Work in progress.
In 3BFTweaks, preparation and knowledge is everything. Below you will find practical information regarding enemy types and areas, and how to prepare for them or deal with them in the moment. If you are looking for more pure numbers regarding stats, please see the Enemies page.
Bandits are common enemies with many different variants you may come across. They mostly test your basic mechanics.
Potions or other effects to reduce ranged damage taken are quite useful when taking on the large bandit camps such as Valtheim.
Archers
You can break weaker bows with a melee attack. You'll need the first perk in the tree to break it with a regular attack, otherwise only a power attack will work. Unarmed attacks can't break bows.
Against single archers, you can often run at them with a zigzag pattern to close the distance and then break their bow.
Archers turn slowly while moving, so if you are fast enough you can dance around them while they keep turning to try and hit you.
If it's too dangerous or there's multiple archers, you can always wait until they run out of ammo.
Trickster
Bandit variant that has scrolls and often a staff.
You can break the staff by hitting them with a 1H or 2H weapon.
Tricksters are often more dangerous than other bandits, and some areas are guaranteed to have a trickster spawn (such as Whiteriver Watch).
Silver Hand
Now wield poisons (werewolves have a poison resistance detriment).
Stronger silver hand will have full plate armor.
Can use restoration magic, including sun weapons and sun spells.
Silver weapons and ammunition is extremely important. Slashing weapons can get away without being silver if they are of a quality material, but for blunt, piercing, and ranged weapons, you will always want silver as the penalty is extreme otherwise. If you struggle against undead, consider taking the first point in the Smithing tree so you can make silver ammunition and silver-lined weapons.
Frost resistance very useful as some Draugr will have frost spells or the Frost Breath shout.
Draugr are extremely tanky and hit very hard, even in their weakest forms. This makes them great candidates for raised dead early on.
Low level draugr are susceptible to illusion spells.
You need at least 40% magic resistance to resist the stagger/ragdoll effect of the Unrelenting Force shout.
Dragon priests
High resistances to everything but fire and silver.
Constantly regenerate, but this effect is lowered significantly for a few seconds if they are hit by a fire, sun, or turn undead spell.
Their mage armor spell makes the "Dispel" enchantment and "Dispel on target" Restoration spell very useful.
Ranged damage is a serious danger in Dwemer ruins as both falmer and dwarven spheres deal a lot of damage with high penetration. Spells like "Shadow Cloak" and ranged resist potions are very helpful.
Falmer
High poison resistance is a must, as falmer will frequently use strong poisons against you, and the Chaurus have poison attacks too. Some falmer will even use paralyzing poisons! You need at least 90% poison resist to guarantee immunity against the paralyzing effect, however more is still useful as the Chaurus have an attack that reduces your poison resistance.
Falmer mages use frost spells and some can have the "Deep Freeze" perk. You need at least 35% frost resistance to avoid being frozen by the weaker frost spells.
The "Health II" enchantment is very useful as it confers immunity to both of the above paralyzing effects.
Dwarven Automatons
Low frost resistance
High armor ratings and resistance to all weapon types, but blunt is typically the most effective.
Enchanted Spheres: These tough enemies guard valuable items and areas. They have extreme resistance to non-blunt weapons and rapidly regenerate. Damaging them with a shock effect will halt their regeneration for a few seconds. They also shoot exploding elemental bolts that have very high armor penetration.