Improving Skyrim / Recommended Mods thread (Mostly about Requiem)

[Clockwork Knight]

Filling the last room with a ton of draugr is the modder's way of saying "YOU SHOULD PROBABLY LEVEL A LITTLE BEFORE STARTING THE MAIN QUEST". I think that's better than, say, just letting you meet the whiterun dragon completely unprepared for the rape. At least in Bleakfalls barrow you can just turn around and come back later.

I entered that cave to escape a troll. From the other side, though. Fighting the bandits inside seemed a better option.

 

[Delterius]

Thankfully, the bandits had a mammoth skull trap that killed the troll. Not so thankfully, one of them could hurl fireballs.

 

[Lancehead]

Still at the beginning of the game: there I was with Lydia going for that bandit camp directly northwest of Whiterun (Halted Stream Camp, the one with a palisade and the spike pit at the end). Things are going pretty smoothly, 2 bandits down and a third was coming after me. So I do my little routine of quickly turn around, running for a second and summoning the Ghost Wolf.

Lo and Behold - a troll and a saber cat jump out of nowhere, both after me. They meet with the bandit and the three start killing each other. This being Requiem, obviously, the troll survived. So I tried luring him into the spike pit. He fell into it and proceeded to enter the cave. I'm really scared of taking this bounty all of a sudden.

Something like that did happen to me, but it was only a sabercat. The bandits outnumbered the cat and killed it, but me being a conjurer at that time, I was able raise the cat and tear through the same bandits.

 

[Akratus]

bows do nothing to Spriggans. I probably need a flame enchanted 2 hander to burn this fucker down.

 

[Eyeball]

Has anyone played with the "Immersive creatures mod?" How does it fit in with Requiem? The people commenting have some issues about balance, such as skeletons having been buffed to superhuman power, and some of the creatures look pretty derptacular, but I'd really like some of the critters in that mod to appear in my game.

 

[Delterius]

So.... character planning in Requiem. How much versatility should I expect from the mods levelling system? Enough for a path in most every magickal skill tree, perhaps?

 

[RK47]

EVERY magic school?
I seriously doubt you can go beyond 3-4 active usage skills to raise them to acceptable levels.
In my High Elf game, I can't even keep destruction up to level 50 without spending gold on training since Conjuration Soul Arrow at 50 is acceptable as damage dealing goes and pays off in other respect such as Raise Dead/Summoning Creatures that fit the situation while you conserve mana by firing the odd firebolt or two. Alchemy covers your mana usage so well that carrying other potions seems like deadweight. You can and should don Destruction robes primarily since Conjuration is capped to 2 creatures at mid point. Also, don't delude yourself into thinking Alteration can save you from arrow hits. It won't. Either invest in some heavy armor perk or ignore armor completely and go dodging. Alchemy 75 gives HP & STA bonus if you're interested.

Restoration stopped gaining at 25 cause you simply take no damage with Conjuration eating all the hits, and you healing the raised dead with necromantic powers.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Has anyone played with the "Immersive creatures mod?" How does it fit in with Requiem? The people commenting have some issues about balance, such as skeletons having been buffed to superhuman power, and some of the creatures look pretty derptacular, but I'd really like some of the critters in that mod to appear in my game.

IC has an individual difficulty slider available in-game, by default assigned to be slightly harder than default Skyrim Adept difficulty. If using it alongside Requiem, you can just tune the slider down so it fits in with the rest of the game (otherwise, creatures will be stronger than normal for Requiem, which is gonna be a Bad Thing)

It also has options to disable some of the derpier...uh, "non lore-friendly creatures" like the humanoid dragons and dragon shamans.

 

[Eyeball]

EVERY magic school?
I seriously doubt you can go beyond 3-4 active usage skills to raise them to acceptable levels.
In my High Elf game, I can't even keep destruction up to level 50 without spending gold on training since Conjuration Soul Arrow at 50 is acceptable as damage dealing goes and pays off in other respect such as Raise Dead/Summoning Creatures that fit the situation while you conserve mana by firing the odd firebolt or two. Alchemy covers your mana usage so well that carrying other potions seems like deadweight. You can and should don Destruction robes primarily since Conjuration is capped to 2 creatures at mid point. Also, don't delude yourself into thinking Alteration can save you from arrow hits. It won't. Either invest in some heavy armor perk or ignore armor completely and go dodging. Alchemy 75 gives HP & STA bonus if you're interested.

Restoration stopped gaining at 25 cause you simply take no damage with Conjuration eating all the hits, and you healing the raised dead with necromantic powers.

