I'm looking for some help in building my roleplaying load order. I have played Skyrim on and off since release on console, so I have a good idea what I want to change. I've also modded Oblivion and Morrowind so I'm pretty familiar with basically how mods work and using utilities like Wrye Bash, LOOT, TES5Edit, TES5LODgen, etc.

But I'm fairly new to Skyrim modding, and having spent many hours researching and googling, I have many questions that I hope some of you kind people here will be willing to help me answer.

So far, my load order consists of SKSE, ENBoost, all three official DLC, the USKP for all three DLC, SKYUI, iHUD, Less Intrusive HUD II and Character Creation Overhaul and Race Menu.

I also definitely want to add Warburg’s Paper Map, Frostfall, Kuertee’s Eat and Sleep, Community Uncapper, Convenient Horses, Even Better Quest Objectives, Moonpath to Elsweyr, and one of the two major spellmaking mods (Spell Crafting or Spellmaking in Skyrim).

I’d also probably like to add a few more magic mods, like Apocalypse, Empowered Magic Forgotten Magic Redone Immersive Spell and Lights, and/or Wintermyst.

I am stuck on which overhaul to use and whether to use an overhaul at all. In Oblivion, there is Maskar’s Oblivion Overhaul, which is universally configurable and compatible with any Oblivion mod ever made without the need of a compatibility patch. That’s what I am looking for in Skyrim, but it does not appear that any of the major Skyrim overhauls (Requiem, Skyre, Sperg, Perkus Maximus, SkyDie, have I missed any?) are as compatible as Maskar’s is for Oblivion.

After reading/watching a bunch of reviews, I think I would like Requiem the best, but Skyre looks good too and the most important thing to me is choosing an overhaul that will create the fewest conflicts. I have seen a lot of mods come with compatibility patches for Skyre, and I have now found a bunch of compatibility patches for Requiem. I have read some people saying that Skyre is more compatible than requiem, and others say the opposite. So, I am confused about which of the two is more compatible with other mods.

Which overhaul is more compatible with the mods I listed above?. Or, should I just skip the major overhauls entirely for a smooth and CTD free experience when combined with so many other mods?

Any advice would be appreciated, as well as any suggestions for other roleplaying enhancing mods I may have missed, and any known conflicts/problems with any of the above mods I have listed.

Once I get my load order finished, I do plan on donating to each of the mod authors in my load order. How much of a donation I can give to each of them may depend on how long my load order is, but I would like to donate at least $100 in total.

My advice is: if you don't know you need an overhaul, don't use one. I'm pretty happy with how Skyrim plays, so don't see the point in using an overhaul: there are specific things I don't like (the useless Restoration undead spells, for example), so I'd use mods that address such complaints, but a wholesale restructuring of gameplay isn't necessary IMHO. If you feel the same way, skip an overhaul and keep your load order leaner.

Thanks for the advice. I may have to think more on it and maybe look more at mods that just rework the perk system. I was overall pretty disappointed in the way the vanilla perk system, so I do want to overhaul that aspect, but I might be able to add that without Skyre or Requiem, or maybe just use the main perk modules from Skyre since its is modular.

Although I do like the idea behind Requiem's unleveled world . . .

It might help if you said more about what you mean by "roleplaying." I find it means different things to different people. Some focus on "you are there"-style immersion/realism, some on freedom to ignore quests to find fun and challenge in other roles than the one the vanilla game gives you, some focus on enhancing the vanilla quests with more choices to support different types of characters, etc.

I like to bring my character to life int eh context of the game, sometimes ignoring quests entirely. I am probably more in the "you are there" style immersion and realism mods (with the "you" being my character, not me). I also like mods that make each character feel different from the beginning of the game (hence my inclusion of character creation overhaul), so I can play multiple characters that feel genuinely different from the start. Finally, I'd like to add some complexity to what seemed like a fairly simple perk and magic system in vanilla Skyrim.

I'm having a great time with a few mods of late:

Realistic Lighting and Effects

Realistic Nights

Immersive NPCs in the Dark

All of these 3 seem to synergize pretty well. It really changes your whole approach to the game, IME - torches or magelight are now essential parts of your play experience instead of just RP flavor. Fighting Draugr in some dark tomb, with those glowing eyes coming at you ... incredibly atmospheric!

