I am a fan of computer based role playing games. Especially the Bioware flavor that provide customizable and interactive travelling companions. Series like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate are among my favorite.

Unfortunately Bethesda games tend to focus on the single player experience. Travelling companions are generally an afterthought. More so than any other reason, this is why I created Amazing Follower Tweaks. I wanted to bring some of those common party based elements from my favorite Bioware cRPGs into the world of Skyrim.

What kind of elements?

1) Party support for 4 to 6 companions (3 to 5 followers).

2) The ability to influence and groom travelling companions as the game progresses.

3) A home base where you can drop off companions until you need them

The list may seem small, but at a high level, this summarizes what Skyrim is lacking. Now let me elaborate a bit more.

=== Party support ===

Having travelling companions is cool for many reasons. The biggest one for me is that they make me feel like I am not playing the game alone. I mean who doesn't like occasional party banter and knowing someone has your back. But even during the Gold Box era, before NPCs had opinions and battle cries, there was a certain satisfaction that came from maintaining a party: taking the time to customize and tailor each NPC, making sure everyone had the best gear. The time we invested not only created a connection with our companions, but it brought a new level of satisfaction to each fight. You didn't win battles with button clicks, luck or shear numbers. You won them with forethought, planning and due diligence.

Still, an important question that comes up from time to time is why AFT only supports five active followers?

First, I should clarify that AFT lets you managed 32 NPCs, however you can only choose 5 of these 32 NPCs to accompany you at any time. You can configure and stash the other NPCs in your home base. This is the same basic system that almost every Bioware game follows.

But why five?

While I could talk about important reasons like game balance, technical tradeoffs, Skyrim's small interior spaces or even tradition; it really bulls down to setting a reasonable limit that gives players an opportunity to get to know their followers. AFT is not about forming raiding parties of nameless NPCs. It is about building a diverse team of specialized companions that you eventually get to know and care about. That is not going to happen if you have 15, 50 or 100 followers.

=== Influence ===

Influence takes many forms. Maybe it is as simple as choosing your followers outfit and weapons. Or maybe a game lets you choose your followers stats and skills as they level up. Maybe a game gives you the ability to influence decisions that your followers must make that impact the person they eventually become. This ability to influence followers gives you a vested interest in them and the effectiveness of your party as a whole.

Unfortunately, by default Skyrim followers use pre-configured, cookie cutter templates. In other words, it doesn't matter what they wear or how they fight. Your companions stats and skills always end up the same in the end. This is one of Skyrim's greatest short comings. It gives you no control or influence over your followers development. To be a modern day RPG lacking this feature is just embarrassing.

So AFT fixes this in a couple of ways:

1) Option to manually level up followers:

When the player gains a level, so does the follower. You can then go around and decide where everyone's new skill points should be placed. Or you can set the follower to Auto level up.

2) You can assign a follower to a combat style:

Each style includes an AI package and a default leveling template should you decide to use Auto level up.

3) You can review, add and remove follower spells...

A must have for magic user follower concepts. Especially in Skyrim where spells do not get more powerful but are replaced by new versions of the spell that do more damage.

4) You can setup Spell Triggers on each follower:

Whether all followers launch a protection/summon spell when combat begins or an emergency invulnerability/healing spell when they are about to die, the ability to set up spells and conditions is key to creating effective parties that can take on more powerful hordes.

Not everyone is going to have the patience or take the time to setup automatic spell triggers, but those that do will weave their band of companions into a much more effective unit. A unit that not only can take on impossible odds, but also provides much more satisfaction when those epic battles are won.

5) You can have fine grained control over the followers inventory

When inventory management is enabled, The followers default outfit is set to nothing (underwear), and the follower gets 2 inventories: A "standard" inventory for their outfit and a "backpack"

Any items placed into the standard inventory will be equipped... plain and simple. And if you want them to hold something without wearing it or using it (say a scroll or potion you are saving for a big battle), put it in the backpack.

It is such an effective and simple system, I am amazed that Bethesda didn't do this themselves.

=== Home Base ===

A home base is a single place where you can drop off companions you are not using. In knights of the old republic and mass effect, your home base was a space ship. In Dragon Age Origins, your home base was a large camp area. Sometimes a game makes the home base easy to access, like the pocket plane of Baldurs Gate II : Throne of Bhaal. And sometimes it requires you to travel a little bit, like Crossroads Keep in Neverwinter Nights 2.

The key to having a home base is not so much the location, but rather having the ability to tell your followers to hang out somewhere until you return. If you happen to own the house that you make your home base, great. But home is ultimately where you make it. There is no reason your home base couldn't be a bar, a floating city or a cave 2 miles under the ground. And in Skyrim, I am sure there are mods that provide air-ships, castles, pocket universes and plenty of other interesting places you can stash and store your unused companions.

So AFT doesn't give you a location. Rather it gives you the ability to dismiss followers anywhere you want and tell them to hang out there until you return.

=== And the rest... ===

Other things that I miss: Conversations between party members, more involved romance options and rich story lines that revolve around and include your NPCs. Some of these may eventually come to AFT as Addons, but it was too much to take on for the core mod.

However AFT does go a bit beyond its core mission. In most cases I simply wanted followers to act more intelligent. For example, I didn't want companions that just stood around like robots. I wanted followers that would interact with environments, ride horses, avoid traps, recharge their own weapons and use their special abilities like changing into a werewolf or Vampire Lord when running low on health. So yes, I added a few Skyrim specific bells and whistles. But the core mission of AFT has always been the same: Bringing a more familiar party based cRPG feeling to Skyrim.

For anyone reading this article, I thank you for your time and feel free to PM me your comments.