This post was migrated from Cohost. It was originally posted April 13, 2024. It has been copied as-is; I have not checked to confirm if the mods listed below are still listed.

Watching a friend play with some new mods that made the game look like an entirely different thing made me want to play again. Making a mod list last time ended up being super helpful for me because I had to purge all of my mods and fresh install Skyrim this time, so now that my mods are mostly settled, I wanted to make another list.

Current save is Anxul-Xei, an Argonian mage, focusing on the magic schools, Speech, Alchemy, and Enchanting. Playing primarily in third person, which is very new for me in Skyrim. Sorted by Nexus / Vortex category (mostly). Mods common to my old mod list have just been copy-pasted over to save time.

Before We Begin

Glossary

  • LE / Oldrim - Old Skyrim, the OG release from 2011
    • Some mods made for LE can be used in SE, either directly or with minor tweaking to rebuild them for SE. We do this later on in the Alchemy section
  • SE - Special Edition, the newest release
  • AE - Anniversary Edition; Special Edition + Creation Club content
  • SPID - Spell Perk Item Distributor, a tool that lets mods distribute items, spells, perks, etc to NPCs
  • ENB - Postprocessing tool that makes the game pretty at the cost of some performance
  • SMP - Skinned Mesh Physics, e.g. what makes hair and cloth move

Requirements

  • Skyrim Anniversary Edition v1.6.1170+
  • Skyrim SE Creation Kit
    • Not critical, but useful. Used later on to convert a mod from Oldrim
    • Install and run this BEFORE you deploy all of your mods, otherwise it will eat your mod scripts. Found that out the hard way. Oops
  • Skyrim Script Extender
  • Vortex Mod Manager and a Nexus account
  • AFK Forums account
    • Most of Arthmoor’s mods are here on his modding forum and not on Nexus. Need an account to download them
  • Latest version of ENB for Skyrim SE

Common Dependencies

These sections may have more mods later on, but these mods in particular are required for a lot of other mods, so they’re up top.

Skyrim.ini Edits

  • There are a handful of edits to Skyrim.ini (in your My Documents -> My Games -> Skyrim Special Edition folder) that you can do yourself. Some mods require these edits to work properly. Add these lines underneath their specified sections in the ini.
    • [General]
      • bModManagerMenuEnabled=0 hides the in-game Mod Manager / Creations menu item, so you don’t accidentally click it.
    • [Grass]
      • You can find more specific info about this section here, I recommend checking that out for a better explanation of what these are doing
      • iMinGrassSize changes the density of grass. With the grass fix later on, you’ll want to lower the density. Default is 20. Higher values lower density. I set mine to 80.
      • iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure (typo included) allows for more diverse grass. Increase this if you’re using a flora mod. Two of the mods below require it. Default is 2. I set mine to 15.

Animation

Audio

Bug Fixes

  • powerofthree’s Tweaks: SKSE plugin, has a bunch of game engine tweaks and bugfixes; required by some other mods. Individual fixes can be toggled; see the description for more info.
  • SSE Engine Fixes: Fixes a bunch of engine bugs
    • NOTE: IN AE, YOU WILL NEED TO MANUALLY MODIFY ONE OF THE FILES OR SKYRIM WILL FREAK OUT AND DISABLE ALL YOUR MODS
    • Open EngineFixes.toml in your favorite text editor and change the following:
      • EnableAchievementsWithMods to FALSE
      • SaveAddedSoundCategories to FALSE
      • SaveScreenshots to FALSE
  • Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch: Fixes hundreds of bugs in the base game and DLCs. Many mods require this
  • Unofficial Skyrim Creation Club Content Patch: Fixes hundreds of bugs specifically with Creation Club content in AE

Modders Resources

Models and Textures

  • Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM): Massive mesh object replacer - swaps out vanilla models with improved models (the barrels animate when you open them!)
    • Load this before most of the other mods that modify meshes, otherwise SMIM will overwrite them

