So I always liked playing an archery/stealth type of character. I've already done a playtrhough with such a character which was somewhat easy and unrealistic. The things that bothered me the most were NPCs not dying from an arrow to the head, and then looking for you for only 5 sec before returning to their original location. I've tried in the past the popular combat mods: DUEL, DC, DP but I always felt they are more focused on melee combat and not enough on archery (well maybe DP is but it's way to complex, at least for me). So right now I'm using a combination of ACE (without the archery module) and Stealth Skills Rebalanced. I also increased the arrow damage with Arrow and Bolt Tweaks. The good thing is that I can one shoot most of the enemies if I get a sneak attack (except tough oponents like sprigans and bears). The bad news is that I don't take any damage. As a leather wearing character I feel like I stay alive way to long, I take almost no damage from enemy arrows and can whitsand a good 3-4 power attacks from 2H weapons without dying. Also in the rare cases where I have to use melee weapons it takes ages to to kill an enemy.

So what would you recommend for those problems?

-Does arrow damage increase from ABT apply to NPC's or do I have to use ASIS.

-What would be the best mod to make the combat deadier (I don't think ACE is doing a good enough job)

try skyrim redone it's pretty good and archery is alot different don't know how many times I've been killed instantly by an arrow to the head.