And Immersive NPCs in the Dark makes it all make sense. What I mean is, with a lot of lighting mods, you're essentially just making the world dark for *you* - the NPCs don't necessarily react any differently. With that mod, though, they will actually be affected by those dark places, lighting torches or wearable lanterns (which the mod adds). There's even a chance that they will fumble when lighting their way, and trip or drop their weapon!

For stealth fun, I've been getting some good mileage out of Stealth Skills Rebalanced. This changes 3 skill trees (Sneak, Lockpick, Pickpocket) and generally makes them more difficult to use than vanilla. That may or may not be to your taste, but check it out. IMO, the mod is worth it for the way it handles lockpicking alone. Lockpick is basically a pointless tree in vanilla, but SSR changes it up, makes you really *want* those lockpick perks - and makes lockpicks much rarer in the world.

The only overhaul I've used is Requiem. It's great. There's a wonderful little subreddit community for it if you want to do some more research (r/skyrimrequiem). It's a very different approach from vanilla, in that you start off very weak and end up very strong. Some build choices are less effective than others, at least for some while, so that may take some of the attraction away (I do like how, in vanilla, you can pretty much do *anything*... but at the same time, sometimes restrictions are a breath of fresh air, too, you know?).

Finally, I'd say - have your cake and eat it too. Get Mod Organizer. I'm not the brightest person when it comes to mods, but after watching Gopher's excellent YouTube videos, I was able to get MO up and running.

The main feature for my purposes is that MO allows you to have different profiles for your mod setups. So you could have a Requiem load order *and* a vanilla load order *and* a survival mod load order *and* a mage load order *and* a sneaky load order, etc etc etc.

Really great stuff. As much as I love Requiem, sometimes I want to just start out of Helgen feeling like a badass and smash stuff with a warhammer. So I just switch profiles, and ta-da.

I agree. Skyrim is not Oblivion. OB was a mess and desperately needed an overhaul of the gameplay mechanics. SK is much better. Now don't get me wrong. SK needs mods (specifically a magic one - I use Mighty Magick). No overhaul that I know of is universally compatible, however. From what I can see they just will cause you compatibility issues. Maybe if Wrye gets the patches working again, that will help. But for now, my advice is that a big all encompassing overhaul is not needed.

The Mator Smash TES5Edit script does basically everything a Bashed Patch could do in Oblivion

True. But progress is being made with Wrye and I am more used to it.

*sigh*

You should have TES5Edit anyway, and this is no harder to work with.

And, well, the Wrye Bash patcher is nowhere near getting its old Oblivion functionality back. Its just not.

I disagree. The unmodified Skyrim gameplay mechanics are ...well, too simple, to put it politely Granted most overhauls don't make them overtly complex either, but it is much better than the vanilla. Personally i've always played with SkyRe before and PerMa today

I tried playing it vanilla some time ago, but when i noticed stamina bar is just the sprint meter, i ran back to overhauls screaming like a little girl

But i do agree it is much better than Oblivion was, even while being a lot simpler.


Hmm, good to know. I have often wondered how many things don't work right in my 100+ plugin load order

I recommend Requiem. There's so many changes, big and small, that it can eliminate the need for many additional mods.

Perks are great, I haven't seen a useless one yet. There's new spells, for example offensive Restoration spells that harm undead, great for a Paladin. New items, armor and weapons that fit perfectly in the game. NPCs wear armor suitable for their status. Irileth wears ebony armor with the Whiterun sigil, instead of leather armor.

Then there's the "hardcoe" features, that can be toggled on/off from MCM menu. Options include: running causes exhaustion, exhaustion causes slowdown, exhaustion causes disarm. Armor affects spell effectiviness, gold and arrow weight, fast travel allowed, Meridia hates vampires, attribute increase upon leveling up, and many more. Most importantly, there's two separate sliders for damage dealt and damage taken.

