This mod will allow you to kill all essential NPCs for a much more immersive and less annoying Skyrim experience. No plugins needed. This will not make children killable (install Non-Essential Killable Children for that). In your Skyrim.ini file, put GAMEPLAY bEssentialTakeNoDamage=0 at the bottom to make all NPCs nonessential. That's a good tip, but I don't want to make all the NPCs nonessential. I just wanted to know how to set certain individual NPCs as nonessential. Thanks anyway.

Determine Who's Essential[edit]

You can tell if an NPC is essential via the console. Open the console, click on the NPC, and type isessential. 0 means no, 1 means yes.

The statement means in-game, in oblivion they were distinguishable without console or attacking them. --Kiz^{·•· Talk ·•· Contribs ·•· Mail ·•·} 21:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Should ghosts/non-interactable NPCs be on this list?[edit]

There's a bunch of them in here, you can't interact with them in any meaningful way so I'm not sure that the point of the page is fulfilled.

For example Atmah is just a historical ghost that appears in one quest. Doesn't really matter if she's essential or not, you can't interact with her.

Jarl Balgruuf[edit]

Jarl Balgruuf is set as an essential NPC but doesn't appear on this list — Unsigned comment by 68.84.129.252 (talk) at 18:46 on January 4, 2012

Done. Minor Edits 21:58, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

changing their status[edit]

is there a way to make them non essential without making them die just like everybody else?

I'm looking for a way to make them act like followers. where if they would have died they just drop to 1 knee and monsters back off til they're back to full life. but they can still die if hit while down(pretty much mostly by me)

that way they're more resilient than random npc cause they're important but can still be offed if they bug me. — Unsigned comment by 24.38.223.147 (talk) at 04:16 on 4 March 2012

You can, but only using the Creation Kit. You need to make it so that they are tagged as 'Protected' instead of 'Essential'. LoftedAphid86 13:26, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

changing status[edit]

is there a console command to make them act like followers instead? (beaten to 0 hp go down on 1 knee to recover(Dropping off enemy's radar), but can be finished off in that state) — Unsigned comment by 24.38.223.147 (talk) at 09:57 on 19 March 2012

There isn't. There is a 'setessential' command and an 'isprotected' command, but no 'setprotected' command, I'm afraid. You'll have to go into the Creation Kit to set them as protected instead of essential. LoftedAphid86 13:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

How to kill most essential npc without console commands.[edit]

Most essential npc can be turned to an ash pile with reanimate corpse. You must cast the spell with both hands, not duel cast, and hit them below and to the left of their neck. There is also a timing issue I've not completely worked out yet having to do with the crosshairs cycle. So far the only npc marked essential I've not been able to turn to ash are kids in blue shirts. Spent a couple of hours on the Battle-Born kid while he was standing still waiting on me to turn him invisible, but worked fine in Braith (sp) and the Jarl's kids in Dragonsreach. I found this after the Greybeards hated me. After randomly casting spells at them, and dying a lot, I turned one to ash, pile can't be searched, with the aforementioned spell. Gonna try the Jarls next. I've also never let the killing stand so I don't know if it's permanent. Artemis Entreri 23:22, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Babette[edit]

Shouldn't Babette be listed here? While being considered a child, she's still tagged as essential, so she will go into Bleed Out instead of dying if she is no longer considered a child. LoftedAphid86 13:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

When you say 'no longer considered a child', I assume a mod is being used? So IMO, no, she shouldn't be listed, since the site is for vanilla Skyrim. ~ Psylocke 13:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

If you look in the Creation Kit, you'll see that she's tagged as 'Essential'. Most children are only protected by their race's 'Child' flag, and not an 'Essential' tag. Babette has both protecting her. LoftedAphid86 14:17, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

The article says: Children are not listed here because they are not merely essential, but completely impossible to harm in any way. With mods, they can be killed, so they are technically not 'essential.'

Yes you are absolutely correct, she is essential since she is tagged, and if a mod is used, she still can't be killed since she is essential, unlike other children who can be killed. But keep in mind that she is a Child first, because the 'Child' tag will never be removed in vanilla Skyrim. So, adding her to this page is unnecessary, as Babette is considered a child in unmodded Skyrim. ~ Psylocke 14:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought that it might still be worth noting. Perhaps changing the note on children to 'The tag that makes a child impossible to kill is separate from the tag essential characters use and is applied to a child's race as a whole, and, bar Babette, these tags are never both found on one actor.', or something to that extent, would help clarify the difference between the two and would avoid alluding to mods to explain this, as essential characters can suffer a similar fate to mods. LoftedAphid86 15:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be worth editing the note slightly to show that Babette is a unique child in that she has the separate essential tag, assuming this is unique to her. ABCface^◥ 15:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

