Followers

[oregonrob]

This will be some newbie like questions

1) Max number of followers?

2) Is a Housecarl a follower?

3) Is a Steward a follower?

4) Is a wife a follower?

5) what is a good mod to increase the number of followers (if needed)?

 

All the above are asked for Special Edition

[jjb54]

Get this:

 

AMAZING FOLLOWER TWEAK:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6656

 

Please make sure you read all the documentation and such and it will work like a dream! :happy:

[Anselmp]

1) Depends on the mod you use. Up to 100.

2) Yes, if you want.

3) Why make someone a steward if you want them as a follower?

4) No, although someone may have made this possible. Do want her to suffer like you?

5) I used AFT with LE. I now use EFF. Either would do.

If you use more than 4 you will find yourself regularly blocked in rooms etc when inside and will have more CTDs outside. Get Erandur, Mjoll and Vilja or Sofia and you will never feel lonely again.

[thumbincubation]

1. Vanilla, usually 1. Sometimes extra, for certain quests. For example, you can have your usual follower, in addition to both Delphine and Esbern, while you're leading them to Skyhaven Temple. Modded depends on the mod. I use AFT, as JJB mentioned, and it allows for 5 normal followers.

 

2. A housecarl can follow you, but if you choose someone else, they will just return to your home and guard it. If you have a housecarl but no home for them, they will hang around the jarl's hall, until you buy or build the home.

 

3. Depends on how you want your household to run. You can make your follower a steward and then they can both live and adventure with you. Or, you could get someone to follow you just long enough to become a steward, and then ask someone else to follow you, maybe your housecarl or maybe a third party. I usually like a fully-staffed house, so I make sure followers, housecarls, stewards, are all separate people. Then the steward behaves kind of like a second housecarl.

 

4. Some followers are marriable. Some marriable NPCs can be followers. Not all can do both. Again, depends on what you want in a household.

 

5. I still like AFT, though there is an iAFT with some upgraded features. There's also EFF, which is reputed to be one of the more stable follower mods. There is also a new mod called NPC party, which I believe is still a work in progress.

 

Another mod you may find helpful is My Home Is Your Home 2+ (similar to the original but more options and more follower slots). This will allow you to assign your followers new homes, into the hundreds. They won't all be following you at the same time, but you get them to follow, take them to where you want them to live, give them a day/night work/sleep/guard package (if you want) and dismiss them. Using this combo, I have at any given time, a housecarl, a steward, 5 active followers, and 10 or more "guards," stationed around my homes. This would put 1 in each of the 3 towers and 2 by the front door, day and night. Sometimes I'll bring wayward NPCs home to mine or garden, tend the cows, horses, whatever I need.

 

There's another mod (I used it in Oldrim, but I believe it was ported) called Band of Brothers, in which you use a follower mod to recruit 4 follower/officers, each of whom has 5 followers of their own, allowing you to roll through Skyrim with effectively 24 followers and still room for your favorite follower. This can burden lesser systems, but is a lot of fun. Lots to do.

[Moksha8088]

Nethers Framework.

[Guest deleted80903]

Follower limits: Yes, they exist in vanilla Skyrim. I don't know exactly what they are, but you can have a dog and at least two people following you at once if you do it right (dog + follower + quest related follower). Maybe more. Now that I think about it you could have a permanent summon too. But in that list, only one would be a true follower with inventory, etc.

A lot of standalone mods have their own internal follower system: Vilja, Inigo, Sofia. These can be used in a Vanilla Skyrim in addition to your vanilla follower. Vilja has a feature where you can have followers follow her instead of you, so you could have a pretty big party this way.

A steward is a role given to a follower. They have to be a follower to begin with, because they have to get to one of your Hearthfire houses in order to be made a steward. Then they live at the house, offer extra services, etc. I'm pretty sure they will still be followers after becoming a steward; it's been awhile.

Follower frameworks alter the number of followers you can have even further. I use EFF - Extensible Follower Framework. It is simply the best follower framework; I think it supports 100 out of the box, but it has an in-game MCM where you can change that number to whatever you want. EFF also allows you to forcibly recruit ANYONE, and if set up properly it has interface widgets showing follower health, magicka, stamina, a wheel menu for managing followers, and a whole bunch of other features. One setting lets you tell your followers to draw weapons independently of the player, so they don't pull their swords every time you do, for instance. Following distances, outfits, home locations, essential status, and a bunch of other things can all be controlled with EFF.