There's a lot more planning involved. Stamina is almost as important as health, so keep some potions in your inventory. Prepare well before any encounters. Should you be facing spiders or Falmer, stock up on poison resistance potions. Draugr are vulnerable to silver weapons, restoration spells and fire. Try to bash them with a torch. Mundane arrows don't do well against draugr, since they don't have any vital organs to pierce. Greater health enhancing enchantments provide a secondary effect, making you immune to magical draining effects, useful when fighting vampires. Dwemer automatons are weak to shock.

Swords are quick and effective against lightly armoured opponents, but lack the armor penetration that axes and blunt weapons provide. Archery is great against light armor, and with a crossbow or the right perks, can be effective against heavy armor as well.

All the builds are effective for certain challenges, but with their own weakness. But those weaknesses can be overcome. Plan out your character carefully, and you'll have an easier time in Skyrim. Enemies can kill you with one shot, but you can do the same. Or you can decrease the difficulty, to ease you in the game at first.

There's too many chnges for me to explain, so I suggest reading Requiem's handbook/manual. It is a long read, but you'll get a lot of information, helping you to decide if the mod is for you, and making the first playthrough a lot easier. It's a new game, and I had fun learning to play it effectively. You can also check out /r/skyrimrequiem on Reddit that JaberkatysHusband mentioned. There's all kinds of guides on the sidebar there.

The game is a lot easier with a follower. Install Interesting NPCs, it adds lots of great companions. One can be found right in Riverwood. I recommend Morrowloot as well, it places more items and artifacts in the game.

Wait, are you saying that the bashed patch is not an effective tool to merge leveled lists and other such changes in Skyrim? That's news to me (I am new to Skyrim modding) and a bit confusing since the STEP project, which is based on MO, appears to use WB for the bashed patch function. From reading some of their threads, it appears that some mods need the bashed tags added manually, but overall the bashed patch seems to work. Are you saying it doesn't and we should use Mator Smash instead?

Does Mator Smash read bash tags? How does it decide what to put in the patch?

It works fine AFAIK, it's just that the Bashed Patch can do a whole lot more for Oblivion.

I am with ToJKa. Skyrim's vanilla mechanics are too simple for my tastes. Stamina needs to have a greater impact in my game. I need to have characters who are diverse from the beginning. Many other fundamental changes are needed in my game, especially after playing vanilla so long.

It also seems to suffer the same problem as Oblivion where your character is strongest at level 1, at least if you stick with the main quest and rush off to BFB. And progressively gets weaker from there. Sure, there are tougher areas, but BFB should be a tough location based in the description. And sure, your character can become overpowered at some point, but they are still fighting enemies with walls of health and such and never really going to have as easy time of it as a level 1 character running through BFB.

I read the entire Requiem manual last night and watched the series of videos going over all the main features of both Requiem and Skyre. I'm a bit torn. Skyre and PerMa have a lot to offer and I am sure I'd be happy with either of them. But overall, I think I am going to go with Requiem. It's got the total package I am looking for in a modded Skyrim, with the exception of spell making.

I will probably scale back in my pursuit of other mods but may still add Spell Crafting, gotta have my spell crafting for RP purposes. I love having lots of options for mages so I will probably add Apocolypse and Wintermyst, since there are patches for those. But that should be enough magic.

But there are so many other mods that I was going to add that Requiem seems to cover (arrow weight, no ash piles from necromancy, stop random vampire attacks, convenient horses, harvest overhaul, etc) that I think I can keep my load order relatively small.

Let me ask you a couple questions. Do you use Frostfall? After watching some videos, I think I am going to like it but I may skip an eat/drink/sleep mod. None of those are written with a controller in mind and need an extra hotkey to drink from a stream. Plus, eating seems important in the vast mechanics of Requiem (since you need the health/stamina boosts to survive) and Frostfall (since a hot meal can keep you warm longer) and sleeping (with a healing poultice) may be necessary with Requiem, so I don't know if I need a traditional eat/sleep/drink mod just to remind my character to do those things. I am also worried that adding an additional level of difficulty into of Requiem/Frostfall might be too much. What are your thoughts about Requiem with Frostfall?

Second question. Do you use a bashed patch to merge your leveled lists? Are the delevel/relevel tags sufficient to make sure requiem's unleveled world is preserved?

