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ok this has got to stop. I'm losing valuable npcs like belethor and the smithing woman to vampire attacks. Can someone make a mod that prevents vampires from entering cities and killing npcs?

I can't say that I've actually seen that happen, unless it is something Dawn Guard related, then I wouldn't know anything about it. If it isn't DG related, make sure that you don't have any mods causing it, since I have never heard of that happening before.

@ZeRoc, It's Dawnguard.

Black Weasel... Just play the game...

People complain about anything and everything these days...

Aren't shop keepers supposed to be replaced when they die?

You can stop them from dieing by killing the vampires before they get to your friends

No, some shops get taken over by someone else. Belathor's shop gets taken over by his assistant, Alvor's shop it taken over by his wife, etc.

There is a mod which provides an amulet of vampire resistance which prevents Dawnguard Vampire attacks on townspeople by constantly re setting the script timer clock for attacks. It weighs zero and can be found in Helgan and the Hall of the Dead in Whiterun. I have used it through two play throughs and have found no bugs attendant with it's use. It does not use up an amulet slot so will not conflict with other amulets and is not visible. Since it is removable you can revert to letting the vampire attacks proceed whenever you like.
It can be found on Nexus under the name: Dawnguard no Vampire Attacks http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/21615

I made a small .bat file (I'm using PC) into what I added couple of small commands. Basically I always found it unfair that the poor NPC's in the game do not level up while every mob around them does. Sure, not an issue at first, but later as player is high level and so are mobs, those poor plebes are still low level and die from a sneeze alone, often from own sneeze at that! So the lil' .bat file I had leveled them up too, in relation to me. And it added a teeny-tiny.. silver sword to them, and a few healing potions. I like those attacks myself, it adds to the game, all those ambushes and assassins and vampires and dragons and what not are fun, but I want everyone to have a chance. And that silver sword in their hand wasn't too much, after all enemies get armor and spells, etc.

So whenever the vamps or something else attacked the town or the city or the village from there on, citizens bravely took up arms to defend their homes. Some pretty spectacular fights happened, at times pretty large scale too. I did not want everything to be too tough though for mobs either, so I did not beef up any guards. And finally after so long, the citizens of Skyrim had the skills and the tools to fight back the horrors of the land.

EDIT: and how it relates to mods, well sort of. I did not want to use any mods in this case as they change the game mechanics and thus I resorted to this option. Besides, using game's own commands is safer anyway then using a custom mod

That's an interesting approach! Do you share your batch file anywhere?

Oh it's pretty simple, just few lines actually. First line is:

SETLEVEL 1000 0 1 81

Basically it sets the NPC to have the same level as I do (1000 = 100%), second stat is redundant but has to be set (level offset value but the first one already deals with it), 1 is the lowest level and 81 is highest level. Can use max 100 for highest level but since player cannot get to level 100 in vanilla game and 81 is max, I used that. Can of course set any other level value, since most NPC's are usually between levels 2 to 15, so can set last two to 15 81. Or heck, 100 100 if one wants Second line is:

ADDITEM 10AA19 1

That's a standard silver sword. I used to give to them actually the SkyForge Steel sword before, but with the Dawnguard the vampires were added and they're tricky buggers, so I figured that a silver sword may be of use to the poor denizens of Skyrim. I haven't actually checked it myself but if Bethesda did it right, Dawnguard vampires do fall under the undead category and thus should be affected. No point to give any more powerful sword as it would make things maybe too easy, but no point to give any weaker either as it wouldn't help much then. Third line is:

ADDITEM 39BE5 25

This is the ultimate healing potion. Sure, at first it may seem that "wow, such a powerful potion and even 25 of those at a time!" but then again it's not. At low level it doesn't matter because any potion pretty much heals them fully up (in most cases), so this potion behaves no differently. At higher levels opponents get and use healing spells, buffing spells, drain attacks (and they use them a lot) and so on and most NPC's don't get any of those so these sort of equal the field. Also, they can still be killed, they can be staggered, knocked down, etc which may not leave them enough time to use it. And finally, I only buff them once but do not "refill" them, so these potions have to last them a "life time" If they use them up, oh well, bad luck. And final line is:

SETAV CONFIDENCE 3

All NPC's have a confidence level, it determines how cowardly or foolhardy they are. Value usually ranges from 0 to 5, where 0 means "chicken" and 5 means "crazy fool". I set it to 2 or 3, a middle point. What this does is make the NPC still defend itself or it's friends or other friendlies around, but if things get too bad they will still run or take cover.

All in all this file does not affect the game much since these NPC's are all in their standard locations and thus they don't make anything easier for you, while it gives to them a chance to survive, especially since the player char and monsters do level up, but NPC's were forgotten so to say. Those poor farmers, villagers, khajiit caravan runners.. But as you see, it doesn't add any ability to the NPC what it already doesn't have. Every NPC has a specific skill set assigned to them and these raise up as the NPC level raises, but abilities remain the same. So no poor farm yokel will suddenly become crazy powerful warlord or arch mage, he'll still be a farm yokel but a yokel who "grew up" a bit and can defend his family, his farm and his cows against an assailant. Mostly. Sure, if someone wants they can just launch the CK and add a different skill set to some NPC and indeed turn that farm yokel into a powerhouse but that's everyone's personal choice