Utilities

  • Base Object Swapper: Lets mods easily swap out / replace base objects
  • BodySlide and Outfit Studio: For making sure outfits fit non-vanilla bodies. I honestly haven’t messed with this much yet, but it’s good to have around just in case
  • ConsoleUtil SSE: Lets Papyrus scripts execute console commands
  • Keyword Item Distributor: Used to apply keywords to things on startup
  • MCM Helper: Helps mod authors make better MCM menus, helps keeps settings persistent and helps hotkey assignment
  • Open Animation Replacer: Used to add, replace, or otherwise alter animation sets. In-game menu lets you modify animation priority, toggle animations on/off, etc. Backwards compatible with Dynamic Animation Replacer (DAR), so older animation mods that use DAR should work well with OAR
  • SkyPatcher: Lets mod authors modify game files without using plugins
  • Spell Perk Item Distributor: Lets mods add spells, perks, items, etc to NPCs
  • Survival Control Panel: Lets you modify Survival Mode features
    • Even when you don’t have Survival Mode on, the engine behind it is still doing its thing; this lets you make use of some of the adjustments without actually turning Survival Mode on

User Interface

The Mods

Alchemy

  • Alchemy Plus: Improves Alchemy products by changing their name and model to the nearest in-game equivalent, appending (Impure) to denote impure potions, and appending +1, +2 etc to denote additional effects
  • Better Better Skooma: A mod for Oldrim that actually adds some wild effects to Skooma instead of it just being a stamina potion. You’ll need to convert it to SSE for it to work properly (it does work if you just plop it in, but not as well as it should)

Animation

  • Conditional Tavern Cheering (OAR): Adds new cheering animations and bard interactions, conditional based on location, voice types, armor etc
  • EVG Animation Variance: Adds some variety to vanilla animations
  • EVG Conditional Idles: Custom idle animations that play in specific circumstances (stamina low, magicka low, using a shield as an umbrella, etc)
  • Feral: There are some pretty cool unarmed animations for Khajiit Argonians, their respective Vampire counterparts, and Werewolves that the devs never finished, but left in the game files. This mod enables them and recycles some other animations to fill in for the ones that never got finished.
  • Gesture Animation Remix: Adds gestures to NPCs when in dialogue, depending on personality, armor type etc
  • Lively Children Animations: Adds new animations to children to make them more child-like
  • NPC Animation Remix: New conditional idle animations for NPCs (scratching head, checking pockets, etc)
  • Organic Player Animations: New idle animations for the player
  • Paired Animation Improvements: Helps synchronized multiple animations
  • Player Character Gestures: Dialogue gestures for the player
  • Riding Animation Overhaul: Adjustments for horse riding animations
  • Simple Fishing Overhaul: Adds animations while fishing, but also adds spliced audio to fishing quests so it’s not “it’s all in this note” over and over, adds a simple bait system, lets you fish in third person, NPCs will chatter at you if you are fishing or have a rod out
  • Take a Seat: New sit-on-ground & meditation animations for player and NPCs

Armor

  • Immersive Armors: Adds a LOT of new lore-friendly armors. Pretty comprehensive settings let you control distribution, crafting, etc
  • Shadowscale Reborn: Custom Shadowscale Dark Brotherhood armor
    • SPID plugin to give Veezara a set without a hood in Optional files
  • Skyblivion Necromancer Robes: Adds Master Necromancer robes from Skyblivion.
  • Skyrim Unlimited Rings and Amulets: Lets you wear multiple rings / amulets instead of just one of each. Certain unique rings and amulets are unaffected. (I don’t know if that’s intended or not; I just consider it “balancing”)
  • Sokco’s Helmet Hider: Lets you hide your helmet using a power.
  • Almost all of Xavbio’s Retextures, I’m not linking them one by one there are too many
    • I’m specifically using the half-res versions so my VRAM doesn’t bite me

