Most Essential Mods

[StayFrosty05]

My I can't play Skyrim without them list:

 

1. Summon Animal Pets......I haven't kept a Follower since I found this mod, really is the best side kick a Dovahkin can have.

 

2. Skytest Realistic Animals and Predators.......Gives the game a whole new feel and really adds quality life and quality animal behavior to the game.

 

3. Sleeping Dangers-Sands of Time.......Dovahkin can no longer sleep safely through the night or wait in what should have been in the vanilla game dangerous environments to sleep or wait....allows you to add your own preferred percentages.

 

4. Fighting Styles in Tamriel......Allows you to really hone your Dovahkins preferred fighting style.

 

5. Dance of Death......Adds so much more to the battle cut scenes and you can add your own preferred percentages.

 

6. Better Villages.......An unquestionably vast improvement on villages.

 

7. Marital Arts.......My Dovahkin can now front flip, back flip, side kick and adds so much more to hand to hand combat/brawls.

 

8. Jaws-Deadly Oceans......The oceans are no longer safe.... :devil:

 

9. Height Adjusted Races and True Giants.......Now not everyone is the same height...races and sexes are depicted as they should be and the Giants really are something frightening to deal with.

 

10. Birds of Skyrim......Putting in what was horribly lacking in the vanilla game...all those bird sounds but no birds....now there are birds.

 

The above mentioned are all my favorite immersive mods....though I would like to add a mention of the 'Bathing Beauties Luxury', Dovahkin lives in style..... :happy: ....Am also testing out 'Dragons Hunt in Swarms' at the moment, it's proving a winner.

[Patrick2me]

Mine:

1. SkyRe- This makes the game so much more enjoyable.

2. Warzones: Civil Unrest-Makes the civil war feel like a war.

3. Sounds of Skyrim: Dungeons and wilds- Exploring ancient nord ruins has never been the same

4. Tales of Lycanthropy: I love playing as a werewolf and this makes it so much more enjoyable.

5. UFO; ultimate follower overhaul- Adds way more options for followers.

6. Realistic Lighting with customization: Great lighting without having a performance impact

7.Deadly Dragons: Makes dragons more scary to fight.

8. iHud- Lets me disable the compass to feel like Morrowind.

9. Skyrim Monster mod with lore friendly replacers: Lot more variation in monsters.

10.Midias Magic- Adds a lot of nice spells that make magic more interesting.

[kevkiev]

If I ask myself "would I buy the game again without X mod", the only ones that really fit that description are the way-too-many-to-list-here texture mods. When I first played this vanilla (with only the official supposed HD pack) I was horrified by the borderline-grotesque pixel soup textures so that was the first thing I took care of. Check out STEP (Skyrim Total Enhancement Project) for a good place to start (I think the forum thread is just called "Ini Tweaks")

 

Having said that, if I were only allowed one other mod other than texture replacers, it would have to be this relatively unknown little jewel: the save game hotkey mod. IMO, quicksaves and autosaves are the kiss of death in Skyrim and are a major culprit in savegame bloat and corrupted saves. (I have quicksave and autosave disabled in game settings.) Making hard saves quick and easy is a godsend. My savegames increase in size, of course, but by limiting myself to hard saves the increase is at such a slow pace it's almost mind-boggling.

 

Since that mod requires SKSE, that's just as important.

 

After that, SKYUI. After that.... it's all gravy.

[Galacticat42]

It replaces NMM as it basically is NMM + TESMM + Anti-breaking system. You can launch programs through it like Wrye Bash, Boss, SKSE, etc. to have your mods or you can launch Skyrim without MO to play the vanilla version if you want to debug a mod.

[Rennn]

1. SKSE

2. Birds of Skyrim (adds many new birds to the environments. It's great; you'll be wandering around and pheasants etc will be skulking around in the brush.)

3. SkyUI

4. Basic FX ENB -high performance (I made it for myself so I use it all the time, and here's an opportunity to self-promote)

5. UFO (ultimate follower overhaul)

6. Live Another Lide (alternate start mod with many options)

7. UNP

8. Nude Male with import from Robert's Body

9. Sounds of Skyrim

10. Mercy (makes enemies have a chance to actually surrender after you injure them badly)

 

I didn't list NMM only because I'm not sure that counts as a mod.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Rennn

[kevkiev]

Ok, I already mentioned the save hotkey, SKSE and SkyUI.

 

I've just installed IHUD 1.6 with the new (non ScriptDragon - SKSE only) toggle feature and I think that certainly qualifies as a must-have. One of those "how did I ever live without" kind of mods.