Well, after almost two years I'm finally making this post... I'm looking to finally start using some mods. Only problem is I haven't done much following of the other mods around me, so I'm not really sure what all there is. (Well, other than damn near anything I can imagine, of course) So, I'm hoping you guys can point out some mods that will help me get what I am after. I'm currently watching GopherVids Let's Play of Falskaar (What better way is there to learn what people think of your work, and improve your future work, than seeing and hearing exactly how they react?) and he had a lot of mods that intrigued me.

My overall intent of using mods is not "To fix what Bethesda doth created terribly." but simply "To add more content so that the game is fresh/different." I've been playing and testing Skyrim for a long time, so new stuff will always freshen the experience. Here are some criteria:

1. The mods must be easy to turn on and off. Whenever I work on a mod I need to make sure NO mods are affecting it in any way. So mods will millions of loose files and madness like that will not fly. On that note, SKSE can be routed by simply opening the game/CK normally (Not with the SKSE thing), correct?

2. The content in the mods must be done well, and it must fit. I'm staying away from mods that add light sabers, or MLP, or pokemon, etc. The more "Lore friendly" (But not necessarily canon) the better.

3. In particular, gopher had some mods that added a lot of new perks. This looked interesting.

4. He also had a mod that added a LOT of new weapons. Broadswords, longswords, shortswords, war picks. More content like this would be awesome. There were also many new armors.

5. Something to make smithing more complex would be awesome. Gopher could melt things down to get ingots, etc.

6. In addition to weapons and armors, new spells are always a plus.

7. I'm going to avoid visual mods right now like ENB, unless there is one I can simply flick on and off, that isn't super-mega-haxor-strong; making the game look like an over processed high school Photoshop project.

For all I know all of these things could be in just one mod. Again, I really haven't kept up with other big mods as I would've liked. Anyway, I hope to spend some of the day starting a new character and finally enjoying the brand new game that you can create through the magic of mods. I'm not looking to install 100 mods. Just a few really good ones to mix up the experience.

Sorry if this post got kind of convoluted, tried to keep it short and sweet.

- AJV

Heh, I have a usual stock response recommending mods to people who ask, but it seems very odd to be doing so to someone as regular around these parts as you!

Some of these change gameplay, so I'm not sure how closely this meets your brief, but here goes anyway:

Unofficial Patch, Unofficial Dawnguard Patch, Unofficial Dragonborn Patch, Unofficial Hearthfire Patch, Unofficial High Resolution Texture Patch.

Alternate Start: Live Another Life - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=9557 - Allows the player to skip the helgen intro/start sequence. Very useful for roleplaying. Also allows you to return to helgen and pick up the main quest if you want to later on.

More Interactive Items - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3562 - Immersion mod. Allows the player to pick up and interact with the various bits of clutter (rags, bones, urns etc.) that can be found in the game.

Frostfall - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11163 - Essential in all my games. Completely customisable, as lite or hardcoe as you like.

Piratelord Loot Adjustments - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17930/? - makes all barrels and urns activatable, and rebalances loot found within - adds a load more clutter items (broken ancient amulets, steel rings etc.) with a small chance of decent loot. Makes more sense - for example draugr won't have gold in form of septims but as Ancient Nord Coins which are tradable for cash, and dwemer containers have dwemer coins.

Dynamic Things - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=32448 - Chop down trees to make wood (compatible with Frostfall), pick up wood from the various vanilla firewood stockpiles (beware, some may be owned!), makes all keg barrels activatable, gain experience when using training dummies, etc. Compatible with Piratelord's Loot Adjustments.

A Quality World Map - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4929 - As mentioned above.

Interesting NPCs - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=8429 - A work-in-progress - grab the Voiced Only Version if you want voiced dialogue. Adds new NPCs which are very interesting and amusing - some are "superfollowers" who have dialogue relating to vanilla locations and quests - far more developed than Serana. Many new quests added.

Inconsequential NPCs - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=36334 - a very new mod, but already a must-have. Inspired by Interesting NPCs, it adds NPCs such as inn patrons, shoppers, street urchins, students at the college, prosttutes etc. to appropriate locations. All voiced.

Even Better Quest Objectives - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32695/ - updates quest descriptions for better roleplaying and so you don't have to rely on quest markers.

Better Dynamic Snow - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10383 - makes the dynamic snow shader look much nicer, no noticable performance impact.

Bring Out Your Dead - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=14178 - expands the vanilla graves system to account for the vanilla NPCs without graves. If an NPC dies, their possessions can be found buried alongside them.

Fires Hurt - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/28202/? - no longer can you stand in a fireplace and not take damage. Adds fire damage to fires and hot geysers.

Footprints - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=22745 - adds footprints to player and NPCs. Makes such a noticable visual change I cringe when I see videos without it. Also helps for tracking.