Audio

  • Conditional Dog Barking OAR: Makes it so dogs don’t constantly bark; they bark conditionally
  • Falmer “Dialogue” Overhaul: Changes Falmer voice lines to sound more like echolocation clicks and squeaks
    • Currently using the Standalone version because the Replacer edition made Goblins from CC start clicking and squeaking and it was very weird
  • Immersive Sounds Compendium: Adds a ton of new sound effects
  • Male Argonian Shouts Revoiced: Custom Shout audio for Argonian Males to make them sound more like Argonian Male voices
    • Was using V2 when Anxul-Xei was male, these lines are really well done. Don’t really need this installed right now, given they’re female on this save, but I’m tempted to see if I can get these to work anyway so I’m leaving them alone
  • Revenant Spirits of the Soul Cairn: Overhauls the audio in the Soul Cairn to be more creepy
  • Ribbit Remix: Adds more variety to the frog noises around streams and lakes
  • Whispering Tomes of Apocrypha: Overhauls the audio in Apocrypha to be much more ominous

Body, Face, and Hair

  • Beast Race Bodypaints SE: Adds new body, face, hand, and foot paints for Argonians and Khajiit, usable in RaceMenu
  • BeastHHBB: Adds dozens of new options for Khajiit and Argonians, replaces NPCs with versions utilizing those new assets
    • Don’t forget the Patches and Addons optional file!
    • I also have this patch that adds SMP physics to Khajiit hair, but one of its dependencies updated and this has not updated to catch up yet, so it’s not active
  • Nudity Warning!! Caliente’s Beautiful Bodies Enhancer -CBBE-: Female body replacer
    • I’m currently using the Vanilla preset with NeverNude
  • Nudity Warning!! Highly Improved Male Body Overhaul -HIMBO-
    • Currently using the NeverNude option, I like the new boxers lol
  • Nudity Warning!! RaceMenu Undress: Toggles clothes on/off in RaceMenu. Useful for actually seeing the body paints from the above mod
  • Vanilla Hair Remake SMP: Work in progress update to vanilla hair that uses SMP for hair physics

Bug Fixes

Buildings

  • Castle Volkihar Rebuilt: Lets you clean up and rebuild Castle Volkihar, regardless of which faction you choose for the DLC

Cheats and God Items

  • Hearthfire Building Materials God Chests: Adds chests near the Hearthfire building areas with an ungodly amount of materials so you can quickly finish building your Hearthfire house. (Getting the materials as intended is fun the first few times, but I’ve had enough lol)

Cities, Towns, Villages, and Hamlets

  • Arthmoor’s Town Overhauls from AFK Forums
    • I’m not going to link them all but I’m using Darkwater Crossing, Dawnstar, Dragon Bridge, Falkreath, Fall of Granite Hill, Helarchen Creek, Ivarstead, Karthwasten, Keld-Nar, Kynesgrove, Oakwood, Rorikstead, Shor’s Stone, Soljund’s Sinkhole, Telengard, and Whistling Mine
  • Cooking Pots in Inns: Adds cooking pots to (most) inns
  • Open Cities Skyrim: Lets you freely walk between open world and in-city
    • This can cause issues with mods that modify cities. Please be sure to check for patches!
    • I ran into an issue with this and my water mod later in the post around Riften. It works fine, it just looks goofy.

Clothing and Accessories

  • Adventurer’s Magic Backpack and Lantern - Adds a SMP physics enabled backpack with an optional ENB light lantern
  • Bandoliers Bags and Pouches: Adds pouches, pockets, etc to increase carry weight
    • Note: with SunHelm, wearing the belt pouches makes the waterskin from that mod visible even if it’s turned off
  • Better Archmage’s Robes: Improves the enchantments on the Archmage’s Robes, makes them diseanchantable
  • Colovian Noble Clothes: Adds a new set of Noble clothes styled after ones in Cyrodill
  • Different Bonds of Matrimony: Offers different options for the Bond of Matrimony depending on your playstyle. I have the Magickal one right now
  • Kyne’s Token: Voice of the Sky effect: Changes Kyne’s Token to use the Voice of the Sky effect (the one you get from the statues up the path to High Hrothgar; animals won’t flee or attack you)
  • Modernize: Vanilla Version: Adds SMP physics to vanilla clothing.
    • I prefer the next mod down that does this, but this mod covers some clothes that that one doesn’t, so I use both for maximum coverage (not recommended lol). You’ll probably want the CBBE body for either one of them though - works fine on vanilla but you will see nipples with custom skins.
  • Rustic Clothing - Special Edition: Texture overhaul for all vanilla clothing, including underpants
  • Vanilla SMP Clothing: Adds SMP physics to vanilla clothing.
    • I prefer this one to Modernize. You’ll probably want the CBBE body for either one of them though - works fine on vanilla but you will see nipples with custom skins.
  • Tathrin’s Matching Clothing: Common, Crafter, and Uncommon
    • These add new models so that the clothing you see in the inventory is actually what you put on. This means that guys can wear dresses now!
    • Since these are custom meshes, they aren’t affected by Modernize or Vanilla SMP Clothing. I think that’s acceptable for what these mods do
    • Use this SPID plugin to distribute the clothing to NPCs