I've never used Frostfall, but I've been meaning to. A lot of players seem to use it with Requiem, and I assume it won't make the game too hard. It's another thing to worry about, but won't be too much.

Requiem encourages sleeping on it's own. Skills improve at a slower rate than vanilla, so the bonus is welcome. The hard part at the start of a game goes by a lot faster when you sleep regularly. I don't use foods that often, although I should. Slaughtering mudcrabs is more convenient, when you can recharge your stamina right away by eating their meat.

Beast races, such as Khajiit, Argonians, Bosmer and Orcs have a strong stomach ability, meaning they can eat unprepared food to get the bonuses, including raw meat. All in all, food makes the game easier, as you said.

Requiem comes with https://requiem.atlassian.net/wiki/display/REQ18/What+the+Reqtificator+actually+does. I haven't been particularly careful (at all) when building up my load order, but I haven't had any issues. Install any required patches, and run the Reqtificator. That should be enough.

Here's a list of Requiem's added https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimrequiem/comments/2yg1yx/requiem_18_all_magic_info/, if you're interested.

http://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimrequiem/comments/1uyypt/is_requiem_for_you_a_comparison_with_other/

A couple of recommends I have are for spicing up combat a little more, and also animals in the game can be a bit weak

Combat Evolved http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/56147/?

Animal Tweaks http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/60222/?

Probably best experiencing vanilla combat first, but when you are ready to upgrade these aspects, those two by the same author are really good, a sabre tooth cat or a bear demand a lot more respect with these mods in game, Mud Crabs can be surprisingly troublesome too especially if you have not got anything which takes advantage of their weakness. I had a giant Mud Crab chasing me all over the place for an hour because I could not quite finish it off, eventually I lead it to a cliff and shouted it over the edge after wearing it down a lot .. Then I was pounced on by a big cat three minutes down the road from there. Dead after two swipes of its claws.

Bandits trying to dodge your arrows will become a common feature, as you would expect them to do.

One mod out of your initial list I would be wary of - Probably going to be disappointing too going by your avatar .. Moonpath

It was created with Snip, and has never been recreated with the Creation Kit to get rid of its problems

If you are going to play it .. The advice is dont install it if you intend to play for a long time, your save games become dependant upon what mods you have installed so cannot be taken out mid game like you could with Oblivion ( see the http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3676-skyrim-information-baked-into-saves topic for more info on this subject )

Moonpath is a wonderful looking mod, but I would install it for a playthrough, then uninstall it completely ..

.. before you start a new game you want to keep going long term. Beware other mods created before mid february 2012 ( thats when the creation kit came out, so anything before that date with a plugin was more than likely created with Snip ) - See also Sharlikrans work on mods to eradicate them of Snip problems http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26230/? .. Unfortunately you cannot guarantee anything created after the Creation Kit was released will not have been touched with Snip, there are still people use the damned thing, they just dont tell anyone these days because it has such a bad rep. Which makes finding bad mods with corrupted data harder.

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/4113-wip-mator-smash is still in development, but is actually very good .. If you understand in detail what you want out of it, it takes some getting your head around, and does not use Bash Tags ( read the topic ), I would like to say "yet", but how it eventually will work is not certain at this stage.

Bash Tagger is a new script being developed, but that still needs expert or mod author input as to whether to tag their mods with any specific tags anyway .. so not very useful for the average joe.

Wrye Bash is being refactored by Utumno. He has spent the last year doing some heavy groundwork and is nearly at the stage to move on to bash patchers.

Currently it reliably does levelled lists, some mods can be merged, and it has an assortment of Bash Tweaks, but the version Sharlikran has been working on apparently can do a lot more .. Whatever does work there is going to be absorbed back into the main branch on GitHub ( I think, either that or Utumno will just start doing them himself ) ..

