BEST MOD?

I am really enjoying Skyrim on PC, especially since I got a new PC and am able to play on high quality. WOW, is it ever different from XBox! It's like, for the first time, I'm getting what they're driving at.

In your opinion, what's the best mod that includes new game play? What's the best mod that just mods Skyrim?

heh, also, is there a good instruction site that tells you how to load and manage mods?

If it makes a difference, I have skyrim via steam.

Some of the mods I really enjoy:

- winter is coming: cloaks
- Bosmer armor
- green pact armor
- better bows
- the bosmeric drunken huntsman (retextures the drunken huntsman to look more Bosmer. It's beautiful)
- immersive college of winterhold
- climates of Tamriel
- hunters cabin of riverwood
- follower trap safety (followers don't set off traps! yay!)
- follower commentary overhaul (your followers finally talk to you)
- ultimate follower overhaul

Bet you could never figure out which race I usually end up as.

My favorite mods (not in any special order):

1. Frostfall: It basically makes Skyrim's weather effects realistic. You can make it matter how much armor you're wearing, what kind of armor, etc. Depending where you are in Skyrim, the weather effects will act accordingly. So if it's raining, you'll eventually become soaked. If you're in Winterhold and not taking care of staying warm, you could die of hypothermia. And swimming up north is out of the question lol. If you get this mod, I suggest some kind of cloak mod so you can make fur cloaks, hoods, helmets, etc. Goes well together. You can also camp out and build fires for survival.

2. Realistic Needs and Diseases (I paired it with his other mod that redoes inns and taverns): Now, you gotta eat and drink like a normal person. You also must sleep. Your character will get hungry, thirsty and tired over time. If you drink without boiling water, you could risk disease. If you eat raw meet, you risk disease. Food can also go bad after a certain amount of time. But of course you can change settings and make it either easier or more strict. THIS WORKS AMAZING WITH FROSTFALL. Also, now when you drink mead or ale or wine, it actually takes effect. You go from dizzy, to drunk, to wasted, to blacking out. Your character will stumble and all that.

3. Realistic Blood (forgot what it's called): basically makes you stabbing someone slightly more realistic. More blood. And the blood is darker, as if the NPC's are actually bleeding out now. Blood drops on your screen as well ifyou'd like. When you kill frostbite spiders, they actually have a cool green liquid oozing out of them.

4. Wet and Cold: Works well with Frostfall too. Now, when it's snowing, you can actually see snow gather on your character's armor. When you're cold, you actually see your breath. If you're freezing, you'll see that too. Very cool. When you're wet and coming out of a lake, you'll actually see drops of water fall from your clothes.

5. Amazing Follower Tweaks: This mod is amazing, especially if you wanna be a werewolf or vampire. First, you can control their outfits, like what they wear in the city or out adventuring or in the home. You can make them do so many more things, from dancing, to kissing you, to tons of other stuff. If you're a vampire or werewolf, you can make them one as well. You can also have more than one follower. In my werewolf character, I had a whole pack with me. I was alpha and the rest were my pack. They would change into beast form whenever I did.

6. For werewolves- a mix of Heart of the Best mod, Moonlight Tales mod, and Werewolf mastery mod.

7. For the woman body, face, and hair, I use all of these following mods: (they work together well)
DOMINIONIZED UNP female body
Better Females by Bella Natural Edition - UNP no makeup (you need the UNP version so it is compatible with the UNP body mod)
The Eyes of Beauty
Apachii Sky Hair

I also always add the mod that makes your character have footsteps. I also enjoy Climates of Tamriel.

As far as managing mods, here's what I've found to be the easiest and most efficient because I suck with computers:

1. Download Nexus Mod Manager from the nexus mod site. Click "Install NMM" on the top of the nexusmods website. After you get this, you can download most mods on the nexus site by just clicking "download with NMM" very simple.

2. Also download LOOT. Loot will organize your mods for you since order matters. So once you have a couple mods downloaded and running in your NMM, open LOOT and select "load order" or whatever, and it'll suggest the correct order for your mods, then click apply or accept or whatever it is.

3. If you're going to be downloading a lot of mods, I suggest getting the mod SkyUI. It might look a little intimidating, but it's not. It changes the way the menus look and the favorites, making it more efficient. BUT BEST OF ALL (in my opinion), it gives you easy access to your different mod settings while playing the game. So if you're running around in Skyrim, you bring up the save/journal menu. In your settings, you'll now have a "Mod configuration menu" where most of your mods will be listed. So for example, if you download Frostfall mod, you'll see a Frostfall menu there. Then, you can click on Frostfall and change settings. SO MUCH EASIER. See number four.

4. If you're going to downlaod SkyUI, you MUST get the Skyrim Script Extender, known as SKSE. All you need to do, is go here http://skse.silverlock.org/ and click "installer" and wallah. Some bigger mods require SKSE to run, so it's just nice to have it, especially if you wanna get SkyUI. After you download SKSE, you will now always open Skyrim through SKSE.

NOTE: When getting a mod, always read what it is compatible with, what it requires, etc. This can save you from making mistakes and running into problems. Like when I was trying to make the females look like what I wanted, I thoroughly read through the four female mods I listed on number 7 to make sure they were compatible. Plus a lot of mod makers will list other mods that work well with theirs.