Guard Dialogue Overhaul - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=23390 - unlocks plenty of vanilla dialogue provided by Bethesda in the game files but which they decided not to incorporate. Not technically a bug, so not fixed by the Unofficial Patch - but highly recommended to make the guards more interesting (and be more respectful to you when you deserve it!)

Run For Your Lives - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=23906 - prevents peasants and shopkeepers from trying to take on a dragon and dying immediately, leaving the gameworld empty and potentially breaking quests. All non-warrior NPCs will now run for cover when a dragon attacks.

Ely's Community Uncapper - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=1175 - Bah to the official Legendary mode. THIS is the way to allow higher levelling.

SkyUI - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/3863 - as mentioned above. Pretty essential for many players - adds Mod Configuration Menu ("MCM") to allow other mods to have custom menus and settings that you can tweak.

Skyrim Immersive Creatures - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/31256 - adds new enemies to leveled lists. Comes with a "purist lore-friendly" MCM menu if you find some of the creatures out-of-place, and you can toggle various creatures and spawns on and off according to your own tastes. v6 is light years improved from previous versions - v6.1 is now available.

Immersive Armors -http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19733

I also hear there's a good expansion mod called Falskaar...

Some of these mods require SKSE script extender - you can grab that from here: http://skse.silverlock.org/

You also need BOSS to sort your mods into the correct order to prevent issues that can arise with mod conflicts - grab the installer version from http://code.google.com/p/better-oblivion-sorting-software/downloads/list

Also you will eventually need Wrye Bash to merge leveled lists together and prevent additional conflicts - grab that from http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/1840/?

Clean your master files and mods with TES5Edit - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/25859/?

I purposely haven't added graphics mods that are just pure mesh/texture replacers.

Ok, as for your specific questions:

3) Gopher's "perk" mod is SkyRE - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9286

6) More spells - I use Lore-Friendly Spells - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/34620

Skyrim Immersive Creatures (as linked above) also includes a few new spells.

Skyrim Redone seems to be right up your alley:

- tons of new perks. Like a lot. So many that you receive two perk points every five levels;

- new weapons and armors (from Immersive Weapons and Immersive Armors);

- new perks revolving around these new weapons (like bows and the archery perk tree being split between shortbows, useful at close range, and longbows, useful for sniping, perks for shortspears, battlestaves, nodachis, and so on), new timed block mechanic and perks revolving around it, and so on.

- a lot of new things I don't remember right now (I'm playing another overhaul, Requiem, but that radically changes the game, it makes the game feel like an old school RPG, and vanilla Skyrim like an action game, and I don't think that's what you want).

-EDIT: you can smelt stuff into ingots, and you get experience for it too.

Have fun!

EDIT2: As for spells, the author of Skyrim Redone recommends Apocalypse Spell Package, although he warns about some redundancy. Last time I checked, a few months ago, a compatibility patch (to remove the redundant spells mainly) was in the works.

Your #1 requirement is going to be your most restrictive. Basically, any mod that adds scripts gets baked into the save. You can turn them off, but you have to start a new game.

Also, it's not "loose files" that are going to be your problem. Install via Wrye Bash's BAIN function and a loose file mod is as easy to uninstall as a BSA file mod.

Or use NMM to activate/deactivate cleanly, but make sure you don't deactivate any mod and continue using the same save.

I have multiple characters with different modlists, as well as a vanilla+USKP set-up for when I make mods - I just use NMM to deactivate/activate mods and Wrye Bash to help me remember exactly which mods I use for each character (and of course to rebuild my bashed patch).

Of course, I know. I will at no time have less than two sets of saves, the modded one for legit play, and the unmodded one for testing.

I want BSA's because then I KNOW that the mod has NO effect on the CK unless I load the plugin. I'm not worried about uninstalling, I'm worried about the CK loading some loose files that may be part of a mod. Not to mention my data folder is a crazy mess of loose files from vanilla Skyrim and my mod, so I'd like to keep other mods out of there.

Okay, I'm going to start fairly light:

First off the SKSE readme says the PSC and PEX files are for the CK. I don't plan on using it to mod or touching the mods that use it, and I'd like to keep things organized (no loose files, if possible) so is it safe to simply not install these files? I'll just use the exe and dll for in game use?

Better Dynamic Snow looks like it couldn't hurt, along with Footprints perhaps. Might try Piratelords Loot Adjustments, along with Run For Your Lives, and SkyRe to top it all off. I think that will do it, I'll see how the game feels now. Might possibly try SkyUI just so people stop turning away from me in disgust when I tell them I've never used it. (Because honestly I'm fine with the vanilla UI...)

EDIT: Uhh, well the Nexus is only letting me download one mod every once a while, otherwise I'm having bad luck with it timing out. I've got to go now, but I'll be back to continue this mild foray into modding later this afternoon!

Nope, you definitely need the pex files for playing the game, the pex and the psc for the CK

You have to install the PEX files as well in order to have a functioning install of SKSE (PSC are only needed when developing mods that use SKSE functions).

EDIT: