot die." (I don't remember anything that was obviously 'should I be essential or not', though, so I'm not 100% sure you can have a protected Arissa as your follower.)

[Shrapnel]

protected companions can still die, but only by the Player iirc

[Uncle64]

Stop using Fireballs and they will survive.

[gnewna]

Originally posted by Shrapnel:

protected companions can still die, but only by the Player iirc

Pretty much, they can sometimes die if they have bleeding/poison damage when they go into the crawling animation, I think, but it's nearly always the player who lands the killing blow.

[Uncle64]

Originally posted by gnewna:

Originally posted by Shrapnel:

protected companions can still die, but only by the Player iirc

Pretty much, they can sometimes die if they have bleeding/poison damage when they go into the crawling animation, I think, but it's nearly always the player who lands the killing blow.

Yes it is. Skyrim have some protection that when the npc goes down on the knee the opponent goes for some other.
I have played since the release of Skyrim and only one NPC have died in battle and that was Lydia that fell when one Dragour Fuz Do her from one cliff.
All the others have I killed my self, Fireballs, Arrow to the Knee and so on.
Thank good for the saves.

[Zefram Cochrane]

Originally posted by gnewna:

but it's nearly always the player who lands the killing blow.

It has to be, they can't be killed by NPC's. Protected means player-kill only.

[gnewna]

Originally posted by Zefram Cochrane:

Originally posted by gnewna:

but it's nearly always the player who lands the killing blow.

It has to be, they can't be killed by NPC's. Protected means player-kill only.

Yeah, my mistake, I'm sure I'd read (somewhere reliable) that if the protected NPC was poisoned with a damage-over-time poison (e.g. Chaurus I think?) before going into bleedout, then it could occasionally cause them to die without a direct blow from the player, but I can't find anything to back that up. Possibly it was a mod change or something I'm thinking of.

[Uncle64]

I did say that, but in bad words. Sorry for that. But it is rare that some NPC dies of poison.

And for the record I did load up CK and it tells me that Vilja is protected so it is only the player that can kill her.

[Trigger]

Companion insight is an active effect you can get from a certain Black Book. It will protect your companions from any damage you put out in a fight.

[smoky mcpot]

I have a mod called UFO - Ultimate Follower Overhaul you can change followers from essential to mortal and back again through the dialoge system by saying - You are important./Everyone dies.