Good post. A few comments by me:

1. You can finish the game just fine with just conjuration, which also seems to level at a decent rate. Summons tank for you and conjure spectral arrow is one of the best burst damage spells in the game. It does physical damage and thus chews right through enemies with high magic resistance. Try it on the boss abominations in Apocrypha for best effect.

2. You may want to Wear conjuration robes if you can find them. School-specific robes make spells cheaper to cast and you want to build up your mana reserve to be able to cast summon werewolf or dragon priest ASAP, which you normally need 100 conjuration to cast without problems.

3. If you want to literally sprint through levels populated chiefly with mooks, 50 destruction will give you the incredibly powerful lightning ray or fire ray spells, which take about 2 seconds to burn through anything not immune to their element. Destruction magic needs a lot more Investment to be viable as a main killer skill, though, and early levels are VERY tough.

4. Restoration is the 2nd most useful school after conjuration. You CAN spend half your mana throwing several fireballs at that room full of draugr OR you can throw a single sunburst into their midst. If you can get about level 50 in restoration, 2-3 sunbursts will destroy even multiple dragon priests. With the sheer number of undead foes in Skyrim, restoration is a must-have for mages, IMO, and it will also level quite fast if you keep sunbursting.

5. Alteration is honestly not all that useful, no. Even with your mage shield up, odds are anything not a mudcrab will murder your squishy mage ass.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The above post made me realize the mod page doesn't have the spell list anymore. The downloadable manual does...but Illusion only.

edit: found a list, but it's just names of the spells under the perk descriptions.

http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimrequiem/comments/1uw3v3/requiem_perk_list_with_descriptions/

 

[Lancehead]

I think that's because only Illusion currently uses their new magic resistance system, with spells having completely different descriptions from typical vanilla spell descriptions. Silly reason not to provide a list of all the Requiem-added spells.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Interesting mod, let's you actually ask blacksmiths and enchanters to upgrade your stuff as long as you have the money and materials. The guy didn't change the NPC values for compatibility so there's some derpery such as supposed master blackmiths having mediocre smithing skill, but you can fix that with the console.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/51024

edit: alternative here, might be even better

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50546/

 

[Delterius]

Posted that from the shitty phone, so I couldn't express myself properly. What I meant to ask is if I could or even should invest moderately in multiple trees for certain conveniences while keeping a specific school of magic as my core (in this case Conjuration). So far I'm hoarding most of my points given that Conjuration hasn't reached level 25 yet, but I'm extremely tempted to allocate more points towards Alteration just so I can easily maintain a Mage Armor spell (for the purposes of levelling the school) and Lockpicking because fuck those novice locks.

Another question I'd like to ask has to do with Dragonborn. How good is that unofficial patch and what sorts of bugs and inconveniences should I expect? Do Bethesda's insane Legendary Skills even work properly?

 

[DraQ]

So.... character planning in Requiem. How much versatility should I expect from the mods levelling system? Enough for a path in most every magickal skill tree, perhaps?

IIRC you should be able to gain half of available perks worth in perk points - eventually, after maxing out your character.
Unless you know the mod already (which you don't) the best approach is to focus on whatever is absolutely vital for your character and branch out when you feel you can allow yourself to.

I think that's because only Illusion currently uses their new magic resistance system, with spells having completely different descriptions from typical vanilla spell descriptions. Silly reason not to provide a list of all the Requiem-added spells.

Indeed, especially that some are quite sweet - like teleportation to wherever you aim, ability to teleport someone's heart out of their chest or combat TK allowing you to fling people and creatures. Not to mention your standard destruction spell nukes.

Another question I'd like to ask has to do with Dragonborn. How good is that unofficial patch and what sorts of bugs and inconveniences should I expect? Do Bethesda's insane Legendary Skills even work properly?

IIRC Requiem allows reallocating perk points with legendary skill mechanics, but doesn't reset skill level, so it's only once per skill and doesn't allow for infinite level ups.
I haven't played the expansion yet, nor the unofficial patch, apart from the beginning, but I've heard it's pretty derp, and cultists attack starting the expansion is buffed to not-even-remotely-fair level, even by Requiem's standards.

OTOH without the patch they become "who were those clowns?" episode.

 

[granit]

Oooor you could wise up, reenable fast travel and add, say, 100 pounds to the weight carry limit using the in-game mod menu instead.

Hardk0r is one thing, adding extra logistical tedium on top of that is something else entirely.

