Why are creatures from mods always so strong?

[anjenthedog]

Alchemy sure helps my players, no matter which role I've chosen. So does enchanting. We all wear clothes of one sort or another and we all can stand from buffs and weapon boosts. (admittedly I don't play in pure mage roles, so I'm dismissing their particular issues offhand)

I grind the skills in bursts over time to make it a little less painful. I suppose there are ways around that too, if you're not a purist.

[scorrp10]

There are tons of mods in Skyrim that rework player's power curve by messing with armors, weapons, perks, followers etc.    Chances are that author of SIC balanced the 'default' settings of their mod to cater to their own play style/favorite mod layout.    And also likely balanced it around level 30 as well.    Then, it is up to player to use mod's settings to adjust the difficulty.    

 

[InDarkestNight]

I thought about just turning down the settings for SiC yes, but I'd have no way to do the same for Skyrim Underground. I thought about buffing the vanilla enemies using High Level Enemies then turning the game's difficulty down. That's probably the best I can hope for in nerfing these mods.

As for buffing mods, I don't know much about them. I have long wanted to try Enai's v++ mods, but I've since heard that they make you stupid OP (by level 10 even legendary difficulty becomes a joke). I guess I could do that, though I was hoping to not rely on other mods to buff my character. Then again, I am doing this mainly for the relic hunter challenge, which does include a lot of mods with some kinda imbalanced items. Perhaps I should install equipment mods and see if that helps my character. Of course, I'd have to get TES5Edit working on my computer, or at least wrye bash. I could technically dodge making a bashed patch by using LotD, since its patches for the mods it supports renders bash patches unnecessary. At the very least, I could use it for its equipment patches even if I don't do a playthrough of the mod itself. I was hoping to test the mods out in stages though. Perhaps I do need to just go all in. Besides, I was also planning on testing out the quest mods I need in another playthrough. Don't know how those enemies are; I know Moonpath to Elseweyr adds in some overpowered enemies, though they're not nearly as bad as SiC or Skyrim Underground it would seem. I've also since heard that Vigilant is based on Dark Souls, a game I've never played because I see no reason why I could handle a game like that. Falskaar is fine, but that and moonpath are the only quest mods I've ever played through. I'm going in blind for everything else.

Also, I'm thinking I may need to just avoid walking around at night; it seems that nighttime is when I run into the most OP enemies that SiC has to offer. I've already started avoiding the northern and eastern edges of the map, though that's obviously not helping completely. Even if I do avoid these areas, I still have issues with running into level 30 spriggans and giant frost spiders and who knows what else I'll run into if I manage to survive past level 10 for once with these mods installed and fully implemented.

[LilRedMonster]

I think that for at least some, if not most of these creature/enemy mods the authors' aim is to push you to use every tool at your disposal to overcome the challenge their mods are setting for you. Alchemy included, as a previous reply suggested.

I think some, at least a couple of them must also be working under the impression that your modlist includes staple combat mods that level the playing field such as valhalla, wildcat and even to some extent, MCO and mco moveset mods.

 

As for quest mods...yeah.. some of them are mad hard. Quest start levels are not a rule but a suggestion that I believe in most cases should be followed only by the same type of players that will go through the Souls games series naked with a wooden club doing challenge and speedruns n s#*! whilst us plebs struggle because we cant parry or distance or time or anything so we end up facetanking and hoping our shitty op weapons kill faster than we die. lol.

That being said... I highly suggest you dont let that deter you from playing said quest mods... You mentioned Vigilant, for example, and I can tell you that there is a reason it is in most modlists today. It's damn good. Hard as s#*! or not. So is Beyond the Reach, Forgotten City (Not as hard if you have brains but I dont and so even with as little combat as it has, it beat my ass into tgm-ing tf out of it for my first playthroughs) and quite a few more that I should do the honor of listing but my brain fails me rn so I wont.

[anjenthedog]

IME, even vanilla armor/weapon assets, when buffed using conventional means, (smithing, enchanting) are sufficient to provide protection, when combined with others (like potions and conventionally enchanted baubles... rings and such). IME, armor mods do little more than provide additional fit & fashion choices. Not that that's bad. I have a dozen or so installed to use various bits and pieces to create my "custom" armor sets (fashion). Just sayin, you don't need Placeboes SuperDooper Etched Ebony Armor of The Gawds (now with blue and red glowy bits!) to be a Skyrim superhero, although I can't argue that using the real versions exemplified by the fictional mod noted above is a "wrong" path either, if you're inclined to playing someone else's game using their rules... It boils down to fashion.

[InDarkestNight]

Yeah, armor mods in my experience don't really alter the game difficulty. The same with weapon mods. I do suspect though that Royal Armory might; some of the npcs are given weapons that hit as hard as daedric, at the start of the game! Don't know how much that would help at the early levels though. In my experience, giving a level 1 character end-game gear doesn't make much of a difference. Often times the stats are only a few points higher. They only make a difference in the late game where the numbers on all your gear are being multiplied by 10. Of course, the numbers on heavy and light armor do make a difference, though against these mods I've since realized that it doesn't make a difference; even giving yourself heavy armor and block half the things added by these creature mods can still one-shot you. Clearly facetanking doesn't work, and I'm going to need an alternate strategy. Just invis and let my summons deal with them? Of course, these things can one-shot my followers, so I don't think summons are going to do much good except against enemies that only deal elemental damage maybe.