.. But, the whole project is about at the same stage Wrye Bash was at say 4 years into Oblivions life cycle, still a lot of work to do to get it at the stage it was at for Oblivion at its six year stage for that game. Skyrim has a lot more to it in records than Oblivion had too, so patchers have to be not only re-worked for skyrim, but more need to be added to its repertoire of patching.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1840/? ( Standalone ) is good for managing your mods via BAIN still, and a bashed patch for levelled lists and the other few things it does at the moment ( I still use it as my mod manager )

.. But I am currently experimenting lots with Mator Smashed Patch instead of a Bashed Patch, which does levelled lists and a hell of a lot more than Wrye Bash currently does - The downfall being its harder to get your head around, no bash tags, and its still very much beta. Whereas Wrye Bash is stable with less imported record types = Your choice what you want to get into helping with. Whatever you use its all still developing.

Cleaning the official plugins with TES5Edit .. See this guide http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/4110-manual-cleaning-skyrim-master-files/

That website is the home to all the unofficial patches too, so any vanilla bug reports go on the tracker there if you feel like contributing any findings of vanilla flaws.

I recommend http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/63354/?

Oh, that is disappointing. I always keep Iliana's Elsewery mod in my Oblivion load order even for my many non-Khajiit characters just because it is nice to visit the desert every once in a while. But thanks for letting me know. I may save that one for later then.

Thanks so much for your other recommendations. I have bookmarked the afkmods site.

Maybe the http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50995/? is something to your taste.

Here are some must-have immersion mods:

*Frostfall
*Wet & Cold
*Realistic Needs & Diseases

Here are some nice extras:

*Winter Is Coming (great for Frostfall)
*Climates of Tamriel (more weather variety)
*Hunterborn (if you're a hunter character)
*Ultimate Combat & Combat Evolved (great for a warrior-type character)
*True Storms
*Splash of Rain
*Skyrim Audio Overhaul

There are heaps more immersion mods out there (restrict carry-weight, heartrate etc) so it really depends on your character and how far you want to go with immersion as
to what type of mods you use.

I've never use ENBoost so I cannot comment on that, but like what people say to other new players is don't add everything you want to use in your first heavy modded game instead try out some mods with other mods and evaluate what you like and what you don't like.

Also, this is very important, be careful about what mods you installed especially mods with loose scripts, because those mods with loose script both can and will http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3637-unable-to-absorb-dragon-souls/#entry145172. They're also almost impossible to uninstall in the middle of your game without issues or other oddities. Your best solution is to start a new game.

Make sure you check this http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3636-mods-made-obsolete-by-unofficial-patches/ and this list mods is also useful to check for http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3999-bug-fixes-recommended-in-addition-to-the-unofficial-patches/.

I use these mods well most of them in Skyrim along with other mods.

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/forum/345-unofficial-skyrim-patches/(I don't like Dawnguard so I don't use UDGP, but I use the rest of USKP)

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3824-relz-cutting-room-floor/(content restoration mod for Skyrim)

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3211-relz-alternate-start-live-another-life/(is a most-have-mod for most people)

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3215-relz-bring-out-your-dead/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3629-relz-point-the-way/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3219-relz-run-for-your-lives/(essential imo and makes it more immersive when a dragon attack a village/town/city)

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3210-relz-open-cities-skyrim/(is a most-have-mod)

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3832-relz-storefront/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3217-relz-ars-metallica-smithing-enhancement/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3218-relz-the-paarthurnax-dilemma/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3967-relz-practice-dummies/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3862-relz-manor-roads/

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3761-relz-oblivion-gates-in-cities/

Basically all mods in Arthmoor's mod collection, but also some mods of http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=user_activity&search_app=downloads&mid=1482.

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33395

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15524

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/40123

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/27371

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/28170

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26355

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/15501

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1702

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/26834

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/19397

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/34612 (recommended instead of Thomas Kaira's Economics of Skyrim)

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/36328

http://www.fliggerty.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=102&t=4954 (very nice replacer imo)

I see that you're considering adding some mods I already use. The last two mods I once use but not anymore.

Community Uncapper (is the same as Ely's uncapper mod for Oblivion)

Frostfall (I've use it before and I think you'll like it)

Convenient Horses (I've read and heard other people saying that Convenient Horses can sometimes conflict or have issues with other mods)

Even Better Quest Objectives (make sure you use the http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3670-crimson-nirnroot-not-being-counted/page-2#entry145654)

Thanks Leonardo! That's a nice list.

You're welcome.