Skyrim: Here’s How To Spawn an NPC

NPCs are an integral part of Skyrim, from quest-giving to conflicts and economy. Not much would happen around you if they weren’t present. It’s unfortunate, however, that sometimes certain important NPCs, such as followers or essential characters, can seemingly disappear from the game. In the case of followers, this is often due to dying in combat, and when it comes to essential characters they can disappear due to bugs or simply don’t respond to you in the way in which it was intended. Console commands can fix these problems; in the case of NPCs dying or disappearing, we can spawn them in the game with the use of one simple command. Let’s see how to spawn an NPC in Skyrim?

What is the spawn command in Skyrim? 

We’ve covered Skyrim NPCs extensively in the past and brought to your attention several commands bound to make your playthrough easier. Sometimes, NPCs can be bugged, and we need to reset them, reset their dialogues, resurrect them, or even respawn them altogether. 

If your follow has fallen in combat or a vital NPC is missing in the game, stopping you from doing an important quest, there are several ways through which you can approach those issues. The first command we’re going to cover is the NPC spawn command. 

NPC spawn command in Skyrim 

This command is pretty straightforward to use the only thing you need access to is the NPCs base ID. Base ID is an ID given to every NPC before they are placed in the game, it is a unique identifier for every NPC. To find out what the base ID for a specific NPC is, the only thing you need to do is type help <“NPC name”> 0. For example, if I want to find out what the base ID for Lydia is, I’m going to type help “Lydia” 0  and hit enter. 

The resulting output will be Lydia’s base ID – 000A2C8E. 

Now that I have Lydia’s base ID I can proceed with my spawn command. 

1. open the console by pressing “~” 
2. Type player.placeatme 000A2C8E 1 
3. Hit enter and Lydia should spawn right in front of you in her base equipment. 

You can replace the number 1 with any number in theory and you can spawn multiple copies of Lydia at the same time although I wouldn’t recommend that. 

How to move to a specific NPC? 

If you don’t want to create a new copy of an NPC every time you lose track of your follower, you can always move to their location. To do that, we’re going to need their RefID so as not to be confused by their Base ID since the two numbers are not the same. You can find NPC’s RefID by creating a funclist file, or you can simply locate the RefID by following this link. 

In my case, I need Lydia’s RefID, it’s 000A2C94. Follow these steps to move to a location of a specific NPC: 

1. open the console by pressing “~” 
2. type player.moveto 000a2c94 
3. Hit enter and a loading screen should appear which is an indicator that you are currently being transported to the location of your selected NPC. 

Sometimes, if the NPCs are disabled from the game, for example, if NPCs die and are despawned, this command will not work, and nothing will happen. In that case, if you wish to access this NPC once again, you will need to spawn another copy of it. 

How do you move a specific NPC to you? 

So far, we’ve seen how to spawn an NPC and how to teleport to an NPC. There’s a third option on the table, and it includes moving an NPC to your current location. For this command to work, we’re going to need the RefID of NPC as well. For example, If I wish to move Lydia to my location, I’m going to do the following:

1. open the console by pressing “~” 
2. Type Prid <refID> in Lydia’s case RefID is 000a2c94, press enter
3. Type moveto player and press enter 
4. If you’ve done everything right, the NPC in question should appear at your location. 

How do you locate a missing NPC? 

Sadly you cannot “locate” a missing NPC in Skyrim, but you can either teleport to their location or you can teleport that NPC to your location, whichever works for you the best. Please keep in mind however that neither of those commands will work if NPC is missing from the game or is permanently disabled, in that case creating a new copy is your best course of action. 

How do you respawn a follower? 

If your follower has died in combat and you are next to his body, there’s no need to spawn another copy of it as you can simply resurrect them with a simple and straightforward command. To resurrect a dead follower follow these steps: 

1. open the console by pressing “~” 
2. Clinc on a dead NPC and type resurrect, press enter

If you’ve targeted the NPC in question correctly, it should respawn instantly. The NPC inventory will be reset, however. I guess this is a small price to pay for another chance at living. 

You can stop your followers from dying in the future by making them “essential” characters, this basically means that you can make your follower immortal. To make your followers essential do the following: 

1. open the console by pressing “~” 
2. type setessential <base ID> <1> , in Lydia’ case we’re going to use 000A2C8E 1 
3. 1 means that essential status is “on” and 0 means that it’s “off” and the NPC in question can be killed. 
4. Hit enter, and you can perhaps test the newfound immortality of your follower. 

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