I would like to point out a mistake, fast travel outside in-universe travel functions such as horse carriage/silt strider/mark/recall is just wrong. Todd Howard kind of wrong

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Apparently the Dragonborn-Requiem patch makes Miraak ultra OP unless you hit him with one new weapon type the patch introduces...or use shock spells on him to stop his wolverine-like regen, at least according to a post on Reddit I just read.

He doesn't do a ton of damage, but you won't be able to kill him until you can do some serious damage to him. It's worth mentioning that shock damage will lower his regen to either 40 or 20 hp, I don't remember. The best way is the spell shocking jolt.

Looks like there's a book that explains some stuff that people tend to gloss over. Sounds annoying but until Requiem is updated to natively include the expansions it's all we have.

Or you could not use the patch and instead use SkyTweak to make the game temporarily harder while playing through Dragonborn, and use one optional standalone module from ERSO that boosts Miraak only, with a few difficulty levels available.

-

OTOH without the patch they become "who were those clowns?" episode.

Yeah, on my other playthrough I heard a commotion behind me while I was doing some shopping in Whiterun and when I turn back there are a bunch of NPCs standing around the cultists' bodies, half of them checking the still warm bodies

For the clowntists, you could use Timing is Everything to stop them from attacking a nobody, like with the Delayed Dark Brotherhood Attack mod in Morrowind.

• Delay the start of Dragonborn. Choose from 9 different points along the main quest, or select 'Unknown' and a random starting point will be chosen for you. You can also determine a minimum level requirement that must be met in addition to the main quest stage, and you can set the percent chance for random cultist attacks.
• Delay the start of Dawnguard. Stop random vampire attacks from decimating the population, or allow the crisis to build by increasing the difference between the level at which the vampire attacks start and when Dawnguard recruitment begins.

• Delay the start of Hearthfire until you've actually accomplished something worthy of recognition by the Jarls, or make it possible to purchase land in the Pale sooner by lowering the level requirements for the "Kill the Giant" quest.

• Delay the start of many of the Daedric Quests or choose to do them early.

• Adjust the frequency of random dragon encounters. Change the number of days between attacks and/or change the percent chance that they'll occur.

• Allow random werewolf encounters for non-Companion characters. Dawnguard added 4 new world encounters involving werewolves, but by default they are conditioned to occur only after the player joins the Companions. You now have the option to bypass this condition. After all, why should the presence of other werewolves in the world be dependent on the player's membership in this faction?

 

[RK47]

Oooor you could wise up, reenable fast travel and add, say, 100 pounds to the weight carry limit using the in-game mod menu instead.

Hardk0r is one thing, adding extra logistical tedium on top of that is something else entirely.

I would like to point out a mistake, fast travel outside in-universe travel functions such as horse carriage/silt strider/mark/recall is just wrong. Todd Howard kind of wrong

Logistics? Stuff a dead body, raise dead.
Killed second dragon and confirmed that Decay stacking delivered with crossbow bolt works well. Took no scratch by just using Whirlwind Dash shout as needed.

 

[hell bovine]

Posted that from the shitty phone, so I couldn't express myself properly. What I meant to ask is if I could or even should invest moderately in multiple trees for certain conveniences while keeping a specific school of magic as my core (in this case Conjuration). So far I'm hoarding most of my points given that Conjuration hasn't reached level 25 yet, but I'm extremely tempted to allocate more points towards Alteration just so I can easily maintain a Mage Armor spell (for the purposes of levelling the school) and Lockpicking because fuck those novice locks.

Another question I'd like to ask has to do with Dragonborn. How good is that unofficial patch and what sorts of bugs and inconveniences should I expect? Do Bethesda's insane Legendary Skills even work properly?

Jewellery in Requiem lets you open novice and apprentice locks (called peerless lockpicking, or similar), so you don't need perks for that.

I don't think there is much point in mage armor for a conjurer; illusion with the blur spell would probably be more useful, because of archers. Conjuration can deal with anything on its own, but I've found that for dragonpriests you need the master summons and at 90+ conjuration levels up very, very slowly. So restoration is probably the best 2nd choice for a mage. Also, if you want to get to 25 quickly, use skeleton summons, they add experience just like mage armor; it's enough to cast the spell in the presence of an enemy.

Oooor you could wise up, reenable fast travel and add, say, 100 pounds to the weight carry limit using the in-game mod menu instead.

Hardk0r is one thing, adding extra logistical tedium on top of that is something else entirely.

I would like to point out a mistake, fast travel outside in-universe travel functions such as horse carriage/silt strider/mark/recall is just wrong. Todd Howard kind of wrong

Logistics? Stuff a dead body, raise dead.
Killed second dragon and confirmed that Decay stacking delivered with crossbow bolt works well. Took no scratch by just using Whirlwind Dash shout as needed.

