I just started playing Skyrim and am using a few mods (mainly aesthetic, but Deadly Dragons, Immersive Armors, Cloaks of Skyrim, and a few others). My character until now has been a pure warrior (no magic) in heavy armor with 1 handers and shields. I find it fun, but ended up becoming a goody two shoes always helping everyone, and I'd like to try a more nefarious character. I got to level 35 and find I am easily killing most enemies because I can carry so much gear making money is easy, and I can drink all the potions I want... and I usually don't end up needing to. In my first game I also missed a lot of things because I didn't need them - I didn't ever use a follower, never got a horse, and I'd like to force myself to try and use these this games.

I would like to play a pure mage, and was hoping to get some advice on which mods to add as I hear a pure mage is too underpowered at high levels if you go the destruction path. I'd like to play with the following limitations:

• Very little armor (maybe a light armor dragon mask, but I'll be using clothing almost exclusively).
  
• Only daggers, no shields
  
• Master difficulty

Ideally if there any mods people can recommend that do the following:

• Balance (not overpower) magic - again this is going from what I read on the the forums as I've never used magic aside from transmute ore.
  
• Limit potions able to used
  
• Provide some kind of "unarmored" bonus/skill a la Morrowind (miss the days of my Monk character )
  
• Make gameplay less tied to your level - i.e where certain locations always have high levels... This isn't as crucial as I think the vanilla version did an OK job. I used OOO in Oblivion and loved that.
  
• Any others that you can recommend if you've played a similar build.

Thanks for reading - hope to get this guy up and rolling soon!

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4374 could be a start.

Theres a lot of overhauls for magic, and to be honest, the best for me is the overhaul that comes with http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9286

Not only is it a great mod that overhauls everything in the game and actually makes it more fun and challenging, but the new spells and the very creative perk design has been a blast to play. It does pretty much everything you mentioned, this is pretty much the OOO of Skyrim.

On top of that I also use http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16225 which adds a lot of very unique and balanced spells, that just feel like they belong in the game. When I say unique, I mean it, some of them are very unique and it's not just different colored nukes.

Cool - checking out SkyrimRe now and it sounds amazing - I wasn't sure if an OOO was out for Skyrim but this sounds right up my alley. Glanced over Better Magic and Apolcalypse as well and will give them a more in depth read shortly.

Thanks!

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9857 completely removes the influence of levels on the world (apart from maybe quests which require you to be a certain level/quest rewards) - enemies, merchants and loot can all appear at any level, although stuff that is supposed to be rare remains rare. It's what I'm using at the minute, and very good I've had no problems with it at all, and I don't think I could go back to playing the scaled game - the feeling of progression you get is amazing. At the beginning, my character was pitifully weak, but as she levels up, enemies that used to be deadly have now become trivial. It feels like everything she experiences is slowly making her stronger and better able to deal with the world - as it should be.

Apocalypse Spell Package is definitely good from what I've seen, and I'm looking into The Revenge of Colette.

I'll second the Apocalypse Spells recommendation. Some people think it's over-powered, but that's not true at all if you're using increased spawns or any of the various combat overhauls.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2275 was my original favorite. It's great, but it hasn't been updated since March. It's a full overhaul.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4374 is a good, and aimed at tweaking the current system (vs an overhaul).
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11139 is my current favorite, and somewhere between the above two, though it would probably be considered an overhaul.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8451 - I haven't tried it yet, but have heard good things. The listed changes look good.
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13166 - haven't tried yet, but a few people swear by it

Also: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17353 is good, but it's more about warrior-mages and adding special powers in addition to the magic system. It can be used alongside any of the above. It's well done, but on it's own it won't cover a pure mage.


If you're looking for an overhaul, look at Empowered Magic, or check the comments to see if Balanced Magic still works with the latest patches. If you're looking for a tweaked vanilla experience, try Better Magic.

EDIT: If I wasn't clear, my suggestion would be: Apocalypse (required) + One of the above mods (required) + Revenge of Colette (optional).

When I played my pure mage I used http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8451 by AliTheLord. This mod makes magic perks a bit more effective and interesting and scales spells as the player levels. One of the coolest features of this mod though, for me, is that it offers a choice of starting spells. Among other things having a conjured wolf right at level 1 was great. Starting spells gave me a sense that my mage already knew a little bit about magic before the story began, which makes moreroleplaying sense to me than starting the game as a vanilla-style blank slate.

I use http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11139 too and it is great, it overhauls what needs to change and doesnt add new non cannon spells or concepts, and it allows you to play a sure magic user without having to resort to summoning daedra for support and it quite fun for even non pure users since the spells scale with your skill.
I also tried http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8451 and it is fun too, and really gave me a Might and Magic vibe which is realy quite different from vanilla Skyrim
You could also try this
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/11293
It helps you roleplay a pure mage when you dont have to pull out your lock picks

If you do any soul-trapping (whether to recharge your favourite staff, or enchant clothing, or just to trap souls and sell the filled gems) then I consider http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14559 absolutely essential - it makes souls only go into the correct size gem, so that you don't end up with your expensive grand soul gems filled up with petty souls after rampaging through a bunch of skeevers. Requires SKSE.