Version 7.0 for Skyrim Special Edition, at July 5, 2025. A huge update with over 350 new mods, corrections and improvements overseen in previous updates, more merging marks and general cleanup of the guide. Fatherland Saviour ultimate module was update to version 3.5 to reflect the additions to the guide.

Version 6.5 for Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Anniversary Edition, at February 8, 2025. A major update with around 230 new mods, some improved instructions + a comprehensive update for the Fatherland Saviour ultimate module, version 3.0, featuring both lots of new mods and a complete UX overhaul.

Version 6.05 for Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Anniversary Edition, at December 24, 2024. Small update with a dozen or so new mods to add to 6.0 update.

Version 6.0 for Skyrim Special Edition and Skyrim Anniversary Edition, at November 16, 2024. Major update.

- Over 200 new mods.

- Added couple dozens of new merging marks, improved several descriptions and removed a dozen of deprecated mods.

- Fatherland Saviour module updated to version 2.5 with plenty of new mods.

- To report the issues with the guide (typos, broken links etc) - please drop a message in #suggestions_to_sinitar room in our Discord server.

- Before you'll start modding. Disable Steam overlay, Afterburner overlay, add Skyrim to your antivirus/firewall "white list". Disable all possible overlays, "boosters", "tuners" programs you may be using in general. All of them can and most likely will screw up your modded game and/or it's many settings.
- Also, make sure to disable autosaves in SkyrimPrefs.ini (set bSaveOnPause, bSaveOnTravel, bSaveOnWait and bSaveOnRest to 0).
- Do not use CC's (Creation Club) Survival Mode. It has way better alternative on the modding stage listed in this guide, and the mod itself is quite wonky. You can also use this mod to disable it by default.
- Follow the guide slowly without a rush. If it's written here to limit your fps using enblocal fps limiter - do it, and don't use and third-party software for it, and so on. You got the idea. Also, never have Skyrim installed in Program Files (or other system folder like Documents/Windows/AppData etc). If you have it there - reinstall it on another drive, or at the same drive, but out of Program Files folder. Lastly, it's heavily recommended to disable game autoupdates in Steam.
- If the mod has different main file versions for SE and AE, make sure to get a proper one - or to choose a proper version in the FOMOD installer, is such is provided.

1) Download and install mod manager. Choose between Nexus Mod Manager (use the .exe file), Mod Organizer 2 or Kortex Mod Manager . All 3 of them are great mod managers, each with something own to benefit player. What's the difference? NMM is "simple yet effective". MO is a mod manager packed with tons of cool features, mod manager on steroids if we can say so. Kortex is something in between, more similar to MO, but has own pros and cons over it (look here for comparison). Almost all mods can (and should) be installed via mod manager. Do not install mods manually. The guide contains notices regarding some exceptional cases when you'll need to install some mod/part of mod manually, but for the 99.9% of cases - always use mod manager. You may also find these NMM tutorial, MO2 tutorial (installation and setup video, general usage playlist here) and Kortex info page useful. Extra note: If using MO2, make double, triple sure you have watched the tutorial linked and know how to use it properly before asking for troubleshooting support :)

IMPORTANT NOTE #1:
Kortex mod manager was tested by myself for working properly - I liked it, just don't personally prefer it over MO2 or NMM. Also, it's not quite the most popluar mod manager, so it lacks usage tutorials, and you'll need to learn how to use/troubleshoot it yourself. Due to the same reason, I won't be able to provide Kortex troubleshooting support in Discord - but once again, it's a great mod manager and you should be absolutely feel free to try it.
IMPORTANT NOTE #2: Do not use Vortex to mod Skyrim. It's looking pretty fancy visually, but sadly, it's very glitchy and pretty dysfunctional. I won't be able to provide any troubleshooting support if you're using it.

2) Download and install SKSE. If you allready have it - great. If no - install it. It's obligatory. SKSE is [essential]. Stability mods are also working through it, as well as vast majority of amazing gameplay mods. Consider it a basic invisible evolution element of Skyrim.
Make sure to download the correct version! 1.7.3 is for Skyrim LE - you don't need that at all now. If you have [exactly] the Skyrim SE version of the game (1.5.97, you can right-click on the game .exe file and see the version there) - get SKSE for 1.5.97. If you're on AE (it's still named Skyrim Special Edition in your game library, it's the .exe that differs) - get the current AE version, and VR version for VR. Download the archive somewhere, unpack it. From the folder, get the .dll, .exe files and \Data folder, and place them to your Skyrim SE/AE folder, as showed here (SKSE for AE and GOG do not have the "steam_loader" file btw, that's normal). MO users should archive the \Data folder and install it as any other mod trough MO (you can do the same in NMM as well if you wanna). From now on, launch your game only via SKSE (skse64_loader.exe), not the game regular launcher.

3) Download and install SkyUI. As mod itself, SkyUI is basically a "PCfication" of ugly vanilla Skyrim interface. On practice, it's also required by most of well-known mods in addition to SKSE. Also install this fix (get the ESP version), this and this. Lastly, if you're on latest AE version (and only in this case, it's not needed for SE) also install this to fix SkyUI issues caused by the latest Skyrim AE updates messups.
Optionally (but very recommended as it's just looks so much more alive and beautiful) install animated icons mod for it (make sure to choose "Celtic" icons type in SkyUI MCM for this mod to work). Also optionally, install this "wider" addon for MCM look. Lastly, install iHUD.

4) Download and install LOOT. LOOT is a must-have tool if you're planning to have many mods. It's very easy to install and use.
Its most basic and important function is mod sorting. Many mods should be loaded in strict load order to work properly together. "This mod should be loaded before that mod, but after that", and so on. LOOT makes miracles! You can automatically sort most of your mods properly by just clicking a button twice. Sometimes (it happens rarely, so you probably won't have to think about it) some mods have direct instructions about how they should be loaded, in this case it's also easy to sort them manually using it. Also, LOOT shows you all you need to know about your installed mods - errors, missing records etc. In many cases, if something is not right - it will let you know and it will advise you. In most of cases, you' won't need to read and learn more than this to use it, but if something is unclear or you want to learn advanved usage of LOOT (which can come in handy from time to time), check this awesome video. Use LOOT sorting each time after you've installed a few mods.

5) Install Address Library for SKSE Plugins. Note: make sure to get a proper mod version, depending on whether your game version is SE or AE. If you're on Skyrim "VR", get this one instead.
This mod is a partial solution to endless game update issues in SE (which breaks dll SKSE mods) - it allows for such mods to keep working properly not depending on the game version. Solution is partial because it doesn't work automatically - each dll SKSE mod must be updated by its author to depend on this one, and as not all authors are aware about this or just active, this solution won't be universal - but it clearly will help you with many mods which are usually broken after every update. Also, install this (make sure to get proper version too, depending on whether you're modding SE or AE - main file is for latest AE version, and if you're modding SE aka 1.5.97, get the respective version from the "Old Files" tab).

6) Install SSE Engine Fixes. Installation: Mod has TWO parts - first main file, the "Main File" you can install with mod manager (make sure to choose the corresponding SE/AE version depending on yours one). Second, "SKSE64 Preloader", you should download manually, unpack and place the .dll file to your Skyrim root folder (where Skyrim exe is).
Note #1: If you're using Skyrim VR, get this instead.
Note #2: If you're 100% sure you've installed the (correct version) of the mod properly, but game refuses to launch properly, in the mod configuration file (EngineFixes.toml as for now), set the "EnableAchievementsWithMods" (without quotes) parameter to 0 instead of 1. Additionally, you can also try to set "SaveAddedSoundCategories" and "SaveScreenshots" to False.

7) Install Bug Fixes SSE. Fixes some SE engine bugs. In its configuration file (BugFixesSSE.json), disable the Magic Effect Conditions fix (set magicEffectConditions to false instead of true). Pick the proper mod version carefully from the "Files" tab depending on your game version.

8) Install SSEEdit. It's an awesome tool for cleaning your mods, making changes to mod records (like balancing various values up to your taste, deleting conflicting and/or unneeded objects and so on) and more.
Mods may contain "dirty" records and some other issues, and when you have hundreds of mods, that could be a problem and cause crashes. Clean all mods that have dirty records (until it's directly written by mod author to not do that for some reason) and all Skyrim's DLCs (which have [hundreds] of dirty records. Yeah - Betheshda didn't even bother to do this for the game "remaster"). Don't be afraid of it, it's not as hard to use as it may look. Check these awesome video tutorials about it. Also there is a lot of info and videos on its Nexus page.
Note: Make double sure to clean all base game master files (Update.esm and all 3 DLC .esm plugins) - otherwise you'll experience random crashes.

9) Install Wrye Bash. Get the installer version and install it. WB is an amazing and essential tool to achieve maximum possible compatibility between all your mods.
We will use it later in our journey, so just grab it for now. I'll explain it later in the guide :)
Note: If/when you'll be noticing you're clearly going above 255 active .esp plugins limit somewhere still in process of adding more and more mods - refer to step #2 in "actions to be made in the end" section at the deep bottom of the guide.

10) Download zMerge (highly recommended) or Merge Plugins. Yes, Merge Plugins is hosted in Skyrim LE sections and yes, it does work with SE absolutely fine. At the other hand, zMerge works just fine with all mod managers, no just MO2 (big thank you Euphemia for once pointing me on this). You will need this if you'll make really heavy load order and reach the 255 plugins (.esp) limit. By merging mods, you can technically have almost endless amounts of mods installed, so you will be limited only by your PC specs and mods themselves (meaning no using broken/dangerous mods and not overloading your game with script-heavy mods). These tool (once again, zMerge is recommended over Merge Plugins) easily merges plugins into one .esp file, drastically decreasing the total amount of plugins and allowing you to install more and more mods. If using zMerge, also make sure to install this and this.
But why zMerge over Merge Plugins? Simply said, it's more powerful and will allow you to merge more easily compared to Merge Plugins tool. For A to Z simple tutorials about using zMerge or Merge Plugins, watch these tutorials here (for Zmerge) and here (for Merge Plugins).
Note: But what about .esl'fying the mods? It's allegedly a cool feature, so maybe we don't need to merge mods at all anymore? There is a bit more about that - indeed, marking plugins as .esl is a new alternative way of not reaching the 255 plugins limit, but: 1) not all the same mods you can merge can be esl'fied, so sooner or later, you'll eventually need to merge mods anyway 2) esl/ified plugins have some specific bugs 3) Some other mods, especially mods with dynamic patchers (like ASIS, Bashed Patch etc) simply don't recognize .esl plugins properly, meanining that if you'll, let's say, have 200 esl plugins, and then build a Bashed Patch (which is essential for any medium-to-heavy modded game), the changes, whatever those plugins are doing, will be not present in your game with high chance, making them meaningless to begin with. The sooner you'll learn how to merge mods (guide provides assistance with this), the better it will be for you - moreover, as soon as you'll get the basics, you'll see there's nothing to fear at all :3
SOME mods are fine to be used as esls, and if for some of the mods/patches you're using there's no alternative asides of the esl version of its plugin - install it. The explanation/solution to this will is mentioned in the end of the guide.

11) Install [ONE] of these mods: - Alternate Start - Live Another Life
You can also install the optional addons from here , here, here or here) and here ==NEW==. Note: Make sure to get older SE version if you're on SE (1.5.97 game version, or if you're on AE but don't have/don't want to use free CC plugins, you can also juse SE version just fine on AE).
- Skyrim Unbound Reborn
- RASR - Random Alternate Start Reborn
- Realm of Lorkhan - Freeform Alternate Start
- Optional Quick Start
Why you need this? These mods provide wide amount of alternative starts to the game for those who do not wish to go through the lengthy intro sequence at Helgen. The thing is that vanilla start (scene in Helgen) is VERY heavy-scripted. And when you will install let's say, 200+ mods and start a new game, your Skyrim will be very heavy overloaded. And there's very high chance that your game will crash (because the Papyrus, Skyrim's script engine, was [not] updated in SE and it's same clunky and limited), even if the game itself is absolutely stable. And now these mods save the day! You can just skip this heavy-scripted scene and start anywhere you like. Besides, they have a really wide amount of alternative start, great for roleplay.
Which one to use, what is the difference? Long story short, ASLAL provides more "roleplay-wise" starts - you will appear in a certain cell, depending on your start option choice, and also has plenty of additional start options addons.
Unbound will spawn you randomly, so less "immersive" start, but it allows you highly adjustable character customization (gear, spells etc) which ASLAL doesn't, and the most important - it allows you to play as NON-Dragonborn (but you can "become" it in MCM anytime), which is really a great option.
RASR is somewhat like a mix of these two, a pretty underrated gem and Realm of Lorkhan is a really fresh and unique alternate start mod, which may look note quite "lore-friendly" to some players, but it's really well-designed and give you very interesting starting choices for your character class and even curses - negative attributes to balance class bonuses (if you want so, all these features are entirely optional - my only 2 cents about it is that some class bonuses are still somewhat too strong even with curses, so you may want to adjust them in SSEEdit, which is very simple). Note: Previously, Realm of Lorkhan had a feature that places a number of magical shards around Skyrim worldspace, which you could use to teleport back to the realm at will. This feature was arguable for some players in terms of immersion, and can also potentially result in clipping in those areas for people with heavy-modded games. But if you want to have those, use this patch ==NEW== to return them.
Optional Quick Start is a super-simple alternative, which is not quite "alternate start" mod, but rather "skip Helgen into" one.

12) Install Backported Plugins Support This mod is optional, but a must have if you're on SE (1.5.97) or one of not latest AE versions. Not needed if you're on latest AE version. It will allow the game to properly load new plugin subtype added by Bethesda, by these game versions.

13) Get the Cathedral Assets Optimizer This step is optional. Easy-to-use tool to convert meshes/textures from LE to SE (and backwards as well). This tool will help you to have the best from both game version in terms of such kind of mods.

14) [Optional] - try Disc Cache Enabler This step is optional. Use disk cache for IO for less disk activity and improve performance if Skyrim is installed on HDD. If you're playing on SSD, there won't be much difference, most likely (or just a bit) - but for HDD, this one can result into noticeably improved performance depending on your PC specs. If you're on AE, get the first (top) main file. If you're on SE or VR, get the "Universal" one from Archived Files.

15) Disable autoupdates for your Skyrim. At this point, game updates don't bring anything useful (usually, it's just an info about new paid CC content or such tiny bugfixes you likely never even know those existed in first turn), but also often (almost always) break mods. Hence, it's strongly recommended to disable autoupdates - it's easy to do in a pinpoint way for this game only, and you can disable this anytime.
Go your Steam directory (if you have multiple on your PC - to the one that has Skyrim in it), and then go into "steamapps" folder. Here, in addition to several folders, you will see plenty of "appmanifest" files. Find the "appmanifest_489830" file. Right click on it and simply set "read only" status in general settings. Apply changes and click OK. That's it - now, when yet another game update will be released, Steam will be not able to update your Skyrim until you manually uncheck this option.

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of these mods:

Female overhauls.

Bijin Warmaidens Also install this lil fix . Bijin NPCs Also grab a fix . Bijin Wives Legendary mods that beautify many memorable female characters. My personal favorite between all similar mods for named characters, an essential mod series for me personally. You may also be interested in alternative look addon for Lydia, Aela and Ria, as well as in "customizers" for warmaidens, NPCs and wives respectively.

Now just a minute of your attention to our best bae, Serana (and her family):

Seranaholic Amazing overhaul of Serana with several different versions and options, also offering Valerica overhaul (Files tab). From the author of Bijin series. I'm using this one for Serana and Valerica. Superb Serana Pandorable's Serana My personal #2 favorite. Optional "hood + hair" patch available. Simply Serana Serana Re-Imagined Kalilies Serana Serana and Claire Also offers a standalone follower version with different character name (if you like this look, but also want original Serana affected by another mod). Serana no ESP Pandorable's Valerica ThePurpleTie1's Volkihar Family Redone Refined Volkihars - Serana Valerica Harkon

Ok, let's continue.

Pandorable's NPCs A really great female overhaul which has a good balance between attractiveness and "not too much". Its another huge advantage is it's fully compatible with whole Bijin series, covering only NPCs not touched by Bijin mods. Vahdin - Female Npc Replacer A spice of life mod for female npcs. Skyrim Beautiful Followers This mod is definitely not much lore-friendly, but it covers just huge amount of NPCs and the quality is actually good. Take into account you need to install Skyrim LE version of the mod first, and then overwrite its .esp file with this one. The Ordinary Women A great alternative if you don't like Bijin mod series. It also covers some NPCs not covered by Bijin, so you can use both together, with load order depending on your preference. Optional hair physics version available. Courageous Women - High Poly Head Female NPC Overhaul A female NPC overhaul of over a hundred!! NPCs using High Poly Head. AIO FOMOD installer with separate texture resolutions and warpaint or not warpaint choice. Kalilies NPCs Changes the appearance of 59 female NPCs. Nightmarezone profile For a plenty unique replaces for popular (mostly, but not limited to) female NPCs. Serkethetyt profile ==NEW== For a few unusual (as for how mods usually do it) and beautiful overhauls for both body and faces for some of most notable (mostly, but not exclusively) female NPCs like Serana, Aela, Lydia etc. Fresh Faces A small NPC overhaul mod with own approach to some female NPCs look. Metalsabers Beautiful Orcs of Skyrim Dedicated and pretty good overhaul for female orc characters. Take into account that it uses [your] skin & eyes mods, so end result may vary. Metalsabers Elegant Elves of Skyrim Similar overhaul for female elves, from the same author. GLAM Karliah A visual overhaul of a fellow nightingale. SavrenX Aela BloodMoon - SerketHetyt's Aela Overhaul Aela The Huntress Replacer ==NEW== Mjoll The Lioness Replacer ==NEW== Thieves Guild - Vex Tonilia Sapphire Visual Replacer ==NEW== A visual overhaul for Vex, Tonilia and Sapphire. WeelBones profile ==NEW== For truly unique facial and equipment overhauls for several memorable secondary characters in the game such as Irileth, Mirabelle Ervine and some others. Mature Mamas of Skyrim Initially this mod adds a few generic female followers, but also makes a really nice mature appearance overhaul of Delphine which you can get. Camilla Valerius Overhaul SavrenX Ysolda Aesthetic Elisif Give your future High Queen the facelift she needs. The Wolven Widow - SerketHetyt's Elisif Overhaul Hathaway - High Poly Replacer of Elisif A replacer turning Elisif and Laila into Anne Hathaway. Because why not? Skyrim Ladies - Astrid A really well-made Astrid overhaul. Sensual Hagraven - A Hagraven Replacer A more "humane" and "witchy" hagravens replacer, giving many of them unique look.

Male overhauls.

The Men of Winter You may also like this addon for it. Pandorable's NPCs - Males Pandorable's NPCs - Males 2 Pandorable's NPCs - Males 3 To me personally, these mods are the ones to-go for duderinos upgrade. Dx's Better Men of Skyrim Alternative mod for some of promiment skyrim guys. Distinct Husbands A visual overhaul of the male spouses. PoeticAnt44 profile For various male visual overhauls (and presets). The Handsome Courier Immersive Courier Vander Nightbrook - Courier Replacer An amazing mod which provides a fully voiced courier replacer with a visual overhaul as well. Dapper Deliveries - A Courier Overhaul One more makeover mod for Skyrim's favorite delivery boy. Wolf Twins - Vilkas and Farkas Replacers Get the mod from the Files tab. TDN Improved Lucien - Spectral Assassin Replacer Lucien in the best shape!

Mods covering both guys and gals.

Pandorable's NPCs - Dawnguard From the authoress of Pandorable NPCs mod, here goes her beautiful overhaul for many female and male Dawnguard DLC characters. Patch for Immersive Fort Dawnguard here . Pandorable's NPCs - Dragonborn Hold on to your hats, we're going to Solstheim. Inhabitants of Skyrim - NPC Overhaul Really great coverage and close-to-vanilla look in most of cases. Pandorable's Heroes of Sovngarde Because dead people deserve to be pretty too. Another gem from talented Pandorable. Followers Hirelings and Housecarls Pretty much stands for its name - changes several dozens of NPCs, with a big care about original look. Distinct People Another big-covering overhaul. Take into account though that it requires KS Hairdos and also uses whatever skin/eyes mods you have, so the end result may vary. Realistic faces Around 80 NPCs altered, with new hairs and better skin look, while also trying to stick close to original appearance. Improved Bards Standalone mod that replaces the appearance of the bards across Skyrim. Pandorable's Initiates A replacer for the two Dark Brotherhood Initiates. I recommend the "custom voices" version. Pandorable profile For several other nice overhauls for various nameless NPCs. AnnAccident profile For truly unique looks for either some notable groups of NPCs (Volkihar NPCs, civil war notable NPCs) or notable single NPCs like Miraak. Elevated NPCs Tragedian profile For a lots of middle-sized NPC overhauls for factions, followers and more. Now also for mod-added NPCs. DylanJamesWasTaken profile Various visual overhauls of different NPCs in cities, and companions. Jarls Re-Imagined Redux Children of the Green - A Bosmer NPC Overhaul ==NEW== Overhauls the appearance of every named Vanilla Bosmer NPCs. Southpawe profile For a few more high-poly NPC overhauls. eeekie's Enhanced NPCs Unique-looking, realistic NPC replacers. Project ja-Kha'jay- Khajiit NPC Diversity Overhaul This mod overhauls the looks of named Khajiit to add some (lore-friendly!) diversity. An absolute must-have, imo. Note: while being a visual overhaul and thus located in this section, it's recommended to install it after you'll finish the "Animations" section of the guide. Some patches here. Children of the Hist - An Argonian NPC Overhaul An overhaul of a great quality that changes all Argonian NPCs look, from the author of the mod above.

Children overhauls.

HUD overhauls and various massive UI additions:

SkyHUD Toggle HUD elements on or off, scale sizes, change positions and swap elements with alternative version. Features dot crosshair, slim compass, alternate ammo display, detached compass markers and built-in support for font mods. Dear Diary - Paper SkyUI Menus Replacer Journal, Inventory, MCM, Favorites etc, a "paper" interface replacer and my personal favourite between similar mods. Optional "dark" skin is available here (+ a reskin for it here), main menu replacers ), "wood and paper" skin here and mod-added weapon icons patch here . Horizons UI Remake - User Interface Overhaul ==NEW== A complete dark fantasy user interface reskin. Improved remake of the original mod. Somewhat similar to Dear Diary Dark Mode, but with an own style. Outlander UI II Modern minimal-fantasy UI skin with a focus on visibility and clarity. Improved version of the original mod. Less Intrusive HUD II Less Intrusive HUD II allows you to tweak / change pretty much every element in the vanilla HUD straight in game. Paper HUD - Director's Cut A personalised version of Paper HUD, including remade higher-res images and some tweaks. Designed to compliment book UI mods such as Dear Diary. Customizable UI Replacer Absolutely amazing mod. Are you bored of default Skyrim UI look? Wanna have better control over your widgets? Various presets available - you can make your UI to look like UI in Dark Souls, ESO and so on. Compact HUD Moves most of the HUD elements at the bottom left corner of the screen and joins them together. Next Gen Modern UI - Interface Overhau Probably my favourite UI overhaul on pair with Dear Diary. Clear UI Modern, glassy UI replacer for SkyUI, also with a support for ultrawide resolutions. moreHUD Adds more information to the HUD about the currently targeted object, such as ingredients, weapon effects, potions, read books, v/w, enemy level etc. Note: Latest mod version makes "Display Enemy Level" mod (below) not much needed if you have this mod. moreHUD Inventory Edition Similar mod for inventory items. A Matter of Time - A HUD clock widget This mod adds a clock to the HUD showing the current time of day and more. Widget Mod A mod to show various information on HUD via widgets. TrueHUD - HUD Additions HUD additions - heavily customizable actor info bars, boss bars, player widget, recent loot log and an API for other plugins to use. Modular and customizable through MCM. Player Combat Parameters A UI addon to display some combat related attributes. Enemy Combat Parameters Skse plugin that displays extra enemy information with an optional beastiary mode to unlock stats as the player kills more of the enemy type. STB_ResistsWidget Adds a widget that shows your resistances and speed.

Description Framework A framework for misc items to have a description in-game. This is useful for mods that add misc items, or if you want to add more flavour to the items from the base game. This mod is a base for other mods to work on it, for instance, adding descriptions to the new quest-related or misc items addes by the mods. If you want this extra UI immersion feature, install this mod first, and then look for the list of mods that are working using it, below.
Note: For the comfort of navigation, ALL related mods are listed here, including mods that are adding description to other mods - meaning that you may have not yet have them installed (for instance, certain quest mods). So return to this subsection when you'll be finishing your mod setup, and see what extra you can grab.

