documn

Bows are very strong against lightly armored foes, and two-handers are good against everybody. Shields are extremely powerful at blocking one-hander damage, though you're better off trying to dodge two-hander attacks. I think the easiest start in Requiem is putting 2 points into heavy armor or 1 point into conjuration. 2 points in heavy armor gives you good protection against one-handers and arrows and stops the constant stamina drain. Conjuration lets you summon skeletons to pull aggro off you. Heavy armor greatly increases your mana costs so you probably won't be able to do both. Any kind of weapon is pretty powerful against light armor so that's why I suggest spending your first perk points on defense rather than offense. Healing is pretty hard until you get the 2nd level healing spell or a good stock of potions. Early on, your best bet is to use a slow heal over time (cast a healing aura or use a healing poultice), and then wait an hour so that it's like an instant heal. You can craft healing poultices at tanning racks with 3 tundra cotton + 3 blue mountain flower + 1 ale. (It's in the Requiem manual!) For some easy smith levels you can smith leather helmets and break them down at the tanning rack, and then repeat. For easy gold and alchemy levels you can craft high value potions. IIRC "damage ____ regen" and "resist ____" give good xp and have relatively common ingredients. At low levels you'll probably have to stick with fighting easy animals (mudcrabs, skeevers, wolves) and light armored bandits. Undead are hard without a silver weapon. Avoid poisonous enemies.

One thing that also causes CTD is if your mod has masters that aren't loaded. For example, if your mod uses stuff from Dragonborn.esm but you don't have Dragonborn.esm enabled in your load order, then Skyrim will crash at the main menu.

If you want to play around with texture, mesh, and animation replacers, I suggest using Mod Organizer. With it you don't need to overwrite files - instead you set the priority of each mod much like you do your .esm and .esp load order. I use a hodgepodge of texture replacers like those you listed. Also, I recommend checking out the other amidianborn texture mods. They're really good and aren't packaged with the Book of Silence yet.

Here are few responses that I've read in similar threads: Because it's hot.Because it's a single player game and they don't care what other people think.Because it's a single player game and other people shouldn't care what kind of mods they like.Because they like to play good-looking characters.Because they want to roleplay as the kind of character that would wear skimpy clothes.Sometimes people get attached to certain armors from other games because they are powerful, or they took a lot of effort to obtain, or it was worn by a badass character, etc. Sometimes said armors just happen to be skimpy (or just the female version happens to be skimpy).Because some of these armors are good works of art.

RE: Requiem If you do plan on doing the Helgen route, I suggest you save before you fight the spiders. Poison in Requiem is no joke, and I personally feel that the poison visual effect is way too harsh. I've read that some people enjoy it, but I always turn off the visual effect on all my Requiem characters. Also, here are links to my old Requiem mod list and load order if you're interested. Aside from Requiem I didn't use many other gameplay-altering mods. It's mostly visual stuff and compatibility patches.

If you're talking about Apachii's super smooth hair, you might be interested in Apachii natural retexture. There are a few other hair textures on the nexus.

Maybe Consistent Older People?

These are kinda trenchcoatish, but not really. Might be worth a look. Investigator Armor. Inquisitor Armor. Searching for Investigator or Inquisitor yields a couple other results. You might also want to check out the non-sexy armor and clothing list.

Have you tried deleting skyrim.ini and skyrimprefs.ini? (Obviously you should back them up first) I've read that certain memory or papyrus tweaks can screw things up.

To be fair, the first skimpy armor mod on the top 100 is at position #63. So sure, skimpy armor is popular, but not THAT popular in comparison to other top mods. But I know what you're saying - all the skimpy armors on the hot files tend to give us a skewed perception of what mods are really popular and what aren't. (This is assuming that the top nude mods don't come with a skimpy armor replacer. I haven't been keeping track.) EDIT: To answer OP's question, I think people download things they like. And apparently they like mildly interactive hot characters.

A lot of your ideas seem similar to spells I've seen in Apocalypse, so they should be possible. I think Enai is a pretty busy modder so if he can't/won't help you out then you can ask other magic mod authors or maybe reverse-engineer their spells.

The description page for UFO says you can have 15 followers. Aside from that mod, many people also recommend Amazing Follower Tweaks.

Honestly I don't know whether you should run FNIS or skyproc first. I've always just done skyproc last and so far nothing crazy has happened as a result.