It is. It's strange that she is even considered a child in game, since her race is also unique to her. (BretonRaceChildVampire) LoftedAphid86 15:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Essential and Marriage[edit]

I can see nothing in the game data that suggests that marriage influences essential status. But completing Glory of the Dead (Teardown() function in quest script) will set Eorlund, Aela the Huntress, Vilkas and Farkas to non-essential. Incidently completing that quest seems to be the requirement to be able to marry 3 of them. --Alfwyn (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2012 (GMT)

Protected NPCs[edit]

Protected NPCs are like Essential NPCs, except that they can be killed by the player (and only by the player) [1]. There are 81 NPCs in Skyrim that are flagged as protected and a few more with Dawnguard. How and where do we want to document that flag? One possibility would be to simply use 'essential=Protected' on individual NPC pages and write a pointer to a page with protected NPCs at the top of this page. I've listed the editor IDs of all NPCs with the protected flag set below (some of them seem to be actually creatures).

--Alfwyn (talk) 18:45, 27 September 2012 (GMT)

Thinking a bit more about it, it might be cleaner to just have an additional 'protected' parameter for the NPC Summary, with the field hidden for non-protected NPCs, like it is done with the essential field. --Alfwyn (talk) 21:52, 27 September 2012 (GMT)

Bug concerning certain soldiers[edit]

Would it be appropriate to mention that the Officers of the military camps should lose their essetial tag, but don't, after completing the civil war for the other side? Schiffy (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2012 (GMT)

Invulnerable and Ghost flags[edit]

So far we haven't really documented those flags (but see Barbas and Little Pelagius). It might be cleaner to add yet two new parameters, but it may become a bit much too. And far more often than for essential or protected, those conditions often last for some limited time only (let the evil guy get his speech, before he is allowed to be slaughtered). Invulnerable makes NPCs take no damage at all, while IsGhost makes weapons go right through them, with no damage (Serana is a prominent example with the latter flag).--Alfwyn (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2013 (GMT)

Susanna the Wicked[edit]

(PS3 user) While alive, she's essential.MrC (talk) 20:05, 11 March 2013 (GMT)

Always carry bunch of these in inventory.Tips for damage dealer playstyle:1. You have 80% berserk chance so u will get berserk most of the times. This is really useful in modes like Henir or ereda.Special Mention:Archangel's Blessing:This item is a really great item for all chungs and can be made by lvl 8 alchemists. This is really useful in Drabaki and Rosso raids. Does the critical dmg mod work in elsword pvp 3. It gives you 3 bead awaken whenever you die so you don't have to worry about restoring your awaken beads anymore.

There's no evidence in the game data to support that, nor was she made essential by a patch fix. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 01:58, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

Call it what you will, but she won't die. Try it yourself. MrC (talk) 20:13, 6 May 2013 (GMT)

edit -- Maybe there are conditions? Say, traveling to Windhelm again after Blood on the Ice is 'set' to start (I think it activates following a character's first three visits), but going during the daytime instead of at night, so the quest hasn't initiated. Also, aren't there multiple 'versions' of Susanna in the game data? Maybe one of them has different parameters.MrC (talk) 01:25, 24 January 2014 (GMT)

I used my questionable skills to check the game data on Susanna, and I don't see multiple living versions of her, just a couple of dead ones. Her base record isn't flagged as essential, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some script that makes her essential for a specific period. If this can be verified, we should document it in her article, but since she's not normally essential, I don't think she should be added to this list. --Xyzzy^Talk 04:48, 24 January 2014 (GMT)

There are at least three ways to make an NPC essential (simply setting the flag, a call in some script, or using a quest alias that makes them essential). In that case it is the quest MS11PreEssentializing which makes a number of NPCs essential. That quest is 'Start Game Enabled', that is it will run at the start of the game. So she is essential and gets disabled by MS11OpeningCrimeScene - after that the dead body versions of her are used. --Alfwyn (talk) 13:06, 24 January 2014 (GMT)

So, she's basically essential from the start of the game until she dies during Blood on the Ice? I guess that would qualify her as essential for the purposes of this article. As far as the other actors that are set as essential by the quest, some are already listed here, I assume because of their essential flag, but at least one, Silda the Unseen, is not. Do we want to include NPCs like Silda, who are essential for reasons other than the essential flag, in this article, or would that be too unreasonably large a task? --Xyzzy^Talk 15:16, 24 January 2014 (GMT)

Well, the page says it lists any NPC that is at some point essential. Historically all NPCs that have their flag set in the NPC_ record were documented as such on their page by a bot and added to this page. After that the data on NPC pages and this page probably diverged a bit, and NPCs becoming essential by some other means were never tackled systematically. So yes, Silda should be here - will do later a bit testing if/when her essentialness is over - in theory it should be as soon as Blood on the Ice stops the pre-quest in stage 0 and the quest alias making her essential is no longer used. --Alfwyn (talk) 16:21, 24 January 2014 (GMT)