Vanilla item descriptions. With these mods installed, you will have couple thousands of most different base game and DLC items (books, artifacts, contrainers, huge number of misc items etc) having immersive descriptions: Vanilla Item Descriptions Weapons Have Description Armors Have Description Blurbs of Skyrim Mythos of Skyrim - Immersive Artifact Descriptions Food and Drink Have Descriptions Scrolls Have Descriptions All Keys Descriptions Dark Descriptions This one is pretty optional one as description are untrivial.

Descriptions for various mod-added items (require such mods to be installed, ofc - return to this part when you'll be finishing your mod setup): Descriptions for Various Mods Huge work that provides description for items from nearly 200 mods. FOMOD installer provided. Note: Choose one of the main files, not both. Difference between them is pretty much self-explanatory. Legacy of The Dragonborn - Item Descriptions CS' Campfire Item Descriptions Note: If you are/will be using Campsite mod (lite alternative to Campfire) - "Descriptions for Various Mods" above supports it.

Fonts:

Loading screens:

Pause Menu After Load Screens Uses a custom menu to force the game to pause fully after loading screens. After receving any key input it will automatically close the pause screen and continue the game instantly. Improved Loading Screen Colors Removes tint, contrast and saturation altering effects that are applied to loading screens, so that loading screens appear in their original colors. Most noticeable when using image based loading screens. Load Screen Shading Fix Many Bethesda loading screens uses model space normal map textures on meshes that don't have skinned transforms, causing an incorrect shading (read - lighting and colors), which is fixed by this mod. Lore-Based Loading Screens Adds 160+ new loading screens steeped in Tamrielic lore. Become deeper immersed in the Elder Scrolls mythos with tons of quotes from in-game books (from Skyrim and past Elder Scrolls titles), history, mythology, and little-known facts about the world of Tamriel. Oblivion-like Loading Menu Absolutely beautiful work. TESG Loadscreen Replacer - SSE Port Replaces the loading screens in Skyrim with 205 screenshots that have been processed to resemble paintings. Nexus Loading Screens Reborn Mod adds 62 new loading screens for your game made from beautiful community screenshots. iLuvLoading Loadscreen & main menu replacer mod (200 new HD Loading screens, mostly adult). Lore-Friendly Load Screen Compendium 410 high-quality, lore-friendly loading screens from ESL, ESO, Skyrim concept art, and independent artists for 16:9 and 21:9 aspect ratios. The Elder Scrolls Legends - Loading Screens Adds 56 high quality and lore friendly artworks from "The Elder Scrolls: Legends" as loading screens. Works as a vanilla replacer and alongside vanilla loading screens. Starlit Lakes Loading Screens A collection of 100 new loading screens, accompanied by various snippets of Tamrielic and Skyrim-oriented lore. Immersive The Elder Scrolls Lore Loading Screen Simple Load Screens Loading screen mod which is made as a combination of assets from 2 loading screen mods mods above. Immersive Load Screen Message Overhaul Grammar and context fixes for loading screen texts. Compatible with most load screen image replacers above. Edits Skyrim's load screen messages to offer full immersion and better cohesion with mods. No more irrelevant gameplay tips. Loading Menu Overhaul ==NEW== A lightweight SKSE plugin that revamps Skyrim's Loading Menu, letting you swipe through load screen messages. Compatible with all load screen replacers. Optional reskin addon for it here.

Main menu visual/audio replacers:

Everything else:

FileAccess Interface for Skyrim SE Scripts - FISSES This mod itself doesn't do anything, but you'll need it for many other UI mods to be able to make interfance presets, which is very useful. Latest Skyrim AE version patch here. UIExtensions Adds various custom menus to Skyrim for modder use. Needed for some other complex mods - if mods you wanna use don't require it, you can skip it. JContainers Another "core" mod required for some other mods below.
Constellations Retextured + Constellations Retextured The DLC
Absolutely stunning rework of skills constellations appearance.
Skyrim SE Skill Interface Re-Texture This mod is a collection of many options for new textures that you can pick and choose to replace the vanilla skill interface textures. Ethereal Skill Menu Overhaul Overhauls and retextures the skill menu interface to a darker fantasy style. iActivate Immersive Activate removes the small icon and adjacent text that indicates what action is available when activating an object, whether it is talking to a person, opening a door, searching a chest or what have you. This mod helps improves immersion by suppressing the notion that you are playing a game. Clean Dot Crosshair with optional new Sneak Eye Minimalistic dot crosshair. Patches for popular HUD mods available. Oblivion Interaction Icons Adds custom icons to world interactions like "Talk", "Harvest", "Sleep", "Activate," inspired by Oblivion. Note: this mod serves literally the opposite functions of what iActivate does, so don't use both together. Also read the mod page for compatibility with some other popular UI mods. AH Hotkeys - Skyrim Hotkey Manager Superior hotkey manager mod. The objective of it is to allow anything that can be equipped to be hotkeyed, including sets of equipment, and to enable autocasting of spells and shouts. Equip Sets can contain weapons, armour, clothing, spells, shouts, powers, scrolls, potions, food, ingredients and other equip sets. Serio's Cycle Hotkeys Pretty useful and simple hotkeys mod. Favorites Menu Effects Description ==NEW== Displays effects description for Spells, Potions, Food, and Enchanted Weapons directly in the Favorites Menu. Inventory Interface Information Injector Inserts interesting information, including item icons, into inventory interface. Spinning Load Screens Load screen models automatically spin without a need to rotate them manually with your mouse. True Armour Rating Changes Skyrim's displayed armour rating to a true, percentage-based one, as it was done in Oblivion. Infinity UI This SKSE plugin aims to put an end to incompatibilities between UI mods with an easy-to-use framework, allowing customization per UI element. Informed Mail Delivery Displays the names of delivered items. Disease Pop Up Alerts Pops up a message box alert when you contract a disease. Highly compatible in MCM. Casting Bar Progress bar for spell casting similar to MMOs. Optional HUD variant here. Fishing Map Markers Adds map markers for exterior fishing sites. Smaller Vanilla Cursors If default size bothers you. Also make sure to checkout ElSopa profile once again - he has some other neat little UI mods. Unread Books Glow With MCM Simple as that. An essential addition for bookworms. Now with MCM. You can also watch a showcase of it here. Favorite Things - Extended Favorites Menu for SkyUI This mod improves your experience with Favorites quick menu. Faster scrolling, more entries, longer entry texts etc. Better SkyUI Config - Smart sorting by type Makes SkyUI sorting smarter, so you don't need to change the sorting of different views when you play. Equipped items always on top, all items/spells by type, effects by time etc Dialogue Interface ReShaped A complete redesign of the dialogue interface. More immersion with fixed controls. Minimal Oblivion Dialogue Menu A minimal Oblivion dialogue menu. Clean, simple and it just works. Convenient Dialogue UI Quality of life improvements for the dialogue menu: Better dialogue controls, number keys to select topics, more topics displayed, configurable list and NPC name position, different skins. Ultrawide compatible. Convenient Reading UI Quality of life improvements for the book menu: faster pages animation, configurable text size and configurable bottom bar. Simple Colored Map Markers Mod recolors quest markers to orange and player markers to green to be distinctive from the others. Simple No-Spoiler Quest Alert For Map Markers Adds a * (and nothing else) to both ends of any map marker whose dungeon is used for a non-radiant quest. This allows you to avoid the location until on the appropriate quest, without spoiling anything else in the process. Remove Menu Blur Removes radial blur and depth of field in menus. Body Slots - SkyUI Adds a column named Slots to the Inventory, Trade, Gift and Trading Menu. Note: Install the polished version from uranreactor, look for the download link in comments. Viewable Faction Ranks Yup. No More Creation Club News Duck CC? Get this mod. No Compass In Dialogue Toggles the compass off during dialogue for extra immersion. Also includes an MCM and hotkey for manually toggling the compass. Multiple Subtitles See more than one subtitles line when NPCs are talking. Use or Take SKSE SKSE plugin that allows you to use/equip/eat/drink OR take items. Read ot Take SKSE Similar mod, but for books. Oxygen Meter 2 Adds an oxygen meter, when underwater. SKSE plugin. Improved version of the original mod. HitMarker ==NEW== Shows a "X" mark at your crosshair when you hit a valid target for a short period of time. Dragonborn Reskin - Compass and Weather ==NEW== Compass reskin with new weather and enemy icons. Dynamic Location Pop-ups ==NEW== Displays location name with music jingle when entering already discovered locations. More Colorful UI ==NEW== SKSE plugin that adds color to words you see when you interact with stuff. Talk, Pickpocket, Steal, Sleep, ect. Show NPC Disposition Relationship Rank Show NPC's relationship rank with the player in dialog menu. Constructible Object Custom Keyword System If you craft a lot in your walkthrough, that's a mod for you. Constructible Object Custom Keyword System Improves the usability of the Constructible Object Menu with SkyUI with an extensible keyword-based category system. Note: if you're modding SE (1.5.97), make sure to overwrite mod files with this. Complete Widescreen Fix for Vanilla and SkyUI Widescreen monitor owners, grab this mod. Smaller Map Markers for SkyUI If you also think SkyUI's map icons are way too big, this mod is for you. Choose one version (the "widescreen" ones are meant to be used with the "Complete Widescreen Fix for Vanilla and SkyUI" mod above). Local Map Color Exactly what it says. Weathered Cursor Exactly. I4 - SkyUI Weapons Pack Adds 11 unique icon/types to SkyUI, includes Spear, Javelin, Pike, Halberd, Rapier, Quarterstaff, Claw, Whip, Scythe, Katana, Gun. Note: You need this mod mostly only if you'll be using weapon mods adding these weapon types. Serves close to 0 use in vanilla. Updated version of the original mod with improved compatibility. Note: not needed if you're using Dear Diary mod. SkyUI - Better Favorite Menu Increases the size and capacity of SkyUI's favorite menu. SkyUI Item Card Fixes Mod attempts to fix sometimes happening non-uniformed alignment, size, positioning and general inconsistencies on a lot the information on the item card interface. Easy Wheelmenu II A wheelmenu to make various skills and features from other mods available with a single key. Updated version of an original mod, with more functions.

Take into account that you shouldn't just install all the mods in this section. Moreover, statistics shows that one almost never finish all those dozens of quest mods installed in a single walkthrough. It's recommended to get up to 4-6 big quest/new land mods and a few smaller ones.
Now, first of all, a few mods which are not directly adding new quests but rather affect quest-related aspects of gameplay in general, QOL for questing to say so:

Quest NPCs Run

Now, to the quest and new land mods themselves. Massive to medium sized mods - where each one can give you from a few up to dosens hours of walkthrough/exploration.

Project AHO A pretty new and must-play quest mod. Don't you even dare to skip it. Let me explain (you can also watch my video review of it): If I would make my "Top 10 Quest Mods" video today, Project AHO definitelly would be in the list of 5 best quest mods ever made. Everything in this mod is just amazing - breathtaking detective storyline with multiple endings, brilliant voice acting, stunningly beautiful worldspace design and a lot of puns and references at the same time. I never felt such a deep and detailed recreation of Morrowind vibes as in this mod. Try it for sure! Also, you may be interested in this small fix , improved meshes patch, improved custom textures, new Telvanni-inspired weapons, some spell mods patches , SkyTest patch , and finally, Security Overhaul patch . The Forgotten City Amazing, dynamic, incredibly detailed! Beautiful, intricately detailed new city to explore. Non-linear story with several endings. Amazing orchestral soundtrack, big community of fully-voiced NPCs with backstories. Discover secrets, mysteries, and relics that are thousands of years old. Enjoy! Install a fix . Also grab the better entrance patch and optionally, delayed start patch and NPCs visual overhaul . The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal Amazing DLC-sized mod for all who like thief gameplay. Beautiful landscapes, amazing questline, dozens of traps and puzzles and finally an ultimate prize - Gray Cowl of Nocturnal (Mask of Gray Fox).
Note: In February 2025, mod author released a "10th anniversary" version of the mod here. The update adds more landscape and clutter details to the mod's area, a few new places and dungeons, as well as various other improvements and corrections to minor issues in the original version of the mod. Use either the original version or the "10th anniversary" one. As for the mod itself, it's clearly better to use the newer version as it looks better visually and offers a bit more content. At the same time, some of the patches and addons listed below may (and most likely will) not work fully/properly with the updated version. So see yourself which one you want to use (the original mod version works just fine as well). Additional patches/addons for it (made for original mod version, may not work properly with anniversary version): HD Textures Pack #1 HD Textures Pack #2 Some popular mods patches installer Alikr Flora Overhaul Betalille's Hammerfell Quests Bundle A bundle of 31 new quests for the mod worldspace. Supreme Sandstorms for The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal and Obsidian Weathers More lore-friendly mask obtaining By Azura! Helgen Reborn Awesome lore-friendly mod for rebuilding Helgen. Fully voiced questline, great story wrapping around civil war and Thalmor. New dungeons, 3 new armor sets, private tower player home. Interactive display room that transforms as you play the game. You may also wanna grab more immersive start patch , improved textures for Keepers of Hattu armor, RS Children patch, CFTO patch, lootable Sigil Stones patch or ICFH patch and Great City of Falkreath patch. VIGILANT Become a vigilant of Stendarr and go through an amazing dark story. This mod is just fantastic, inspired by Dark Souls series in meaning of locations design, but staying in terms of the Elder Scrolls lore at the same time! Amazing dark and creepy locations, hordes of new creatures, giant unique bosses. New unique weapons, rings, lanterns and so on. The only thing is original mod is japanese, but there are links to English and other translations. One of the best ever made for Skyrim, this quest mod is absolutely worth to try - especially now it has the english voiceover addon made by professional and semi-professional voice actors.
Other patches, improvements & addons for it:
Armor retextures pack
Large patch/addon collection
Delayed start patch Fomod installer with many different options.
Greymarch retexture
Better book covers addon
Custom Skills addon (with a proper English translation)
Optional Rebalance Patches
VIGILANT SE - Adjustments and Addons
Magicka Clutch Nerfed
Witch Hunter Armor retexture
Armor of Arkay retexture
Extended music Coldharbour Landscape and Architecture Retexture Umaril retexture Pelinal retexture Jyggalag retexture For all these retextures, make sure to overwrite the armor retexture pack. Molag Bal Dragon Retexture Paper map for Coldharbour
GLENMORIL A WIP (already playable) quest/new land mod from VIGILANT author. Also grab the English translation patch and, optionally, custom skills addon (with a proper English translation), armor retextures and Boetiah shrine improvement . NPC appearance overhaul is also available. Darkend Amazing new land mod inspired by Dark/Demon Souls series. Atmospheric, dark location, very detailed and interesting to explore. New creepy enemies, tough bosses and powerful weapons are waiting. Optional balance patch available. Falskaar One of the most endorsed, old but still really great quest mod. Huge new land with believable level design. Dozens of gameplay hours. Interesting and voiced questline. Amazing soundtracks, new spells/shouts and more. There are also: tweaks and enhancements patches here and here, RS Children patch and Lanters of Skyrim II patch. Wyrmstooth Another amazing and well-known DLC-sized mod with dozens hours of great gameplay and storyline related with dragon hunt...but it's only a beginning! An absolutely qualitative mod of medium size is awaiting for you. Patches/addons: Climates Of Tamriel Compability for Wyrmstooth Dark Forest of Skyrim - Wyrmstooth Wiseman303's Flora Fixes for Wyrmstooth Animated ENB Light patch Unique Weapons Reforged Wyrmstooth - Player House Garden Wyrmstooth Sign Fix Wyrmstooth Thunderchild Patch Wyrmstooth Upscaled Textures Lanters of Skyrim II addon Legacy of the Dragonborn This mod is something unique. It will make you look at your playthrough from the absolute different view. This mod will inspire you to play Skyrim again and again. Mod features: Museum with 2k+ displays, over 100 exploration quests. You can save your museum progress across multiple playthroughs. Displays of visited doomstones, custom paintings, basement store, MCM and (yes!) items from different mods support. 15 new dungeons, new guild - explorers society, transmutation forge. This is only a part of full features list. Visit mod page to read more and of course try it :)
Additional patches/addons for it:

Official patches page Fate Cards Re-texture Paintings Replacer Relic Hunter Addon Start Legacy questline already as a Guild Master (pretty cheating to me, and skipping a joyful gameplay). Temper Replicas for Legacy of the Dragonborn Legacy of the Dragonborn - Followers Patch Upscaled armor textures Armor of the Crusader Retexture Overwrite the upscaled armor texture mod above. Turtle's LoTD Patch Collection Decent amount of patches for some beautiful weapon mods. Turtle's LoTD Ave Patches Patches for Avebrave jewerly mods. Dome retexture Blended Roads Patch Dragonmail Cuirass Enhanced Plaques Retexture Perk Menus ESO Skyshards patch few other quest mod patches Paladin set replacer Pale Pass Extension Museum music replacer Solitude Museum - Unique Artifacts and Item Displays This one is not actually a quest mod, but it belongs here logically as it's a great alternative to LOTD if you only want the functionality of museum itself, without questline involved around and fetch quests.

The Wheels of Lull Note: while the mod was in the guide since its release, lately, Wheels of Lull received a massive update - new content and a FOMOD installer with plenty of fixes and patches to choose from. Check it out!
Awesome questline with a lot of secrets an puzzles, related with TES lore. Five dungeons within the main quest, complete with fleshed out boss battles, and massive, unique locations. A new town, complete with extensive characters. 7 side quests, 10 new weapons, new armors and even a new custom race. The Notice Board Great immersion mod. Radiant quest overhaul and framework. This mod adds new and alternative radiant (and side) quests. It was inspired from other good games like The Witcher which make use of notice boards in their gameplay. Also install this and this . If using the Great Town of Ivarstead, install the patch. Missives A good addition to previous mod if you liked it, or a simplier alternative. Adds a large number of localized radiant quests found at Missive Boards of varying difficulty and with varying rewards. Note: Still has some minor bugs, but mod author is actively updating the mod.
Patches/addons:
Board Retexture
Quest-Aware Notes Addon
Great Cities Oatch
Dawn of Skyrim Patch
CFTO Patch
Few Other Patches
Bigger Trigger Box Patch
Beyond Reach Huge area with the span of ~3 Skyrim Holds, rich detailed. New factions - Arnima, Evermore, The Witchmen, Orsinium's Sons, Dragonstar Mercenaries, The Exiles and The Afflicted. Voiced main quest with backstories as wel as 28 side quests, news spells, armors & weapons, 25 new dungeons. Don't forget to install the improved meshes, fix patch (as well as this, this tiny ones and the missing voice lines fix ==NEW==), and there are some optional patches here and RS Children patch here , CACO/Immersive Sounds/ABT here , and finally, Dark Forests of Skyrim trees addon if needed. The Tools of Kagrenac Go on a quest to recover the legendary Tools of Kagrenac. Encounter new allies and enemies, explore sprawling dungeons and add powerful new artifacts and spells to your arsenal in this new and fully voiced quest mod. Moonpath to Elsweyr Amazing DLC-sized tropical/desert mod that give player a chance to travel into the lands of Elsweyr to explore, survive and enjoy amazing playthrough. It contains dozens of unique locations, new enemies, items, custom follower and a player home. Awesome and absolutely must-play mod. There are also: Unofficial patch for it, improved khajiits look (absolutely essential, imo), a better lighting patch and this neat retexture addon , as well as hyena replacer . Godfred's Tomb A dying man is visited by an ancient ancestor who warns him of a rising evil within a forgotten tomb. In his last days, he puts together an expedition to investigate but they are never heard from again. You are the last hope as you can “get things done.” Descend into the darkness and discover the secrets that lie in Godfred's Tomb. Hestra's Nest Travel deeper into the Reach than you've ever gone before. With custom assets and lively characters, this new lands collaboration is brought to you by the students and teachers of the Arcane University. Isle of Artaeum A huge, vast new land and quest mod. The story is centered around the Psijic Order and their long awaited return to Tamriel. After completing the College of Winterhold you will be allowed to travel to their magical island, and eventually visit their homeland of Summerset. Mod is still in development, so may have some bugs here in there, but they are being fixed on fly. Absolutely incredible work. Elden Root - A Tale Of Valenwood Visit the city of Elden Root and its huge forests around. The Second Great War In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Aldmeri Dominion is stirring. There are rumors of Dominion soldiers close to the border of Cyrodiil and increased numbers of Thalmor agents in the Imperial City. Are you prepared to defend Skyrim once more or are you drawn to the power and promise of the Dominion? Timing Is Everytying patch here . Skygerfall -- Daggerfall's Main Quest in TESV Absolutely titanic work here. A new land mod where you can literally play through the entire Main Quest of TESII: Daggerfall in the TESV engine, at the end of which you can choose to continue your character's adventures in Skyrim, taking all your loot, experience and new spells with you. You can watch a brief showcase here. Invasion of Skyrim - The Force Awakens - Grand Admiral Thrawn Awesome quest mod related with new race arrived in Skyrim, inspired by Star Wars. 15+ armor sets, a unique "quest shell-system" that enables dozens of radiant quests pertaining to the mod to be active at a time, 26+ enchantments, 220+ NPCs, both enemy and ally. Enemies who can cripple you in a number of ways if your combat skills are poor. Enemies are tough, veterans, and skilled combatants. 2+ Worldspaces, 15+ radiant enabled locations, 2 player bases, unique classes and combat AI for every character, many scenes and interactions. Travelling merchants, nasty assassins and much more. A player ranking system among the Resistance. Over a thousand handpicked lines of dialogue that plays both in combat from enemies and followers, and much more. Midwood Isle Travel to beautiful Midwood Isle, a small island home to the Sonmer, filled with quests and adventures. A middle-DLC-like in size. Also take a look on some patches here . If using Wyrmstooth quest mod too, install a patch , and there's also Great City of Solitude patch . You can watch a review here. New Vominheim A new land called Vominheim roughly the size of Solstheim. Features dozens of new locations to discover and explore. Optionally, grab the unique rewards addon . You can also install a new mod from the same author which continues this one, from here. Old Blood A post-Dawnguard expansion, adding new quests that flesh out the ancient war between night and day. Inspired by Vampire: The Masquerade. Also install a fix patch. Note: you must [destroy] Dawnguard to play this mod. SIRENROOT - Deluge of Deceit You and a team of divers are hired to scour ruins at the bottom of Lake Honrich. A dialogue-heavy quest with puzzles, platforming, and a focus on water mechanics. But be wary of the siren’s call. The Shadow of Meresis This mod adds an extensive quest, leading you to various places all over Skyrim. In addition to new locations and dungeons you'll meet new NPCs with more than 200 fully voiced lines of dialogue spoken by three actors, 2-3 hours of gameplay. Mythic Dawn Expansion This mod adds the Mythic Dawn into Skyrim. It includes three path playthroughs known as the Path of Warrior, Shadow, and Necromage. It adds in a main quest. All quests have real-world impacts. Inferno- Advents of Flame Inferno- Envoys of End Inferno- The Blood Marked 3 amazing mods inspired by Dark Souls. Interesting storylines ‘hellish’ cells, gigantic and hard bosses. You’ll remember this journey for sure! Chanterelle - a savage world to explore A world made to be used with survival mods. Huge, no civilization. Can be used to expand the Falkreath forest, four portals between Chanterelle and Falkreath hold. Some merchants specialized in hunt products to help you stay longer here. Nyhus and the border of Cyrodiil Folkstead and the Border of Hammerfell Haafstad and the Border of High Rock Three great mods from the same author that add new regions on borders with the named regions, filled with the level design representing them, new towns, some quests etc. There are also Alternate Start addons for these mods here, here and here respectively. Akavir. The curse of the immortals The players are to go to the southern part of Akavir, and explore a massive, living world. Note: It's pretty bugged atm, but it's expectable with its immense size and still a WIP state - asides of this, that's some really promising new land mod worth to try fo sho. The Lost Wonders of Mzark SE port of a well-known dwemer/puzzle oriented quest mod. Val Serano Purely technically, that's a follower mod in first turn, but it features such a unique, well-made and large questline, that it's placed here in the quest mods section. Val Serano is a custom male follower with over 2,000 professionally voiced lines. A pirate-themed adventure and optional romance as much as a follower mod, Val's story spans 12 new quests, includes a cast of 9 fully voice-acted supporting characters (over 300 lines), familiar faces (fully voiced with over 75 carefully spliced lines), and adds new locations while exploring themes of friendship, betrayal, love, and the cost of ambition. The adventure begins by looting the message in a bottle outside White River Watch. Prince of Lies Ever thought the Whispering Door quest of Mephala in vanilla Skyrim was a little underwhelming? This is a far more suitable quest for such a grand Daedra, set on a completely new island off the coast of Skyrim. It includes 30 new quests to complete, over 50 new voiced NPCs to meet and many new areas to explore. Northpoint A new worldspalce consisting of 4 regions with own weather system, new town, 13 new dungeons, new type of monsters and items, as well as new ingredients, books, notes, and misc items. KAGRENFAHLZ - The Dwemer University Skyrim breathes philosophy, but rarely expresses it. Kagrenfahlz fixes that by giving Tamriel a philosophical tradition. Dovahkin can now finally challenge his or her assumptions and become a critical thinker. This mod adds books, philosophers, quests, dungeons and a new land for you to explore.

