Shattered Kingdoms

Forgive this old-timer for giving SK another try and being out of the loop.

Some NPCs have items that don't drop when they die. I thought these used to be deathrot items and the way to obtain them is to fight to the stun. Once stunned, their items could be taken from their stunned body.

This does not seem to be the case anymore. Once I stunned, the items ceased to exist.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a bug or feature? I ask because if this was a change during my absence, so be it.

There are a few items held by NPCs that can only be gotten by chopping off the NPC's arm. This might be the problem you're having.

You could also be attacking a vendor NPC. For instance, the gangly bakemono in the caverns sells food(?), and it used to be impossible to get his fetish. I'm not sure if the latter is still the case, but I do know that any equipment on a vendor NPC will disappear, so that you can't steal from the shop. One of the more lame changes in the game, imo.

The only way I found around this is having somone charm said NPC and make him drop the item. Relying on chopping off an arm is kind of sketchy.