I was just watching a Let's Play on the old Might and Magic 7 game on YouTube. I used to love those games! You had a party of say 4-6 characters and they adventured over the game world. It was non-real time, but MM7 had a sort of real time mode (though not 3rd person) as well as a turn based one. The reason I like a game like that is you don't have to have all the skills in 1 character. You can have a pure mage and a pure warrior and a paladin and a cleric and so on. Single characters are weak -- just remember how many time you have died no matter how powerful you are. A group is always stronger than the individual. That's why D&D always focused on the group.

But is it even possible in a Skyrim age game? I know there are multiplayer games, but I used to enjoy the group management which I doubt you really have in MMORGs. Could it be done today? How many people (besides me) would actually like to manage a 4 character party in Skyrim -- say a Nord Warrior, a Breton mage, a Kajit rogue, and a Restoration centered battlemage? They wouldn't really be classed, but it would allow your Nord Warrior not to care about lockpicking or stealth or magic etc.

Well you can have followers in Skyrim and you can summon/animate creatures, but if you want a really fleshed out party based RPG I recommend you try Dragon Age.

With Vanilla Skyrim you can have 1 follower, but if you're on PC and get UFO (search for it on the nexus, I'm posting from my phone so can't link it) you can have up to 15 followers!

So technically you could play a Ranger style character and have followers who are warriors, mages, monks, etc

I'm on a PS3, and my home computer is a Mac. When I was playing MM and Wizardry I had a PC. I also have an iPad and I'm playing something called SilverSword. Reminds me of a REALLY primitive version of Might and Magic. And no, followers don't seem like the same thing to me unless the AI is better and we can manage their behaviors and equipment better than we can now (and have 5 of them). I'm not even sure it's feasible, but I used to like those games. I also used to play a game called Realmz on the Mac that was this way and that was a lot of fun too.

I think UFO's the only real way to go if you want a true D&D type experience in Skyrim. I can't see why I'd ever want 15 followers. As far as I remember D&D parties really only went to about half a dozen, like in the cartoon. That I think is the sensible number, especially with Skyrim's rather dodgy follower AI.

I just think it would be cool if you had the ability to assign characters you created from other saves locations in Skyrim. So let's say you RPed a Thief, in your next file you could find them walking around the Ragged Flagon.

You mean build and play multiple characters then form a party with them, one of which you'll continue playing the others will become NPCs? Yes, I had the same idea myself.

As a poster above stated you should really try Dragon Age. Definitely start with the first one though, Dragon Age:Origins. I absolutely loved it and could not stop until i was finished with the game, took about 70 hours. The second game, Dragon Age 2 has a more Mass Effect feel to it, less RPG more action and does not have quite the team gameplay you're looking for. I could not for the life of me get into it. But the first game, any RPG fan should experience it.

I have often thought about bringing back old characters as NPC's, shouldn't be too hard with the CK.

Something interesting I had thought of was putting an old character as an NPC protecting something of great power, would be very interesting to pit my current character against an older one. Would be a ball-ache to get all the perks and that though. Unless I can just extract my character from the save then inject him into the game via .esp?

My main character is a ranger, followed by 2 heavy housecarls, Mjoll the Lioness with her axe, and Aela bringing up the rear with another bow. Thus a party of five, three in the front (Mjoll, Jordis, Lydia), one in the middle (me), and one in the back (Aela). We are warriors, and we don't like mages or magic.

For some random reason I have wanted to create such a war party since Skyrim came out. I am exceptionally satisfied with the results. Sadly, of course, I required a mod to do this, and UFO was naturally the selection. If you are on a console or don't believe in mods for some reason, you won't be able to do what I have done with my party.

Plus, with UFO I can take away all my followers' default weapons, which ensures that they use exactly the equipment I give them. So Aela doesn't even have a sword, and thus won't charge in for the kill like she often does without the mod.