Medium to small quest and new lands mods - where a mod will give you up from one to couple hours of walkthrough/exploration.

Carved Brink A true gem of level design - it will take your breath out. Much shorter, but incredibly original, beautiful quest mods with unique worldspace from the same authors. Get the small fix for it. There's also imrproved assets patch , ICFH patch. You can watch my review of it too. Clockwork A brilliant quest mod - somewhat short, but absolutely breathtakingly-written! It was developed about 4 years, and the time spent is totally worth. Amazingly detailed cells design, detective and sometimes disturbing quests with unique creatures involved, while still being pretty lore-friendly. Thrilling journey that will you will definitely like! There's also a plantable addon , immersion patch and ENB particle lights patch and lastly, a large patch that provides both model/texture improvement and optional QOl additions, available as well. Moon and Star Short but great detective story. Interesting questline, 4 side quests, 9 voiced NPCs. New town, weapons and dungeons with new boss fights. Ingame aftermath events that take place after the main quest has been completed. Your actions have consequences! There's also small patch that fixes various minor cosmetic overlooks, better lighting patch and cleaned plugin replacer. Ravengate - Riften Underground Amazing and atmospheric arena/quest mod with challenging bossfights and thrilling characters backstories! Try it for sure, no matter which class you're playing. Konahrik's Accoutrements Make encounters with the named Dragon Priests a more challenging and rewarding experience - meet them in unique dungeon, summon them for challenge and craft unique sets of equipment. A few patches and upscaled textures are available. Konahrik The Priest - A Quest Mod This mod adds a quest to the game that fleshes out the lore behind the Konahrik mask and its eponymous dragon priest, as well as allowing you to upgrade the mask with a better enchantment. That's right, you get to take on the mighty Konahrik himself. Use this mod or the mod above. Spectraverse - Magic of the Magna-Ge Mod adds interesting questline during which you can obtain 42 new destruction spells. Questline is based on TES lore, it has 5 voiced NPCs, 6 locations and 6 quests. There's also a standalone addon which contains only its best (and sometimes rebalanced) spells, plus couple of new ones. Unslaad Quest mod of Half-Dragon. Not much "lore-friendly", but as usual from Vicn - with unique level design and abmbience. Also install voice addon and armor retextures for it and optionally (but recommended though), the delayed start addon. Jayserpa's Quest Expansions & Lil New Quests From the author of the mod above, multiple nice little mods mostly expanding notable vanilla sidequests with more options and possibilities. Take a peek! May also grab a few patches for other mods from here. MadAborModding profile For multiple mods made in similar fashion as Jayserpa's quest expansions, but in a different style. Needless to say that for some of the quests that both authors have covered, you should install only one mod. Heart of the Reach Delve into the depths of an unground swamp in the aid of a priest in order to heal the Heart of the Reach. Legends of Aetherium Explore the lost Dwarven Ruins of Itharzel and hunt down lost custom Aetherium weapons and armours. Sleepwalking Into A Nightmare - New Daedric Prince Quest Adds a new Daedric prince quest where you track down a missing woman, delving into her nightmares and overcoming her fears. Includes, new weapons, equipment and spells. RS Children patch here . Following Mercer So, what did Mercer do with all the stuff he took from the vault? He stored it in his various hideouts all over Skyrim, of course. Now you get to track it all down! Cheesemod for EVERYONE Adds over a hundred new types of cheese, hand-placed in an immersive way throughout Skyrim, and a fully voice-acted quest with Sheogorath. Some patches available. Depths of the Soul - Elden Ring Inspired Quest Mod Depths of the Soul centres around Pike, a dungeon delving merchant who sells vital goods for the ruins ahead. Pike is not a simple or one-dimensional vendor and offers a real motivation for his line of work. Purchasing his good and interacting with him will allow the player to uncover the complex and troubled past that he harbours. Gravewind A quest about a realm lost to myth, an ancient city of ghosts, and a small house in the woods. Includes three new groups of magic, unique boss fights, custom enemies and two endings. Demon of Dream A Daedric quest in which you enter the nightmares of three ex-cultists of Vaermina. Includes nightmare-themed spells, enchanted artifacts, and an Atronach Forge-style trading system. More to do in the Soul Cairn Head into the Soul Cairn and try to help three of its inhabitants, if you can. Travel through the five stages of Grief, find the Chapel of Love and help a mage to find a way out, before they face the Ideal Masters' judgement. The Unbroken Blade - Part One Is the Dragonborn truly worthy of leading the Blades? Uncover the mysterious pasts of those who took part in Skyrim's civil war. Witness how connections are forged and broken in the white-hot heat of conflict. Note: mod currently doesn't have voice acting, only silent dialogues, so make sure to enable dialogue subtitles in game settings. The Welkynar Knight A quest mod to help a knight and fight against the Thalmor. Curse of the Hound Amulet A newcomer requests your help in aiding her to clear out some mysterious new inhabitants of a cave. In this quest discover new enemies, armors, hair, weapons, and more. Blood of the Nord Its a mid-sized quest mod that serves as the opening chapter in a series of plugins that explore the aftermath of Stormcloak victory, including the inevitable war with the Aldmeri Dominion. - Over 500 lines of dialogue - One new weapon - Includes several new dungeons and small worldspaces - The main quest provides roughly 2 hours of gameplay. The Isles Esroniet Isle of Esroniet, without new quests, but just a cool place to explore, some shops, 8 dungeons and new creatures. Warbird's Dwemer Train Stations A vast Dwemer train station network, providing an immersive and fast way to travel around Skyrim and Solstheim. It's practically an underground city, with merchants, inns, guards and travellers. Revenants of the Forbidden Order A brief non-scripted quest that leads to a fun boss battle with a nice glimpse in the history of the armor and characters. Lagoon - Skyrim Tropical Island MOD Beatiful tropical place - made mostly for screenshots though. The Grand Paladin (Remake) Journey beyond Skyrim and uncover the legacy of the ancient Dragonborn order in this small 70 to 100 minutes DLC. A remake/improvement of the same-named mod from its author. The Final Cataclysm From the author of previous mod. An end-game quest that will take you beyond Tamriel, and the 4th era. Voyage to the Dreamborne Isles Amazingly detailed new land mod. Beautiful for exploration and screenshots plus a short questline. Improvement patch here. Jurgholm A late game multi-cell dungeon with a questline. Shadows Of The Past An underrated little gem, paying a tribute to TES IV: Oblivion. The Secrets of Arc Cyrae The story of a young bosmer and adds new dungeons, characters, followers, quests and a player home to the game. Blood on the Ice Redux Ever wanted to catch the Butcher before he kills again? Then this is your mod. If you want some AI generated VA for the new lines, also intsall this. Finding Susanna Alive - A Blood on the Ice Trigger Revision This mod changes how Blood on the Ice is triggered to ensure that you'll be able to meet Susanna the Wicked alive and well in Candlehearth Hall before the Butcher strikes. The DoubtSuspended Quest Pack A pack of quests mods - each one is small, yet absolutely incredibly immersive and feels like a native part of game. Fortune's Tradehouse One more neat little quest mod from the same author. The Enemy Of My Enemy A quest/battle mods wrapping aroud the war events, with massive battles. Rest In Peace Katria Didn't like to see Katria's body staying behind in that ruin? Now you can honor her by bury her body so she can rest forever. Into the Abyss A new DLC sized adventure including multiple locations, bosses plus equipment with places and lore inspired by other Elder Scrolls games. AE version here. Return Aegisbane Who needs an old Iron Warhammer anyway? Adds the option to return Aegisbane to it's rightful owners... Or tell them that you're claiming it as your own. Betrayal at Hrothgar Resolve the civil war once and for all during the Hrothgar peace talks. Revealing Rune Rune of the Thieves Guild has always felt like he was meant to have some sort of story or quest. But alas, hours of searching along the coast of Solitude will yield no results. Well, that is until now! Help Rune search for information on his past and discover what happened to his parents. Miasma ==NEW== Venture through the Ashlands of Solstheim as you assist a member of Argonia's An-Xileel in taking down a rogue Telvanni wizard. The quest features new locations, a temporary companion, and plenty of spells and equipment for the player to find throughout the story. Haunter of Skyggenborg ==NEW== Inspired by games like Amnesia, this mod will see the player venturing into the heart of an old isolated castle, while simultaneously trying to uncover it's dark mysteries. The Haven From The Cold And Dark Beautiful new land mod that adds a set of Green Bosmer islands that are located between the Summerset Isles and Hammerfell. Player home, many shops and vendors, bath house and inn, many NPCs and guards. Working map and LOD and many beautiful places to explore/take screenshots. Order of Aetherius ==NEW== A mages guildhall and faction location between Whiterun and Ivarstead with five followers, miscellaneous quests, custom dialogue lines and sevearl other unique features. Extra player homes addon available here. The Island Shipwrecked off the coast of an unknown island, you must survive while searching for a way off the island and on to Skyrim. While searching for a way off you may discover an ancient Dwemer city and other ruins lost to time. Finding Velehk Sain This mod creates additional content surrounding the strange gauntlet in the Midden Dark, as well as the four missing Apprentices from the College of Winterhold. It Beats For Her A mystery tale set in Falkreath. You receive a note from a stranger who recruits you in his quest to find and stop a dangerous predator. But is it really a simple monster hunt or is there more to the story? Merte's The McMiller Chronicles Running a few errands for the merchant Angus McMiller results in a quest of deceit, revenge and treasure. Fully-voiced. Also recommended to install a lil patch for it. Defy the Gardener Gives the player another way to learn the final Word of Power of the Bend Will Shout. Storn lives, and you can also claim a new Black Book for your own. Savos Aren's Regrets Restored - Cut Content Restoration This mod restores cut content from the quest "The Staff of Magnus". The cut content consists of 7 scenes with Savos ghost, that will play after the visions scene of the past. Nimwraith profile ==NEW== For dozens of (usually) small, short, but well-written and fully voiced quest mods with different topics, often inspired by a different universes like The Witcher, Lovecraftian stories and others. Dark Destiny - Become a Vampire Unwillingly A short, fully voiced quest in which the player is captured and turned into a vampire against their will. DAc0da ==NEW== A medium-sized quest mod from the author of VIGILANT. Text English translation here and AI voiceover addon here. Additionally, you may be interested in a delayed start patch , Lux patch (make sure to get and English version) and Wintercaller replacer ==NEW==. The Wheel of Time Based on the fantasy book series "The Wheel of Time" this mod adds the follower Aviendha and Wheel of Time related quests. The Chain of Time Head to the islands of the Chain and help the inhabitants figure out what happened to their land. A small new lands mod, fully voice-acted, with 11 side quests and a main quest split in 3 quests. Anomaly - Lingering Darkness Enter a hidden valley in search of a lost Dwemer power. Defeat the Dragon Cult This mod aims the expand the later half of the main quest by giving the Dragonborn a reason to fight and kill all of the Dragon Priests in Skyrim before facing Alduin at the Throat of the World. Harthstone Isles This small archipelago might've remained undiscovered for all time, if the East Empire Company hadn't stumbled over it when a drunk captain took a wrong turn starboard on their way to Roscrea. The Legend of Slender Man- Daunting Scars from Childhood For generations, the legend of Slender Man has been used in Falkreath to scare naughty children, teaching them not to disobey their parents. Stories of a tall, pale gaunt creature that kidnaps children in the forest, which are never seen again. But every legend has a grain of truth, and it can be far more macabre than a simple child-eating monster. Runic Dawnguard - Separated Lost Relic Questline Splits the Lost Relic radiant questline into a separate, parallel questline like Ancient Technology, making it reasonable to get all Dawnguard Rune artifacts. Missing in Action Delayed Missing in Action is a mess in both writing and gameplay. Mod adds an extra condition to start the quest so that at least you have to be the Dragonborn to see the scene in Whiterun's market. Vittorias Alternate Wedding This mod allows you to attend Vittoria's Vici wedding, after (if) you destroy the Dark Brotherhood. Some patches here . Markarth - Help the Warrens and A Cure for Cairine Skyrim is a harsh place, but few places are as depressing as the Warrens of Markarth. Have you ever wished you could help? Now you can! Somebody Else's Problem - Ignore the Forsworn Conspiracy Tell Eltrys you want nothing to do with the violent conspiracy the guard is clearly trying to suppress. You have to take care of yourself first, of course. Plenty of Pendants - Completable Pain in the Necklace Makes Pain in the Necklace a non-Misc quest, prevents respawn of pendants, adds map markers, and provides a small bonus for completing the questline. Leaps of Faith - A Misc Quest Simple mod that adds yet another fun activity for your character to do in the world: 12 epic "Leaps of Faith" across Skyrim for you to discover and complete as you play. Jumping from one of these places will play a custom jumping and falling animation and give you a small (well-earned) bonus. You can also watch a showcase of it here. Fists of Fury - Skyrim Brawl against some of Skyrim's fiercest fighters and become Skyrim's finest brawler. LUX patch here . Unmasking Sybille "Somethin' just ain't right about that Sybille. You know I've never seen her eat a thing? That can't be natural." The Court Wizard of Solitude, Sybille Stentor, has a secret. It's up to you to find out what it is. Investigate her deeds and decide her fate. Here There Be Monsters - Sign of Cipactli Travel to the southern shores of Black Marsh on the hunt for a giant monster, revered by the Argonians as a god. Here There Be Monsters - The Call Of Cthulhu Continue the hunt as you face terrible creatures from beyond the stars, and unravel a terrifying plot to consume Mundus and return it all to the Void. Here There Be Monsters - Trollhunter Go on the hunt for a man named Hans, the Trollhunter, and take up his quest to rid the world of five gigantic trolls before they awaken and destroy Skyrim! Isobel and The Adventurers Guild Join the Adventurer’s Guild and help the bright eye’d Isobel Sirulius as you two set out in search of ancient artifacts, piles of treasure, and explore forgotten ruins. You can also watch a showcase of it here. There Is No Umbra - Chapter III A quest mod where storyline is focused entirely on Daumbra: the newest incarnation of the cursed sword Umbra. Note: There's no "Chapter I/II" listed here separately as both are included in this mod. Axis1211 profile For multiple "thanedom/hamlets of" mods, a series of building/small settlemenets additions to various Skyrim regions. Mostly purely cosmetic, to make the regions feel more lively. Siege at Icemoth A small scale vanilla-esque new lands mod adding some new islands with new locations and dungeons in the Sea of Ghosts. As well as some unique items from The Elder Scrolls Blades. Glamoril - The Maze of Labyrinthian Shalidor the Archmage was famous for his exploits in the First Era. Various tales tell of him battling Dwemer legions single-handedly, building the city of Winterhold with a whispered spell, stealing the secret of life from Akatosh, or constructing Labyrinthian himself. Find the source of his power and unveil the secrets of the Glamoril. Primeval Real Estate In the foothills of The Throat of the World, the young Gundar has run into a bit of trouble. A wall has fallen apart in his basement revealing a vast dungeon. What lies within? Gold? Glory? Or something deep, dark, and powerful? He needs you to plunge in and unveil the truth.

First a few simple mods that expands/improves some vanilla dungeons:

The Midden - Expanded A quality dungeon and house mod that greatly expands the College Midden, with minimal changes to existing areas. A new lore-friendly player home serves as a hub for new dungeons. 100% compatible with Immersive College of Winterhold. Get the ESM version of the mod from Misc Files (main file itself is not needed). Dwemer Network Connects all of Skyrim's dwarven ruins to Blackreach, plus a few bonus features. The doors are placed in such way that they don't break any quests or give early access to dungeons. Streamlined Bleak Falls Barrow and Golden Claw For those who are making the Nth run of the game, this mod adds a trapdoor leading to the area with the word wall, but also adds the golden claw to the same area, saving you the trouble of going back to save Arvel. Hardcore Ansilvund This mod adds many draugrs and enemy wizards, and it also improves the ghost blade. The Chill - Expanded A small expansion to The Chill. Shroud Hearth Barrow Reloaded A bit more interesting in terms of enemies now. Dungeons - Revisited Overhauls and enhances Skyrim's dungeons. Doubles the size of most dungeons and makes them much more interesting to visit. Currently covered dungeons are: Bleak Falls Barrow, Ustengrav, Embershard Mine, Steepfall Burrow, Halted Stream Camp, White River Watch, Hillgrund's Tomb. You can also grab them separately from author's profile.
Note: take into account that mod design is kinda similar to how dungeons were made in TES Daggerfall - dungeons affected by this mod becoming quite "maze"-like. This can be a double-edged sword for different people depending on the preference, so think if that's your kind of fruit before installing it. Blackreach - Clockwork City An incredibly scenic enhancement for the Blackreach cavern and Silent City. snozz2004 profile ==NEW== For several dungeon overhauls. Mostly visual, with some new enemies added. Immersive Winterhold Jail Transforms Winterhold Jail into a full-fledged location to explore, a small dungeon prison it always had to be. Now Winterhold Jail is more than three cages standing in the middle of an ice cave.

Now, plenty of great mods that adds new dungeons of different type. First let's see some dungeon "packs" that add several or more dungeons:

Skyrim Underground One of the most amazing dungeon mods I ever played! An underground dungeon system with currently 43 large and 26 small cells. Tunnels are connecting different Skyrim cities. Also constantly updated. Amazing design, dark atmosphere, tonns of new, creepy creatures to fight and just HUGE size in total. In my opinion, this mod is absolutely must-have. Also install the textures upscale for it. Skyrim Sewers 4 Mod adds an accessible sewers system to the town of Solitude, Whiterun, Windhelm and Markarth and also small sewage tunnels to Fort Sungard and Greenwall + new custom weapons and unique books. There's an Outlaws Refugees patch available. Hammet's Dungeon Pack 1 A great dungeon pack currently having 31 new dungeons in Skyrim and Soltheim. Dungeons in this pack are mostly oriented on high-level characters with level 40 and higher. Radiant-quest enabled. Some of dungeons contain new items and spellbooks. Optionally (but recommended), get the unique rewards addon. Hammet Dungeon Pack 2 The second iteration of the combined dungeon mods from the same author. Unique rewards addon here. EasierRider's Dungeon Pack Adds 7 new, lore-friendly dungeons around Skyrim, with absolutely amazing dungeon design - plus, as it's pretty small amount of dungeons in it, you can use it freely with one of the few mods above (using all is too much, imo - you don't want to stumble across a new dungeons each 5 minutes of gameplay, I believe). Also optionally (but recommended) install this . Luftahraan Dungeon Pack From the same author. Note: until it gets fixed in the mod itself (version >1.00) make sure to install the corrected .esp file, link on which you can find in the mod commens thread. Immersive Dungeons Mod adds 7 new dungeons with great design to explore and fight with atmospheric story-based exploration. Lost Passages - The Hidden City Adds 10 radiant-enabled dungeons that descend into the underbelly of Skyrim's largest cities - secret back rooms, sewers, cellars, crypts and more. Made to be compatible with most ot popular settlement, dungeon and interior mods. Simple Bandit Camps - New Bandit Camps and Dungeons Dungeon pack aimed at adding early game friendly dungeons to holds that lacked good starting options, such as The Reach, Hjaalmarch, Winterhold, and The Pale. Observatory Seven new interconnected dungeons. A group of necromancers have been investigating an ancient Dwemer compound hidden in the Jerall Mountains. What seems like a normal group of enemies to defeat turns into a long journey through the depths of Nirn. Solstheim - The Lost Levels Old-but-good dungeon mod for Dragonborn DLC. Solstheim Dungeon Pack Simple but nicely done dungeon mod. Designed especially for Solstheim. Adds 6 new dungeons to diversify your solstheim exploration experience. The Unfinished Business - Dungeon Pack Add several short dungeons with a short stories related to small towns of Skyrim. The Rabbit Hole This mod doesn't add many new dungeons in wilderness - there's only one entrance, but the dungeon itself is multi-leveled vertically. In my opinion it’s criminally underrated and absolutely must-play. Mod adds dungeon system, a ‘rabbit hole’ with 50!! levels with progressing difficulty. Also many secrets and hidden rooms to discover. Have fun!

Now, single-dungeon mods, but with a great quality - challenging bossfights, breathtaking design or sometimes even everything together:

Red Flame A vampire-themed dungeon featuring original music, Deirge Cathedral lies off of the coast of Skyrim's northern shore. A mass of stone and stained glass, the mod features two new foods for vampires, a Molag Bal blessing, a unique Gargoyle summon spell, and three weapons. Demonika VERY dark. VERY creepy. Full of enemies. Dungeon mod with 12 stages. This mod may even scare someone, it’s not for everyone. But if you like such kind of creepy playthrough - try it for sure! Frostfaarn Explore a new dungeon and unlock the powers of ancient Nord sorcerers and conjure fearsome undead to fight by your side. Iomaungandr Rising Travel to the Sea of Ghosts in search of a long-lost Greybeard proving ground. Use your wits and your thu’um to unlock the secrets beneath the ice, while evading a Thalmor raiding party. Solemn Keep Chronicles - Shimmerfall Springs Bandits from all around Skyrim have been gathering and digging out the once abandoned caves of Shimmerfall Springs, causing local concern. Venture deep into the caves to find what they are seeking and stop the mysterious bandit leader who wields a dangerous power. The Dark A level 40+ challenging, lore-friendly quest and dungeon with low ambient light. Puzzles, traps and mazes that stretch the original intentions of the designers, and a couple of deadly encounters. Skjolga's Basin Detailed dungeon/quest mod centered around an expedition into the Skyrim mountains. Lakvan's Stronghold Battle your way through Lakvan's Stronghold and claim it as your own. Fully voiced dungeon experience with references to TES Travels: Shadowkey. WhateverDev profile For some short, but nicely done dungeons. Dead-Stone Barrow New Nordic dungeon just north-east of Whiterun. Path of Champion Multi-level dungeon crawl with dozens of custom objects to interact, puzzles to solve, traps to die to, loot to find, enemies to fight and quest to guide you through. Vrage's Watch Explore a new dungeon and gain the ability to control undead hordes. Yellow King A Nord ruin unearthed by the Thalmor, Hahdrim's Tomb lies in between Dragon's Bridge and Rorikstead. The resting place of a cursed king and his family, the mod features an original weapon with a unique enchantment, armor, and shield. Thieves Tumble - Cavern An odd little cavern, beautiful but dangerous. Venjhammet profile Author of Hammet's Dungeon Pack - go here for around 20 standalone dungeon mods, which are not included in the pack (most likely, the second pack will be made in the near future, but for now, they are released separately). Also optionally grab the improved rewards addon . The Isle Of Valefrost Latest massive-sized new area and dungeon from the author above. Unique rewards addon here . Sondenheim An archaeological expedition sought the treasures of Sondenheim, the subterranean citadel. This being Skyrim, their adventure naturally ended in tragedy, and the survivors warn against setting foot inside the ruin. However, they weren't Dragonborn, so go ahead and pillage the tomb for fun and profit. Windcallers Pass Great dungeon mod. It’s less fighting, more about exploring and finding best way to go through and this is its best feature. Included in Legacy of Dragonborn, so don't install it if you have that. Ogmunds Tomb Old-but-great, custom small-to-medium sized dungeon with a great design and moderate difficulty. Included in Legacy of Dragonborn, so don't install it if you have that. The Deeper Well Enter the depths of Labyrinthian and make your way through the Well to unlock the secrets of the Old Gods. Creative dungeon design and good challenges. Blue Kind Rumor has it that some people in Markarth are getting wedding invitations. Who is getting married? Who are the bride and the groom? With Namira-themed dungeons, the mod features two new followers, a new weapon with unique enchantment, new blue Glass weapons and armor recipes, new alchemical ingredients, and a new spell. From the author of Red Flame. Morthal Barrow Taarengrav Barrow Two nordic dungeons with a short quest. Lore-friendly design, interesting clues and details. Pit of 100 Battles Enter the deadliest dungeon in Skyrim, the fabled Pit of 100 Battles. Many have tried to reach the bottom, but all have failed. Engelmanns Rest Note: Don't use this mod if you have Legacy of the Dragonborn, it's included in it. Caves of Morrowind Journey to the Velothi Mountains to uncover a Dunmer smuggling operation. Shadowfang Keep ==NEW== A mod that adds the dungeon of Shadowfang Keep from World of Warcraft (Cataclysm version of it) into Skyrim, as well as the adjacent village of Pyrewood. Contains enemies, bosses as well as unique weapons and armor. Dauorrin the Draugr City Welcome to the undead city of Dauorrin, fight its agressive inhabitants that are not only undead, but daedra as well. The Legend of Taram Dane Recently uncovered scrolls provide new clues into the Legend of Taram Dane. Explore a new Nordic ruin full of magic, puzzles and undead to find an ancient enchanted weapon. Karaz Gnel Remastered - Narrated Skaven Dungeon (Warhammer Vermintide) Don your finest armor, gather your party, and plunge into the depths of an ancient Dwarf Hold. But beware, something sinister lurks in the deeps... Arcwind Point Dungeon Adds a nordic dungeon at the existing exterior location of Arcwind Point. Ruined Temple of Phynaster - Encore A ruined cathedral rests beneath the earth, swallowed by the shifting dirt after thousands of years of time. Histories speak of glimpses of elven spirits, eternally bound to their ancient home. Hope's Abandon Huge dungeon filled with challenging puzzles, traps and encounters, and pretty unique approach to design in general. It has a custom boss and a follower. Level 40+ is suggested. Lokir's Tainted Tomb Explore and find hidden loot in a really well-made, vanilla-styled dungeon outside of Riverwood. Vyrdwaren A multi-level dungeon crawl across Skyrim to find an ancient sword and a new enchantment. Also adds a mine, a blacksmith and a spell seller to Rorikstead. Compatible with The Great City of Rorikstead and most of other mods that affect it. Cave of the Forgotten A starter dungeon with a bed and safe storage. Does not respawn. Jornheim Deep within the bowels of The Throat of the World, lies the ancient ruins of Jornheim. More Skeevers in the ratway Adds more skeevers into the ratway. This mod aims to add immersion by adding skeevers into a place that seems almost perfect for them.

