Post 101. Woohoo!
I believe the majority have seemed to voice option 3. I agree that a “hardcore mode” would sate others desire for a free form truly unrestricted game, while also having a normal mode for those who desire to be pampered. 
For me @Hellboy this is a real sticking point. Every RPG player at some point says to themselves, “Hey, I wonder how many people I can kill before I get taken out?” It is then the player finds either that they CAN kill everyone in the city (unfeasible) or they cannot, no matter HOW HARD they try, kill certain individuals (illogical). Maybe there’s another way. In some games they have a ‘threat level’ based on the crimes you commit; the more you run amok, the more local law enforcement gives you a hard time. This could be done in a realistic manner, and enacted quickly enough that the player only has mere moments before they are arrested or killed. Of course it only takes a moment to kill a noble, but perhaps that could be worked around by having weapons surrendered to the noble’s guards in certain locations (such as their castle, where they would likely have as few people as possible holding weapons near them). This would mean that for the player to kill a noble, they would need to either conceal a weapon or steal a guards, making it a very risky endeavour to assassinate a noble. Add in an auto-kill behaviour for the noble’s guards and you’ll find most players will probably not risk it. And perhaps to be safe, for some of the major NPCs to have a slightly altered questline for the player should the NPC be killed.
As an aside, having players surrender their weapons at the door might be a good workaround for your polearms, as I know your team was worried about clipping indoors.
NEVER USE IMMORTAL NPC!
The ugliest thing is to have immortal NPC just like in Skyrim or Fallout. This is a complete turn-off!
Either limit the gameplay to somehow imposing inability to kill them - for example inability to hit them or preventing to draw weapons near them. By inability I mean stopping your weapons BEFORE you swing and nothing like swinging in mid-air like NPC are some kind of transparent ghosts.
Or you can just make everyone killable and deal with the consequences! Remember the good old RPGs, where you could do anything to any NPC? I think that if every NPC can be killed at will this will make the game more realistic and also more deadly. A good team of designers like @warhorse should be able to program the gameplay model properly in order to be able to kill any NPC and still progress the game.
Whoever shouldn’t be killed must be programmed that he shouldn’t be able to get attacked in the first place - maybe a King or any other important story NPC. For example the guards take your weapons away prior to meeting the NPC or you can’t draw any weapon in their presence as I suggested above.
This is the only proper way to do a game in my humble opinion!
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Having just played and finished Fallout New Vegas (+ DLCs and mods) I was pretty damn impressed how it was handled there.
Basically, you can kill anyone, and the game counts with it, very smartly. There are about 4-5 paths the main quest can take, and one is always accessible even if player kills everyone - the independent Vegas ending, due to the fact that Yes Man (robot character) is unkillable (if killed, he transports his AI personality into another robot unit). It was a really smart way to deal with this, since it gives player complete freedom while also allowing finishing the game. And Yes Man being “immortal” made sense in context of the world. Obsidian is just so good for finding this solution! Bethesda would never figure stuff like this, so instead it is immortal NPCs galore.
Obviously, for medieval RPG you can’t have indestructible robots, and the main story must have some NPCs driving it. So personally I am for either option 3, with possibility of breaking the game (and Henry informing the player about it in a immersion non-breaking way) or option 2 with Henry simply refusing to attack certain NPCs. Both are fine really.
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Option 3 obviously. But you should also implement other option for casual players.
yes they have unlimited development time and budget, don’t worry.
i think they ask because it’s an either or proposition.
I like that everone is mortal, my thought on this is that those “suppoose to be immortal” should have some npc around them to protect them or atleast do it the way that if you kill one of those you will probably die (cause so many people will go after you) and if u survive then there could be a little side quest for "breaking the game out of primary cause.
I would vote for game to have a Harcore mode. Just like in New Vegas. In normal mode game would use 1 or 2 (with Dekssan addition - Player tryting to attack, character saying: I can’t harm this person, she/he is important to me), and on Hardcore mode game would use 3. Also hardcore mode could have other harder and more realistic things like this blocking system Blocking enemy attack suggestion , maybe some evil random events. Nobody would be dissapointed with this.
I’m on the side of option 3.
I am all for the Option 3, but with a terrible penalty, to discourage this sort of thing: With every blow that you inflict on the essential NPC before you kill it, you also suffer the same damage yourself - but the damage to stamina and health which you gave yourself will never heal/ So, after the murder, you end up in a broken game which cannot be finished without reloading, and you are hopelessly weakened without chance to regain your strength. And when you (inevitably) succumb, your vision turns into black and white tunnel vision, the sounds become softly muffled, and you won’t be able to shoot or kill anyone anymore, the horse will ignore you and so will the NPCs - now you have became a ghost, forever lost wandering in the dark limbo…
Since everyone thinks he would have caught a virus with the game … 
Think most players want a serious game, drag acts in the realistic consequences.
So the story is not killed with, maybe you should think about the process of dying. If, within a defined time “first aid” made, the NPC remains alive. If the player decides aware for the final demise of the NPC, he has to live with the consequences.
Which brings us to the victory conditions again …
Well I would imagine that if they made the game where all NPC’s could be killed then they would need to find ways to restrict the player from destroying the game.
Say you kill an NPC, well killing someone would be looked down on and the guards will be on a manhunt for you. Say that person was a highly important person like an adviser for the king. I am sure the next person in line would then be put into position. As far as the killing say the guards find and capture you after you killed an innocent NPC, well then you would be thrown into the dungeons until there was a proper hearing and then punishment be made. Punishment could be serving a length of time in prison, lifetime in prison or most likely would be an execution. Sad ending for the player, but wasn’t the player the one that caused the problem to begin with?
It would break realism if you were allowed to kill everyone. I mean, why would your character do it? After all you’re following a story line, the story isn’t following you.
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yes, also keep in mind, many of the important characters are known in history, so you cannot kill them and have them replaced. poor racek kobyla suffered a horrible end, but not by your hands.
I was going to mention Morrowind style but it looks like you read my mind! I like your idea of a hardcore mode. I think it’d be a great compromise to have a toggle’d on/off button in the game settings.
Cheers!