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-Recommended Mods-
For nearly two years I've combed through the Nexus. Looking for great mods that are well done, widely compatible, and are supported by there authors. Things that make Skyrim feel more alive, more immersive, more realistic, and more enjoyable to play. Things that enhance the game without straying to far from what Bethesda intended Skyrim to be. But without turning the game into a pseudo-simulator and keeping the word "fun" in mind. I've tried almost all of the popular mods out there, and I have my preferences just like everyone else. So if you don't agree with my choice of a certain mod, that's all well and good. Since I originally wrote this, most of these mods that were at one time a bit less known have grown in popularity. But anyways, here's my "can't play without" list.
1st Person Camera Height Change [*Removed from Nexus*]
- It has bugged me for ages that the camera height in first person is basically somewhere in your throat, and not where your eyes would be. This fixes this and has different options based on the race/gender you use.
Amidianborn Book of Silence
- Amazing hand made textures for a lot of the weapons & armor in the game. Also has some landscape & monster textures.
A Thinner Compass
- Standard compass bar is way to big for a PC monitor. Much better.
Arrows & Bolts Tweaks
- Coming from someone who practices archery in real life, get this mod. Now.
ASIS
- Injects some brainpower into NPC's, allows NPC's to use almost any spell (even from mods), and generally makes Skyrim's combat far more rewarding.
Audio Overhaul for Skyrim
- I'm a big audio/videophile, with reference grade headphones. This one makes a big difference.
Bellyaches HD Dragon Replacer Pack
- Re-touched high-resolution textures from Bethesda's Hi-res DLC. The 9 dragon types of Skyrim never looked better.
Book Covers Skyrim
- Skyrim has a LOT of books, might as well make them look unique and awesome.
Dragon Soul Relinquishment
- The best and most fully featured "Souls-to-perks" type mod on the Nexus. Highly configurable and integrated into the main quest-line. Very very cool.
Dragonborn Ascendant
- The more dragon souls you gather the stronger your shouts become and the shorter the cool-down gets. In short it's balanced and takes shouts from being generally useless to powerful tools that you'll want to make use of.
Enhanced Lights and FX
- I do love lighting that actually makes some damned sense. Amazing when paired with RCRN.
Footprints
- Footprints in the snow!
Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival
- Survival mods aren't everyone's cup of tea, and I personally hate them. Frostfall changed my bias against these types of mods and is now one of my favorite mods. Intuitive, customizable, streamlined, and most of all fun.
Guard Dialogue Overhaul
- Self explanatory. Guards are suddenly smarter, more aware of who & what you are, and less annoying in what they say.
Heart of the Beast
- Default sounds, eyes, and textures sucked for Werewolves... NSJones fixed that for you.
High Quality LODs
Enhanced Distant Terrain
Distant Detail - Hearthfire Edition
- Even on "Ultra", distant terrain looks pretty terrible in Skyrim, the draw-distance is short and there's some noticeable pop-in when a grid loads.. Use these three mods together and you'll get a noticeable improvement over the crappy vanilla distant details.
(Remember, messing with the uGrids settings to increase draw-distance is bad news. The engine simply can't handle that kind of load for long term play, regardless of how amazing your hardware is or how many mods you do/don't use.)
Immersive HUD (iHud)
Less Intrusive HUD II
- Makes Skyrim's HUD system to be fully functional but less intrusive. Great for immersion. Less Intrusive HUD II lets you move around the various HUD elements to free up more screen space, and gives you a less annoying sneak meter.
Insanitys Drabonbane
- The Dragonbane katana sucks, use this to make it look awesome.
Lock Overhaul
- Totally revamps the lock-picking system. You can bash locks open, use spells, and more. Totally customizable through the MCM menu.
No Boring Sleep-Wait Menu
- Resetting Skyrim's "cells" by waiting 31 days is torture, this mod lets you sleep/wait for up to 31 days at a time.
Nuskas Real Skin for Women - Removed?
MacKoms Real Skin for Men
- The best overall facial textures for females and males in my opinion. Attractive characters that don't look ridiculously out of place when viewed in the game itself. NPC's look like people... Not real-dolls or cartoon amazonian warriors.
Player Headtracking
- Your character no longer stares straight ahead when people talk to you while in 3rd-person view. This might seem like a trivial mod, but it adds a lot of 'life' to your own character.
Predator Vision
- If you play as a Vampire or Werewolf and wondered why you can't see a damn thing in the dark (they're both nocturnal creatures after all), you might want to take a look at this.
RCRN - Realistic Colors & Realistic Nights
- Everyone has there tastes when it comes to lighting & weather mods. I've tried all the notable ones (and a few ENB's) and this is the one for me. Works amazing when paired with Enhanced Lights and FX.
Run For Your Lives
- Makes NPC's wisely run & hide when dragons attack... Instead of rushing in with an Iron Dagger.
Skyforge Weapons
- I would like to personally thank Dreogan for making some seriously bad ass weapons.
SkyUI
- Changes the user-interface of Skyrim's various menu's to a more keyboard & mouse friendly layout. The most popular and essential mod for Skyrim for a good reason, adding it here for resource sake. Also a requirement to use Deadly Dragons in the first place.
Texture Pack Combiner
- The ultimate compilation of texture mods for Skyrim. It take's a while to set up initially, but if you want Skyrim to look F#$%&G amazing you'll give this a serious look. Only for those with powerful computers and +2GB's of VRAM on there video cards. This pushes Skyrim's engine to it's limits when used with the HD DLC and other mods, so it's best to use ENBoost and Safety Load. Otherwise you'll be frequently running into the infamous 3.1 GB limit on Skyrim's executable.
Tribunal Robes and Masks
- Some pretty awesome mage gear.
Unofficial Skyrim Patch
Unofficial Dawnguard Patch
Unoffiical Hearthfire Patch
Unoffiical Dragonborn Patch
Unofficial High Resolution Patch
- Unfortunately, Bethesda does not have unlimited time, money, or a proper quality-assurance department to make sure there games are bug free. But the modding community apparently does. Everyone should use these. EVERYONE. Those who claim that they harm your game are flat out wrong. If the unofficial patches cause you problems then you have buggy mods or a damaged save file (from buggy mods). Every change (weather you like it or not) within these patches has substantiated evidence behind them to back it up.
Wet and Cold
- NPC's and yourself recognize the harsh weather conditions in the various parts of Skyrim, very immersive. If you use Frostfall, you'll absolutely want this.
XCE - Xenius Character Enhancement
- Everyone has there tastes for what they prefer for there character re-textures, but everyone can agree that these are better than the HD DLC, even after Bethesda updated the HD DLC in February 2013.
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http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/11941/?