For the first time, I have just installed the popular overhaul mods, survival mods and improved HD textures and sound, and everything seems to be running well so far except I'm still having trouble getting Francesco's leveled/new items/creatures to install properly.

In the meantime, I'm a bit perplexed about which combination of mods will improve most NPC faces and hair. Any suggestions?

I installed HGEC's female body replacer and I'm considering Elaborate Eyes, Ren's Beauty Pack, Ozmo's Hii-Rez skin textures. I've seen a number of recommendations for a mod called Smooth EGT for Vanilla Races, but I can't find this mod anywhere on tesnexus, planetelderscrollls or google. Am I spelling this wrong? I found "Smooth EGT For Vanilla Heads" as a resource file on a mod called Lattamer V3. Is this the same thing? Do I need to install Lattamer V3 in order to make use of the Smooth EGT file?

Also, any suggestions on a saved dark elf female PC face I can import for new game and still set attributes, class, etc. in the tutorial? The Mystic Elves custom race looks interesting, but the attributes and perks are quite different from dark elf race, correct? Can I adjust the Mystic Elves mod so that it is essentially vanilla dark elf with improved appearance?

Maybe you would like http://theelderscrolls.info/?go=dlfile&fileid=215. It adds new races, new NPC faces, new PC eyes, hair types, balances to the races and other nice things.

For my PC, I would like to use the vanilla dark elf race stats (attributes, perks, skills, etc.) but I would like to improve the face and hair appearance, whether by using new textures and meshes, or modifying the stats of some other custom PC race to be identical to the vanilla dark elf stats. Is this possible? I also don't want to modify the racial stats of the NPCs, as I am using other overhaul mods to adjust the game balance, but I do want to improve the faces and hair of most NPCs. Any suggestions?

This is an area of mods that I preferred to avoid in general, since there are things that might go wrong if you are not careful (invisible bodies, weird eyes), so I preferred to install just one big package, RBP that also includes TNR that changes all the NPC's faces but not the hair, also I installed http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=24078 based on Exnem eye candy, for female bodies, and Roberts Male Bodies v4 for male bodies, and with the NPC's faces and bodies changed I was satisfied. Sorry I can't help you with more info.

Can you explain what TNR stands for? Is it available for download on tesnexus or planet elder scrolls?

It comes from http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16843.

The cosmetic component of http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21104 is another option you might consider. http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=21307 integrates TNR in a similar way to RBP.

edit. corrected link

TNR looks great in some cases, but some were just http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/16843-2-1209394614.jpg for me. In the effort to make NPCs look more unique the author made some of the faces too extreme, IMO. :shrug:

But maybe I'm just way too used to the vanilla faces.

Wow - the NPC faces in the pic gallery look amazing! Thanks very much for the link, dreamer.

Whilst agreeing some TNR faces are odd (http://imgur.com/AyMnM.png) on balance I find it a great addition to my game.

If you like Mystic Elves you might want to check out http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30707.

It's quite easy to change the race stats with the Construction Set, for example giving Mystic Elves the same stats as Dark Elves.

You can import a face to a player character without touching the stats etc. with Wrye Bash.

An alternative to Race Balancing Project is Cobl Races, which basically is a light version of RBP with just the cosmetics (races, hairs, eyes).

Thanks very much - I downloaded the Construction Set and I'm attempting to modify the Moonshadow Elves race to give them the same stats and abilities as Dark Elves. There is a Race editor tool and I believe I'm able to adjust the data on the "General Data" tab to make the starting attributes and bonuses conform to the dark elf racial stats. However, within the window for "Specials" (special abilities), there is only an option to delete items, and there doesn't appear to be any way to add the dark elf ability AbRaceDarkElfResistFire for example, to the moonshadow elf "Special" window. Am I doing this correctly?

Drag and drop is the name of the game. Leave your race window open and drag the abilities and powers you want from magic/spell/ability and magic/spell/power in the object window.