Combat Evolved + HLE-SIC = increased mortality

[TheMalazan]

For the sake of discussion...

Using Combat Evolved with HLE-SIC can seriously damage your health. Don't get me wrong, I endorse both mods and will continue to use them in each playthrough, but there are situations where the two work in tandem to crush you like a bug in a rug.

Case in point: I enter South Shriekwind Bastion and encounter a Volkihar Master Vampire, level 75, which More Informative Console reveals has been modded by HLE-SIC. Reviewing those records reveals he has a base damage multiplier of 3 *and* a custom perk applied that gives another 300% damage multiplier to the Thunderbolt spell. With CE installed the base damage has another 50% increase, so for you math heads to chew on, I'm guessing that's about 1000 - 1100 in damage (I admit my math could be way off).

On my side of the equation I have health of 670, wear three armor components enchanted with Resist Shock (all in the low 40's) and last but not least, a potion in effect that grants 50% resistance to shock. Despite those stats, it's one shot of Thunderbolt from the vampire and I'm toast. The math shouldn't add up to me being smoked with one strike, nevertheless, that's what happens. Of course there are other factors at play such as overall game difficulty which is currently on Master Level which doubles damage taken so maybe it does add up.

But for anyone complaining that the game is too easy, throw those two together along with OBIS, Immersive Wenches and the accompanying Wenches mods and you'll get smacked around worse than Curly on the Three Stooges.

[kryten397]

Theres a big difference between increased difficulty/challenge ,which can be fun and impossible (without cheating)which isnt any fun at all.I think a lot of these mods go too far and turn the volume of everything all the way up to 11.

 

 

I take my hat off to you though if you can survive on master without cheating with all of those mods installed.OBIS is ok it can be tough but i never found it impossible.Those other ones are just ridiculous.

Edited February 19, 2019 by kryten397

[TheMalazan]

The problem is synergy between these different mods. In the example above, I had no choice but to let two followers do the heavy lifting while I stayed in the back and conjured Dremora Lords, etc. I can't really blame mod authors as there's no way they can realistically make different versions that play nice with other combat mods. However, several of them could incorporate MCM menus that allow tweaking their settings (eg, OBIS and Hateful Wenches).

 

Today, though, I had to cheat a bit as I had a high level Lich spawn through Skyrim Immersive Creatures, which wouldn't have been so bad by itself, but when Know Your Enemy applied its resistances, two followers, me and the Conjured Dremora could not budge the Lich's health. So after 10 minutes of throwing all kinds of stuff at it and seeing messages such as 'Lich resists this' and 'Lich resists that' I got tired of it. The only way I'll use KYE next time is 1) any accompanying mod has an MCM that can be tweaked; or 2) I spend some time in SSEEdit and tweak the values on my own.