Dear Community,

I have been away for the better part of a year and it seems some exciting DLCs (Dawnguard, Dragonborn) and a daedra-load of mods have come out. I need advice for a blend of mods to make the best immersion roleplay experience possible, with the following in mind:

my house rules:
- no-reloads! If I die the character is deleted.
- no fast travel
- no compass
- no 'munchkining' (basically anything that abuses the system from smithing 1000 daggers to abusing the pathing to kill giants)


the mod mix I used earlier was light:
- realistic lighting (dungeons are DARK - unless you bring with torch, magelight, of nighteye)
- modest scaling of magic (15% per perk) + few utility spells (mark+recall)
- harder dragons

What I am looking for now is an immersion not unlike the OOO for Oblivion that slows the leveling and, maybe, removes the level-dependent scaling of encounters.

I considered:
- SkyRE (seems to change too many things?)
- Requiem (looks interesting, but combat system too hard? Being one shotted by an archer is no fun when playing no reload.)
- some cold & wet mod
- some hunger & sleep mod


If you are an immersion role player can you recommend a specific mix of mods that works for you, especially for a no-reload setting? What are your own house rules?

Basically what do you do to your game *live* a life in Skyrim?

Frostfall looks fun.

I highly, highly suggest Frostfall plus Wet & Cold, you could also go with Realistic Needs and Diseases, I personally won't play skyrim without Skyrim Redone I find the changed trees much more interesting than the vanilla trees (plus there are some frostfall related perks in the wayfarer tree if you use the compatibility patch) Also Project Reality - Climates of Tamriel is a great mod, I replaced Realistic lighting with it. In terms of harder dragons I suggest Deadly Dragons (though if you are planning on getting Dragonborn I suggest waiting until Deadly Dragons is compatible) and Finally I suggest all three unofficial patches.

I also play with the hud turned off, (no crosshair, no compass and no health/magic/stamina bars on the screen) I find it much more immersive that way though I don't play Dead is Dead so take that how you will.

Here are the immersion mods I use:

Frostfall
Cold and Wet
Winter is Coming Cloaks (only a visual immersion mod by itself, but works with Frostfall)
Realistic Needs and Diseases
Deadly Dragons (with the option Deadly Monsters which makes all enemies, including humans, configurable)
Realistic Lighting

Id go with Frostfall and Imps more complex needs right off the bat, Frostfall especially is incredibly well done..

Both mods really add to the immersion.

After than I go with followers can relax - enables your followers to interact with the world when you tell them to stay, they also stay where you left them for an unlimited amount of time.

Lore friendly armors is the best compilation of fantastic, balanced & realistic armors you will probs find.


All 4 are a must for me

Ah yes armor, I also use Immersive Armors and Weapons as well as Weaponizer and Armomonizer (though my main character uses a combination of items from Princess of the Wilds).

SkyRe is not an immersion mod, it's a balancing mod. It does change many things--in fact I'm pretty sure there's not a single thing it doesn't change. But that's because vanilla Skyrim is, truly, horribly unbalanced...in other words, SkyRe doesn't change things for the sake of changing them, it changes things because anyone who really cares about challenge and balance (admittedly a minority of players) knows the game badly needed changes.

All that said, some of the changes SkyRe makes to balance the game also make more sense realistically (immersively). For example, in vanilla Skyrim, you can sneak in heavy armor, you can enchant your gear to make all magic free to cast, and you can hit the armor rating maximum just as easily wearing improved Iron Armor as wearing improved Daedric Armor. These things just don't make any sense realistically, and SkyRe fixes all of them and many more.

All that said, SkyRe also makes the game much, much harder, since unlike vanilla you can't just get 100 sneak or 100 enchanting and run around the world as an untouchable demigod. If you're planning on playing like death = true death, no respawning, it might be better NOT to install SkyRe so you can play against toned-down Vanilla enemies and get your godhood powers to prevent you from dying and restarting the whole game.

Thanks for the replies, folks. But what do you do about level scaling of the game?
A comprehensive mod like SkyRe or Requiem could make every area a fixed level, but I fear they change too many things in combat and skills.

That was the great thing about OOO for Oblivion: no major changes to gameplay, but a great catering of content! You would actually say "I must run away if I want to live. But one day I will be back!" *shakes fist*

Rather than use a hunger mod I made a house rule where the only time I'm allowed to use the wait feature is when I'm sitting down and I eat at least 1 food item that restores 10 health and 1 beverage per 12 hours of waiting. Not too extreme but it does ensure that food actually gets used and in a somewhat logical manner.

I can't say much for Requiem (never heard of it) but as was said above SkyRe changes everything about every perk tree, nearly every racial and every standing stone, it really does make the game difficult so if that's what you're looking for by all means. I personally can't play without it because everything that mod does makes everything much more interesting.

The standing stones for instance all have an up and a downside save for the first 3, The Lover's stone for example increases your physical damage by 50% but also increases how much physical damage you take by 50%. That kind of thing.

Also if you aren't crazy about the intro of the game I suggest the Live Another Life mod, it's brilliant at giving you more options for backstory.