Dead followers

Most of the time followers just "fall down" when they are nearly dead but sometimes they actually die. What can kill them?

For sure you can if you purposely, or accidentally, target them. I've killed my own followers by accidental arrow shots and spells several times in the heat of combat. A particularly annoying one is when they walk in front of you just as you do a sneak attack and you slit their throats.

I think that splash damage from area spells (not just your own) can off them too. A couple times after mage fights I've gone looking for my follower only to find them dead a ways off from where I was fighting and I didn't use any area/ranged attacks.

Traps? I am not sure. I had one follower die on one of those "swinging spiked door" traps and I am almost certain I didn't hit him with anything. Then again I have seen them fall down in the midst of some continuous trap and they are stuck there until you cross an area boundary.

Frost rune traps killed Ria, my Companion follower, and a Dwarven Centaurion killed Lydia. I don't know how it happened because I was too far away trying to hit the Centaurion with arrows, but sure enough it killed her. The frost runes all I heard was an explosion and I went back and Ria was dead. So who knows. I'm certain I didn't hit either of them with anything.

I was under the impression that only you can kill your followers (unintentionally or not).

Traps don't seem to do it. I've seen Lydia get really badly mangled by the swinging blade corridor trap (trying to follow me and triggering the trap, of course -"Lydia, look it's that big round stone, the one that even looks like a pressure plate, do not step on it…" Step, Click! *sigh*). She was taking lots of hits, that eventually dropped her HP bar to 0, but she got up a little while later and crawled 10 cm forward, got hit again, fell down, rinse and repeat until she made it out of that corridor. So, at least in my experience, built-in traps do not kill followers.

Maybe it's a bug? The strategy guide I've been told says that only friendly fire can kill a follower, but in my game that has simply been not true. How else would 2 of them died in battle? I don't even use any ranged attacks or AOE spells that could have possibly hit them. Yet they both died. And both times I wasn't even close to them, they were preoccupied either behind me or well in front of me. Weirdness.

Oh, and one of them respawned already. Yes, she died, completely dead on the floor, and hours later of in game time she and another NPC who was dead due to the story in a questline, had both resurrected in their initial starting areas. I would rather they have stayed dead really, but I guess that's another bug in this wonderful game.

They seem to die if they take any more damage from spells or poison, including friendly fire, but I have to admit that it seems a bit random at times. As I use more and more area effect magic I'm considering dropping Lydia and relying more on my summons.

I've noticed that if friendly fire has injured them somewhat recently, they can die from enemy damage. I don't think I've seen a death where friendly fire was not involved in some way.

I heard they only get staggered by enemies and only you can kill them (accident or on purpose). Not sure if it applys to the dog vigialance who died and I was pretty sure he was fighting some guy in the distance but in the heat of battle maybe I did something.

As for resurecting I haven't seen that but heh … I come back from the dead all the time so I just assume one of the divines decided to raise them. Death is seldom final in most fantasy worlds.

Animal followers can get killed by enemies I think.

The dogs who follow with their noses in my butt are quite annoying. Waiting for a modder to take out their vocal chords and make them back off.

Animal followers??? I saved a wolf in the middle of the forest and thought it might become a follower, but it just went back in it's cage. Poor doggy. Where can I find these wonderful creatures?

As for dying, I've had followers die when taking extreme damage. The enemies will normally back off once they go to a knee and then target you, but in at least one case they couldn't find me and I guess killed off Lydia because I hadn't cast any spells in her direction and found her dead from some snipers. Those guys are annoying sometimes.

I've just noticed something: Followers will die of DoTs that aren't gone by the time they get knocked down. Happened to me a lot last night, so I managed to verify it several times.

My follower's biggest risk is myself. Faenal has the deathwish habit of walking in front of me while I attack. Also, I may add that the hit space when swinging is very large. Faenal may be three feet away off to my side and he still gets hit. Rather sloppy combat mechanics actually…

Thats one thing NPC's have over people - impeccable aim. I have yet to recieve an arrow or blade in the back from any of my followers.

I get blasted by wizard followers so I assume that archers could hit you too. And how would you know?

Yup, I had to dump Illia because her Wall of Frost was slowing down and damaging my PC. In normal circumstances it didn't matter much but, in some boss fights, it just might kill you.