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While exploring (a dungeon or otherwise), you defend yourself against a hostile NPC, but it just so happens that that very same hostile NPC was actually a kill target of a quest, somewhere in the game. Will that kill-quest still be available to you, but then immediately completed by talking to the quest giver again? Or will the quest be totally unavailable a.k.a. you basically ruined that quest?

(For anyone who just read my other thread - the reason I ask this (and the other) question is just don't want to "miss" intended content. If I accidentally kill a quest-kill-target NPC, and now I can no longer access the hand-crafted quest to find and kill him, well, that sucks!, since I wanted to read the dialog and get the journal entries legitimately, and get whatever quest rewards there were.)

I seem to recall a long time ago, killing a barbarian who attacked me, and later discovering that I was *SUPPOSED* to get a quest from a guy in a nearby town to kill him, and I believe I wasn't able to get that quest anymore since I had already killed him.

If I'm right and there are quests that you can ruin by accidentally completing them before getting the quest, is there a list of those quests somewhere (or list of kill-NPCs (or items, etc) tied to those quests) so I know not to mess with these NPCs/things until actually getting the quest first? It's difficult to make the judgment call on your own, because, some quests are initiated BY random exploring, like finding that Silver Bowl in that dungeon. Thanks for any advice.

Very few, I would imagine. Usually those quests can be insta-completed, and a couple can actually be turned in without even being a member of the faction.

Here is the quest I mentioned - I remember having some kind of trouble with this one. I don't remember if Larrius' quests were locked/bugged once I got to this point, or if I was unable to start it whatsoever, I just remember something had messed up because I already encountered the barbarian and killed him, and since I didn't know I'd messed anything up when doing so, I didn't re-load my game or make a backup save or anything, so I was out of luck there

(and it's not like I'm going around killing random npcs -- obviously that might cause some problems. But I mean, this guy robs you and gives you no choice but to either be robbed or to kill him. I'm very surprised they didn't take into account the situation where you'd already killed him.)

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Fjol

Something to be aware of if you're planning on joining the Morag Tong: If the targets of Morag Tong quests are killed before the quest is given, the quest can still be completed, but the disposition of the quest-giver will drop (instead of rising).

I haven't played through the Morag Tong quests myself (yet -- another character I need to do!), so I can't say how many (if any) targets are NPC's you might "accidentally" kill in your explorations. I do know there's a potential conflict with the Brothers Ienith as they are also the target of a Thieves Guild quest.

Thanks all