Here is what realistic sneak damage would be if you caught someone unaware.
All melee weapons- Instant death or incapacitation leading to death upon a second hit. This is taking into account that you have the ability to strike exactly where you want.
All ranged weapons- No change at all since they are a static amount of damage. You might think the atlatl and the thrown spear would be exceptions to this, but they are not. Once thrown, they are literally out of the attacker's hands and will yield the same amount of damage regardless.
I do archery in real life and know a bit about its history. I can say that you were more likely to die from a arrow wound than a blade wound in the medieval ages if you went to battle.
The French during the hundred year war against the English rightly feared the English archer for good reason, our longbows could puncture their armour from 180 yards away and kill the occupant in one hit. The French accounts of the Battle of Agincourt and Crecy put into detail the devastation the English Longbow did to their troops that wore plate steel and chain mail armour.
Does this affect damage before Perks? Like just the base sneak attack damage? Or are you changing the perks to do this damage? Like instead of the Dagger perk to do x15 damage, you have this? And if this is before perks, how would this affect perks? At the very least Bows need to have some change due to their perk being the same as this.
There is no way to make the Skyrim sneak attack multipliers realistic in any way, even if you consult all sorts of spec ops and ninja types. The game engine is not capable of that and as far as i know no existing engine is.
You would need several vital hit zones (skull, heart, throat, liver, kidneys etc.) for different weapons. These zones can be or not be protected in multiple ways against different weapon and damage types.
The game needs to be aware of the situation: You can stand behind a corner with a sledgehammer and beat some down in one hit, but you cant's sneak around wielding a sledgehammer. You can kill someone with one stab of a dagger, but a dagger is not strong enough to penetrate every kind of armor. And of course the player charaters overall sneak skill, his skill with different weapons and his anatomic knowledge needs to be considered.
And talking of realism: In real fights with archaic weponry most people just got hurt in the fight and died later because some executed them while the were defenseless or they bled to death or died from some sort of infection. If, for example, you hit someone with an arrow and he wears nothing equivalent to plate armor he will presumely not die on hit but be hurt to much to fight back. But he will also scream bloody murder and his friends will go for you.
talking about vital points in gameplay, Sniper did. but like you say yourself, there is no engine that could combine this with skyrim's or elder scrolls's gameplay at the moment. you could try to make one yourself if you are a codewriter but it takes a great amount of processing and ram memory, not to mention the graphical adapter that you need to switch to an amount of different vieuws and zooms within seconds. you could however make a 2 way mod including a nerve sensory vision mod with a critical wounds mod.
Brilliant Mod, the whole Skyrim sneak engine needs overhauling anyway and although this mod cannot do that obviously(it is only one mod) it certainly brings the game closer to the realism and immersion that modders love to incorporate into their game. I'd like to address the haters on the comments who seem to be picking very finely to discover faults with this mod, overall it is effective and works so I see no reason for knit-picking. The damage stats seem to be appropriate and this suffices very nicely for me when I combine it with my other mods such as Combat Overhaul etc. Definitely a 10/10 for me. DOWNLOAD IT NOW!
I do not understand the references to "names/words/attention" at all but I do agree that IF you plan to make it "realistic" then you need to get real on what weapons vs a punch will do to a back/ or front or throat. the 5 for dagger is probably ok BUT a 1.5 for a 2hd AXE? not even close a fist/punch might get a 2 but not more as it does little damage without an "aid" so good idea here but you really need to talk to someone that has done the job (sneak attacks) I don't mean the pukes that run up and punch old men and ladies, I mean SpecOps or Delta or SEALS. they have had quite a bit of that kind of "real world" training lately.
There have been several mods (and it seems to be getting worse) that are at best subjective that add words like realistic and immersive to their titles in order to get views/downloads.
Simply put sneaking with any melee weapon two-handed or not is instant death; stick'em in the neck or bash their skull in. Arrows only sneaking lets you get unarmoured points such as armpits and knee joints whilst not always fatal they can be incredibly painful (real-world experience) and allow the attacker to incapacitate a target easily
I think that you should call this "Re-balanced Sneak Damage' because, yes this makes more sense but Skyrim itself didn't make a realistic sneak engine anyway. The only way a sneak mod could possibly be realistic is if you incorporate armor types and arrow weight, or chinks in armor. Locational damage has done some of that but it fails to recognize armor, thus making it stupid. In other words.... Not Realistic, Re-balanced
Talking of realism, that's kinda interesting, since you noted in the description a random arrow in the back would hurt seriously, yet the crossbow multiplier is half of what the bow has.
22 comments
All melee weapons- Instant death or incapacitation leading to death upon a second hit. This is taking into account that you have the ability to strike exactly where you want.
All ranged weapons- No change at all since they are a static amount of damage. You might think the atlatl and the thrown spear would be exceptions to this, but they are not. Once thrown, they are literally out of the attacker's hands and will yield the same amount of damage regardless.
The French during the hundred year war against the English rightly feared the English archer for good reason, our longbows could puncture their armour from 180 yards away and kill the occupant in one hit. The French accounts of the Battle of Agincourt and Crecy put into detail the devastation the English Longbow did to their troops that wore plate steel and chain mail armour.
As if sneak damage is something realistic at all...
You would need several vital hit zones (skull, heart, throat, liver, kidneys etc.) for different weapons. These zones can be or not be protected in multiple ways against different weapon and damage types.
The game needs to be aware of the situation: You can stand behind a corner with a sledgehammer and beat some down in one hit, but you cant's sneak around wielding a sledgehammer. You can kill someone with one stab of a dagger, but a dagger is not strong enough to penetrate every kind of armor. And of course the player charaters overall sneak skill, his skill with different weapons and his anatomic knowledge needs to be considered.
And talking of realism: In real fights with archaic weponry most people just got hurt in the fight and died later because some executed them while the were defenseless or they bled to death or died from some sort of infection. If, for example, you hit someone with an arrow and he wears nothing equivalent to plate armor he will presumely not die on hit but be hurt to much to fight back. But he will also scream bloody murder and his friends will go for you.
Edit: Weird typos.
but like you say yourself, there is no engine that could combine this with skyrim's or elder scrolls's gameplay at the moment.
you could try to make one yourself if you are a codewriter but it takes a great amount of processing and ram memory, not to mention the graphical adapter that you need to switch to an amount of different vieuws and zooms within seconds.
you could however make a 2 way mod including a nerve sensory vision mod with a critical wounds mod.
I'd like to address the haters on the comments who seem to be picking very finely to discover faults with this mod, overall it is effective and works so I see no reason for knit-picking.
The damage stats seem to be appropriate and this suffices very nicely for me when I combine it with my other mods such as Combat Overhaul etc.
Definitely a 10/10 for me.
DOWNLOAD IT NOW!
i'd say all weapon 1.2x as you wouldn't be prepared for the blow like you normally would (more tension in muscles and such)
Arrows only sneaking lets you get unarmoured points such as armpits and knee joints whilst not always fatal they can be incredibly painful (real-world experience) and allow the attacker to incapacitate a target easily