So I've come to the conclusion now have to rebalance one of my mods, after the other day I got one shot by a non-power attack 1 handed swing, by an enemy with 500-600+ health who runs at about 225 movement speed... Near Whiterun none the less, which is supposed to be a relatively safe area for low level characters.

I've since then, re-leveled a bunch of the NPC Morrowind vampires who attack Skyrim, up from level 60-72 to level 15, so they aren't basically... Like Superman only weak to silver and fire. While making them extremely vulnerable to fire and silver- more so than most vampires, like I'm talking level 5 two shotting them with fireballs or silver weapon attacks, made it a little better... It was a bandaid fix, that didn't really fix an extremely imbalanced problem... It also made character skills level way too fast.

Aside from moving even faster, turning invisible, quickly teleporting away, or being level 100 or 200, and putting nearly every point in health, there was nothing the player character could do to survive the attacks of these vampires.

Other than hitting them with fire or silver before they touched you, which was difficult, considering their ridiculous movement speed, and the fact multiple vampires would chase you at once. Non surprisingly they would also defeat just about any enemy they came across, rather vanilla or in a mod, unless they got hit by fire or silver in which case they died almost instantly.

Since then I toned down the damage output, and health of these vampires consistently- not in any of the versions I released on the Nexus or Steam yet, but on a rebalanced version I'm currently working on.

The ones encountered inside the dungeons of Xemorah Island will remain "overpowered", perhaps be made EVEN more overpowered, as they're SUPPOSED to be overpowered, for extreme challenge seekers, and the gold found on the vampire bosses will be much higher, but the roaming vampires who the player has to risk encountering just to get the blood potion to become a Morrowind type vampire, and especially the ones who attack Skyrim will be much much weaker now.

Considering that I've slowly been losing subscribers to my mod on Steam, and someone on the Skyrim Nexus complaining about these NPC vampires being overpowered, I also get the feeling that's a part of the reason why my mod hasn't been doing very well, considering how many people want Morrowind vampires back.

In spite of these new weaker versions being a lot more balanced- as in the player doesn't have to worry about their level 50 character getting killed with no chance to fight back near Whiterun of all places (I admit I made the vampires who attacked Skyrim way too powerful)... There's still an issue I need to fix before I release a rebalanced version of my mod.

Concerning my vampiric Shadow Archers. They have an AOE paralysis spell, that paralyzes the player for 11 seconds, does 15 total shock damage, and also slows movement speed by 75% for 45 seconds, and they cast it TWICE just in case the first Shadowgrasp spell missed. Then while the player is paralyzed they shoot arrows at the player, putting the archer in Shadow Archer. Shadow Archers also summon creatures to assist them, if that wasn't enough, though I don't think that's the main issue.

Problem was, my orcish armor wearing, Lord sign using, 2 handed warrior with 250 health (I know that's not impressive, but this enemy isn't supposed to be a sure death sentence for low level characters)... This character of mine, could not even touch the Shadow Archer before dying. Even with Adrenaline Rush from Nature Of The Beast which slows time and amplifies jump height, AND the added reach of a two hander, I still could not hit this enemy a single time before I died.

While I was paralyzed for 11 seconds the Shadow Archer shot me two or three times, and by the time I was in melee range, a single shot was all it took to kill me. I reloaded and tried to kill the Shadow Archer again, but still failed just as badly. The question is... How am I supposed to properly balance these Shadow Archer NPCs?

I wanted to make an interesting mage/archer hybrid class, one that would meld well with a vampiric character, and the concept made sense- and an ability like "Shadow Grasp" matches a vampire character perfectly. An archer that uses magic spells to amplify their archery, including a spell that makes their enemies easier to hit, and does a tiny amount of damage. Problem was... The idea was "too successful". And my Shadow Archers ended up, perhaps more overpowered than anything in vanilla Skyrim, or even anything else added by mods.

While I guess these enemies would qualify as "challenging", I fear I made them challenging in an extremely imbalanced and frustrating way, as it's not fun at all fighting an enemy who kills you by literally making you unable to even play the game with an AOE spell that no amount of player or character skill can help you dodge. It also seems most in game enemies who use paralysis abilities, are usually melee characters who don't move so quickly, because then you can at least use your character skills, or player skill to avoid getting paralyzed by them.

The question I present is this... How do I alter Shadow Grasp so it isn't overpowered, and is actually balanced?

Which of these rebalancing solutions do you recommend?

A. Make Shadow Grasp only last 1 or 2 seconds.

B. Make Shadow Grasp a non-AOE spell.

C. Remove the paralysis effect and make it slow targets much more.

D. Make Shadow Grasp so expensive to cast that they can't cast two in a row.

E. Remove the paralysis effect, and make the slow less intense, while making the shock damage much stronger.

F. Make Shadow Archers have extremely low health.

G. Combine these all together (and explain which).