New Skyrim Experience - Recommendations ?

[Kuboxy]

Hi all!

I've recently been trying to get back into Skyrim, and while I'm having a lot of fun discovering new mods, I have one main problem : Skyrim has become a tad redundant for me and I quickly get bored of it (after making so many different games).

 

My current solution to this problem is to make a character I've never played before. However, I'm also looking for suggestions when it comes to mods that have completely changed the way you play Skyrim. Be it Gameplay mods, Visual mods, Followers, etc. If anything comes to mind (Even small, pointless immersion things), I'd love to hear what some of you would recommend.

 

Now, some info : I am planning on playing a female (I point out female, so if any Armor/Item/Animation come to mind) Mage/Assassin-Vampire type character, with and emphasis in Stealth, Illusion and perhaps Destruction or Conjuration. Considering I've always played Sword n' Board or Sneaky Archers, this should shake things up a little. I'm also planning on making it an evil playthrough, since I always choose to be a good guy in previous games. I usually play on Master, but Vanilla Skyrim is kinda meh on that side. Dragons HP/1HKO comes to mind.

 

Keep in mind, my PC ain't that amazing, so stuff like "My ENB changed everything" will probably have to be skipped.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Doeetfgt]

For a completely different, survival-oriented experience, you could try the much acclaimed Frostfall.

As for your character, the YY Mystic Knight animation replacer comes to mind.

There is a large variety of vampire and dragon overhauls you could look at, like Deadly Dragons, for one - might wanna look into that!

[fraquar]

My advice would be to get a good mod manager that supports multiple profiles, and slowly build your mod collection accordingly. It is inevitable that you will have mods that don't support all playstyles - use profiles to manage your mod collection for just that 1 profile.

 

i.e. a CORE profile, which is mods you run on all playstyles

a THIEVING profile, which is built using the CORE profile, and only has mods added that support a thieving style

 

Mod Organizer not only makes that possible, it makes it very easy too.

[simtam]

You may also check out [No Death Mod] and stop reloading your savegames after losing a fight.

 

It's a kind of Mount&Blade experience: after losing a fight, you will lose your carry-on items, but the game goes on. Your belongings are now in a chest in one of bandit hideouts, waiting for you to retrieve them.

 

Makes your skirmishes relevant. You may decrease your difficulty level and still have a thrill.

 

Effects are somewhat customizable, so you can fine-tune it to your style - for greater variety, I'd personally change these options randomly after each lost fight.

[Kuboxy]

For a completely different, survival-oriented experience, you could try the much acclaimed Frostfall.

As for your character, the YY Mystic Knight animation replacer comes to mind.

There is a large variety of vampire and dragon overhauls you could look at, like Deadly Dragons, for one - might wanna look into that!

 

I already have Frostfall :) It's pretty neat, I remember that quest about saving some guy from a Elven Keep North-West of Solitude. By the time I got there (unprepared, to boot) I was freezing, no tent, and only had enough wood for a fire. I ended up slowly luring the elves to the camp to stay alive from the cold. Was definitely Epic lol. I also have Mystc Knight, though I ain't sure if it fits an evil character, will have to try it in game for awhile.

 

Been wanting to try out Deadly Dragon, but I'm already getting my ass kicked from Dragons on Master, so I've stayed away from it for now. Thanks for the recommendations though ^^

 

 

My advice would be to get a good mod manager that supports multiple profiles, and slowly build your mod collection accordingly. It is inevitable that you will have mods that don't support all playstyles - use profiles to manage your mod collection for just that 1 profile.

 

i.e. a CORE profile, which is mods you run on all playstyles

a THIEVING profile, which is built using the CORE profile, and only has mods added that support a thieving style

 

Mod Organizer not only makes that possible, it makes it very easy too.

 

This seems pretty interesting. While it doesn't solve my current problem, it does seem cool as I try stuff in the future!

[chanchan05]

What PC do you have and what framerates are you willing to play on? I have a relatively decent laptop but not that great, and I play Skyrim with about 100 mods installed on medium achieving 20-40FPS depending on where I am. (20FPS usually occurs in the middle of a snowstorm. All those little snow flakes flying about hits me hard).

 

Mods I'd recommend:

 

Realistic Lighting Overhaul or Enhanced Lights and FX -> ELFX is better IMO, but it has a bigger performance hit than RLO so your choice.

 

Deadly Dragons + Dragon Combat Overhaul -> Dragons are freaking scary

 

Civil War Overhaul -> Makes things more interesting, plus they actually attack cities and they can capture away from you. You can LOSE.

 

True Thief Armor and Deadly Trio by NewerMind43 (or was it 48?) -> They just look AWESOME.

 

Dance of Death -> KILL MOVE ANIMATIONS!

 

Face Masks of Skyrim -> Neat coz it has an add-on which gives anonymity. You can have a bounty as the "masked man" but the guards won't recognize you when unmasked. Awesome for assassination missions and thieving.

 

SkyRe - Just started with this but the difficulty level is way higher than normal Skyrim. I'm playing on adept and it's more difficult than Legendary on the vanilla version.

 

Character Creation Overhaul -> rewards you for choosing a particular class. This makes for better immersion IMO.

 

Killing Traps and Subliminal Traps -> Traps are difficult to see plus pack enough punch to disable or kill you.

 

The Choice is Yours -> Allows you to refuse quests, like telling that guy in Markarth "I DON'T WANT TO GO INTO AN ABANDONED HOUSE HAUNTED BY A DAEDRA YOU IDIOT!"