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of the best armor mods released in general:

Armor packs - lots to several new armors/clothes in a single mod:

Immersive Armors The most famous, big and endorsed armor pack ever made. It adds hundreds of various armors, from simple to absolutely epic, while still keeping lore-friendly look. Also make sure to grab the texture improvements and the fix patch . If you're looking for the great base of your armors variety - don't even think, install IA. You can see a brief showcase of it here. Optional realistic textures replacer is available. Cloaks of Skyrim The most famous cloak mod for Skyrim, and almost an essential one in my opinion. It adds almos 100 new cloaks/capes. Install an improvements addon for the mod (also has some patches). Also make sure to grab this amazing retexture pack (or this one if you want more fancy look, also don't forget to grab the update file too) for it. If using the first pack of textures, also grab this . Winter Is Coming - Cloaks One more big and popular cloak mod. Optional leveled lists addon available. Divine and Daedric Cloaks Set of cloaks with emblems of Divines and Daedric Princes. Ennead Cloaks Hoods and cloaks from the author of "Ennead" texture replacers. Bandolier - Bags and Pouches Another I'd say essential and highly immersive mod. Adds lots of pouches, bags and bandoliers to help easing your burden. A CCOR fix is available, as well as another balace patch (choose one or another). Immersive Fur Garments This mod adds new fur garments to the leveled lists. Girl's Heavy Armors Fresh and original armor mod that changes models of female vanilla heavy armors, making them much more beautiful, but still protective/lore-friendly, keeping the great balance. Tribunal Robes and Masks Amazing robes pack that in addition comes in all 3 armor types - clothing, light and heavy. Also have masks collection for even more epic look. Note: This mod is included in Immersive Armors, so if you're using IA, don't install it separately. Lollygaggin' - Vanilla Guard Armor Replacer Immersive, medieval-looking new armors for all holds guards. Legacy of the Dragonborn patch here . Heavy Legion Similar mod for the Legion, from the same talented author. Extended Stormcloak Armor Variety Three alternate Stormcloak armors. Common Clothes and Armors Mod combines many vanilla and modded assets in order to create a lot of variations to regular clothing or armor sets for generic NPCs. Adds over 130 new clothes and armors to the common people of Skyrim. A few patches are also available. Apachii Divine Elegance Store Collection of clothing, armor and various little things, both looking civil and really epic, fitting warriors as well. Talos Housecarl Armor Pack Badass and 200% lore-friendly armor mod from the same author. Zzjay's Wardrobe Collection of various armor and clothes mashups, also has decent amount of civil-looking ones. Bosmer Armor Pack A lore friendly Armor pack containing 5 main sets with 29 armor pieces and 6 weapon pieces. All races and sexes supported. Improved textures here . Note: This mod is included in Immersive Armors, so if you're using IA, don't install it separately. Also install the fix patch .You may be also intersted in this a bit tweaked version of one of armors from this pack. Black Mage Armor Black Mage Armor is a standalone armor mod that includes Cloth, Light, and Heavy armor sets that are all craftable, enchantable, and upgradable; all sets can be used by every race, male or female. NordWarUA's Race Armor Expansion This mod adds new elven and orcish armors that fit the aesthetic of Skyrim. Standalone and integrated into level lists and world distribution. Textures upgrade available. Unplayable Faction Armors This mod adds armor and weapons for some of the unjoinable factions in Skyrim. Two files are provided, one version which distributes these sets to their respective factions and allows crafting, and a standalone version that allows crafting only. OBIS and OBIS Loot patches are available, as well as VIGILANT patch . New Legion New armor for the Imperial Legion. Textures upgrade available. Authentic Legion Authentic armor for the Imperial Legion in Oblivion style. USSEP and WACCF patches available. Realistic Armor Changes the standard armor to more realistic options, and also adds new armor. Armor Variants Expansion Armor Variants Expansion aims to adjust and increase variety of armors on Skyrim, by adding new armors to some vanilla and usual armor category trying to be closest to the lore friendly definition. Some patches are available here. Fashions Of The Banditry - A bandit-focused Armor Pack Vanilla Bandits are very lackluster in terms of armor variety. This lore friendly armor pack changes that. Compatible with OBIS (the best bandit overhaul mod below). Forsworn Fashions - More Variety for forsworn Forsworns have so much denominations, there is the ravager, the pillager, the looter, etc.. and all of then have the same armor, this mod changes that. Fashions of The Huntsmen - A Leather Armor variation mod Have you noticed that every leather armor in skyrim looks the same? Of course you did, and this mod aims to change that, by adding 9 (15 if you count all variations) new lore-friendly leather armor sets to the game, suiting other regions and races`s smithing styles. Every time you encounter someone using leather, it will be one of 15 variations. Steel Fashions- A Steel Armor Variation mod And now the same for the steel armors. Armors of the Velothi Pt. I Absolutely stunning armor pack consisting of 8 dunmer themed sets. Every set has unique, but lore-friendly look, qualitative models, and can be met in game worn by various dunmer NPCs. If playing as an argonian or khajiit, install this patch, and also take a look on some other patches here. Armors of the Velothi Pt. II 9 more armor sets and 7 dunmer-themed weapons from the same author. Also install fixes here and here. Some patches here. Salt Witch Garbs New outfits and accessories for male and female. Super native, looking like a vanilla armor mashups expansion. Mage Clothing Expansion Vampire Clothing Expansion Vampire Armor Expansion Three mods in same style, in total adding over 30 new, vanilla+ clothes & armors for mages and vampires, craftable and with optional distribution options. ARMONIZER Armors Pack Very old but still very good mod that adds various unique-looking, but still fitting armors to the game. NordWarUA's Race Armor Expansion This mod adds new elven and orcish armors that fit the aesthetic of Skyrim. Used the assets from NordwarUA's armor replacer mod. Standalone and integrated into level lists and world distribution. Liam's Armoured Mage Robes Adds enchanted and unenchanted armoured robes for each school of magic along with necromancy robes and normal armoured robes. They can be crafted at the Tanning Rack or Blacksmith Forge. Nirn Necessities - SMP Accessories New lore-friendly accessories with cloth physics: Satchels, backpacks, cloaks and more. Some nice textures improvements available here too. Fortran's Shields Shields Of Glory Several craftable shields with glorious look. Also install two fixes here and here . Nordic Round Guards Shields Variety of Viking-style guardian shields. Guards will no longer walk with the same shields. Nordic Round Shields Adds round shields with a viking shield style. Legendary Alpha Shields Thematic lore-friendly craftable shields with epic models and hd textures, 30 in total. Some patches and improvements here . Legendary Alpha Shields 2 Even more epic shields from the same author, continuation to the mod above. Also install the improvement from here. Ultra Shields Collection of large shields made from vanilla assets. Kratos Guardian Shield Animated The Guardian Shield, included with different shield skins from God of War. To add the animation, also install this. Akaviri Hats Pack Adds several Akaviri style hats with some variations. JS Armored Circlets A set of 9 brand new standalone Circlets with the same attributes as their helmet counterparts. Also install the USSEP patch. Face Masks of Skyrim Simple as that. Compatible with beast races. Also install retexture pack. Improved closefaced helmets Wanna see the eyes of your character and other NPCs eyes under helmets? Get this. Note: will require lots of manual Xedit patching with a heavy mod list. Craftable Horse Barding Yep. Armors for your horses. Craftable Saddles from Witcher 3 And now some quality stuff from TW3.

Separate armors mods - one or couple armors in the mod:

Zerofrost Mythical Armors and Dragon The latest armor mod pack from Zerofrost and that has definitely the absoutely amazingly armors - for male, female and both genders. Nightingale Prime armor also has replacer version for vanilla nightingale set. Note: Zerofrost, in my personal opinion, makes the most incredibly detailed and original standalone armors. He has a vast list of badass armor mods for both male and female characters, but all of them besides this single mod are not available for SE. You can try to port them yourself. Colovian Noble Clothes Imperial Fine Clothes Arcane Conjurer Robes Three qualitative clothing mods from the same author. Functional Bags Add various functional bags, pouches, and other special containers. Stormcloak Battle Armor Replacer Much better armors for Storlcloaks and their officers/commanders. Kynreeve Armor Dremora-inspired, craftable set of daedric style armor, available in light and heavy variants. Also grab the upscaled textures. Grandmaster Ursine Armour Beautiful Witcher-inspired armor set. HDT version here. Volkihar Knight - Vampire Armor A lore-friendly and badass-looking set of heavy vampire armor. Three variations can be crafted, each with a unique effect that is applied once wearing all four pieces. LOTD patch available. Hedge Mage Armor A rugged set of magically upgradable light armor for females. Wayfarer's Coat Great clothing/light armor set for mages. DreamBurrows Regal Huntsman Armor An Assassin's Creed Inspired Mashup. Demon Hunter Armor by Jojjo Beautiful, epic-looking and not skimpy light armor set for females. Sovereign's Slayer Armor Amazingly beautiful and detailed, medieval-fantasy female fullplate armor. CBBE/Bodyslide conversion available. Perfect Legionnaire - Imperial Armor Reforged A deadly serious and stylish rework of the Imperial armory. Barbarian Steel Armor A set of craftable light armor for hardy Nord warriors and berserkers. Male and female versions, weight-slider compatible, works with any race or body type. Armor of Yngol This mod gives you a new uniqe set of Ancient Nord Armor as an addition to the unique Helmet of Yngol. Nordic Ranger Outfit Simple and immersive armor mashup. Dragonbone Barbarian Armors Original mashups of dragonbone armors. Female version are pretty skimpy. DeserterX profile Look into it if you wanna (often) [not] lore-friendly & unrealistic, but absolutely badass and attractive female armors. Lunar Guard Armor Adds a craftable ebony-tier heavy armor, inspired by the khajiit. If you like this armor, also recommended to get a glaive for it to finish the set and this patch if you want it to be distributed to some of Khajiit NPCs in the game. Newermind43 profile For plenty of various (mostly TESO inspired) armors, and some original quality sets. Author has much more amors for LE - you can port those yourself with CAO without any issues. Inquisitor Armor For several high-quality sets which are usually a crispy mixes of armor and clothes with HDT support. Traveling Mage Armor Authentic-looking battlemage clothing set. Goampuja profile For some skimpy, but highly detailed armors. AokiliMods profile ==NEW== For stylish, high-quality female armors and clothes. Gearshout profile For many craftable sets of unique and vanilla-like looking, at the same time, armors. Balanced Longcoats Adds four longcoats and three sets of boots and bracers, available through crafting. MLU patch here. Modular Clothing System Dress yourself as you want. Marvelous Attire - Tundra Line Tundra Line is a huge mix & match multi-colored 15-part clothing set which adds 54 new clothing items to the game. Sithis Armour Beauitiful Witcher-inspired armor set with HDT physics support. Rough Leather Armor Rogue-styled light amor for for male and female characters. Note: Included in Legacy of the Dragonborn. Imperial Dragonscale Armor A quality mashup. Stendarr Paladin Armor Set Adds a standalone set of Stendarr Paladin armor complete with a shield and two weapons. Archmage Khadgar's Robes Technically not lore-friendly, but fitting in Skyrim anyway, a mage armor of astonishing quality. League of Assassins Armor Adds Talia al Ghul's armor from Gotham Knights. Ashlander Apparel - CBBE BodySlide (with Physics) Immersive clothes mashups. Master Necromancer Robes A pure BONEkers necro robe. Dark Brotherhood Armor An original, authentic Shrouded armor approach. Comes with optional recolour variants and Blade of Woe remodel. Optional 4k and 8k retexture available here . Mavari Armor Amazing Mavari armor by talented Zerofrost, finally ported to SE. Knights of Thorn Armor and weapons set Two fantastic quality armor mods and little easter egg. Armor of Intrigue Updated SE port of a popular light armor set. Roaming Girl's Attire ==NEW== A light armor set for female characters. The outfit is designed to evoke the image of a free-spirited, fearless girl roaming the world. Master Thief Armor ==NEW== New quality lore-friendly armor with thieves' vibes for male and female characters. Comes with an optional replacer of vanilla Thieves Guild armor. HDT-SMP physics patch here. Viper Armor ==NEW== Stunning assassin armor set from the author of Master Thief Armor. Female only. Domino Armor ==NEW== One more unique light armour set for females. Ancient Imperial Armour ==NEW== Wandering Mercenary Armor ==NEW== Imperial Guard Centurion Armor Adds a unique, lore friendly armor set based on the same version from Elder Scrolls Online. Comes in 2k and 4k versions. Battle Mage Armour Mod adds 4 colour variants of a battle mage armour plus a hood and circlet. Female only. Knightranger Archer Armor Scale Nord Armor D-Armory This mod adds a total of 12 new sets of armor (Male and Female). they are all mashups from vanilla and some modded assets. Boreal Hunter Armor Nemesis Armor Set A unique craftable set of light armor from Enderal for males and females. Nibenean Armors and Outfit Colovian Leather Armor and Outfit Couple of craftable lore-friendly armors. Knight of Molag Bal - Remastered SirRumple profile For some definitely not lore-friendly, but beautiful armors or vanilla armor recolours/remodels. Daedric Light Armor Among the various daedra clans, there are those that are most comfortable wearing lighter armor, compared to the traditional heavy daedric equipment. Light daedric armor offers good protection, without weighing too much, and offering greater mobility to its users, being preferred among important clans such as the Skaafins and Xivkyns. Dremora Armor Basically, the daedric armor set from TES VI: Oblivion. Ancient Nord Armo(u)ry EXTREME Many different variations and sets of Ancient Nord armor. Arcane Mage Armor Regal Paladin Armor Gorm Armor Raven Armor FB - Sentinel Knight Armor Lore-friendly armor set that looks (at least to me) like a mix between ebony, steel and daedric armors. Female-only. Savior's Hide Replacer 2 Amazingly high-quality Savior's Hide variation. Has both standalone and replacer versions. Travelling Priest Robes Obi's Masquerade Outfit Obi's Wyrm Slayer Armor Dawnstar Thane Armour Morag Tong Grandmaster Armor Ash Pilgrim's Garments A beautiful female Dunmer outfit. Moon Monk's Robes More love to Khajiits! Distribution patch here. Toughened Traveler Outfit Shoulderpacks Adds 4 new shoulder-style backpacks with a realistic fur style, functionally mimics Campfire's dynamic placement for torch, woodcutters axe, pot and waterskin. Grandmaster Wolven Armor and Swords Adds craftable grandmaster wolven armor and swords from The Witcher 3. PrincessAries profile For multiple sets of armors, inspired by vanilla gear, but with coming in own style and with highly detailed models and HD textures. King's Guard Armor Armor set that equals glass armor set in values\crafting, based on GOT model. zzjay and Grace Darkling Hoods With Hairs A set of hoods with hairs. Towels ==NEW== Comfy and soft, 100% Hammerfell cotton towels in 9 colors. Dwemer Garb Adds new dwemer-themed clothes, both enchanted and unenchanted versions, which can be found in dwemer chests and specific locations. Letho's Pants Male only, light armor set that adds Letho's pants, boots, and gloves. 3E Cyrodiilic Steel Armor This mod contains the Cyrodiilic Steel Armor as re-imagined for the Skyblivion project. Kozakowy clothes ports Beautiful, noble, elegant female clothing. GolinskiRH profile Some standalone, nice quality, vanilla-like armors. Reapress Artwork-inspired, reaper-like armor and weapon. Get the "Gear Only" version and also install the update file. It's also recommended to install this patch that will make the armor set modular (you can equip armor/helmet etc separately to mix with other armor pieces if needed). Redguard Noble Armor Dusk Hunter Armor Lore-friendly mashup designed for vampire hunters and spellswords, being an specialized branch of the Dawnguard trained by monster hunters, or witchers. Pulcharmsolis profile ==NEW== The author of "Armors of the Velothi" also releases amazing standalone armor sets - take a peek at their profile. The Hinterland Ranger Unisex leather & cloth garments for lightweight adventurers with HDT physics. Dremora Robes- Mihail Armors and Clothes The robes traditionally worn by the Dremora are heavy, terrifying looking, and at first glance cumbersome and uncomfortable, with their sharp edges and thick metal plates. Elder Shield Also look for an Ancient Dwemer Metal patch here. Ryder's Dragonfly Robes Mage set, CBBE compatible. Daedric Assassin Armor Ported to SE. Standalone and craftable. Illusive Infiltrator Armor A unisex low-fantasy equipment set to suit stealthy adventurers while staying prepared for a fight. Dark Witch Armor Ashtoreth Duskrogue Armor HD Falmer Elven Chainmail Retexture Banderger For a few iconic Witcher armor ports. Raven Witch Armor Raven Witch armor by Zerofrost, ported to SE. Ginnungagap Armor Elven Enforcer Armor 4k textures here. Magnus Robe Adds Magnus robe, light armor or clothing option. Male only with weight slider, beast race support. Glowing ebony armor by Mari Fabulous luminous armor in six color options. Marvelous Attire - Tawenja Armor New adventurer outfit including clothing, armor and a backpack. Cyrodiilic Thief Armor Adds two new armor sets that are meant to belong to Cyrodiilic branch of the Thieves Guild. Chevaleresse II Armor Imperial Centurion Battle Dress Somewhat skimpy yet pretty lore-friendly armor at the same time. Blood Operative Armor - Male and Female Armor A set of male and female light armor used by House Dimir's Vampire Assassins. Toxin Doctor Outfit- Mihail Armors and Clothes Any plagues? Stalhrim Paladin Armor Full set of high quality stalhrim steel plate armor. Gryphonknight Regalia - Breton Noble Armor Lifesworn Vestiges - Champion of Arkay armor Wayward Knight Set Female only. Optimized textures and color options here. Wayward Ranger Armor ==NEW== Female only as well. Contractor Armor Yet another old-but-masterpiece from Zerofrost ported over to SE. Asura's Guard A highly customizable set of female armor. Coldharbour Executioner Armor A female armor mod based on the daedric realm of Coldharbour. Akaviri Dragonguard Armor Adds a new set of armor to Sky Haven Temple. Wolfcry Armor - Standalone and Vilja Armor replacer Lore-friendly armor, improved version of the armor from Vilja follower mod. Dread Father Armor My Sweet Courier ==NEW== New light armor/clothing for female characters. The Last Vampire Hunter ==NEW== Hunting the creatures of the night should not be approached lightly. You need to spice up your looks: they are after your blood, make them lust your apparel as well. Berserker Armor ==NEW== Andrew21022 armors ==NEW== For several beautiful druid-inspired armor/clothing sets. Freehand Armour ==NEW== ==NEW== ==NEW== ==NEW== ==NEW== Eclipse Mage Outfit Optional rebalance tweaks here. Wynter's Ranger Armor Onyx Knight Armor Armor of Psychosis Dragon Rider Armor Dark Brotherhood Mail - Standalone Ever wished you had a Dark Brotherhood armor that didn't look like a swimsuit? Here you go. yurica chevaleresse Armor Female knight armor. Vampire Lord Dragon Priest Armour Mashup from these two. Telvanni Spellsword Armor A set of Telvanni-themed spellsword armor. Tribal Sorceress Outfit Mashup Lowered Hoods Variants of the vanilla hoods that are lowered (not over your head). Male and Female. Uses slot 45. Some patches for popular mods available. Leveled Lists Vigilants of Stendarr - Paladin Armor Adds the Paladin Armor by NordWarUA into the Vigilants of Stendarr leveled lists. It also adds some vanilla items to it making the Vigilants of Stendarr appear to actually be able fighting some Daedra. Nicos Raven Shield Finally A Steel Plate Shield Frostkeeper Drow Ranger Armor Northgirl Armor Original female armor on the edge between beauty and lore-friendliness. Thalmor Armory Adds new Thalmor equipment set in 3 variations.

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of the best mods released in 2018 and in general:

First of all, install one of these mods - both are changing the way too wide, clunky look of vanilla weapons, to a way more better shape, but each in a bit different way. Choose [only one].