Unfortunately I don't use HDT or ECE (I use chargen extension) so I can't say anything about those. Also I'm at work so I can't confirm all the options/tickboxes but here's what I can suggest from memory: 1. Install xp32 skeleton. IIRC there is are various options for Dual Sheath Redux. Choose which ones you want. I would overwrite ECE, but if everything looks borked, then I would reinstall. 2. Install xp32 new animation package. 3. Install bowlegged jump fix. 4. Install Dual Sheath Redux. 5. Install any Dual Sheath Redux weapon/shield packs. 6. Run FNIS. Select the boxes related to xp32's animations, skeleton arm fix, and dual sheath redux (if it exists, I can't remember). Based on the mods you mentioned, I think you would leave unticked the options for horse combat and female animation path. 7. If DSR is the only skyproccer you have, you run it now. I use SUM instead because I like to disable BOSS and I have to run multiple skyproccers. Hopefully it works then. I highly suggest you learn Mod Organizer though. It's the bomb.

I often see people suggest amidianborn textures and Climates of Tamriel.

- Dead dragons falling from the sky has been a bug since the game came out, iirc. It's not necessarily a problem caused by one of your mods. When it first happened to me, it didn't really faze me because I'm used to seeing silly stuff happen in Bethesda games. Dragon Stalking Fix is designed to stop this. - When you describe Mirmulnir dying and the guards staying crouched, it sounds like his death didn't register, and therefore you didn't get a soul and the quest didn't update. You can try the console command setstage, but I don't know if that'll fix your problem with absorbing souls. - If you have SKSE, one quick thing you can do is use the console command clearinvalidregistrations. Some mods have scripts that call for updates from time to time, and if you remove said mods, then the update registration is left hanging. I don't know if your dragon soul problem is related to this though. You can also try a utility like Save Game Script Cleaner, but I have no experience with this. - I'm pretty sure placeatme is ok for generic unnamed dragons. You probably shouldn't be using it to spawn Alduin or Paarthunax though. - Skyrim Flora Overhaul is a popular mod for making trees and grass look nicer. Aside from that, there are a few other mods that make the faraway trees look nicer. Run a search for "tree LOD". I personally use Detailed Terrain and Tree LOD.

I like the difficulty of Requiem and the simplicity of having all the major gameplay changes in one mod. Heartbeat - I turn it off. I usually have to then save and reload before the sound and visuals actually turn off.Heavy armor - I wouldn't use it until you can immediately dump two points into the base perk so that you don't constantly lose stamina. If I plan to do a heavy armor character, these are the first two points I allocate. Remember that you start of with three perk points!Healing - base health regen is 0. Waiting, sleeping, and shrines will not heal you by themselves. When starting out you'll need to use potions, healing poultices, or restoration. Also, note that divine shrines will not heal your diseases if you do ANY sort of crime. I also like to turn off the gold weight and the poison visual effects.

Some nice, but not too crazy hairstyles: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/7403/? The hair retexture I use: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/4307/? This beard retexture looks good: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28363/? This is good if you want something like vanilla textures, but just higher quality: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/2356/?

I suggest Chargen Extension for more sliders, color options, and more overlays (like multiple scars and warpaints at the same time). Racemenu improves the character creation UI.

Your INIs also might not have been wiped between installs because they're in My Documents and not in the Skyrim folder. I've always had to delete them manually whenever I've reinstalled the game.

Was it Bethesda Hi-Res DLC Optimized?

I have no explanations since you seem to have covered most of the bases. Here are just a couple things you can try if you haven't already: Have you tried the console commands tcai or tai? Obviously it's no fun when the bad guys don't fight, but if your frame rate jumps back up when you turn the off the combat ai, then at least you'll learn something about this problem. Have you checked your processor temperatures and cleaned out the dust recently?

I always suggest playing unmodded the first time. Believe it or not, I think Skyrim is a good game all on its own. I've had experience with other Elder Scrolls and Fallout games so I could deal with the occasional bug, but I don't recall having to actually use the console except to use tcl to unstick me from terrain. That being said, the UI was my biggest gripe on my first playthrough. The UI only got more annoying as my list of recipes/ingredients/spells/inventory/etc. got bigger. If the UI bugs you, I would suggest installing SkyUI.

SUM lets you do skyproccer (and other proccers) without BOSS. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/29865/?

My best modding advice is to use Mod Organizer and get SkyUI. aMidianBorn is a really good collection of retextures. Requiem is my favorite overhaul. There are a bunch more mods in the link in my sig if you want to see what I use.