(←) I hate to muddy the waters, but here goes..what is the point of this article? Listing essential NPCs just because we can? It seems somewhat trivial to do so, kind of like having an article listing all NPCs with voice type FemaleEvenToned. If there is some benefit to users of UESP in having this article, then by all means let's keep it and make it as inclusive as possible, but if this is just an exercise in CK digging with no useful purpose, I just don't see the point. No offense intended to anyone, and if anybody can tell me a a good use for this article, then I will gladly withdraw my question. --Xyzzy^Talk 01:38, 25 January 2014 (GMT)

Yes, the duplication of information bothers me a bit too. But I think the fact whether an NPC is essential is useful and surely belongs onto the NPC page. Now we have other summary articles on info found somewhere else too (for example Notes), but those take their information from those other pages without needing constantly updating of a single information bit on two pages. This cannot easily be done with this article, since the condition when essential status ends is currently worded differently, and it would still need manual adding of the essential NPCs anyway. The usefulness of big listing articles when a category would do too can of course be questioned, but is probably a broader topic.

Only listing a certain well defined set of essential NPCs and referring to the category for a complete listing could work too, if we could find a useful criterion --Alfwyn (talk) 12:11, 25 January 2014 (GMT)

Bryling's Essential Status[edit]

Unless anybody has an objection, I'm going to change Bryling's killable status to 'After Bound Until Death'. It's confirmed on another wiki and I'm pretty sure I killed her after that mission in one of my saves.166.147.123.23 22:45, 7 May 2013 (GMT)

If this is the case, there will be clear evidence in the construction kit. The, other wiki, you are likely referencing isn't as strict as we are on accuracy, from what I have seen. Also, do you have mods that may be changing things? Jeancey (talk) 22:49, 7 May 2013 (GMT)

This script for that quest has the lines:

Alias_BrylingAlias.GetActorReference().GetActorBase().SetEssential (false)

Alias_ErikurAlias.GetActorReference().GetActorBase().SetEssential (false)

..so it's correct that their essential status is removed by that quest. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 22:59, 7 May 2013 (GMT)

Vanishing camps.[edit]

I wrote: Note that these NPCs do vanish from the game (along with their camps) if the hold they're in is conquered for their side in the Civil War.

Referring to the legates and named Stormcloak officers in the various camps.

There is only ever one camp in each hold, and it's always for the side that does not control the hold. So at the beginning of the game, there are Stormcloak camps in Whiterun, Falkreath, The Reach, Hjaalmarch and Haafingar, and Imperial camps in The Pale, Eastmarch, Winterhold and The Rift. When a hold switches sides, the old camp disappears completely by being disabled and the camp for the other side is enabled. The only thing that survives this switch is the horses at the Stormcloak camp in The Reach, who do not appear to be part of the camp location.

It stands to reason that an essential NPC who is located at a location that has been disabled in the game is no longer in play. --Morrolan (talk) 20:18, 15 September 2013 (GMT)

Please base your edits on actual in-game experience. The Legates and Stormcloak commanders do not get disabled. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 20:24, 15 September 2013 (GMT)

I am. They are no longer available. If the Reach is taken over by the Empire, then Skyrim:Reach Stormcloak Camp is disabled and its commander is no longer there. --Morrolan (talk) 20:29, 15 September 2013 (GMT)

I'm quite certain that the officers get moved to the Jarl's keeps or if they were in the keep they move to the camp. They don't get disabled just relocated. --ZinnLav (talk) 06:06, 16 September 2013 (GMT)

Script Quest Event[edit]

I'm trying to figure out a way to set an essential npc to protected status (or vice versa) using a script that activates when a quest reaches a certain stage. Not sure how to do it though - help? — Unsigned comment by 162.218.217.2 (talk) on 9 September 2015

This really isn't the place to ask; the talk page is for discussing what's on the wiki. Maybe try the forums? --Morrolan (talk) 16:39, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Essential Stormcloak commanders / Imperial legates[edit]

In the table, the military commanders appear as 'Never' killable, in the preface though, it's hinted that this were not the case. As I know, they remain essential after their faction looses the war but withe the Unofficial Skyrim Patch installed, I can kill the commanders in their camps (it's a bit unclear in the notes for the patch if this is indeed part of it). Could somebody else confirm that they remain essential without the patch and become killable with the patch? --Romulus (talk) 14:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I can confirm that they remain essential without the patch. Playing on XBox, so can't do the other side. --Morrolan (talk) 16:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Esbern and Delphine—killable?[edit]

Can Esbern and Delphine be killed at all? DRAGON GUARD^(TALK) 20:30, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

No. They remain essential forever. --Morrolan (talk) 13:32, 18 August 2016 (UTC)