Now, let's look on larger weapon packs - mods that contain many or at least several weapons inside them:

Lore Weapon Expansion My personal favourite between all big weapon packs. Variative but not too big and with qualitative textures for each weapons without exceptions. And what is good, it's really lore-friendly. InsanitySorrow Weapons Pack A compilation of standalone mods (that are not included in previous pack) from the same author, ported from LE. I humbly recommend installing this pack as well - it includes many unique weapons for warriors, thieves and archers, which are still really, really immersive. Royal Armory - New Artifacts A must-have mod. Adds special weapons to the most important characters in Skyrim with unique effects and appearance. This may sound very simple, but it really changes the way you will look on many quests and NPCs - because now they will be a more than worthy targets. Make sure to install amazing mesh/texture improvement addon for it. Optional tweaks patch available, as well as similar patch, but with weapons effects boost (use one or another). Heavy Armory - New Weapons One of my favourite wepon packs as well. This mod adds nearly 100 new weapons to Skyrim. You will find all new Halberds, Spears, Glaives, Shortswords, Quarter staves, Mauls, Hatchets and Clubs. Optional addon for enchanted weapons distribution is available, as well as version of the mod with new DAR-based animations from Animated Armoury mod here . Legendary Skyrim Crossbows and Bows Amazing mod that adds dozens of new crossbows, some bows and unique arrows/bolts to the game. Crossbows have very qualitative models. Liam's Staves of Skyrim 45 new staves! Bladestaff of Skyrim Set of bladed staves inspired by Dragon Age. Further on in the "Animations" section of the guide, there's a mod which adds DA2-inspired animations to such staves. Scoped Bows Simple but brilliant mod that adds scopes to all vanilla bows making them look much more epic. Some compatibility patches are available, as well as VR patch. BillyRo Ultimate Swords Anthology The massive pack containing dozens of amazing standalone weapons by talented Billyro, ported from Skyrim LE. Billyro Compendium Another huge pack of most noticeable weapons made by Billyro. JaySuS Swords Old but good weapon pack that adds 53 new craftable weapons to the game. Weapons of the Third Era Old-but-good mod. Morrowind-themed weapons pack with a lot of new, non-replacement weapons. Also grab WACCF patch, and later patch for Animated Armoury, if you'll be using it. Skyrim Weapons Expansion Over 100 balanced weapons into the vanilla game through crafting and leveled lists. Weapons collection 1 Weapons Collection 2 Weapons Collection 3 30 (in total for all 3 mods) new, HQ weapons from same author. Ultra Weapons More than 80 vanilla-themed two-handed weapons of increased size. Light Greatswords And this one is the opposite - vanilla-themed, but thinner and smaller greatswords. Light Greatswords And this one is the opposite - vanilla-themed, but thinner and smaller greatswords. Rebalance patch here. Battle Scythe Weapon pack with 21 scythes made from vanilla assets. Rebalance patch here. Zikoru Swords Collection Small pack of weapons from another talented weapon mods author, pretty similar to Billyro's style in general. Katana Crafting This Mod allows crafting Katana, Dai-Katana, Wakizashi and Tanto from materials; Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Elven, Nordic, Ebony, Glass, Stalhrim, Dragonbone and Daedric. DSR patch and MLU patch are available. Note: if you're modding AE and don't have the CC "DLCs", also install this patch (overwrite mod's plugin). Lost Relics of Tamriel - Echos of the Past 11 Relics of Tamriel's past, with 11 weapons and 8 unique enchantments. Scattered across Skyrim these weapons from era's past are now ready for you to find. Isilmeriel LOTR Weapons Collection Old but good weapon pack for LOTR fans. Also install the fix patch needed to correct some errors made during mod porting from Skyrim LE. The Witcher 3 Weaponry Simple as that. Great mod for Witcher series fans and fitting Skyrim world. Twinblades of Skyrim A mod that adds 16 different twinblade's to Skyrim special edition that can be obtained in game via crafting or enemies looting. For these weapons to "shine" in combat fully, it's recommended to install an animation mod that will add unique animations just for them. Worry not, you'll see this mod further on, in the Animations section. Damage balancing patch and MLU patch available. Dwemer Tonal Energy - Twinblades Use ancient tonal magic to construct twinblade weapons formed of energy. Imbue the blades with power based on your knowledge of enchanting and the schools of magic. Dwemer Tonal Energy - Glaives A mod from the same author, now with glaives. Dwemer Tonal Weaponry - Swords And ofc, similar styled swords. PrivateEye's "New Armory" mods New Lunar, Ash Spawn, Dragon Cult weapons and others - often with unique enchantements. Noahlong0313 profile For several lore-friendly weapons with high-quality models. Spear of Skyrim Multipe custom-designed spears. To also get a unique animations, install this (but take into account it requires MCO, further in the guide). One-handed conversion here. Glaive Danger Adds 12 glaives to the game, featuring vanilla aesthetics. Animated Armoury patch available. Project Minoan - Weapons Bronze age inspired weapons. Kemper's Weapon Collection Kemper's Weapon Collection II 41 new, high-fantasy weapons in total. JS Unique Utopia Standalone - Daggers Lazy Weapon Pack And one more from Billyro. Two, actually. Pixie's Delight (Crystal Weapons) Craftable crystal-like daggers, swords and greatswords. Tera Weapons with Leveled List Definitely not lore-friendly, MMO-like weapons, but may be interesting for some players. Kthonia's Unique Weapon Pack - Dragonborn Weapons Adds three unique-looking dragonbone weapons with unique effects into the game world, found in Solstheim. Also install the fix. Reforging - To the Masses (Weapons Expansion) A huge weapon pack which adds around 300 vanilla-friendly weapons to the game. Some patches are available here , here and here . Artifact of Might Get access to 8 new world placed, lore-friendly weapons for you to play with. Bowgasm A collection of 14 beautiful, realistic bows. Optionally, you can use a different version of the plugin to have these bows replace vanilla bows. You can a see a showcase of it here. Unique Bows Collection This mod adds 10 new unique bows to the game. All bows are artifacts, placed in various locations all over the Skyrim with some lore behind each. Also make sure to install the balance patch (without it, some bows will be just too overpowered). Rafael's Weapon Pack A collection of mostly definitely not lore-friendly, but absolutely badass, epic weapons inspired by some other games. Daedric Light Weapons Many daedra prefer to use light daedric armor instead of the traditional heavy variants, likewise many of them also prefer to use lighter and faster weapons, instead of the traditional elaborate heavy armament. This weapon set may not be as robust or powerful as other Oblivion sets, but its slimmer and lighter design allows for faster strikes. Horker Weapon Pack For muh immers...horkersion? Skyforge Weapons Qualitative mod for Skyforge weapons.

Nice! Now standalone weapon mods that add a single weapon, or a couple of them:

Artifacts - The Ice Blade of the Monarch Pack of 3 absolutely beautiful weapons (sword, dagger and staff) with a lore-friendly quest to obtain them. Eimar's Edge Beautiful steel sword with silver carvings and glowing. The Huntsman Unique-looking UPGRADABLE bow. Ivory Bow Some improvements and patches here. Lorkhan Moonlight Greatsword Reborn A legendary sword from Souls series in several unique variants, with custom meshes and visual effects. I also strongly recommend you to check out this author's other weapon mods, mostly inspired by DS as well. Billyro profile For incredibly qualitative weapons mods if you want them standalone out of the pack linked above, or if you just wanna endorse his original works ;) Note that he has vastly less mods officially for SE than for LE - most you need to port yourself if you want to have them standalone. Valkyrja - Viking sword Lore-friendly, authentic-lookin, highly-detailed original sword. Sword of Ancient Tongues Beautiful runed sword in 12 variants. Johnskyrim profile ==NEW== For plenty of both realistic and not (such as WOW and other popular games inspired), absolutely badass weapons of an astonishing model & textures quality. ImsumDave profile For several beautiful, half realistic, half fantasy weapons. Crazylion profile For original-looking standalone weapons and unique variations for some vanilla weapons. FunkyGandalfCat profile ==NEW== For badass DS-inspired (but not only) weapons. Volodavkaa profile For different high-quality modelled melee weapons, both realistic and fantasy/videogames-inspired alike. Scythe42 profile For some ported weapon mods of FavouriteSoul from Skyrim LE. Tartaross profile For a small but qualitative weapon pack and several original weapon mods. Hilli1 profile For many other Skyrim LE weapon mods ported to SE. tamu75 Witcher's Steel Sword Beautiful silver sword from Witcher, still fitting Skyrim greatly too. Occiglacies - Ancient Falmer Blade An HD Ancient Falmer blade for your travels. The Munich It's a hand and a half sword (aLonger...longsword), based on the design from Albion Swords. The Devil's Tooth A longsword, based on the design from the Netflix show Cursed. Lux and Noctis Katanas Rory's Halberd Blades of Chaos Adds "Blades of Chaos" based on the blades from the God of War game which use the whip weapon type (and ofc, animations) from Animated Armoury. Leviathan Axe - Dwemer Artifacts Leviathan Axe as seen in God of War, features incredibly quality model and texture, all stages of upgrading, pommels with different effects and much more! You can a see a showcase of it here. Leviathan Axe Alternative approach. Soul Reaver Spectral Swords Epic weapons from the Legacy of Kain series in different colors. Staff of Bloodstained Chalice Add a new vampire/gothic themed staff with unique enchantment. Fudou Myouou Katana and Tachi Nameless Saber Horse-Slaying Saber Serpent Dagger Beautiful glowing dagger with multiple color options and additional option for Blade of Woe replacer. Shadowveil - Nocturnal Dagger Magic Blade A set of magic blades from the comic Scissor Seven. Zireael - Ciri's High Quality Sword Fly, Swallow. Alduwuin profile For a few unique-looking, high-quality weapons. Nicoroshi profile Once widely well-known weapon mods author back in 2012-2013, he is active again and makes lots of new weapon mods with improved quality. Kanjs profile ==NEW== For various daedric-style (but not only) weapon mods, as well as some incredibly improved models and textures for various small clutter and furniture objects not touched by other mods, or retextured, but without such a great model improvement. Weaponstech profile ==NEW== For many high-quality medieval-inspired weapons. Vanguard's Claymore A very large 2h sword with unique impacts. Nicos Twinblades Three new twinblades. For these weapons to "shine" in combat fully, it's recommended to install an animation mod that will add unique animations just for them. Worry not, you'll see this mod further on, in the Animations section. One-handed version available here . Blades of Ice Adds two frozen swords to your game. One carved from pure stalhrim and another fusing both steel and ice together. The Shattered Blade of Baziar A powerful sword, broken, cursed to share its shattered burden with every wielder. Find both pieces and repair the blade to end the curse and gain a boon instead. One handed and two handed options available. Flame Tongue (Transforming Dwarven Weapon) A flaming dwarven sword with custom animation. Make sure to install some improvements from here. Dragon Cleaver Lore friendly greatsword and one handed sword carved out of dragon bone. Aerondight - The Witcher 3 Ultimate Silver Sword Iris - The Witcher 3 Ultimate Steel Sword The authentic Aerondight and Iris, along with glittering runes and glow during combat and specialized VFX for sword trails and target-hitting, and some other unique effects. Patches for smaller weapons size here and here. Gro-Kayra - Rage of the Ashen Forge Nagamaki Gaijin An euro-asian inspired katana craftable in two designs each with 11 color options. Bluthund - A Longsword Bluthund is a beaten and battered longsword, that's been lost in the north of Skyrim. Find it, claim it and reforge its destiny! Silver Bowblade A new bow with unique sheated/unsheated animation. You can see a quick showcase here. Dragon Tamer's Blade - Hiccup's Fire Sword The Lost Roscrean Blade A unique ornate Nordic style late game sword. The Soul Harvester Adds a 2h Scythe based on the weapon from Diablo II. Dae's Titanaxe - Battleaxe Armor and Boss Fight Custom Dwemer Battleaxe made by mashing some vanilla assets. Seek it at Valtheim. Hravna - Dagger of the North Dark Nova - Standalone Daedric Greatsword Dawnbreaker Requiem Re-imagining of the classic Dawnbreaker. Standalone mod. Dragonbone Crossbow Adds a dragonbone crossbow and a corresponding bolt. Mehrune's Razor Reborn Adds a longsword and dagger modeled after the Mehrune's Razor. Incarnate95 profile For several qualitative weapons, mostly inspired by the Two Worlds game. A Cursed Sword Experience Highly configurable mod with three unique weapons designed with their own playstyles. Satiate your Cursed Sword's constant hunger for the promise of power, at the expense of your sanity and morality. Features new spells, abilities, weapons, and an MCM menu to tailor your experience. Animated Dwemer Core Sword Scream of Angmar ==NEW== Adds a new lootable and upgradable weapon to the game, the Scream of Angmar. Looted in the world, it can be upgraded via your Smithing skill to grow stronger. Necromancy Scepter ==NEW== Command death itself with this powerful sceptre, summoning potent and obscure entities to follow you on your path into darkness. Timeless spear ==NEW== A custom fantasy spear with proper animations (requires Animated Armoury for that). Violet Bloody Blades Reforged 3 new weapons from Elden Ring. Original Twinblade held by the Violet Bloody Finger, Eleonora. Supapakku NINJA PACK Mod adds 3 new ninja-inspired weapons to the game - a ninjato, a kama and a kunai. Sacred Relic Sword A legendary greatsword from Elden Ring. Daedric Dagger from Morrowind - STANDALONE Morrowind-inspired look for daedric dagger - but now, as a standalone weapon. ENB particle light patch here. Akaviri Warblade Riilungolz - HDT-SMP and Animated Staff Ported from LE. Lordsworn's Greatsword Muramasa Katana WK 27 Fang of Paarthurnax (Draconic Artifact) Fang of Paarthurnax craftable as a sword, dagger, and greatsword with a bone and inlaid metal design. Plus options for dragon bone and forsworn replacers. Castlevania - Vampire Killer Adds the Vampire Killer whip from the Castlevania franchise, as well as the five original Sub-Weapons for you to track down across Skyrim in order to restore the whip to its full power. Dragon Slayer - Berserk Mod adds the Dragon Slayer from Berserk to Skyrim Special Edition. 4K Textures. Ayleid Crystal Saber An Ayleid crystal sword obtained through a unique heist. Valiant Nord Bow Custom nordic bow. Sword of the First Ember Beautiful semi-fantasy sword. CROSS_Crucible Absolutely not lore-friendly, but just a badass weapon from DOOM. Mjollnir If you are a fan. Dwarven Aetherial Bow Unique-looking aetherial bow. Also make sure to install a fix for it.

True Artifacts of Skyrim

Nice, let's continue to smaller mods which are mostly adding brand new artifacts and item sets, or improving certain specific unique vanilla weapons:

Dawnbreaker Rework ==NEW==

Equippable Tomes - Belt-Worn Books

The Gifts of Akatosh

Noldor Content Pack

DCR - King Crusader Mega Pack

Noble Armory

Elmlock Armor and Blade

Armor of The Golden Order

Legacy of Ysgramor

Resplendent Armor and Greatsword

Imperial Dragonknight Armory

Stormcloak Hero Armory

AOKIIL profile ==NEW==

Ellxe profile ==NEW==

Lagrie profile

Silverthorn Weaponry

Nordic Crusader Armour

Vikings Weapons and Armor

Forsworn Envoy and Staff of Hag's Wrath Set

Winged Hussar Armor and Weapons

Dragon and Tiger Emperor Armor

The Akaviri Collection

Arch-Knight Judicator Armor and Greatsword

Daedric Kynval Armor And Sword

Aetherium Armor and Weapons Compilation

Elven Gilded complete set

Daedric Armor and Weapon Improvement

Vikings Weaponry

Onyx Lancer Armor

Zerofrost's Northstrider Armor ==NEW==

Volkihar Gardener Armor and Sword

ChakraSSE profile ==NEW==

AokiliMods profile

Arsenal of Twisted Faith

Indoril Armor - My version

Dark Crusader Armory ==NEW==

New Armory Series - Imperial Silver Weapons and Armour

Vigilant Arsenal

Staff of Sheogorath (Fully Voiced)

Elemental Vision of Skyrim II

Simple Wearable Lanterns - Remastered

RonnieMagnum profile

Nordic Wanderer Equipment

Dwemer Fairies ENB Particles

Jewelry Collection

Eyepatch and Eyewear Collection ==NEW==

Argonian Funerary Masks ==NEW==

iD - DovahBling Bracelets

HORNY

Elden Lantern

First of all, a few great mods to give you immensely better control over your followers in all aspects and make your life with followers much more comfortable"

fix

Show Follower Carry Weight

Press E to Heal Followers

Dynamic Mercenary Fees

No More Ugly Combat Idles for Followers

Intuitive Dragon Ride Control

Now let's get to the followers themselves - the most interesting, funny, beautiful, charismatic and badass companions you can have:

Anbeegod profile ==NEW==

Spectral Assassin Tweaks

Creature follower mods - new creature followers or improved vanilla beast followers:

Baby Dragon - A Pet Follower ==NEW==

Piglet - The Courageous Piggy Companion ==NEW==

Simple Little Buddies

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations, you can take a look at some of the best mods released in 2018:

Vanilla player homes and estates overhauls.

New ones - large size - castles, mansions, estates.

New ones - medium to small size - homes, small cottages and hideouts.

To test if your game overloaded with scripts or not, is very easy.When you are like starting to feel you have plenty of gameplay mods already, and not sure if your game can handle one more script-heavy survival mod, or two more combat mods etc - don't worry. Install them.

Then, launch your game and make NEW SAVE. While you'll be testing the game, save ONLY on that slot.

Now, go and force game to script-heavy situations. Go and fight bandits in some polulated fort, visit few big cities, run here and there. Visit locations with stormy weathers, and ofc, make actions that are depending on the mod you have just installed (like, build the camp if it's Campfire, or change your clothings several times etc).

Game running fine? No stutters in combat or actions, no crashes? (Exactly stutters - short-time game freezes, not the regular fps drops). Great! You're good to go. Stutters/crashes appear in combat, populated cities, during certain scripted actions? Nope. This mod is overloading your game - skip it.

And don't forget to delete the "test" save after.

Creature mods:

Skyrim Immersive Creatures Huge. Amazing. Immersive. Mod adds dozens of creatures to Skyrim. New monsters, factions battles, bosses and hundreds of encounters. All these things can be easily configured in the MCM. A must-have mod. Also grab the "Fix for Ogre Club" file and either 2k (recommended) or 4k textures pack, as the default mod textures are 1k only. You can see a brief showcase of it here. Also, grab some extra better textures/models from here and here. Lastly, there is a patch collection from the mod author for some popular mods. SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators Best animal overhaul mod even existed. Immersive and lore-friendly. It gives animals amazingly improved AI - so giving you amazing new experience. Haven’t asked yourself why wolf packs never hunted the mammoth? Or why mammoth attack don’t at least knockback you or why animals are never scared by dragons? Think no more. Install and have fun :) Also, install the "SEQ File to fix inconsistencies with the mod" file after the mod's main file itself. You can see a brief showcase of it here. Also make sure to grab all needed patches from SkyTEST Integration Project page and install this HD textures addon. Animallica - Skyrim Wildlife Overhaul I have no idea how I missed adding this mod in the initial 2.0 release. Silly me. That's a great mod to add plenty of new animals, both predators and non-aggressive ones, to your game. Don't forget to grab a SkyTEST patch for it at integration project files page ;) Deadly Dragons Adds 14 new dragons and unique skills to them. Adds amazing dragon ‘assault’ system. Via MCM you can configure dragons stats - health, damage and much more. A must-have one, imo. Diverse Dragons Collection Amazing mod that adds 28 new beautiful dragons to game, with 7 ranks for each dragon type, 16 new breath attacks and 19 new abilities. Greatly configurable MCM. Compatible with all dragon mods. My personal recommendation - it’s a great addition for other dragons mods. You can see a brief showcase of it here. Chaos Dragons Mod adds 45 new unique dragons to game. It’s similar to Deadly Dragons/DDC, but much less lore-friendly. It’s compatible with dragon AI mods, BUT not compatible with Deadly Dragons so you’ll need to choose. Splendor - Dragon Variants Simply a must-have mod, no matter which your "dragon" mod setup is. Drastically increases the visual diversity of enemy dragons, while using only vanilla resources, ending with 784 possible combinations. Fully compatible with other dragon mods Beasts of Tamriel Awesome mod that adds dozens of new creatures, both monsters and critters - some are not much lore-friendly, but every creature in the mod can be disabled through MCM. If you’re looking for even more expansion of your creatures variety, try it! Also install this patch to prevent several possible crashes from appearing, plus there's also INEED patch available. Diverse Werewolves Collection Adds variety to enemy werewolf encounters. There are now 25 werewolves and 13 werebears, each leveled at 11 possible ranks for a total of 418 new enemies. Timing is Everything patch here ==NEW==. More Werewolves If you want to meet more furry enemies. Immersive Horses Amazing and very immersive mod that offers a big improvement to vanilla horses system. Many new horses types, improved and balanced horses abilities, dozens of management options and (finally!) mounted spell casting. It's also more lightweight and stable than its predecessor, "Convenient Horses". Also install script fixes for it. Simple Horse While being much more stable then Convenient Horses, Immersive Horses is still pretty script-heavy - so if that matters for your mod list and you still want better horses functionality, but even more lightweight one - pick this neat little mod from author of TK Dodge. Horse Whistle Key Call your horse, access his inventory, equip saddles and rename it using a single key. Simple, lightweight and configurable in MCM. Also recommended to install the animated whistling addon. Phantom Horse Ride your horse quickly and freely at any time. There is no need to troublesomely use or disarm the horse summoning magic, or get off or mount it with a new active power this mod adds. Mod also provides couple other neat optional features for horse riding. Simple Horse Tweaks Stands for its name - get the "Simple Horse Tweaks" form the Files section. Horse Carry Weight Limit ==NEW== Limits horse's carry weight from the default 999 to something more balanced, includes FOMOD with weight limit from 100 to 300. One With Nature - Dynamic Animals and Creatures This awesome little mod gives you ability to configure how different types of animals will act related to character - allied, cowardly, friendly of defensive. MihailMods Creatures and Lil Immersion Mods ==NEW== Mihail is currently one of the most active mod authors at Skyrim modding stage. His productivity simply amazes. He's focused on making standalone creature mods - both lore-friendly and creatures ported from other games (Souls series, Witcher etc). He currently has over 300!! creature mods, and ofc while not all creatures will fit your personal taste - the huge variety will always have something personally for you. Also grab this audio fix for his "Old Gods of the Hunt" mod if using it, and if you want more crisp textures on some of his animals - retextures here . You can see showcases of some of his creatures here. OpusGlass profile Plenty great standalone creature mods - either restoring cut creatures, or adding new creatures from TES lore. From the author of DDC and Splendor. Profiled linked instead of a separate mods now, as author released more of them lately. Skinwalker21 profile For dozens of unique creatures, lore-friendly and not, with a custom models, animations and sounds. Introduces some neutral critters as well. Wild Horses Adds over 100 wild horses to the tundra plains of Tamriel. Witcher Horse Expansion Over 50 new horse coat colors, 20 unique horses with special effects and optional ENB light, 21 unique ESO inspired horses, wild horse herds and more. Plenty of patches for popular mods here. If using "Simple Horse Tweaks" mod, grab this patch . Edmond's Nature Series - DEER ==NEW== Adds photo-realistic Whitetail Bucks, Does, and Fawns, as well as Blacktail deer around skyrim and includes custom hides for each deer. Deer spawns have been adjusted so that Elk, Reindeer, Whitetail Deer, and Black tail deer populations will vary by region. Fairies Enhance the mystical beauty of your Skyrim game with these mysterious gentle creatures. Over 150 Fairies will be added to the wilderness of Tamriel, bringing spectral light and playful joy to your game. If using ENB, also install this. Seasonal Wildlife Distribution Adds seasonal leveled lists to simulate hibernation, migration, and other effects of the changing seasons on Skyrim's wildlife. Has patches for most of well-known large creatue mods, such as Skyrim Immersive Creatures or SkyTest. Battle Worn Creatures Ever wanted some of Skyrim's creatures to look like they have been in a battle? Well now they can. Worn Undead Adds undead versions of a variety of Skyrim's creatures. Otters Adds otters and wolf-otters into Skyrim. You can also get a sound addon for them to be more quiet. Skaven of Skyrim SE (Warhammer Fantasy) Adds voiced Skaven to the world of Skyrim via leveled lists. Diverse Dogs Adds diversity to the dogs of Skyrim, and optionally adds more dogs to farms, cities, and jarl's courts. Wild Herds of Skyrim Adds four wild horse herds to Skyrim. Each herd contains six horses: A lead mare, a stallion, and two mares with foals. Butterflies Unchained Butterflies Unchained makes butterflies and moths behave more like actual animals, rather than basic resource points. They now roam freely to explore the world alongside you. You can a see a showcase of it here. Diversified Chickens Chick fillet. But diverse. Horse Stamina HUD Displays your horse's stamina in the HUD when riding a horse. Arvakr This mod makes Arvak look a bit more like a normal horse, gives him better stats and a few new abilities to make him more interesting. PermaFrost A similar mod, but for Frost, from the same author. Nightmere A similar mod, but for Shadowmere, from the same author. Zooming Horses - A Movement and Stamina Overhaul Tired of useless horses that are worse than the apocalypse longstride spell? Want to play a non magic character, but don't want to fast travel? Tired of asthmatic horses that have no stamina? Mod is for you then. Zim's Dremora Improvements This mod has been designed as a balanced, lore-friendly improvement of the Dremora in Skyrim designed to make Dremora difficult opponents that can rival other deadly foes without making them overpowered. Also grab the USSEP patch. Better Fire Wyrms Fire Wyrms are stronger and only attack enemies. Emperor Penguins Flightless birds from the icy shores of Tamriel, reaching heights of over 1 meter, these social animals feed on fish and squids in the cold ocean of the Sea of Ghosts, and serve as food for some of the region's most voracious predators. This species lives in large groups on coasts, alongside Horkers and other marine animals. Improved Fish Adds many new fish to the waters of Skyrim. Both smaller pond fish and bigger fish in the category with salmon. Varied Chickens Adds several breeds/colors of chicken (barred, black, white...) to some places around Skyrim.