Ghostly steed is fast travel in Requiem.

 

[Eyeball]

Correction: you can pick apprentice Locks with the first lockpicking feat, period. No buffing items required. Advanced and Expert Locks can be picked at 50, Master Locks require 100.

As opposed to regular Skyrim, you really want to level your character as much as you can quickly in Requiem due to the lack of level scaling, so there are quite a few tricks to doing this quickly. The best I found is to get the first pickpocket perk, grab all the +pickpocket gear you can find (thieves guild gives you a bunch just for joining) and get picking them pockets. With only one or two perks invested, pickpocketing is a skill you can raise to 80+ with Little difficulty, giving you a bunch of levels in the process as well as a shitload of gold and jewelery to pawn. Lockpicking is another no-brainer considering how quickly it levels. Didn't spend a single gold piece training lockpicking and it still hit 100 by mid-game.

Also, I found the best way to deal with 1-2 Archers as a heavy weapons guy: body check him. Can't remember if it was like this in regular Skyrim, but in Requiem you can sprint into enemies knocking them Down for a significant amount of time. They are then easy sword fodder.

 

[roll-a-die]

Oooor you could wise up, reenable fast travel and add, say, 100 pounds to the weight carry limit using the in-game mod menu instead.

Hardk0r is one thing, adding extra logistical tedium on top of that is something else entirely.

I would like to point out a mistake, fast travel outside in-universe travel functions such as horse carriage/silt strider/mark/recall is just wrong. Todd Howard kind of wrong

Hmmm, so after I've completely explored a path and gone through a dungeon, I shouldn't be able to skip the tedium of walking through a path that I've already cleared of enemies? It's not like there's really any point to that particular bit of content, is there? No really things to discover, Skyrim is kind of an open book about it's terrain, there's no real secrets, no real reason to explore the gamespace after a first glance. Other than you know, #hikingsimulator. I can understand not allowing fast travel freely in a gamespace that is similar to KotOR, where you are navigating through hubs and into linear areas. However, Fast Travel has had a place in the TES series since Arena, where for Arena and Daggerfall, it's used to skip the ridiculous distances and tedium that would occur from traversing them. And having to,

1. take the carriage,
2. walk into windhelm,
3. walk to the fort,
4. walk to the Jarl,
5. get a quest,
6. walk out of the fort,
7. walk out of the town,
8. walk to the carriage,
9. travel to the city near whatever quest you're taking,
10. walk to the quest you're about to do,
11. do the quest,
12. walk back to the carriage,
13. travel to windhelm,
14. walk into the city,
15. walk to the fort,
16. walk to the jarl,
17. turn in the quest.
18. Take another quest
19. repeat

Does it add anything to the game? It's a pointless 19 step process, that does nothing but further a fake sense of immersion. That would really be better for not having to stare at the same three trees 40 times. With free fast travel to cities and major landmarks, or even anywhere, you get a better flow, at a minor sacrifice of something ultimately pointless unless you're an LARP tard, in which case, you will likely impose the restriction on yourself. I like added logistics, the removal of fast travel, doesn't add extra logistics, it adds extra tedium, to an already tedious game.

Especially since, after morrowind they removed most of the FUN fast travel options, and left you with, either just carriages, or in DerpBlivion, left you with just fast travel.

 

[RK47]

FUN fast travel options

Right.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

This just came out.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/52669/

Requiem Plus adds several quality of life fixes which are completely optional to Requiem, some are off by default. All of this is managed from Requiem Plus' MCM Menu in game. I made this mod and learned CK in a weeks period, and I admit I have not playtested it very much.

However I believe it to work properly, and I've gone over my own mod with TES5Edit / CK and made sure I have no dirty edits. I am a programmer, and this was a fun project. Some of the fixes are no brainers, like giving Horses regenerating health, other fixes are more heavy handed and are off by default. Pick and choose what you want.

For stuff like my Invisible Entity fix, I scripted a new replacement entity that is still a challenging fight, but at the same time much more visible. It shares the exact same loot tables which the Invisible Entities do, and if you don't like them you can turn them off.
Features

Spell Tome Fix - Adds missing spell tomes to vendors for spells that are only available in multiple choice perks

Invisible Entity Fix - Replaces the invisible entity mobs found in Soul Cairn and a few other places with easier more visible Soul Torn entities, these mobs should still prove challenging. Adds an ash corpse to both entities, even if the fix is turned off.