Hope this was helpful!

Welcome to the Dark Side.

First thing I would get would be the "unofficial patches" for the main game and the one for any of the DLC's you have. These batches of fixes fix a good number of random things that were never corrected via an official update from Bethesda.

Some others in no particular order:

- Amazing Follower Tweaks - mentioned above too. Ultimate Follower Overhaul is also quite similar. These offer additional controls that make followers not be an annoyance like often happens in the vanilla game. Also allows ability to have more than 1 follower and customize their equipped items and skills.
- Convenient Horses - Useful if you like to use horses but find some of the mechanics to be annoying.
- SKSE - A fairly common dependency of many mods out there. Extends basic game functionality to allow many mods to do what they need to do.
- SkyUI - A revised, more convenient PC game interface. This is also a fairly common dependency for various mods. I like the changes to the inventory system the best as it seems to better fit a PC environment.
- Unique Uniques - Actually makes the unique weapons be unique and not just improved stat versions of the normal 3D models
- Enhanced Character Edit - More complex set of sliders and options for character appearance. Allows greater variety in character creation
- My Home is Your Home - Allows you to assign a given location to a follower to use as their home.
- Lossless Race Change - This one allows you to go back and alter your character's appearance w/o the loss of stats that sometimes happen when using the console-based command showracemenu. This mod just adds a power you can activate just like you set and use shouts
- Lore Weapons Expansion - Just what it says. It's a lore-friendly set of new weapons. I really like this modder's stuff. Everything I've tried is really good quality work
- Complete Skyforge - (Steam Workshop) - Adds the missing smithing equipment to Skyforge (smelter, tanning rack, etc)
- Weather Control Center - Requires SkyUI, adds a menu-based set of controls to choose various weather and environmental effects. Very useful for screenshots or just when you want a particular atmosphere for gameplay
- Player Headtracking - I think this also requires SkyUI. Immersion mod that makes your character actually look at people or items of interest. It is configurable through a set of menus to tweak it as desired.


I'll add more in a bit as well.

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When adding mods, I recommend doing so gradually. You typically want to avoid adding a large number of mods at one time without checking to see your game doesn't crash or you have some weird glitch happening. If you just add one or two things in at a time and then test your game, it makes it far easier to diagnose which mod is causing a conflict and what you need to disable or correct.

Also, make a fresh game save prior to adding in new mods, particularly for complex ones that do a decent number of changes. Having a pre-modded save file that you can go back to can save a bunch of irritation if you have a save file get corrupted either by a mod, or just naturally over time. It's quite uncommon to have a catastrophic issue that makes you lose a data file, but since additional save files take minimal disk space, there is no reason not to have redundant backups. I'm surprised people don't do that more. Console folks usually never think of it, but they are even more susceptible to errors like a glitched quest making it unable to advance the quest line.

In case you didn't know from other PC games, but if you are used to a console controller setup and would prefer that to be your control method, xBox 360 wired USB controllers work on a PC right out of the box w/o anything else needed to make them work. Other controllers can work but may need additional software to make it happen.

One of the greatest things on PC is screencap ability. Steam has its own built-in functionality, but there are also third-party ones too that have their benefits. I personally use Fraps on my system (there are various other similar programs too.) What I like is that I can set my system to either just take screencaps when I choose or can set it to take an auto-snapshot at a chosen time interval. It seems the best images I capture are just ones that randomly were generated when I wasn't purposely trying to get a cool one. Fraps and similar programs also add video capture as well.

Getting used to the functionality of the console controls and commands is quite useful for various situations. This is a godsend that doesn't exist other than on PC. You can fix things on the fly like clearing out glitched quests that would have been game-killers on console, amongst a multitude of other functions.

And if you get a mod that you end up really liking, show the creator some love and be sure you ENDORSE it. When I first got started, I looked at the most endorsed mods to see where I might start. While not a guarantee that a mod is great as there are ways for people to spam endorsements, if you see a mod has been endorsed 162,691 times (SkyUI's total to date, currently highest on Nexus) and it looks like something you'd be interested in using, it's likely worth a shot. Reading posted comments from users can also give you an idea if a mod is decent or not. Usually conflicts or issues (and possible fixes) get mentioned a good bit in user comments

For an excellent guide on the basics of modding, watch this video series: Beginner's Guide to Modding Skyrim. The author/uploader, Gopher, is an extremely well-known and respected member of the modding community.

Seconding everything Gigapact listed, except the body mods (I use none). Unofficial patches are a must. Also seconding Convenient Horses, SKSE, SkyUI and Winter is Coming (goes really well with Frostfall and Wet & Cold).
A note on the werewolf mods; latest versions (above 2.05) of Moonlight Tales are not compatible with Werewolf Mastery.
An alternative to Realistic Needs and Diseases is iNeed. It's lighter and simpler than RND, however both mods have features the other lacks. I personally really enjoy iNeed's "Horse needs", which allows you to feed your horse. On the other hand, I also really enjoyed all the new foods that come with RND.