Faction mods:

First of all, an absolute must-have mod to greatly improve the main Skyrim "enemy" faction: bandits:

OBIS - Organized Bandits In Skyrim Definitely best bandits mod. It adds amazing variety of bandits (about 2500!! in total), dozens of bandit factions. Bandits are groupped, positioned, have unique skills and improved AI. There are also optional plugins, for example, plugin that will add bandit raids around the towns and villages. My personal recommendation. You can see a brief showcase of it here.
Patches & addons:
Cloaks of Skyrim patch
Invisible bandits fix
The "Proper Fix for the invisible bandits" file is recommended.
OBIS Loot Visually overhauls many of the OBIS bandits and their loot. Also adds a boatload of other content. Note: works fine with the latest OBIS version. Missives patch Bigger Bosses for OBIS Get the "Bigger Bosses - OBIS Patch" file. Works fine with lastest OBIS version.

College of Winterhold:

College of Winterhold - Quest Expansion Tired of the College of Winterhold not actually teaching you any magic? Tired of jumping into Saarthal after your very first lesson? This mod provides 7 new starter magic lessons/quests to make your College of Winterhold feel like an actual school of magic. Compatible with "Improved College Entry - Questline Tweaks" and "College of Winterhold Entry Requirements" - make sure to load this mod after them. College of Winterhold Entry Requirements Adds customizable skill level and Magicka requirements to join the College of Winterhold. Compatible with Immersive College of Winterhold. Note: this mod is not needed if you're using "At Your Own Pace" COw plugin. College Days - Winterhold Go to school! Pay exorbitant fees to be mocked. Actually be a master at something magic-related before becoming Arch-Mage. Compatible with Immersive College of Winterhold. Also install this patch. Immersive College NPCs Adds more students and guards to the College of Winterhold. Almost fully compatible with Immersive College of Winterhold - you can use them together, just small cosmetic conflicts will appear rarely.

Thieves Guild:

All Thieves Guild Jobs Concurrently Lets you take on all seven types of Thieves Guild jobs at once, instead of only one from Delvin and one from Vex at a time. Note: this mod is not needed if you're using "At Your Own Pace" TG plugin. Less Tedious Thieves Guild Remember that 125 job requirement for the full experience? Well, forget about that now. Thieves Guild Bounty Clearer This mod adds an NPC to the Ragged Flagon who can remove bounties on the player character for a fee. Also grab an improved audio addon for it. Ragged Flagon Shortcut Tired of running through two loading screens to get to the Ragged Flagon? This mod attempts to make it easier to get to Tonilia and the Thieves Guild quest NPCs by adding a manhole in Riften leading directly to the Flagon, and a ladder from there leading back out to Riften. Thieves Guild Requirements The Thieves Guild will now only recruit other thieves. Brynjolf will no longer approach you if you are not a thief, and the Thieves Guild questline will not be activated until the player meets the necessary requirements. You can also choose to set requirements that must be met before progressing along the Thieves Guild questline. Note: this mod is not needed if you're using "At Your Own Pace" TG plugin. A Change in Managment - Seamless Transition of Guild Master to Brynjolf Makes Brynjolf Guild Master of the Thieves Guild seamlessly. Mod includes remastered audio files, edited quest messages and objectives, and ensures all subittles are updated with the new dialog. Thieves' Night On the Town -- Tnott Overhaul for radiant quests from Vex & Delvin: hold selection, targets in ALL holds, job & hold independent crime tracking, concurrent jobs, fixed targets in stock locations. Guild Master Quest Letters A small mod that adds 4 letters to Delvin Mallory's desk. The letters will start the quest The Dainty Sload, Imitation Amnesty, Silver Lining and Summerset Shadows. Thieves Guild Dialogue Fix USSEP compatible version of the essential fix to the thieves guild members dialogue system to prevent them spilling their life stories pretty much as soon as you meet them. Thieves Guild Master Recognition Thief encounters who try to mug you should recognize you as a Thieves Guild member if you're Guild Master. Thieves Guild Vault Adds items to The Thieves Guild Headquarters and the Ragged Flagon each guild level up. Note: Not compatible with Opulent Thieves Guild. Destroy the Thieves Guild Kill the Thieves Guild plaguing Riften and engage in alternative ways to gain the quest exclusive loot. Better Thieves Guild Caches Replace thief cache boring sameness with the thrill of discovery! More variety & more immersion without becoming unbalanced.

Dark Brotherhood:

Dark Brotherhood for Good Guys Another amazing mod from the same author. Don't worry, it doesn't transform DB to group of pacifists - but gives you various alternative choices. Dark Brotherhood Reborn - Dawnstar Sanctuary Not every super cool assassin organization wants to live in a filthy dark damp hole in the ground that has no real storage and not enough beds for everybody. It's time for the Sanctuary to become a proper base of operations. A few patches available here . Save The Dark Brotherhood Simple as that! No more scripted deaths of your comrades - their survival now depends on you. Protect your Brothers and Sisters during "Death Incarnate" to reap their use as followers and spouses later. Your Choices Matter - A Dark Brotherhood Expansion This mod extends the Dark Brotherhood questline in many ways and adds an optional alternate ending. The ending you get will depend on the choices you, player, make throughout the story. Completely voiced dialogues. Listen - Dark Brotherhood Radiant Quests Adds a new set of Radiant Quests to the Dark Brotherhood, to give meaning to the title of Listener. If using "Your Choices Matter" mod, place this after it in load order. Dark Brotherhood Motivations Adds a little backstory and motivation for some of the Dark Brotherhood contracts. Dark Brotherhood Abduction Redux Prevents Astrid from being able to abduct you with impunity when beginning the Dark Brotherhood questline. Conditions configurable via MCM. Destroy the Dark Brotherhood - Enhanced This mod allows the player to take a more politically neutral role in destroying the Dark Brotherhood, while also allowing players the chance to obtain all the unique loot they normally miss out on. Hidden DB Sanctuary Entrances Hides the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary entrances. Penitus Oculatus A quest where you can join the Penitus Oculatus after the vanilla "destroy the dark brotherhood" quest and get all the rewards. Pandorable's NPCs - males patch here .

Companions:

Skyforge Immersion Addon ==NEW== Adds new dialogue and improves ALL Weapons & Armor made by the Skyforge, making it actually the best forge in Skyrim. Optionally, restricts access to it until certain quests are completed. Proving Honor Companions Quest Progression Fix Companions Dialogue Bundle Adds around 120 lines of new, voiced dialogue to the Companions. It comes with new dialogue options, new misc dialogue & new scenes, as well as some enhancements to more under-utilized characters. Silver Hand Armored Mod gives Steel Plate Armor to all the hunters of the Silver Hand so as to turn this faction into a warrior faction rather than a gang of bandits. Reasonable Silver Hand The members of the Silver Hand no longer attack you on sight like common bandits. Instead, you can find out a bit of their story and might even become a honorary member.

Bards College:

Bards Reborn Student of Song Become a Bard and Bards College Expansion This mod give the Bards College a massive makeover, adds a new study quest, new bardic powers, and a new character to flesh out your experience as a Bard. It includes all the great features of a well-konwn Become a Bard mod and expands on their use in the game. Compatible with the mod below if using this patch . You can also install this addon on top of the mod itself. Skyrim's Got Talent - Improve As a Bard Play instruments, get better, NPCs react to your skill dynamically, many new songs, lots of easter eggs, simple implementation. A compact, yet powerful Bard Gameplay Overhaul. Note: make sure to follow the required files instructions on the mod page. Compatible with the mod above if using this patch . You can add an extra layer of immersion to the mod so your character now can react to other bards performance with a different idles, grab this great lil mod. Interesting NPCs patch available. Bards College Excavation Adds a bard excavation to Dead Men's Respite after completing Tending the Flames, with 2 unique bard NPCs, fully voiced dialogue, and a repeatable quest. compatible with the mods above.

Everything else:

Dawnguard - Hall of Vigilant Requirement A small yet logical tweak that adds an additional requirement for the Dawnguard quest to start: having been inside the Hall of the Vigilant. Faction Exclusivity A small mod that immersively™ prevents the player from joining multiple factions. Read the mod page for details. Stormcloaks For Good Guys-LESS RACIST A mod from "Good Guys" series author - does exactly how it's named. Open Civil War Expands the civil war by many new battles and sieges. Hunting in Skyrim - A Hunting Guild Mod adds a fully functional hunting guide to the game, and completely overhauls the entire hunting experience. It features realistic animal skinning (like Red Dead Redemption), animal trapping, kill & stat tracking, new skills and abilities, new NPCs and locations, new dungeons, new weapons and more. Outlaws Refuges Inspired by Elder Scrolls Online, adds Outlaws Refuges to major towns and cities. Vigilant Faction Ported from Skyrim LE, mod adds a joinable Vigilant of Stendarr faction to the game, with ranks and radiant quest system. Bandit Facemask Disguise This mod adds new, standalone Facemasks to the game that will be seen on Bandits throughout the land. The player can now join the Bandits and walk among them as an ally by simply equipping a facemask. Sokco's Guild Starter Start your own guild and choose its members, motives, and location. Arma Thalmoris An overhaul of the Thalmor faction. It adds several new Thalmor-themed armor sets to the game and has members of the Thalmor faction equip the new armor instead of Elven. Akaviri History - Lore-Friendly Additions and Tweaks Akaviri History seeks to add some Akaviri aspects to Skyrim where it makes sense in a lore-fiendly manner. Diverse Skyrim Why you never saw even a single orc in imperial legion forces? Or a women? Why hunters were only elves and humans? If you want to change this aspect of the game - not just randomly, but absolutely logical and lore-friendly - get this mod for sure. Adds hundreds of new NPCs with unique appearences to the levled lists for added variety and diversity while staying lore friendly. Also install this fix. Patch for Unplayable Faction Armors here . Dealing with Daedra New factions with quests, new spells and artifacts. Magic systems offer power for a price to non-mage characters. Witchhunters Guild, School of Julianos, Gatekeepers of Oblivion, Cult of Flesh, Ghost-Sea Smugglers and much more! You can a see a showcase of it here.

You can also look on the creature/faction mods I'm personally using in my ultimate mod list, but take into account it was made for LE initially, but you can still reproduce the mod list mostly.

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations and more in-depth review, you can take a look at some of these spell mods in action:

First, let's see some magic-related mods that are improving spellcasting/learning experience in this or that way:

Dual Casting Fix Fixes a vanilla bug which causes the game to treat dual cast spells as if they were single cast. Visual Animated Enchants - VAE A replacer for the visual and animation of the enchantments on weapons to make them more magical and immersive. Also install the fix for it, also choosing needed patches in FOMOD installer, or use the version better tweaked for ENB straight away instead. Elemental Destruction Effects and Reanimation A pretty innovative mod which adds a possibility to cause visual elemental effects on slain enemies and corpses, as well as adding a magic critical hit mechanic to all kinds of elemental magic. Pretty much an essential addition to your load order.

Between the next few mods below, choose one:

Spell Learning and Discovery My personal favourite between such mods - lightweight and configurable, it prevents player form learning spells instantly, making player to study them by spending some ingame time. Mod also has other cool features like increased chances to learn spells the more spells you casted, chances of learning about new spell when talking to mages and so on. Compatible with all spell mods out of the box. Spellforge - Engaging and Convenient Spell Acquisition Tired of crowded spell vendors? Want to filter your spell selection by level, school and sub-type (e.g. Fire)? Want to feel like a powerful mage making their own spells in a torrent of arcane flames and unleashed power? Stop eating tomes and instead try out a more immersive, configurable and fun way to expand your spell book. Challenging Spell Learning Pretty original, but simple alternative to previous mods. In addition, compatible with absolutely all spell mods on Nexus. Grimoire - Spell Mastery Another simple and interesting implementation of spell learning. Spell mastery takes time. With Grimoire one must always have a spell tome on hand to cast its spell until mastery is achieved.

Nice!

Scrollwriting in Skyrim Scrolls are no longer a non-renewable resource. You can now craft your own scrolls, like any self-respecting mage who dabbles in enchanting should be able to. ScrollScribe - A Scroll Crafting Mod A scroll crafting system that adapts to your load order and allows you to turn modded spells into scrolls. Ever wanted to have scroll versions of all those crazy Apocalypse or Arcanum spells? Now you got 'em! Also grab this patch optionally. Spell Tome Sorting Changes spell tomes names to "Spell Tome - [School] [Rank] [Spell Name]". Only changes spell tomes so you can buy them more easily, no spell names are changed. Atronach Friendly Fire Friendly conjured atronachs will now heal if you hit them with a spell of the same element. Vision Spiritual successor to Predator Vision, this mod is a new take on the way perception powers work in Skyrim.

Mods introducing dedicated spellsword mechanics. Remember that Ordinator has own, balanced and fun spellsword mechanics implemented in two skill trees - these mods may and most likely will make you OP on some extent - but at the same time, they have own unique features which you may like. Choose only one mod between these.

Spellsword Sword or magic, why to choose? Install this mod and be able to launch prepared spells with weapon swings. Note: Ordinator has several spellsword perks and one of the perks is making almost literally the same, so if you're running Ordinator - you don't need this one for playing as spellsword character. The Flamebringer AIO - Immersive Spellsword Use as much as many different Spells and functions without changing spells. Combine close-combat and the wonders of magic into one very fluid combat style with unique combinations of visuals. Spellfury - Hit Stuff to Cast Spells One more approach to spellsword gameplay with pretty nonregular design. Turns magicka into a rage/fury like mechanic (no regeneration instead you gain magicka on weapon hits). Also, tries to improve the character progression of spell-sword style characters. Complete with a MCM to tweak and/or disable many features. Conduit - Short-term Weapon Infusions When holding a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other, you are able to temporarily "conduct" the spell through that weapon. Different categories of spells make the weapon do different things. This effect will overlay on top of normal enchants and does include additional weapon FX that will overlay too. It even works on Bound weapons.

Slice, smash, bang!

Awakened Magicka Simple but effective magic overhaul. Note: You don't need need if you're planning to use big perk overhauls like Ordinator or Path of Sorcery. Unattuned - Immersive Spell Failure Magic is dangerous. Littered throughout in-game texts and conversation is evidence that magic is a difficult and dangerous undertaking. Spells can fail if you do not maintain focus or have the adequate skill. This mod adds spell failure to the game. Many spell archetypes have unique failure mechanisms. Works on NPCs as well, fully configurable and compatible with mod-added spells. No Force for Illusion Magic Stop Illusion spells from throwing things everywhere. Conjuration Hand FX Changes the in-hand spell effects from the default purple swirl to custom colors for each of the summonable creatures. This was made in order to remove confusion from not knowing what conjuration spell is in your hand at the moment. At a glance you can now see if you have a Flame Atronach or a Frost Atronach in your hand! Dragonhide Fixed Fixes several major bugs with this master tier vanilla spell. Magic Fixes and Tweaks ==NEW== Fixes a few engine bugs with Skyrim's magic (spell absorbtion), and has a few optional tweaks. SKSE plugin. Smarter Conjuration Minions ==NEW== Fixes an issue where player reanimated corpses and conjured summons can't find enemies, sometimes not entering combat or not continuing fighting. Absorb Spell XP Fix ==NEW== In vanilla, concentration spells with the Absorb archetype (such as Vampiric Drain) do not grant experience when used. This SKSE plugin fixes that issue. Absorb Spell XP Fix ==NEW== An SKSE plugin that makes wards block arrows, melee attacks, and grant Restoration XP while doing it. Enhanced Invisibility SKSE plugin that improves and fixes bugs with Invisibility effects. If you're modding Skyrim "VR", get this instead. Use Telekinesis on Traps Allow you to use telekinesis on soul gem traps, trip wires, pressure plates, and more. Cooking with Fire Cook food with fire spells. Magic Sneak Attacks Simple SKSE plugin which enables sneak attacks with magic. Note: not needed if you'll be using perk overhaul like Ordinator or Path of Sorcery. Elegant Candlelight (with ENB Light and Toggle) A Candlelight replacer with four versions to choose from.

Now, the spell mods themselves:

Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim The biggest and greatest spells mod in history. While adding 155 new spells it’s still really well balanced and immersive. Absolutely any player will find something useful here - just for damage or for the immersive roleplay. It’s also very compatible with other magic/perk mods. You may use or not use another mods with it but you just must use this one :) One of my two most favourite spellpacks for Skyrim. Don't foget to grab Ordinator/Vokrii patch depending on which one you're using. Note: Enai released a sort of reworked version of it lately here. It will be a good use to you if you like Apocalypse but think it's tad too much in general. Patches/Addons (for Apocalypse): Categorized Favorite Menu for Mages - Apocalypse Apocalypse - Ocato's Recital - Auto Dispel Elemental Staffs for Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim Patches/Addons (for Odin): Cleaned textures Improved summons models Improved conjured creatures sounds Scrollwriting in Skyrim Patch Spells Icon Patch ==NEW== Some other patches Cha-poo! Lost Grimoire SSE ==NEW== One of the most popular spellpacks finally ported to Skyrim SE by its original author. Adds 115+ balanced, lore-friendly spells across all schools of magic, plus matching scrolls and staves. Transform into various animals, assassinate with stealth Destruction spells, summon swarms of locusts, conjure new familiars and Dremora and more! High-quality VFX and SFX, seamlessly integrated into the game through automatic distribution. Arcanum - A New Age of Magic A breathtaking spellpack. It combines both new amazing visuals with new amazing mechanics of the spells, resulting in absolutely next-level spell mod. Currently mod has Destruction, Restoration, Illusion and Conjuration (read note about it further) spells available. You can also watch a showcase of it here. Note: Latest version of the mod is improperly packed and carries lots of bugs, so until mod author fixes - so either install the 3.8.2. version (the last one before Conjuration was added, it's fine), or grab (mostly) fixed latest version of the mod here (get the full version - you won't need to install the original mod itself then - still make sure to endorse it). Elemental Destruction Magic Awesome mod that adds 30 new spells related with different element. Another mod feature is that different types of enemies are weaker/stronger to different elements. This can bring additional immersion to your mage playthrough. Optional simplified addon is available, as well as Fulcimentum patch . Forgotten Magic Redone Mod adds 39 new spells. Key feature is it also adds 10 improvements for each of them, so 390 improvements in total. Also install a fix for it. Shadow Spell Package This mod adds "shadow" themed destruction/illusion spells and perks to Skyrim, looking and acting awesome. These spells are based around drains, damage-over-time and debuff effects. Great mod for ‘dark’ mage playthrough. Ordinator patch here . Dawnguard Arsenal Amazing mod for everyone who like Dawnguard and paladin/vampire hunter playthrough style. Mod adds new armors and weapons, new sun spells and also improves existing dawnguard sun spells. Spectraverse - Magic of the Magna-Ge Mod adds interesting questline during which you can obtain 42 new destruction spells. Questline is based on TES lore, it has 5 voiced NPCs, 6 locations and 6 quests. Dwemertech - Magic of the Dwarves Similar to previous mod, but this one is related with dwemer lore. - 42 new Alteration, Destruction and Restoration spells. - 14 bionic upgrades - Interesting short quesline with voiced NPCs. Triumvirate - Mage Archetypes A latest work of the greatest Skyrim mod author, Enai Siaion. Triumvirate adds support for five mage archetypes (druid, shadow mage, warlock, cleric, shaman) in the form of 15 balanced spells each, which are available immersively through vendors. Some spells may be not quite balanced, but all are useful for roleplaying purposes. Patches for Immersive Sounds Compendium , Tonal Architect A high quality Dwemer themed collection of spells from Enai Siaion, themed around devices, tinkering and automatons. It is similar in style to the Triumvirate classes. Skysunder Metamagics Awesome mod that adds unique spell mechanics and improvements. Spell charging, magic impacts, blinks, spell sharing, improved spell explosions and a few more features. Wild Magic Surge This mod aims to make magic more volatile and dangerous by re-creating the Wild Magic system from D&D in Skyrim. Vitrium Vitrium offers an immersive, animated and well balanced pack of spells, tools and consumables. Compliments Skyrim's gameplay loop and adds preparation gameplay (animations for actions included). Immersive Illusion Spells ==NEW== Adds 15+ new fun spells for the Illusion School of Magic. Trick your enemies, control their thoughts, play with their minds! Aetherial Tomes Spell mod that adds plenty (around of 100) of new spells that fill missing roles and alters a few vanilla spells for balance. Warp Magic - Lore Of Ruin Spells (Warhammer Fantasy) Adds 14 Standalone Warp-Magic spells to the game. Astral Magic 2 Ancient spells tapping into the flow of Aetherius, drawing starlight to strike opponents. Updated version of the mod. Epic Restoration Adds 32 non-violent spells to the Restoration school. Aura A mod with simple yet interesting mechanic. Adds toggleable aura spells, which provide constant effects for yourself and/or nearby allies/enemies. All auras reduce your maximum magicka by a specific amount while active (upkeep cost). Secret of the Blood Armory Discover the Secret of the Blood Armory and obtain unimaginable power. A blood magic spell mod. Darenii profile For multiple, from small to medium in number of spells, well-made, thematic spellpacks that are usually fitting both vanilla+ and heavy-modded setups. If using their mods, you may be also interested in installing this addon to make them more effective. Showcase here. Kittytail profile For various small spell packs themed as per different character/magic archetypes. A few new ones were added by the author lately. From time to time, some of the spells in certain packs are pretty disbalanced or even plainly overpowered, so test them in game and see which ones you'd like to use generally, and which ones - probably just for screenies. This said, everyone's to their own in a feeling of balance, ofc, and asides from this moment, the overall number, look and thematic design of the spells are really intriguing. The Miracle of Flight Adds three modes of flying transportation for skilled mages: a flying carpet, Hethoth's Floating Disk and a dwemer conveyance. Actual flying was not something game intended so it can kinda ruin the balance/exploration immersion, but mod itself is really well made and can be great for screenshots and roleplay. Shalidor's Migrant Portals Adds a new dungeon to the Labyrinth which becomes available to explore once you've completed Shalidor's Maze. Inside is a small chamber with a new boss battle and a reward of a collection of portal stones allowing for instantaneous travel across large distances. Dragon Age Spells Redux Pretty unique mod that adds 21 new spells from Dragons Age games with powerful effects and beautiful visuals. But the main feature is that spells now have cooldown, similar to Dragon Age series. So keep that in mind when installing the mod :) The Witcher Signs The best adaptation of the Witcher 3 signs into Skyrim - if you're a Witcher series fan, this mod will be likely a must-have for you. Showcase here. You also want to grab animations addon for it for even higher witcher-style immersion. Ace Blood Magic Unique mod that adds a real blood magic spells to your game - this spells cost your HEALTH to cast. Basically, an anti-vampire spell mod. Kagrenac's Wisps This mod adds craftable dwemer light sources.Their origin is unknown, though some say that wisps were invented by legendary dwemer magecrafter Kagrenac.They will light your path in dark dungeons and caves. Wisps are equippable, so you can assign them to hotkey. Wards Functionalities Extended A magic ward overhaul. Customize magnitude, cost, charge rate and absorption rate. Block melee weapons with your ward. Break your enemy's ward with your weapons. Protect yourself from arrows. Make shouts pass through wards. Play with new expert and master level wards. Odin patch here . Meteorokinesis Have you ever wanted to control the weather, or turn the sky something beautiful like an aurora? Then this is the mod for you. Meteorokinesis adds 11 new weather altering spells that allow to you to change the weather to whatever you desire the most. Note: Similar spell is available in Apocalypse mod, but this one is slightly more "wide". Voidgate - A Simple Town Portal Create a portal and simply walk into it to find yourself in town for your merchant/crafting/whatever business. Then use the same portal spell to return to the wilds or dungeon you came from. Town Portal Adds a Town Portal scroll and spell that brings you back to the last visited town or city. Inspired by Diablo. A Guiding Light - Clairvoyance Reimagined Replaces Clairvoyance with a more convenient and immersive spell to help you find your way. Patch for Gray Cowl of Nocturnal available here . Mage Armor Rebalanced Pretty underrated and very useful mod for people who're playing with hardcore or semi-hardcore gameplay mod setups. Energy Shield Add a Mana Shield spell which can be toggled (ON/OFF) with visual effect. Ion Cannon Obviously not lore-friendly, but well...an orbital ion cannon blast for Skyrim, because...why not? It looks badass, that's no doubts.