I'm guessing that you also had to grab some "make it harder" mods, since running around with that many followers would probably make things die pretty easily. (unless, of course, they keep getting stuck on each other I can't imagine some of the thinner dungeon tunnels with a party of half a dozen! )

Hahah! Well they are all followers, so in dungeons they generally stay behind me. 99% of the time, I kill the enemies in the dungeon before the group even has a chance to engage. They really only fight when dragons come about, or I get into a room full of draugr, or some other such mess with multiple bosses or a horde of enemies.

Honestly, I don't play the game for difficulty. If the bosses are easily brought down, I write that up to the five of us being badass warriors.

You just play for the experience of playing? ;p
Me too, best way to play any game IMO. No fun to always win everything.

I am a beginning RPer, but I play with a group of characters (4 including me) and I love it, even with limited support that Skyrim mods have for it. At first, it was only for RP reasons, but they actually proved very useful in battles. I play mostly as sneaky archer and they cover my back and help dispatch stronger enemies. A lot of times I messed something up and they actually saved my hide

I actually grew attached to them

And it helps immersion for me when we relax and stay overnight at inns or in my house and I see them doing their business, eating, drinking, enjoying music, cooking, messing with alchemy lab etc....

I use Extensible Follower Framework for multiple followers. It works in my case, but I never checked other mods, so there might be better ones.

absolutely! this is a topic that's been brought up before and i just don't see why it hasn't been tried. it's not like you have to do anything but add the pc to the gameworld and make them essential.

yet, it would be cool to then be able to swith to other characters on a whim, send the first to a 'home' location like all companions have anyways and play your other created character.

or, add your other character as a companion.

i'm not a programmer, but, it seems absolutely feasible, since, we already have companions, essentials and companions able to level as the pc does.

would be great, innovative gameplay.

Dragons Dogma may fit the bill when it comes out.

It sounds like the Baldur's Gate series would suit your taste.
That would be very cool. There was an Oblivion mod like that. The modder solicited save games from the community and then made all the characters into NPC's.

I use the UFO and "Followers Can Relax." Problem is, FCR is prone to freezing up, so I use the older version. (the one right before he added the potion gathering)

Varus:
Oh, I somehow missed your reply. Why are you using FCR, as UFO seems to have his own 'follower sandboxing' routine? Is FCR any better in some way?


And to give some reason to resurrect this thread

I am trying to play College of Winterhold Questline with my Raksha and her friends. As Raksha can't do much magic (only simple stuff), it would be total immersion breaker if I did it by myself.

But, since Raksha befriended Jzargo, it actually can somehow be explained, by Jzargo doing all these magic and thinking stuff, and Raksha, Khario and Shavari serving as protection and helping hands.

It needs a lot of 'handwavium', but it kinda works for me, at least for now. I can get over NPCs talking to me like I was somehow importand. I can even get over Psijic Order being idiots by contacting not so bright Raksha, who cant do much magic and is stupid enough to touch some strange amulets. Only thing that actually breaks it for me and driving me nuts are Jzargo's comments about 'borrowing' Staff of Magnus, I have to finally get to removing it.

I wonder what should I do with ending of this questline, as I've read that it's ridiculous even for proper mages.

I'd even be happy if you could just "link" savegames, so that you could, for instance, craft an armor on one character, enchant it on a second and then give it to a third...

I have always wanted a game where you get a squad of characters yu create rather than npcs already in the game, but nobody does that for some reason

Skyrim + some multiple followers mod + Creation Kit

i would replace Jordis with Cicero, but otherwise i would have that same party. but i'm a mage, so it would be a mixed group.
Mjoll: staves. she pwns with two staves, and is accurate. maybe just one staff and a shield/weapon
Aela: bow and arrows, for obvious reasons
Cicero: idk. i choose him cos he's hilarious.
Lydia: heavy armour, sword-and-board.
me: magicz and shouts. light armour, sneak bow and magic attacks

Lol, I can imagine it already. You and your little army, ALL dragonborns, rampaging through Skyrim. Must be the dragons' nightmare come true. Sounds awesome 'though.

Maybe you can show us your adventuring parties?

This is mine:
http://marcinw.eu/raksha.html
I thought this screen looks somewhat like promotional poster, so I added some text to it to shamelessly promote our, umm, enterprise