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Mercer Frey is the worst thief and worst "follower" ever, but his behavior on the Speaking With Silence quest reminded me to ask about area effects. My preferred tactic when in tombs is to lure the undead out one at a time, then pick them off from a distance. Frey, however, immediately ran in, screaming, and draws out six or so Deathlords at a time. So I switched to casting Flame Cloak and then rushing in with Dawnbreaker.

But occasionally I got a message "Mercer Frey resisted flames". And when Dawnbreaker does its undead burst effect, sometimes Frey would be damaged. I thought:

  1. Dawnbreaker's burst effect is only supposed to affect undead, and
  2. the Cloak spells aren't supposed to harm allies. I've seen it happen every once in a while before, such as when vampires attack the streets of Whiterun. Every once in a while, I get "Whiterun Guard resisted flames".

So, is this a known bug? Or do Flame Cloak, Dawnbreaker, and other area effects work differently than I thought? I'm afraid to try Mayhem while travelling with a follower, now...

Edit: I should clarify that followers are definitely getting damaged by both effects, but inconsistently. Tskcool's comment about "X resisted flames" probably explains that message, but I also get followers saying "Watch it!" and "I'm on your side!", plus their damage bar visibly changes. The latter might be due to coincidental attacks from monsters, but the warning dialogue means friendlies are being harmed by effects that, according to both Elder Scrolls wikis, aren't supposed to affect them at all.

I did learn through more wiki research that elemental Cloak spells do damage neutral NPCs like guards, which is something I've seen personally. That may explain some of the messages, and might even explain Mercer Frey and now Anska, since they aren't normal followers. But I recall getting the same results with Lydia and Rayna, maybe even Mjoll. And again, it wasn'ty consistent: sometimes they are injured, sometimes they aren't.

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    Yes, generally, all area spells/effects (cloaks and walls too, but fireballs and chain lightnings are especially annoying) have friendly fire. With scripted companions like Mercer Frey you don't have to worry, since they're usually flagged as unkillable for the duration of their quest, but if you have non-essential followers you should take care not to accidentally kill them
    – blgt
    Apr 16, 2015 at 18:48

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The Dawnbreaker burst "hits" everyone around, even if they are not undead and "damages" undead and gives them fear.

The flame cloak spell normally doesnt hit non hostile npcs so instead they show ________ resisted flames. If it is the J'Zargo ones, they they will definitely hit them when they suddenly burst.

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  • I should be clear: on more than one occasion, I've seen the damage bar decrease, plus I sometimes got the "watch it!" or "I'm on your side!" dialogue. I understood it to work exactly as you describe, but it was sometimes definitely not, which is why I was thinking it was a bug.
    – John Laviolette
    Apr 19, 2015 at 17:21
  • Although this doesn't quite answer the question, it does provide useful information, so I am upvoting it.
    – John Laviolette
    Apr 19, 2015 at 19:37

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