Enchantments, shouts & minor related mods:

Summermyst - Enchantments of Skyrim Amazing mod from the author of Apocalypse spell package. It adds 120 new enchantments to the game, accessible through thousands of new enchanted items that are integrated seamlessly into loot lists and inventories. It also fixes many bugs related to vanilla enchantments. An essential mod to increase your enchanting and overall game experience. Patches/Addons: Weapons Armor Clothing and Clutter Fixes (WACCF) patch Night Eye enchantment fix Loot and Degradation patch VAE Effects for Summermyst Cooki-goo! Assassin Enchantments This mod replaces the enchantment on the dark brotherhood headgear with an entirely new enchantment: Snipe, which is now actually fully useful for any assassin type. Also, the dark brotherhood gear is now also disenchantable. Robes Enchantments Remade Changes the enchantments on the college robes to a more potent, interesting, but also balanced enchantment. Dragonborn Ascendant Awesome and underrated mod. Its main feature is to boost to shouts cooldown per dragon killed (3% per 5 dragons, capped at 30%) Mod also balances and improves many shouts values and scales battle shouts damage each 10 levels. Don't use together with previous mod, choose one or another. Thunderchild - Epic Shouts and Immersion This mod adds 29 new shouts and new abilities to improve your shouts. It also adds 24 new variants of graybeards robes, some new weapons and items and good configurable MCM. If you were bored with vanilla shouts variety - this mod is definitely for you. Sil Gahrot - Improved Shouts Learning Allows you to learn Words of Power by killing dragons. You will be able, by chance, to learn almost every shout, except main quests ones, without breaking your game. It doesn't remove the Word Walls, so if you want to explore dungeons for them, you are still able to, but you are not forced anymore in doing all the guild questlines for a Dragonborn playthrough. Learned Words of Power are not unlocked by default, so you still have a choice on how to use your Dragon Souls. Configurable in MCM. Mystical Materials Adds mystical properties to weapons and armor crafting materials that will buff matching enchantments placed on them. Kyne's Peace Reinvigorated A tiny mod that's changing only one shout, but greatly. Slow Time Edit Simply makes the Slow time shout not slow the player down. Elemental Fury for Enchanted Weapons Simple yet effective as that. Install the "Elemental Fury for Enchanted Weapons" file (no the "Vanilla" one). SkyVoice - Become the Dragonborn Bored of pressing Z to activate shouts? Well, this mod changes that! Shout into your mic and watch as you send your foes flying with Unrelenting Force! Ofc, due how unique it is, it's not always working properly, but it's definitely a cool one. Shout Pronunciations and Translations - With Thunderchild and Skyvoice support A mod that will will come in handy for usage with previous mod, and with Thunderchild as well. Speed Casting Makes spellcasting (charging) faster. Can make you pretty overpowered, so use with caution. Dynamic Spell Descriptions SKSE plugin that changes what parts of a spell's descriptions are shown based on their own conditions, basically a cosmetic bugfix.

You can also look on the spell mods I'm personally using in my ultimate mod list, but take into account it was made for LE initially, but you can still reproduce the mod list mostly.

Note: if you're using "Lux" as your interior lighting mod, make sure you're installing it now as the instructed previously. If you installed it way before, during the "Weather and Lighting" section, reinstall it now, as its installer contains patches for huge number of mods in the sections above, including quest, dungeon and some other mods.

Ordinator - Scrambled Bugs compatibility (and other minor fixes)

Forgotten Magic Redone - Ordinator Compatibility Patch

Ordinator Enchantment Tweaks

Immersive Performance for Ordinator

Dwemer Certified - Ordinator Patch

Ordinator Perk Spellscribe Sound Addon

Ordinator VR Patch

Skyrim's Got Talent Patch

Ordinator - Hotwire Patches

Ordinator - Drop bear trap Power

Skyrim Arrow Overhaul Patch

patches insaller

CACO patch

Apocalypse and Immersive Sounds

patch

Vampire overhauls. Choose only one.

here

Werewolf overhauls. Choose only one.

Now, let's look on some great enemy overhauls that are affecting enemies in general - their AI, skills, leveling and so on - everyting to make your enemies really worth a fight, a challenging opponents. Choose one.

Good.

Race overhauls. Choose one:

patch

Race Balance

Better Race Abilities

Standing stones overhauls. Choose one:

tweak

Nice, let's continue with plenty of other overhauls of most different type (click "show" to open the subsection):

Dragon Combat Overhaul Essential mod that offers amazing overhaul for dragons. Dragons are DRAGONS now - powerful, frightening monsters. AI improvements, unique skills and shouts and realistic physics. You’re fighting dragon, not a butterfly! If dragon lands close to you or makes a powerful tail/wing strike and you did not block this - you’ll be ragdolled. Dragons also can grab other NPCs and just throw them in air and many more other immersive features. If you want to have a real challenge fighting dragons - this mod is for you! I'd say even more simply - this mod is absolutely essential, because no matter how beefy your dragons will be empowered by other mods, this still makes not much sense if they still have stupid vanilla AI and no realistic physics. Also get a fix (the "Old SSE version") file. You can see a video showcase of the mod here. Also, it's recommended to disable this mod Assault feature (set all related parameters to 0), and use Deadly Dragons Assault system instead. Dragon War - A Dragon Overhaul A lightweight overhaul for dragons. Not compatible with other similar mods like DCO or DD. Skyrim Arrow Overhaul This mod completely overhauls the way archery works in Skyrim. This includes locational damage, arrow-deflecting armor, quiver mechanics, a perk tree, crafting and more. Compatible with Ordinator and other perk mods (load after those). DVA - Dynamic Vampire Appearance Finally ported to Skyrim Special Edition, this mod dynamically changes the appearance of vampires to visually represent the different stages of vampirism. Compatible with vampire overhauls like Sacrosanct. Dwemer Certified Don't just let those broken Dwemer Constructs and spare Dwemer Ingots go to waste- use them to build an army of steam-powered robots, upgrade and enchant their equipment, then lead them into battle from the driver's seat of a Dwemer Centurion. Wintersun - Faiths of Skyrim The latest mod and a new gem from Enai Siaion. Hands down the best religion mod you can ever have. More than 45 deities to worship, roleplay-wise worshipping mechanics and balanced unique bonuses! Grab it, don't even think. You can see a brief showcase of it here.
Patches/addons:
Patches for some popular mods
Skyrim Immersive Creatures patch
The Whispering Door - Quest Expansion Patch
Custom races patch
Great Town of Shor's Stone patch
M'rissi patch
Artifacts - The Breton Paladin patch
Character Creation Overhaul Character Creation Overhaul brings back birthsigns, classes, specializations, favored attributes, and major/minor skills to Skyrim. No more boring cookie-cutter characters - choice matters again! Use this mod or the mod below. Dealing with Backstories One more great similar mod. Choose how old your character is and how they spent their life up to this point in order to generate starting stats, skills, gear, bonuses, drawbacks and level. Optionally return later to simulate your character aging. Use this mod or the mod above. Experience A complete overhaul to experience system in Skyrim transforming it to classic RPG style. Compatible with mods as well. Gain experience by completing quests, exploring wilderness, clearing dungeons and forts, killing enemies and so on. Grab the MCM addon for it too. You can see a showcase of it here. MorrowLoot Ultimate In-depth and, in my opinion, simply essential mod. It makes complete rebalances of various game aspects, making it to play more similar to Morrowind leveled lists and leveling system - rare items like daedric or dwarven are REALLY rare now so you will not see each 2nd bandit in daedric gear when you'll reach lvl 80, enemies level scaling is much more balanced and challenging, and so on - many other mechanics such as leveling and alchemy were changed as well.
Note #1: There are two "flaw" of this mod - it's too complex and will have compatibility issues with just too many other mods. The second one is that it forcefully (without any practical reason) requires Creation Club "DLCs" which are not actually used by most of players. That's why I'm personally using the "simplified" version of it, from here.
A CCOR patch is available, as well as ArteFakes patch , plus lots of other patches here , here and here . You can also get Lore Weapons Expansion patch here and Summermyst patch here . Both are for LE version of the mod, but work just fine in SE. Unique Uniques patch is available in its installer, which also covers combination for it and Reliquary of Myth.
Note #2: if you want to achieve "lite" results from this mod and don't want to use the "Simplified" version linked (get mostly only the loot and gear changes without any that can feel too intrusive/arguable in this mod), from Opitonal Files tab, also install these: Encounter Zones (Vanilla), Remove Tempering Nerf, or, once again (that's my own pick) install "simplified" version of the mod (instead, original mod is not needed, also, patches made for MLU itself mostly work with MUS, asides a few from the MLU page itself, which also have CC "DLC" requirements for no reason). Containers and Leveled Lists Fixes - Complete Loot Overhaul If some changes from Morrowloot, even from "simplified" version, such as "rare is better", are not something you like still, and you want just the loot rebalance, get this mod instead. Rogue-Like Encounters - Savage North Overhaul A massive creature and gameplay overhaul to make Skyrim more grim and unpredictable. Make sure to read the mod page carefully - as while the mod itself is great, it's also just huge in size/complexity and changes/adds a lot - so see if you actually want it or not. Poverty - You Hunger Reborn Successor to You Hunger mod that affects the spawn rates of almost every item in the world along with an MCM that enables user customization of item distribution. An essential mod for hardcore realism/survival fans. CIVIL WAR OVERHAUL - Redux An improved version of well-known Civil War Overhaul mod - still script-heavy, but now much less buggy. Still, it's recommended to play a walkthrough directly through civil war to experience it and then start a new walkthrough without it. Crafting Skills Revamped A neat crafting overhaul that can be used on top of CCOR and other big mods. Read the mod page carefully though to see if you need it or not. Simple and Dynamic Skills - Improved Standing Stones Skill learning modifiers are determined by a combination of the level of the skill and investment in the primary Perks of the corresponding tree. Each skill is accordingly classified as Major (35% XP bonus), Minor (normal XP), or Auxiliary (20% XP penalty*). At low levels, only the first Perk is required for a Major Skill, but at higher levels, further investment is needed. Mod also introduces own changes to standing stones, focused on balanced changes and both pros and cons of certain stones. Arena - An Encounter Zone Overhaul An encounter zones overhaul. KS Dragon Overhaul 2 An overhaul of dragons AI and combat behaviour. Highly compatible with mods that add dragons on fly, and for some other pathes are available in mod Files tab. Ultimate Dragons Another great dragon combat overhaul, with better AI, new skills, animations etc. Choose this one or previous mod. Crime Overhaul Crime Overhaul makes changes to the way criminal activities are handled by Skyrim guards. They are less inept, getting arrested is less cumbersome, accidental attacks are more forgiving, and thaneship is more rewarding. Also install a lil bugfix/improvement patch. Simple Hunting Overhaul A simple hunting overhaul that puts gameplay first, while still remaining immersive. Have NPCs react to your hunting skills with voiced reactions, sell your carcasses to make a bit of money on the side and other features. Improved carcass carrying animations here and MCM addon here. Skyrim Revamped - Loot and Encounter Zones Deleveled gameplay fans, this mod is for you. It's designed to decentralize the player from the world. This is a fairly in-depth deleveling but basically loot and enemy difficulty will increase based on location and type. Yet, the introduced difficulty is somewhat artificial, as it changes mostly just the enemies stats and level. But once again, taste is taste :) Timing is Everything patch here ==NEW==. Depths of Skyrim - An Underwater Overhaul Brilliant mod. Overhauls the underwater environment and adds content to the sea of Ghosts. Adds new grass types, coral and giant kelps, hundreds of new fish, treasures, encounters, fixes landscape seams etc. Don't like the driftwood? Remove it using this patch . Also can install a lil QOl patch from here . Underwater Skyrim- Rivers and Lakes ==NEW== Adds new unmarked locations, places to explore, and points of interest to Skyrim's rivers, ponds, and lakes. Compatible with Depths of Skyrim. More Underwater Treasures - AIO 90+ new underwater treasures to find. Compatible and goes well together with Depths of Skyrim. River Debris Ever noticed how clean Skyrim's rivers are? Barely a stick has fallen into them. This aims to change that. Opening Scene Overhaul Mod is adding the ability to escape with Ulfric, Elenwen & Tullius arguing, brand new carriage dialogue, a brand new voice for Hadvar (that has received much praise), fixing the infamous 'it's in the clouds' error Bethesda made and much more. Hearthfire Extended Love building things? Mod adds new content for the Hearthfire DLC, integrated seamlessly with Hearthfire's construction system. Build any furniture in any room. Build additional wings off your cellar. Also includes bugfixes and enhancements to vanilla apiaries, butter churns and mead barrels. Lock Overhaul Overhauls the lock system, adding new features: Lock requirement, smash locks, unlock spell and auto pick locks, with a fully customizable MCM. Compatible with Ordinator (install the alternative version).

Sound overhauls:

patch

few more patches

UI sound overhauls - choose one:

Improved Vanilla UI Sounds

Music packs:

Celtic Music in Skyrim This mod adds 79 new celtic, fantasy and viking music tracks to Skyrim. Glory Days - Music Of Skyrim Replaces all Skyrim music tracks with amazing tracks of talented Vindsvept (yeah, the songs you're often hearing in my and other Skyrim youtubers videos). Musical Lore (Soundtrack Mod By Nir Shor) This mod adds plenty of new original soundtracks, composed by talanted (and underrated) Nir Shor to your game. The Elder Songs - Fanmade Music Expansion Freshly released pack of amazing fantasy tracks, made personally by the author of the mod, who's a composer at the same time. Highly recommended to try it. Yggdrasil Music and SoundFX Overhaul Amazing dark folk/ambient music pack for Skyrim. Fits the most of game situations really great and gives completely new ambience touch at the same time. Immersive Music Vanilla game has around 3.5 hours of music. This mod adds 16 hours more, carefully picked up from fitting tracks. Cactus Witcher Music Overhaul Mod name speaks for its features itself. As from me - it's a great sound overhaul, hand-picked, fitting the game greatly. The Witcher 3 Music Overhaul Witcher 3 music in Skyrim? Why not! It fits greatly. Dreams and Nightmares Music Mod Somewhat dark and melancholic music pack, made by an independent composer. Fantasy Soundtrack Project patch available. Improved Combat Music Absolutely breathtaking combat music overhaul, which is unique as tracks themselves are sounding like a more agressive, orchestral variations of vanilla ones, giving new, but so familiar experience at the same time. Hun Lovaas - Skyrim Fan-Made combat music Another great alternative in form of combat-only music overhaul. Still - Skyrim Inspired Music Chill, calm exploration music replacer. Morrowind Music Integration Seek audio nostalgia no more! The Northerner Diaries in Skyrim Brings "Northern Diaries", the latest album of legendary TES composer, Jeremy Soule, to your game. Symphonic Soundtrack Adds (or replaces) over 3 hours of music across over 50 tracks composed specifically for Skyrim, blending seamlessly with the original game and original music. Chapter II - Jeremy Soule Inspired Music (by Dreyma Music) Music mod that adds over 1 hour of exploration music to Skyrim using Jeremy Soule's composing techniques. New tracks are added frequently. JaredAlexanderJohnson profile For various quality music packs. Nordenhamr - Viking Music A work in progress mod set to replace Skyriim's soundtrack with the Nodrenhamr autor. Melodies of Civilization - Skyrim Fan-Made Music Adds 25+ minutes of lore friendly/immersive music specifically written for Skyrim. The Southerner Diaries - A Soundtrack Expansion 44 professionally mixed, lore-friendly songs to enhance your Skyrim playthroughs. Inspired by Irish folk music and other celtic influences, as well as popular film scores. Over 2 hours of custom music, lovingly composed by Pat Mahoney. Around the Fire - Skyrim Fan-Made Music Doubles the amount of tavern tracks with lore-friendly/immersive music written specifically for Skyrim. Valkyrie - Intense Combat Music Replaces every music in skyrim into a intense lore friendly combat music and sound effects from the awesome Two Steps From Hell & Motionpulse. Nyghtfall - Epic Immersive Fantasy Music Adds 2 hours of original & immersive music to the game. This includes unique themes for each major city, epic & aggressive combat music (inspired by Bloodborne, God of War & Assassin's Creed) day/night exploration, dungeon music as well as medieval Tavern music. Comes with both replacer and standalone version. Dream of Me - a Vindsvept Music Mod Listen to 10+ hours of Vindsvept's discography while playing Skyrim, all his albums are represented in this mod with music hand-placed to fit the atmosphere appropriately. Music of Nirn Music of Nirn is a Skyrim soundtrack expansion mod that adds over half an hour of new combat and exploration music to the game's track list. All tracks written and arranged by Maxwell Jeffries. Extra Music Pack For Skyrim A fantasy-celtic music pack. Magic College Music - Songs for Academy New tracks specifically for College. Fantasy Soundtrack Project Around 230 fantasy-sounding orchestral and instrumental fantasy/epic music tracks for exploring, towns, taverns and castles. Soulmancer Music Merge Pretty interesting project - it selectively merges huge amount of tracks from 10+ popular music packs into a single mega pack. Read the mod page for installation instructions.

Smaller standalone sound mods:

Thundering Shouts Gives shouts echo and thunder in the background, kinda like draugr shouts. More Painful NPC Death Sounds Modifies the default death sounds of NPCs to make them sound more painful. TB's Improved Book Sounds Improves the default book opening, closing and page turn sounds. Improved River Sound Takes the short river sound loop, and replaces it with a much longer (and overall more realistic) sound clip. Improved Combat Sounds Combat sounds are now enhanced to improve the overall quality of fights. Brutal Combat Sounds This mod replaces all the boring, low-quality vanilla combat sounds with gory, brutal, fleshy, and bloody new ones. Tasteful - Food Sound Remake Add the sound of every meal. More than 60 delicious sounds. Check your refrigerator before you go in here! Chewing Sounds for Spell Tomes Lol. Rustic Common Doors Audio changes the most common doors used in Skyrim to sound more rustic and medieval. Werewolf Footstep FX Improved Footsteps for werewolf improved, with a new slider to control the sound in game audio settings. A New Chapter - UI Sound Replacer A subtle mod that will replace vanilla clumsy new-game sound and quest objective sounds with some "booky" ones. Authentic Wolf Howls and Aggro Replaces the Wolves Aggro, Howl and Distant Howl sounds with singular wolves. Unused Sounds Restored Restores a number of unused sound effects. Critical Hit SFX A simple audio-replacer for the sound played on critical hits. A short throbbing heart-beat. Clofas1 profile ==NEW== For growing series of small sound immersion mods, which are adding brand new ambient sounds which logically make sense in certain regions or even small specific locations - like wale sounds around the Sea of Ghosts, distant dragon roars near related locations, ambient animal sounds to the forests, unique sounds for standing stones and so on. Realistic Husky Sounds Adds over 60 all-new, high-quality husky sounds to the Dawnguard huskies including new attacks, barks, idle panting, groans, "talking", etc. Optional patch to make it work for all dogs is available. Paper UI Sounds for Skyrim Absolutely charming project to replace Skyrim's UI sounds with paper sounds, to work with paper interface retextures and maps. Brutal Bears Complete sound overhaul for bears - more realistic and intimidating. Use this mod or the one below. Bjorn - Bear SFX ==NEW== Another well-made bear growl sound raplacer. Use this mod or the one above. Satafinix profile ==NEW== For many voice replacers - from falmer voices and shouts to daedric lords and Tsun. Mods edit vanilla sound files to make them sound more intimidating/grotesque. Plenty of new sound changes were made by the author in the last year. Also look on some patches here. Talkative Dragon Priests Adds 32 new immersive lines of custom dialogue to these powerful ancient undead enemies, making your battles against them more epic, frightening and unique. "Demonic" voices overhaul here. Talkative Draugr ==NEW== Adds 30+ voiced lines in dovahzul to draugr (taunt, death, alert, etc). LeoMaximus profile ==NEW== For a few small audio mods focusing on improving various notable mythical quest characters, such as Potema and Night Mother, as well as characters that previously lacked unique voiceover or just could've objectively get some improvement (such as Vyrthur, Peryite and some others). Footstep Sounds Restored - Cut Content Restoration This mod restores several of unused vanilla sounds for footsteps, rustling for heavy, light and skaal armor as well as sounds for different surfaces (gravel, dirt, snow etc). Bonewalker Nearly 12 years later, it's done! With this mod installed, bonepiles now will crackle and rattle, when you walk over them. A Bow's Whisper - Bow sound overhaul A rich, detailed sound overhaul for bow handling. Customized for vanilla or AGO animations (download a proper version accordingly). Use this one or the mod below. You can also watch a showcase of it here. Bow Sounds Replacer Replaces vanilla sheathing, unsheathing, arrow nocking, and arrow release sounds for the bow. Use this one or the mod above. Heart of the Beast - Werewolf Sound Remastered Popular werewolf sounds overhaul ported to SE. Bass Dragons Tweaks original dragon sfx files to add more bass that sounds like a LOTR movie. Male Argonian Shouts - Revoiced Makes male Argonian shouts sound gruffer and closer to Argonians, rather than using the default human voice. You can also watch a showcase of it here. Beating Daedra Sound Mod Daedra Hearts produce a very subtle beating heart sound as you approach them. Quiet Muffle Footsteps For Player Completely silences player footsteps when the "muffle" magic effect is applied (through spell or item enchantment). Now you can feel like a true silent, sneaky ninja. Bard Instrumentals Mostly - Sing Rarely Tired of constantly listening to the same bard songs again and again? Want some more chill instrumental-only version of them (with still songs happening from time to time)? Seek no more! (SJG) Better Sounding Female Dragon Shouts Does your female Dragonborn sound a bit too butch when using a Dragon Shout? Would you prefer she sound a bit more feminine? This mod increases the pitch of all female shouts and is based upon the Skyrim elf voice. Silent Sneak Attack No more "tshhhhud". Softer Conjuration Sound Replaces the regular Conjuration spell sound with a softer, deeper version. Vocaris - Conjuration Sounds Overhaul Or if you want it - an incredible overhaul of every Conjuration-related sound. Goes well together with Immersive Sounds Compendium.

Choo-choooo.

Economy and loot related mods:

Trade and Barter Light-weight but great (and I'd say essential) trade mod that offers prices dependency from your faction status, NPC relationship with you, race, region and speech etiquette as well as some other cool features. Playing with it, you will really feel trading mechanics in game having sense. Not conflicting with almost everything. Also install the USSEP patch . Few other patches are available. Economy Overhaul and Speechcraft Improvements A pretty good balanced and wide economy mod for Skyrim that changes plenty of economy aspects of the game as well as Speechcraft perks tree. Compatible with Ordinator and Trade and Barter. True Medieval Economy Another interesting economy mod, aimed on somewhat medieval realism. DLC Integration This mod adds content from Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn to the world through leveled lists, merchants, and manual placement of objects. Trade Routes - Regional Economy Ever wanted to play as a traveling merchant, buying goods cheap where they're plentiful and selling them where they're rare for a modest profit? Than this mod is definitely for you :) Mod adds different trade aspect like regional prices, speech scaling, trade supplies, quests affeting on prices here and there and few more. Scarcity - Less Loot Mod Simple and amazing mod that does how it's called - compatible with everything. My personal choice is x6 less loot and x4 less merchant stocks. Note: make sure all 3 this mod's esp files are placed straight before Bashed Patch in load order when building it. Narrative Loot Mod adds 1629 new, lore-friendly items to loot lists, with an emphasis on deepening storytelling through loot. Thematic Loot Old but great and really underrated mod. It changes the loot that can be found in certain chests. Chests owned by the Dwemer, the Falmer, mages, draugrs, vampires and giants are affected. The purpose behind the changes is to make each chest more representative of the individuals who filled it with items. Dynamic Dungeon Loot (DDL) - Random Loot System A pretty old but great and really underrated mod which adds a loot drop system to boss chests found in dungeons. This system uses five tiers of loot to add variety and fun to the vanilla loot system, without breaking the balance of the game. This mod also includes 16 unique, ultra-rare artifacts to find. You can also install this hd retexture addon for it as well. You can also watch a showcase of it here. Lock Related Loot Containers have loot according to its type and its lock difficulty. Bounty Hunter - Bounty Quest Tweaks A collection of edits to make bounties configurable, easy to take more of, and more rewarding. Miners and Farmers sell supplies Now farmers and miners across Skyrim are more than happy to sell you their stocks as you travel. Hunter Vendors Adds 6 hunters at the entrances of towns and cities to buy your goods. Sells leather strips, leather, arrows, bows and daggers. Bounty Gold Lets you configure how much gold you get for bounty quests. DON'T GIVE ME ALL THIS STUFF - Less Charitable NPCs A simple mod that restricts the amount of stuff friendly NPCs let the player take from their homes and stores for free. Sensible Bribes - Based on Speechcraft Not Level Bribes make no sense in vanilla, as the value mostly depends on your level, not your speechcraft. This mod fixes that. C.O.I.N. - Coins of Interesting Natures Adds new types of coinage of all different values to make Skyrim's economy more interesting.