If you're tired of having quests forced on you, or want to change when certain quests trigger, grab these gems: The Choice is Yours and Timing is Everything. Both have more or less recently received updates that IMO made them even more essential for me.

If you want an entire new land to explore, I'd recommend Falskaar and/or Wyrmstooth. Personally I think at least Falskaar is better than any of the DLCs.

If you want immersion mods, the #1 would have to be iHUD.

As for lighting, I'd recommend Enhanced Lights and FX. It really makes the game look a thousand times better. Combine with Pure Weather (my weather mod of choice; IMO much better than Climates of Tamriel), and your game will look like it would if you were using an ENB - with next to no performance loss.

Vanilla water is icky, so I'd recommend grabbing one of the many water mods. I personally use Realistic Water Two; other popular ones include W.A.T.E.R and Pure Waters.

That's enough for now, I suppose. I could make the list a lot longer, but...


PS. I, like many others, avoid Steam Workshop mods, because they auto-update themselves. NOT a good thing. The one Workshop mod I have I only installed because the author provided a download link, so I didn't need to subscribe to the mod in the Workshop.

Edit: I forgot about Audio Overhaul for Skyrim 2. Not for everyone, but I'd definitely recommend giving it a try. I know I wouldn't play without it anymore... I can't even remember what the vanilla game sounds like.

second Winter is Coming cloaks. Add JaySuS swords and Live Another Life (alternative starts).

A tiny but fun one that serves no real purpose other than to amuse me is J.Hco's Scottish Pound mod. All it does is replace the vanilla septim with a high-quality gold Scottish pound coin.

Generally speaking, I believe the best mods are simple.

- The 'glowing Ore' mod is nice, where you can see Ore much easier.
- Alternate start mods are wonderful for many reasons, we need more of those...
- The Midian army re-textures are awesome.
- Frostfall adds TONS of immersion, which is a very good thing
- Elven Etheral Overhaul and that original mod that fixes nose compression and has a plugin to smooth Dark Elf skin textures was nice


There's many, many more I haven't time to include in this list but mods in general are a very good thing and sig enhance the life of the game.

everyone has skyrim via steam..its a steam game and cant be played without it

I'm going to stick with the original question. There are probably hundreds of mods that I could recommend for both graphics and content but that wasn't what you asked for.

In my opinion, the best mod (that I use) for new content is:
Interesting NPCs

It adds many, many new npcs to Skyrim each with their own voiced dialog and many with quests. Many of them are followers. The mod itself is huge (several GB) so you won't find it on the Steam Workshop. I use the Skyrim Nexus with their Nexus Mod Manager for all of my mods (in addition to LOOT for mod ordering and WyreBash for bashed lists).

In my opinion, the best mod for modifying existing content is:
Better Shaped Weapons

It takes all the ridiculous sized weapons and makes them a bit more palatable for folks like me. I honestly avoided using the vast majority of the vanilla weapons due to their crazy sizes and shapes. I refuse to play without this mod.

One I like is Craftable and Placeable Havok-enabled Bedrolls which allows you to place a bedroll any where and sleep in it, for instance you've just cleaned out a cave and its night out but you've no where to sleep, pull out your bedroll and place any where and you've a bed for the night.

Another I find useful is Run For Your Lives citizens will now run inside during a dragon attack.

And When Vampires Attack again makes citizens run inside during Vampire attacks, except guards and other like minded folk.

Hunting in Skyrim- A Hunting guild If you're doing a huntsman type roleplay or just want a guild that focuses on hunting. One that I enjoyed on my last play through.

Become a Bard. This is available on the Steam workshop, allows you to earn a wage by playing music in taverns across Skyrim you also get free board if you're playing there. Comes with a lot of songs played on different instruments. You need the instruments of course.

Immersive Weapons and Immersive Armours are two that I always use, both add an array of new weapons and armours to craft and use.

Left hand rings. Exactly what it says, allows you to where rings on both hands.

A follower Mod I really enjoy using is INIGO

Have fun.

Anything that adds more immersion that's stays consistent with Lore, such as making quests more interesting and extending life of the game.

- Alternate Start is good, there are however two diff versions of this mod
- Animated Dwemer Lift Loaders
- Better Torches
- Torchlight (Get this... you cast the Torch Light with your hands so it stays lit only as long as you keep it going... brilliant... simply brilliant)
- Frostfall, oblviously
- Anything that properly adjusts height(s)
- Immersive College of Winterhold
- Run for your lives
- Thieves Guild Requirements
- Timing is Everything
- Wet and Cold - Anything from this author is pure magic
- Guard Dialogue Overhaul
- Non stop Firewood Chopping (Oh yeah baby)

here are a few mods that even trump interesting NPCs -

Skywind - Not out yet but every true fan of the ES series should get it when it's released in a few months (its a remake of Morrowind in Skyrim's Engine with several new Skyrim style features such as random encounter's crafting and even mounts such as Guars as their are no horses on Vvardenfell)

Beyond Skyrim - Not out yet either but adds other parts of Tamriel, So far they have the county of Bruma at 95% completion and the Province of High Rock is getting very heavy into development
Here is a Picture of an Ogre