 

Realistic Needs and Diseases - Makes things more interesting. :)

 

Moonlight Tales (possibly with Werewolf Mastery) -> Werewolves are awesome. Just remember to turn off NPC to NPC transmission of the disease. Potential source of problem (like an entire village becomes a werewolves or something).

[KanesGhost]

I would highly recommend this Mod for a complete game changer, you would be surprised at how dramatic a change it makes to your game...Skyrim will never be the same again, it will keep you guessing and on your toes always...makes you a nervous, but addicted Gamer.... :happy:

 

The Way of the Dovahkin - Ultimate Deadly Encounters (formally known as Sleeping Dangers - Sands of Time)

 

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/12452/?

 

Plus as a side note, for a character with a difference and something completely new to play, I once played a 'Pacifist' play through and found it completely changed the game and the way I played it. She specialized in Illusion, Restoration, Alteration, Sneak and Pick Pocket on Expert difficulty, can't use Followers with such a build though, defeats the purpose and I found activating the Dragons ruined that game for me....she couldn't avoid having to combat the Dragons...but until that point though (was about level 30 then) the game was definitely a new experience and a whole lot of fun, had to find all new ways to deal with situations. I relied mostly on Illusion and found I needed to use a Mod to boost her Illusion skills a little, not too much though, no fun in OP'ing it....Was a good and very interesting and challenging game, probably the most challenging I have played.

 

Two of my favorite moments in playing her:

 

She Pick Pockets a key she needed for a Bandit (plus his coins, etc...) and goes on her merry way, I thought she had got away clean with it, but eventually some Hired Thugs showed up sent by the Bandit, my girl Pick Pockets them completely clean also... :D ....I want to know how they explained that one to the Bandit.... :D

 

The Quest 'In my Time of Need'....My girl casts a sneaky 'Frenzy' on one of Bandits in the main room...The Alikir came rushing in and wiped every single Bandit out.... :tongue:

Edited November 29, 2013 by KanesGhost

[Kuboxy]

What PC do you have and what framerates are you willing to play on? I have a relatively decent laptop but not that great, and I play Skyrim with about 100 mods installed on medium achieving 20-40FPS depending on where I am. (20FPS usually occurs in the middle of a snowstorm. All those little snow flakes flying about hits me hard).

 

Mods I'd recommend:

 

Deadly Dragons + Dragon Combat Overhaul -> Dragons are freaking scary

 

Civil War Overhaul -> Makes things more interesting, plus they actually attack cities and they can capture away from you. You can LOSE.

 

True Thief Armor and Deadly Trio by NewerMind43 (or was it 48?) -> They just look AWESOME.

 

Face Masks of Skyrim -> Neat coz it has an add-on which gives anonymity. You can have a bounty as the "masked man" but the guards won't recognize you when unmasked. Awesome for assassination missions and thieving.

 

SkyRe - Just started with this but the difficulty level is way higher than normal Skyrim. I'm playing on adept and it's more difficult than Legendary on the vanilla version.

 

Character Creation Overhaul -> rewards you for choosing a particular class. This makes for better immersion IMO.

 

Killing Traps and Subliminal Traps -> Traps are difficult to see plus pack enough punch to disable or kill you.

 

Moonlight Tales (possibly with Werewolf Mastery) -> Werewolves are awesome. Just remember to turn off NPC to NPC transmission of the disease. Potential source of problem (like an entire village becomes a werewolves or something).

 

*I removed mods that I'm already using*

 

I am extremely dependent on having high frame rates. Even if I get one small lag every 15 seconds or so I'll go crazy, hence the "no ENBs" part. This also leaves mods like Civil war Overhaul out, since the immense battles leave me at low fps.

 

I'll check out the Armor mod and Mask as well. The mask specifically looks interesting, altough I'm not the kind of guy to randomly assassinate NPC's, it could prove extremely useful with some Dark Brotherhood quests.

 

I have a question about SkyRe : Does it make the Dragonborn as strong as the enemies ? My main concern with Master in Vanilla Skyrim is that It's going to take me 30 hits to kill a bandit in fur while he will 3-shot my heavy armored Tank Dragonborn. If it does that ? I sure as hell will jump on that mod right away.

[chanchan05]

Depends on what modules of SkyRe you are using. Also that's the bad thing about vanilla difficulties, it makes you deal less damage to enemies while they deal more to you (basically buffs health armor and damage of the enemies as you increase difficulty). In SkyRe, if you use the combat module, yes you basically take 3 hits to die and 3 hits to kill, depening on the enemy, your perks and weapons of course. A heavily armored enemy with a warhammer can take 30 hits to kill but one shot you. But in a case of similar armor and weapons, you're pretty much even with the enemies. HOWEVER, if you use the Encounter Zones module as well, you'll run into enemies that are quite powerful and may even be more powerful than you. Encounter Zones puts a minimum level to a particular zone. For example you run into a zone whose minimum level is 40, and you're just 25, you'll get murdered.

[mistressmiaura]

Hi! If your character does become a vampire, I definetely recommend checking out and comparing vampire overhauls on the Nexus- I use the "Better Vampires" by Brehanin myself and loving it. Very customisable (requires Skse for customizing though), I´ve not met any bugs and I think it adds a whole new level of gameplay to Skyrim, plus makes you feel like a vampire, not just some slightly sun sensitive freak ;) .

Some other cool sounding vampire mods out there too, but not tried others myself.