Required Mods

These are the mods that I don’t think I will ever play without now that I know about them. Together they fix bugs, improve the balance between skills and open up some new build possibilities, rebalance crafting and the economy, and make magic more interesting to me.

Bug Fix and Control Mods

Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch – Bug fix. It’s also a requirement for many other mods.

Cutting Room Floor – I’m not even sure what all it adds back it but I trust the author

Better Dialog Controls – does what it says it does

Better MessageBox Controls – does what it says it does

Character Fix Mods

Ordinator – perk overhaul to make more builds viable and interesting

Aurora – Reworks the standing stones to make them more interesting.

Imperious – Changes the racial abilities and starting stats.

Magic Mods

I don’t like playing full traditional mages in Skyrim. Even with favorites it is just too bothersome to switch back and forth between different spells. Instead I tend to make characters who use limited magic either outside of combat or at the beginning of combat.

Apocalypse – 100 new spells. Some are really powerful but most are nice twists on normal spells. Combines well with Ordinator.

Summermyst – Many new enchantments. Some of the new ones are a little silly but mostly they break up the boredom of yet another fortify a skill you don’t use piece.

Witchunter Spells and Prayers – By the same author as Patron Gods. I really like this one. It adds a good number of powerful “spells” that are activated like shouts and can be done while your hands are full of weapons, shields or other spells. It feels like a very natural add on for characters who aren’t much into the Dragonshouts. Like the Equipable Tomes (later in this list) it gives a Solomon Kane feeling to me although if you look at it in the right way it is more like the Physical Adepts from Shadowrun in a fantasy setting.

Wards Act Like Shields – A moderately significant boost to mages as it makes a ward act like a block in melee combat. Mostly it helps out the enemies in my game which isn’t bad.

Other Overhaul Mods

At this point it is probably best to point out that I think the list of mods above make the game slightly easier. Not as easy as a fully tricked out enchanting/alchemy/smithing loop in vanilla can make it but the combination I use makes more skills useful, adds more magic and some powerful magical synergies, and the “free” boost from a patron that is similar to a weak standing stone. To keep things sort of balanced and enhance the realism I chose to cut way back on the high end loot and improve the combat. It’s still not Dark Souls but its more challenging.

Morrowloot Ultimate – removes level scaling and hand places the better loot. Helps to control the glass weapon on common thug issue.

Alternate Start Live Another Life – Skip this if you haven’t played Skyrim yet but if you have played multiple times it does a great job of allowing you to skip the normal start. I like playing as a drunk in one of the inns or the hunter. Note that some starts are really hard and Morrowloot just makes that worse.

Violens – adds more kill cam animations. I suppose you could do without this but I feel I’m going to see a lot of them I might as well have some diversity.

Wildcat – improves combat. Very configurable. I tend to just use the defaults.

Skyrim Revamped – Complete Enemy Overhaul – Changes the combat AI. Wildcat makes the actual strikes more dangerous while this gives the enemies some intelligence. This works well with Morrowloot although the mod author thinks that his own leveled zones mod would be better (they sound well done). I didn’t want to get into editing files with SSEEdit so I am using the leveled zones from Morrowloot.

Crafting Mods

Finally I also wanted to make smithing not as godlike yet still useful and break the cycle of fortifying enchantments and potions that can get silly in vanilla. Morrowloot helps in both of those goals but some additional mods add to the experience.

Skyrim Alchemy Fixed – changes duration of potions and makes them stronger. Since Morrowloot makes them work over time instead of instantly this provides a nice effect; you can recharge yourself but you have to plan ahead. It also removes some exploits with fortify crafting potions.

Ars Metallica – adds smithing XP to the tanning rack and mining, restricts smithing until you have the proper perks for the material you are working with, and probably does more.

iNeeds –You could call it busywork, but I call it immersion. Now you need to eat, drink, and sleep regularly.

Food Overhaul - Food crafting overhaul. Combined with Morrowloot’s changes to healing potions it prevents almost all instant healing. It also improves the recipes at the cooking fire and oven so that they make more sense. It might be a little too good as I find I still use food instead of healing potions in most not boss battles. There is a less healing version that I might try at some point but for now I am using the basic version

Needs and Survival Mode Mods

I like the idea of making Skyrim feel cold. I tend to use fairly mild settings on all of these mods so it isn’t punishing but I still find that my non-Nord characters have to think a little bit about proper cold weather gear. I can not separate out the effects as I have always had all three installed.

Campfire

Frostfall

Wet and Cold