Collectables, Treasure Hunts, and Puzzles

Combat

  • Apocalypse Spells for NPCs: Adds spells from Apocalypse to NPCs. Mildly terrifying given some of the spells that Apocalypse adds
  • Human Enemies drop Hearts and Flesh: Random enemies have a chance to drop Human Heart and Human Flesh on death
  • NPCs Take Cover: Slightly smarter anti-cheese AI; if a player is somewhere they can’t reach, they’ll try to find cover so you can’t cheese them as easily. They’ll also insult you about it
  • Wildcat: Combat overhaul; adds injury effects (e.g. head injury = drains magicka and stops regen) and adjusts difficulty

Crafting

  • Ars Metallica: Forge arrows, break down old armor and weapons for materials, get EXP for smelting, etc

Creatures and Mounts

Environmental

Followers and Companions

  • Bring Meeko to Lod SE: Lets you bring Meeko, a dog whose owner died, to Lod, who’s looking for a good loyal dog.
    • This patch adds more behavior to them afterward - lets Meeko follow Lod around, gives him a nice blanket and treat bowl
  • Nether’s Follower Framework: Overhauls the follower system, allowing for up to 10 followers, with history, tweaks, commands, etc. Lets you import almost any NPC to be a follower controlled by that framework.
    • I recommend this patch if you use followers with custom AI (e.g. Inigo). It will stick a token in their inventory to tell NFF to not import them.

Gameplay

  • Alternate Start: Live Another Life: Lets you skip the intro cutscene and pick a different starting location and scenario. You can start the main quest by visiting Helgen afterward.
  • Andrealphus’ Tweaks - Locket of Saint Jiub: Changes the Locket of Saint Jiub from Light Armor to Clothing
  • Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim: Changes Standing Stones to have much more robust and unique effects: each stone has 2 effects, with a 3rd unlockable power once you discover all of them
    • I’m currently using the Apprentice Stone - all Novice spells are free & spells have a chance to either be 50% more or 50% less effective. It’s very silly
  • Battle Ready Candlelight Fixes: Moves the Candlelight effect to above your player and removes the gigantic obnoxious particle effect so you can actually see what you’re doing
  • Better Third Person Selection: Modifies third person selection so you don’t have to be looking directly at something to select it, also lets you scroll between nearby items rather than fidget your camera around at them
  • Cutting Room Floor: Restores a ton of cut content from the base game
  • Dynamic Collision Adjustment: Changes your character’s collision volume while sneaking/swimming, so you can fit under things
    • Very handy for a mod later in the list that changes racial heights pretty dramatically
  • Enhanced Reanimation: Fixes bugs with reanimation spells (e.g. dead thralls vanishing on fast travel), adds some new features (reanimated necromances can cast reanimate spells)
  • Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions: Lets you adopt up to 6 children; adds a spell that lets you easily mark any home as your current home, even custom homes (as long as it has enough beds for your children)
  • Immersive Leveled Lists: Most NPCs will only wear / sell leveled gear that makes sense for them (e.g. makes dwarven armor much more rare)
  • Instant Mining: Instantly mines ore nodes, skipping the animation. Be careful with Clay and Stone deposits, they will chuck a LOT of materials at you because they’re “endless” mining nodes!
  • Locational Encounter Zones: Makes the enemies outside an area the same level as those inside
  • Madmen of the Reach: Overhauls the Forsworn, Hagravens, and Witches to add many more variants and skills
  • Name Those Ash Piles: Ash piles are now named based on what entity made them
  • Run For Your Lives: Makes NPCs run and hide when there’s a dragon attack instead of… trying to fistfight them and dying
  • Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers: Quest markers that point to each of the Stones of Barenziah. I should probably finish this quest at some point. I have this on here so maybe I’ll remember
  • SunHelm Survival and Needs: Needs and cold survival system that pulls on the in-engine Survival Mode features
    • iNeed is still pretty good, but it was giving me some wild conflict issues. SunHelm is working out really well so far. Compatible with Campfire (which I don’t have installed on this run) if that’s your jam
  • The Eloquent Reader: Get Speech XP for reading books
  • True Directional Movement: Overhauls movement so you can move and attack in any direction, adds a target lock system, and adds some help for projectile aiming
    • If you’re using a controller I recommend using SmoothCam, it smooths camera changes and there are a ton of presets that mimic other games’ camera styles. I’m using mouse/keyboard and I don’t care for the delay, so I don’t use it personally right now