Healing Horses Fix - Adds passive HP regeneration to all horses, normally horses permanently accrue damage.

Grindy Crafting - When off you will receive a 2x XP bonus to all crafting skills, when on it goes back to Requiem rates. This is still much lower than default Skyrim's rates.

Jumping Penalty - When off you will not receives a penalty to stamina when pressing space, when on it defaults to Requiem behaviour.

Sneak Immunity - Allows you to bypass Sneak Damage negation found on almost all high level mobs in requiem, normally many creatures will reduce all sneak damage to a 1.0x multiplier, this removes that mechanic.

Dual Wield Sneak Attack - Allows you to perform sneak attacks while wielding two weapons, this fix was not added with balance in mind, so it will make the game easier.

Cheat [Cheater's Kit] - Outfits your character in uber badass highly mobile gear, I used it to test various questlines and move around faster. I left it in, use it if you want to cheat... or test.

I remember people being pissed off at the invisible d00ds in Requiem-Dragonborn, maybe this takes care of their OP-ness?

-

bonus:

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://imgur.com/a/zIR8Q

Nice comparison of "Realistic Colors Real nights" (RCRN) x "Climates of Tamriel"

 

[granit]

Oooor you could wise up, reenable fast travel and add, say, 100 pounds to the weight carry limit using the in-game mod menu instead.

Hardk0r is one thing, adding extra logistical tedium on top of that is something else entirely.

I would like to point out a mistake, fast travel outside in-universe travel functions such as horse carriage/silt strider/mark/recall is just wrong. Todd Howard kind of wrong

Hmmm, so after I've completely explored a path and gone through a dungeon, I shouldn't be able to skip the tedium of walking through a path that I've already cleared of enemies? It's not like there's really any point to that particular bit of content, is there? No really things to discover, Skyrim is kind of an open book about it's terrain, there's no real secrets, no real reason to explore the gamespace after a first glance. Other than you know, #hikingsimulator. I can understand not allowing fast travel freely in a gamespace that is similar to KotOR, where you are navigating through hubs and into linear areas. However, Fast Travel has had a place in the TES series since Arena, where for Arena and Daggerfall, it's used to skip the ridiculous distances and tedium that would occur from traversing them. And having to,

1. take the carriage,
2. walk into windhelm,
3. walk to the fort,
4. walk to the Jarl,
5. get a quest,
6. walk out of the fort,
7. walk out of the town,
8. walk to the carriage,
9. travel to the city near whatever quest you're taking,
10. walk to the quest you're about to do,
11. do the quest,
12. walk back to the carriage,
13. travel to windhelm,
14. walk into the city,
15. walk to the fort,
16. walk to the jarl,
17. turn in the quest.
18. Take another quest
19. repeat

Does it add anything to the game? It's a pointless 19 step process, that does nothing but further a fake sense of immersion. That would really be better for not having to stare at the same three trees 40 times. With free fast travel to cities and major landmarks, or even anywhere, you get a better flow, at a minor sacrifice of something ultimately pointless unless you're an LARP tard, in which case, you will likely impose the restriction on yourself. I like added logistics, the removal of fast travel, doesn't add extra logistics, it adds extra tedium, to an already tedious game.

Especially since, after morrowind they removed most of the FUN fast travel options, and left you with, either just carriages, or in DerpBlivion, left you with just fast travel.

What you list here as tedium is the role playing of your character. You know, larping and hikingsimulation as you call it and all that. Clicking a destination on a map and having your character magically appear there and just saying "No, nothing at all happened on this travel because I clicked on this button" cheapens the game.

I agree though that Morrind had it done better with Silt striders and mark/recall and whatever those fortresses were called. Morrowind is vastly superior in many respects.. but fast travel without any in-universe or in-character logic I don't like it.

 

[Dreaad]

It really depends, I think fast traveling to a city or settlement is fine, after all even from a larping perspective it's just the journey home after epic quest xyz. On the other hand traveling to your quest destination is more satisfying without teleporting to the nearest possible marker next to the quest location. This lets you discover new shit as you're going there, while avoiding the meaningless trek home.

There are also certain situations where fast travel actually helps you hold up the (oh god why) "lore" of Skyrim. A good example is Hrothgar, the supposedly tallest mountain ever, except that you walk up it in 1 min...... 7000 steps.... right..... Repeatedly going up that gentle incline completely breaks all immersion and is fucking tedious. Really like most things in Bethesda games you can abuse the fast travel system or just use it when you feel it doesn't break your personal larping goals.