Guilds / Factions

Immersion

  • Bandit Lines Expansion: Adds a ton of very well spliced lines to bandits
  • Civil War Lines Expansion: Adds a ton of very well spliced lines to civil war NPCs
  • Enemy Friendly Fire: Lets enemies hit each other with friendly fire
  • Equippable Beast Tails SMP: Lets you make craftable physics enabled tails, but also makes all Khajiit and Argonian tails by default have SMP physics
    • I use this preset for Argonian tails so they aren’t as floppy
  • Forsworn and Thalmor Lines Expansion: Adds a ton of very well spliced lines to the Thalmor and Forsworn
  • Gildergreen Regrown: Replacing the Gildergreen with a sapling, it will grow to full size over several in game months
  • Go To Bed Patch: Uses DAR / OAR to randomize sleeping animations.
    • I don’t use Go To Bed so I genuinely don’t know if this is actually doing anything, but it’s not throwing errors, so uhhhhh
  • Hold Border Banners: Places big banners at the borders of holds so you know when you’re going into a new hold. I use the no-text version.
  • Holidays: Adds holidays and celebrations. You can set your character’s birthday as well. Will record the end dates for the main questline and the civil war and celebrate them appropriately
    • Don’t forget the patches!
  • Immersive Children: Enables child mortality, pickpocketing, other miscellaneous bug fixes (Got this originally to punt a particularly abusive child in Rorikstead)
  • Immersive Citizens: Improves NPC AI to help them behave better
  • Immersive Patrols: Adds patrolling Stormcloak, Thalmor, Imperial, Dawnguard NPCs to Skyrim and Reaver, Riekling, and Skaal patrols to Solstheim. I’m using the Heavy variant
  • Improved Alternate Conversation Camera: Improves dialogue camera, lets you modify the camera offset, can swap camera between you and the NPC
    • If using Player Headtracking below, there’s a setting in here you’ll want to disable, just in case it’s being naughty
  • Khajiit Has Wares: Makes Khajiit caravans prettier
  • Lore Friendly Ghosts: Ghosts can only be affected by magic and specific weapons, following how they behaved in prior games
  • Lusty Argonian Skills: Makes the Lusty Argonian series of books level up one-handed
    • I don’t even use one-handed in this run but this mod made me laugh so hard I had to get it
  • Player Headtracking: Enables headtracking; lets your player character look at other NPCs, things, etc
  • Misc Dialog Edits: Modifies many dialog areas to make them make more sense - e.g. Arcadia won’t constantly call you pale if you aren’t a vampire or sick
  • Moon and Stars: Overhauls the night sky and stars to look very pretty
  • No Camera Collision: Actors do not fade out when zoomed in closely
  • NPCs React to Frenzy: NPCs panic when one of their allies is hit with Frenzy
  • Relationship Dialogue Overhaul: NPCs will now respond to you more accurately based on their relationship with you - give you gifts if they like you, etc. Also restores some cut dialogue
  • Take a Nap: Lets you nap in chairs. You don’t want to, but you can now
  • Talkative Dragons: Non-unique dragons will now talk to you during combat, like Mirmulnir
  • Wet and Cold: Adds cold, wet, and dusty effects to yourself and NPCs
  • Wintersun: Lets you follow a chosen deity and perform acts and prayers to earn Favor and unlock perks and skills. Adds a ton of shrines, includes deities outside of the more commonly known Divines and Daedra (including Elven deities like Syrabane and Phynaster; Redguard deities like Morwha and the HoonDing; and other powerful entities like the Hist, the Old Ways, the Magna-Ge, Ebonarm, Mannimarco, and St. Alessia)

Magic - Gameplay

Magic - Spells & Enchantments

Miscellaneous

  • Auto Hide Ammo: Auto-unequips ammo when no bow / crossbow is equipped
  • Bee Hives: Adds beehives to Honningbrew Meadery
  • Better Jumping: Lets you jump while sprinting
  • Bring Out Your Dead: Adds unique graves for town NPCs
  • Classic Sprinting Redone: Makes Sprint a Hold instead of Toggle, like in oldrim
  • Crash Logger, Crash Logger for AE, and Skyrim Crash Decoder: Crash Loggers dump a crash file into the SKSE folder, you can copy paste the contents into the Decoder to get an idea of what made the crash happen
  • Dawnguard Map Markers: Adds a map and fast-travel map markers to the Soul Cairn & additional markers to Forgotten Vale and Dayspring Canyon
  • ESO Skyshards: Adds Skyshards akin to ESO’s throughout the world. Every 3 you find and interact with grants you a skill point
  • Fuz Ro D’oh: Adds support for unvoiced dialogue
  • Khajiits Steal Too: Khajiit caravans will act as fences and buy stolen goods
  • Manor Roads: Adds roads to Heljarchen Hall and Lakeview Manor so they connect to nearby major roads
  • Morrowind Imports: Changes Brand-Shei, Revyn Sadri, and New Gnisis Cornerclub stock to include Morrowind content from Dragonborn
  • Rich Skyrim Merchants: Gives all Skyrim merchants more base gold
  • Shadowmarks: Adds Thieves Guild shadowmarks to player homes
  • Storefront: Lets your spouse open an actual store, with a chest you can put items in for them to sell when you’re not home. They will tend the store during the day

Models and Textures

NPC

Overhauls

  • Depths of Skyrim: Overhauls underwater areas to be much more lush and full of life
  • Lux: Completely overhauls lighting systems. Specifically, interior lighting. Requires several additional files:
  • Moonlight Tales: Werewolf overhaul, adding perks, skins, transformation control, etc
  • Sacrosanct Vampires: Vampire overhaul, adding perks, tweaks, new spells, etc
    • Note: My current character is neither a Vampire nor Werewolf, but I find that these mods improve NPC vampires and werewolves, so I keep them installed)
  • Sentinel: Adds several packs of new armors and armor variants and distributes them organically through the world
    • Don’t forget patches!

Patches

Player Homes

  • Breezehome by Lupus: Reworks the interior of Breezehome to be much prettier, without going too wild with it
  • The Hoarder’s Chest Rebuilt: Player home with automatic inventory sorting, a ton of mannequins, displays for artifacts, a bed and crafting stations, and (optionally) a living area for followers and children
    • Can teleport in from anywhere, which is why I don’t have Campfire active on this save, I can just port to the Hoarder’s Chest and sleep

Presets - ENB and ReShade

Quests and Adventures

  • Face Sculptor Expanded: Lets the Face Sculptor in the Ragged Flagon actually do things instead of sitting on her bench for eternity. Also adds more dialogue and lets you wipe bounties when using the sculptor
  • Helgen Reborn: Work together with some Great War vets and their allies to rebuild Helgen into an entirely new settlement.
    • The voice acting on this mod is surprisingly good - mods with custom voices usually put me off because they never sound like they “fit”, but they did a very good job with these
    • Heads up: There’s mention of SA in this mod. There are also a couple NPC lines that are pretty misogynistic for some reason. It doesn’t really strike me as in line with the rest of the game. I haven’t played through on a female character yet so I don’t know if they’re mean to you or just other NPCs.
      • I’m personally giving it a very side-eyed reluctant pass (so far), given most of the mod’s content is from 2013-2014.
  • Infiltration - Quest Expansion: Overhauls the quest at Treva’s Watch in Riften to be much more in depth with lots of player choices
    • If you’re using Cutting Room Floor, don’t forget the compatibility patch
  • Jiub’s Opus: Adds map markers to the pages of Jiub’s Opus in the Soul Cairn
  • Paarthurnax - Quest Expansion: Expands the questline for Paarthurnax and the Blades, adds in a bunch of new spliced lines and uses some existing lore to make the decision not quite as clear cut as it is in vanilla

Races, Classes, and Birthsigns

  • Race Balance: Tweaks races to add useful passives and perks. Vanilla friendly, meant to make some of the not-as-great racial perks shine a bit more
  • Racial Body Morphs Redux: Greatly diversifies the different races’ body types, drawing on lore, the racial perks, and previous game info

Shouts

  • Dragon Aspect - Mage Version: Modifies the Dragon Aspect shout to be more mage-friendly by buffing spell magnitude
  • True Teacher Durnehviir: When Durnehviir teaches you a word of his Shout, he also grants you the knowledge so you don’t have to expend a dragon soul to learn it

User Interface

  • A Quality World Map: Changes the World Map so it’s easier to see things. I use Vivid with Stone Roads, but the Paper map looks really cool
  • Better Dialogue Controls: Improves control when using both mouse and keyboard to select dialogue options
  • Better MessageBox Controls: Lets you navigate message boxes with keyboard & improves click activation area
  • Immersive First Person View: Adds your body to first person view.
    • This isn’t working for me, but I haven’t been able to diagnose why yet. (Low priority since I’m mostly in third person)
  • Lore-Based Loading Screens: Adds a ton of new lore-based loading screens
  • Subtitles: Allows more than one NPC to have subtitles showing at a time
  • TrueHUD: Originally included in True Directional Movement, makes the HUD more friendly to third-person camera, adds floating health bars over enemies, adds boss health bars, etc
  • Unread Books Glow: Makes unread books have a glowing effect, so they are easier to find

Visuals and Graphics

  • Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS): Improves volumetric lighting, synchronizes it with the sun and moons
    • Also pick up the Underside version to make sure that mountains block light
  • Footprints: Adds footprint decals to the ground as you and NPCs walk
  • Particle Patch for ENB: Fixes a bunch of issues relating to particles and ENB
  • Player Spell Lighting: Makes player spells emit ENB light
  • Twilight: Simulates dawn and dusk
  • Water for ENB: Overhauls water to play nice with ENB, makes it extremely pretty
    • This doesn’t play nice in Riften with Open Cities, as part of the water around the city is modified by Open Cities, so there’s a weird seam. It’s functional, just looks weird.

Weapons

  • Immersive Weapons: Adds a ton of lore-friendly weapons. Robust configuration to control distribution, crafting, etc. Also allows you to melt down those weapons for materials
  • No Soul Gem Required: Certain enchanted weapons (e.g. Daedric artifacts) do not require soul gems to recharge

Honorable Mentions

I’m not using them on my current run, but I did use them on my previous one, and they’re nice:

  • Xelzaz: Argonian Telvanni Lawman follower, huge amount of interactions and dialogue. Interacts with Nebarra
  • Nebarra: Altmer Mercenary, Great War (Hammerfell) Vet. Interacts with Xelzaz
    • He kept turning into a pile of ash on my last save. I have no idea why. I can’t tell if there was an incompatibility somewhere or what. I don’t think it’s a problem with him directly.
    • Blau from the future: It’s almost certainly not a Nebarra issue, as I had other followers doing this too. I think it has to do with a follower being set Essential and then being hit with a spell or other effect that has a chance to disintegrate them.
Screenshot of a Cohost thread. First post: Blau shares a Skyrim screenshot showing the player immediately outside Dragonsreach. Nebarra is a pile of ash. Post reads: nebarra get your shit together. Cania replies pillar of salt sodom-lookin-at motherfucker. Shadow Hog replies They are only carbon now
Nebarra never did get his shit together