AI and enemy related mods (note - complex/whole-game-covering enemy overhauls are resting in the "Overhauls" section):

Realistic AI Detection SE (better sneaking) Simple but absolutely essential mod that recalibrates sneaking, making it much more realistic. Compatible with almost everything, including lighting mods - just read the mod description page carefully to install a proper version for your mod setup. Note: Place this mod to the very bottom of your load order, making sure it's loaded after any other sneak rebalancing mods and mods that affect lighting (weather mods, lighting mods like ELFX and all its modules, etc). You can see a video showcase of the mod here. Dynamic Weather and Time Based Detection Changes NPC detection depending on the current weather and time of day. During snow, the peripheral and close range vision of NPCs are severely reduced. During rain, NPC hearing is crippled. During pleasant weather, NPC sight and detection range is increased. At night, overall NPC sight is reduced but hearing is slightly increased. MCM included. Compatible with the mod above.

Enemy resistances mods. Choose only one.

Bring Your Silver This mod brings back the importance of silver weapons in combat when fighting certain enemies (via adding logical resistances to them) and add silver arrows and bolts to the game. Also pretty good compatibility-wise due to a smart scripting. A permanent slot in my personal setup. It's LE mod, but will work just fine in SE after a simple CAO conversion of its assets and changing the USLEEP master to USSEP (LE Unofficial Patch to SE Unofficial Patch). You can also grab some patches from the Files tab, they work just fine with SE versions of respective mods. Resistances and Weaknesses Similar mod with own vision. Enemy Enhancer Yep, that's another LE mod. It works 100% fine as is in SE - though if you're paranoid, you can siply re-save its plugin in SE CK and that's it. This one's bonus is that it's fully configurable in MCM. On top of resistances, it also allows you to furtherly modify enemy types (like skeletons/automatons/dragons/vampires etc) additionally in terms of armor/HP/damage and so on. Super simple, effective and pretty light-weight in terms of scripts.

Nice, let's continue.

Better Vampire NPCs They will be leveled according to the PC and get stronger with advanced perks, spells, and all new abilities. Vampires can now be many different classes: one or two handed, light armor, heavy armor, mage, light bowman, heavy crossbowman. More variety, more challenge, more fun. Note: All "big" 4 enemy overhauls are also covering vampires, so load this mod after if you want its changes to have the upper hand. Draugr Upgrades and Improvements Real armor effect for draugrs and not just visuals, new perks, new types of draugrs etc. Note: All "big" 4 enemy overhauls are also covering draugrs, so load this mod after if you want its changes to have the upper hand. No BS AI Projectile Dodge (Magic and Arrows) No more bandits acting like medium ninjas. Durnehviir God of Death - Remastered A challenging competitor in Soul Cairn and a powerful ally, the Durnehviir that this mod delivers is a better, stronger God of Death. He is re-textured and can breathe blue or purple undead flames. Note: not needed if you're using Revenge of the Enemies overhaul. Believable Crime Report Radius If vanilla game one is too big for you. I'd personally still recommend to increase it to 2000 instead of 1000 in xEdit. Suspicious City Guards Guards will become suspicious when they see you sneaking around. Nighteye For NPCs Khajiit, Vampires and Werewolves...any NPC who are assumed to use nighteye ability get improved eyesight in dark. Note: not needed if using "Dynamic Weather and Time Based Detection" mod. Smart NPC Potions - Enemies Use Potions and Poisons Why is the Dragonborn the only sensible person carrying at least a couple of health/stamina potions in Skyrim? This mod makes it so enemies sometimes carry and use a couple of potions and poisons just like you do. This will make combat more fair, more unpredictable and harder. Compatible with everything and customizable via MCM. Note: ASIS has the same function in it, allowing NPCs to use potions, but this mod functionality is just better in everything - more features and more control over them. If you want this feature - don't use ASIS "NPC Potions" feature and use this mod instead. You can see a video showcase of the mod here. Use this mod or the mod below. Forsworn Skinchangers New Forsworn enemies that transform into werewolves and werebears in combat. Truly Undead - Reborn A port of same-named LE mod, and pretty much underrated gem. Skeletons, vampires, draugr and dragon priests will resurrect unless killed by certain specific damage sources. Congifurable in MCM. Cult of the World Eater - Dragon Priests Buff Alduin Super simple yet super immersive mod. Gives Alduin a series of powerful buffs which are dispelled by killing the named Dragon Priests. This encourages you to tear down the figureheads of the Dragon Cult before battling Alduin. Compatible with all mods that are changing Alduin or dragon priests. Works well logically together with the "Defeat the Dragon Cult" quest mod. TsunDal - A Tsun Bossfight Overhaul A redesign and remake of the Tsun bossfight to make him more challenging and fun to fight. Ghosts of Akavir - A Boss Mod Adds 3 lore-friendly Akavirir style bosses with unique weapons as a reward. Note: if you're using "Hidden Blades" follower mod, this mod is not needed - same bosses are included in it. Also grab a balance patch here . Diplomatic Dragons A simple plugin that disables random dragons until Sahloknir death. Lore Friendly armored falmers Add new falmers to the current leveled list, their wear dwarven armor, and shamans have automaton parts adapted to their body. Some patches here . Run For Your Lives Makes citizens in a village or city run indoors during a dragon attack. NARC Remade - No Animals Report Crimes for Skyrim Tired of that chicken going up to the guards and being a nark? Annoyed because that one bear ratted you out? Upset because horses are snitches? Then this is the mod for you! Vampire Attacks Restored Outside of Walled Cities Bethesda likes to screw up more things in newer versions of the games than in older ones. This helps a bit in this certain case. Enemy Friendly Fire SKSE plugin that enables friendly fire amongst NPCs. Sun Affects NPC Vampires Vampires that are out in the sun will suffer (a little bit) of constant damage. This affects NPC vampires and the player. Vampires will catch on fire when this damage accumulates. Deadlier Werewolf NPCs Non-player werewolves and werebears can now also perform killing blows randomly (from mauling, to decapitation bites), and also use sprint attacks when they pursue you. If using werewolf overhauls, make sure to get a patch for whatever one you're using from mod Files tab. Dragons Use Thu'um This mod adds a variety of new (and voiced) shouts for dragons. USSEP, Thunderchild and Deadly Dragons patches available. Showcase here. Locational Encounter Zones SKSE plugin which makes enemies guarding a location the same level as the ones inside. Vampire Clans and Bloodlines Replaces generic vampires with vampires from five distinct Clans and Bloodlines.

Armor and weapon mechanics rebalance or new features:

ABT - Arrows and Bolts Tweaks Faster arrows, ability to turn on progressive/increased damage for arrows, increase/decrease amount of arrows found in enemies and sold by merchants and some other useful, customizable settings. An essential mod if you ever planning to use a bow/crossbow. Note: Even if you have AE, but don't have all the Creation Club "DLCs", use SE version of the mod - not the AE one. Archery Locational Damage Highly customizable (via ini file), script-free locational damage mod for archery. Note: not needed if you're already using the "Skyrim Arrow Overhaul" mod. Resistances Rescaled Improves the unbalanced armor rating system as well as magic resistances in Skyrim by implementing a formula closer to what Morrowind had (ohther presets are also available). Fully configurable, a must-have mod. Signature Equipment Pretty original mod that may be very useful for some players, especially in roleplay purposes. The more you use the same equipment, the more potent and valuable that equipment becomes. It's a lot like tempering, but you do it by cleaving through your enemies gradually. This allows for a favorite early game weapon to become a signature weapon that scales with your character. Maybe your character might intentionally build up the reputation of a weapon to sell it for a profit. Or maybe you like the way a weapon looks, but its damage just can't keep up. That's no longer an issue now. It's also compatible will all possible weapon mods on fly. True Armor Are you sick of swords cutting through Steel Plate like through butter? Every hit being predictable? Every type of armor feeling the same, regardless of material? No more! Greatly increased combat depth and immersion; a sparkle of realism and balance for your fantasy game. Customize Weapon Speed Wanna implement your own vision of balance for weapons attack speed? This mod allows you to customize weapon speed by type. TDF Equipment Restriction Realistic items usage skill requirements mod. Item Equip Restrictor Alternative mod, choose one or another. Ultimate Spinning Arrows The see me spinnin'. They hatin'. Dynamic Equipment Manager Automatically equips/unequips various gear when applicable.

Plenty of other mods changing most different things:

Simply Balanced This mod can be take as a successor of well-known SkyTweak and is a port of same LE mod. Basically, it allows you to customize pretty much close to every gameplay value - weapons, magic, potions & poisons, skills, enemy stats and experience gains. To say more precisely, if you have your load order setup precisely and know every mod is working in a good synergy - you won't need this mod. But if you're not sure about some balance moments, or just wanna to be able to customize your gameplay difficulty through wide system of parameters - grab it for sure. VioLens - A Killmove Mod Amazing mod that gives you full control of killmoves. Chance, immunity, camera view, new advanced killmoves and so on. This works for melee, ranged and stealth killmoves. Great work and a must-have mod. Multiple Floors Sandboxing Have you ever wonder why the NPCs mostly just stay at the same floor, even though the cell has multiple floors? This little mod will encourage NPCs to climb stairs around them and explore their surroundings more. Skyrim Skill Uncapper Updated (twice) version of the original mod. This, imo, nearly essential mod allows you to get rid of silly vanilla "legendary" skills system by simply uncapping your skills - so now you can raise skills above 100, and all related multipliers and modifiers (even enchanting and alchemy) will grow as well. Besides that, Uncapper does tons of other useful things - you can determine leveling speed (strongly recommened to make it slower to not get lost on huge amount of new things in game if you have heavy-modded game), how many attributes you receive per at levelup (and at which level as well), how many perk points you receive at levelup (and at which level as well) and many other things.
Honed Metal Re-re-updated version of a well-known mod once ported to SE. It partially covers what Loot and Degradation does, but it's focusing on this directly and adds much more features. Blacksmiths and mages all over Skyrim will be able to craft, temper and enchant your equipment, including any armor and weapons added by mods. The quality and price of their work will depend on their skill as blacksmiths and enchanters as well as your barter prowess. Fully customizable through an MCM. Civil War Aftermath Take the fight to enemy encampments all around Skyrim. 3PCO - 3rd Person Camera Overhaul - Smooth Camera Follow An absolutely must-have mod for players who spend the most amount of time in 3rd person. This mod is just revolutionary! It imitates modern AAA games camera movement, which is based on player world coordinates, giving immersive smooth camera follow effect, especially noticable in combat. You can see a showcase of it here. AIM FIX - combat camera with aiming control Makes aiming accurate out of the box. Provides total control over the crosshair position for archery and magic to match the hit point shift caused by the custom animations and mods. User determines how much easy or realistic the aiming will be. Equalizes the accuracy for 1st and 3rd person view. Tons of flexible MCM options and camera features. Note: If using lite version of the mod in pair with 3PCO, while this may look irrational logic-wise, make sure 3PCO overwrites Aim Fix, not vice versa. Cinematic Dragon Soul Absorption To please the cinematic god. GIST - Genuinely Intelligent Soul Trap Mod that shows petty souls who's boss. No more petty souls in your grand soulgems, wasting them. Similar to well-known Smart Souls mod, but newer and more customizable mod from author of Diverse Dragons Collection. Book Of Shadows - Behaviour Based Stealth Additions One of the most innovative mods released in 2022. Behaviour-based sneak additions. Fully animated masks, smoke bombs, warhorns, and sneak takedowns. Sneak Behavior Extensions- True Prone System Adds functional prone, diving, rolling and crawling inspired by MGSV and other stealth games. Uses custom animations and behavior. Crawling affects your sneaking and makes you harder to detect at the cost of a slower movement speed. Supports follower NPCs. Plays well in tandem with the mod above. Dynamic Collision Adjustment Adjusts the character controller collision while sneaking and swimming so you can fit under objects. Fixes some races not being affected by Actor Scale. Infinite Stamina Out of Combat A bit cheaty, but as simple as that. Infinite Magicka Out of Combat Similar mod, but for magicka. Landing Stop Restricts movement for a small amount of time when the player lands on the ground. Daedric Aspect Eating a Daedra Heart imbues you with the strength of a Daedra for a short time. Simple Offence Suppression MCM - Block Friendly Fire Blocks friendly fire. Toggleable in MCM. Serenity of Sleep Changes the well-rested buffs you obtain from sleeping to something else. Classic Oblivion Jail System Brings back the old Oblivion jail system to Skyrim! Now when you serve your time in jail, random stats will be decreased, according to how much days you spent in prison. Also install this. Better Harvesting Get randomised amount of ingredients from plants and loot from dead animals rather than always just one. Improved Adoptions Ever was bored with vanilla adoption system? Try this. It contains over a dozen dialogue scenes between the kids and others between your spouse and housecarl. Your kids will hang out with other kids when they're in town, and join them in running around town. They'll actually visit the places they say they do. If you've been missing for 3 or more days they'll send the Courier packing with a message for you. You can ask your kids and spouse to accompany you to your new home and have them follow you there! Candy Shops of Skyrim Adds sweet shops just outside all of the major cities. Compatible with JK's Skyrim, compatibility with other city mods is not confirmed. Konahrik's Privilege Choose one of four new effects for Konahrik; Force, Fire, Fade or Time. MisterB's Crafting Matters An alternative to Complete Crafting Overhaul if it's too much for you for some reasons - mod that adds much more to your Skyrim crafting experience. Breakdown Recipes, Tailoring Recipes, the ability to get firewood from miscellaneous items. New crafting materials. Noisy Thief There's a chance you'll make noise and alert enemies when taking an item based on the items weight and optional detection when breaking a lockpick or extinguishing a wall torch. Shadow Opportunist - A Sneak Addon ==NEW== Turn detection into an advantage by slowing time for everyone but you, after getting a new perk. Compatibility patches for Ordinator and Vokrii are provided. Your Soul Is Mine - Soul Gem Relinquishment Your Soul Is Mine is like Dragon Soul Relinquishment for regular souls. It adds two spells: One that allows the player to absorb soul gems to purchase various passive bonuses and one that allows the player to absorb part of the victim's soul directly. The absorbed souls may be spent on various passive buffs. Advanced Mining Advanced Mining is a full remake of the entire mining process. It has many options, allowing you to control the ore deposits in the game in many ways, each one can be toggled individually and adjusted. MCM Ores And Firewood Mine and chop faster, all configuration directly in game at any time. Smithing And Smelting Improved Rebalanced smelting and some new crafting recipes. Souls Do Things 2 Mod which adds various new functionality to dragon souls, making them useful in the game in different ways. Better Stealing Simple but immersive mod. If you steal something and nobody sees you do it then the item will not be "stolen". Pickpocket Changes A few changes to pickpocketing chance and how it's calculated - pickpocket chance is no longer affected by value, only weight, and maximum pickpocket chance increased from 90% to 100%. Rebalanced Encounter Zones and Leveled Actors Simple mod that's increasing base level and level scaling of encounter zones in game. For hardcore lovers. Encounter Zones Unlocked Useful mod for challenging gameplay with a little difference approach - dungeons don't stop leveling after the first visit. Mystic Condenser Tired of piles of low-level potions/poisons/soul gems cluttering up your high-level inventory? Use the Mystic Condenser to combine them into their higher level counterparts. Many patches here . No Furniture Camera Simple as that - just 3rd person camera instead. Torch Brightness Radius Makes it bigger. Vampire Sun Damage Clothes Covering Somewhat cheating mod as for me, but some people may find it useful. Civil War Neutrality You can stay neutral without having to miss important content. Useful Dogs Improves dogs functionality to be more realistic similar to how trained dogs irl can behave. Heavy Armored Soldiers Imperials and Stormcloaks now have a chance of spawning wearing their own heavy sets. Optional Starting Spells This mod removes all starting spells and adds all the novice spell tomes to your starting area. Compatible with Alternate Starts - Live another Life. Sleep to Level Up Similar to how it was in TES IV: Oblivion. Ordinary Thieves Makes thieves in the world wear regular clothing rather than guild clothing. Vampires Regen in Shade Allows all vampires to recover health, magicka, and stamina when standing in the shade, even during the daytime. Better Skill and Quest Books Names Not that much "immersive", but definitely may look useful for some players. Holdable Candles A small mod designed for stealth characters using extremely dark interiors from ENB or weather presets. The candle illuminates a small area in front of the player, thus allowing the player to see items in front of them to steal, and avoiding the use of a torch (lighting up the entire room and increasing the risk of being detected). Altar of the Revenant Allows to "corrupt" grand soul gems into black soul gems. Selective and-or More Expensive Transmute Mod to choose which ore you want to transmute by allowing you to dual cast the transmute spell. Disarming Traps Is Dangerous Pretty much as that. Soul Exchange Sadly, Dragon Soul Relinquishment mod is pretty bugged in SE. This is a simple alternative to it. Mod allows you to convert Dragon Souls to Perks or Attributes. Line and Lure - Fishing Perks ==NEW== Vanilla-friendly fishing perks for the Creation Club Fishing DLC. Cardio - More Realistic Fatigue Mod introduces fatigue mechanics to Stamina, Health and Magicka and factors in encumbrance effects. Allows full customisation attributed to this through the MCM. Left Hand Rings Modified Simple as it is. Makes it possible to wear rings on left hand :) GuruSR's Werewolf Transformation Meter Very useful for werewolf players. The bar shows how much time left until transformation will fade off. Intoxication (Drunk and Drugged visual effects) Simple as that. Some big mods like CACO already adding such effect, but if you're not using them and just wanna the visual effect - grab this mod. Skill of Sneaking SKSE plugin that grants a configurable amount of sneak XP when the player steals an object undetected while sneaking. Reading Is Good This mod reworks skill books so that instead of granting levels instantly, they give you a permanent boost to your leveling speed in the respective skill. This means that you benefit more by reading them as soon as you find them. SKSE plugin. Radiant Requirements MCM Modifies select radiant quests so that they don't send you to locations with dangerous enemies until your level is high enough. Configurable in MCM. Realistic Humanoid Movement Speed Faster walking, slower running and sprinting. Regen Adjuster SKSE SKSE Plugin to let you choose regen values outright or based on conditions. Vampire Feeding Tweaks Small mod that opens up the possibilities for feeding as a vampire, without needing a big overhaul. Curse of the Werewolf With this mod installed if you are a werewolf you will be cursed/blessed. Once a day in a situation that would normally result in your death right before the final blow you will automatically transform into a werewolf and regain full health during the transformation rendering you effectively invincible during the 10 second transformation. Compatible with werewolf overhauls like Growl or Lupine.

Large combat mods (or technically small mods, but with a large impact on the combat):

Combat Evolved Light-weight, script-free, old-but-good combat mod. Due to its great compatibility it can be used alongside with other combat mods for even better combat experience. Enemies are more agressive and smarter. Stagger, knockdown, enemy skills, and enemy damage are enhanced. But at the same time enemies are not ‘terminators’ - mod is good balanced. I strongly recommend to use it. Wildcat - Combat of Skyrim New combat mod from the author of Apocalypse/Ordinator. This amazing mod makes combat more realistic, dynamic and brings more lethality into your game. Mod ipmroves combat AI that makes enemies more smart, initiative and dangerous. Its biggest and greatest (in my opinion) feature is wide injures system. It’s really realistic and simple at the same time. It also modifies global difficulty levels in Skyrim and gives you possibility to configure these values in MCM. It also offers timed block feature as well as many other combat modifiers. It’s also pretty good compatible with all combat/magic/ perk overhaul mods and mod author also inlcuded detailed load order description list for this/that mod. You can see a brief showcase of it here. Stop On Slash - Hitstop and Screenshake Ever asked yourself why weapon weights nothing? Why your character doesn’t feel any physics after swinging two-handed battleaxe? Then this mod is for you. When the player hits an actor or an object, a “hit-stop” (a tiny pause) is added along with camera shake and blur effects. This makes weapon strikes feel more solid and heightens the sense that a hit has actually been made. Fully configurable in MCM and compatible with everything. You can see a video showcase of the mod here. TK Recoil This mod is similar to previous one, just for the bows/crossbows. When the player shot a bow or crossbow or staff, a "recoil" (a tiny pause) is added along with camera shake and blur effects. This makes weapon recoil feel more solid and heightens the sense that a hit has actually been made. Also comes with an MCM. TK Dodge Very popular and must-have mod if you’re running several combat mods that increase game difficulty. Mod adds dodge rolls (forward-back-left-right) using hotkeys. Mod also has an MCM where you can re-configure the hotkeys and dodge roll stamina cost. Also install this lil fix (use the "TK Dodge Step Dodge Stack Fix" file). Xbox One gamepad addon available. TUDM - The Ultimate Dodge Mod One more great dodge mod, with own pros and cons. Pro is that it doesn't rely on FPS in terms of dodge responsibility (with TK dodge, if you have FPS below 40, dodge responsiveness can become worse, i.e. small delay appear) - so it never has a dodge delay after hotkey pressed no matter if you fps is 60 or 25. Most of people also like its animations more. Cons - less options for configuration. Choose this mod or TK Dodge - one or another. Also install the fix patch, and, if using it, Violens patch . Some patches are available here, as well as RS Children patch. You can see a video showcase of the mod here. Mortal Enemies Remember how NPCs can turn to your direction just in the middle of weapon swing? Forget about this! Elemental Destruction Magic patch available. You can see a video showcase of the mod here. Wounds Simple mod focused exactly on injuries. More realistic/hard to heal comparing to Wildcat's injuries system (you should not use them both or disable WC injuries if you want this one, otherwise it will become messy). Optional UI addon available. For injured animations variety, look here . You can see a showcase of it here. Use this mod or the mod below. Incremental Injuries A more simple and performance-friendly (as it's an SKSE plugin) alternative to the Wounds mod above. Configurable via .ini file. You can also instal an extra addon on top. Note: If using TrueHUD, disable player widget option (or don't use this mod - sadly, they are not quite compatible otherwise). Stamina Matters - No More Useless Stamina Small yet pretty revolutionary mod and my personal recommendation for deep realism lovers. No attacking / blocking / jumping at zero stamina, rendering a complete new meaning for stamina in this game other than just a limiter for sprint / power attacks. Stamina is actually something that matters and you should put into consideration during combat now. Note: if you'll be using crossbows, install this version of the mod instead. Engaging Combat - Keep Combat Dynamic at Higher Levels ==NEW== A lightweight, highly compatible combat mod designed to prevent gameplay from becoming boring as players reach high levels through introducing various combat effects to improve both difficulty and realism. Compatible with most of popular combat mods as the new effects are fully standalone. Only thing that you need to read about in terms of potential conflicts with other mods is "Bleed and Armor penetration" at the mod page. Kykvendi - Dangerous Creatures - Engaging Combat ==NEW== Inpisred by the mod above, this one focuses on giving different situational debuffs and status effects to various monster attacks, as well as doing minor rebalance of some monsters stats. Compatible with most of combat mods and the mod above. Arena Movement Rebalances the movement speed of the different classes. Akin to modern games like Hellblade, Assassin's Creed or the Witcher you can walk, you can sprint, you just can't run around. Intensify your combat by focusing on stamina management and dodging. Strike Obstruction Systems - Combat Blocking Overhaul Blocking can now mitigate damage from blocked Spells, Shouts, Enchants, and Poisons. Timed Blocks can provide greater mitigation, redirect parried arrows & spells, and inflict various debuffs. All features configurable via MCM. Weapon Arts This mod adds to Skyrim weapon-arts (or weapon-skills), which are based on equipped weapon type and its enchantment. If player character has enough magicka, then using a lesser power added by the mod (Z button), the combat skill with special effects and animations will be performed. Locational Damage(SKSE Plugin) actually working, light-weight and finally really [stable] locational damage mod for Skyrim. Fully configurable via the .INI file. When using with combat mods like Wildcat, either disable locational damage in UC and/or injuries in WC, or set this mod effect chances to very low - otherwise you'll be very OP. Note: My .INI file for this mod is available for download, suitable for mod manager installation. You can see a showcase of it here. Headshot Kills ==NEW== A shot to unprotected head of enemy will kill them instantly. Simple but combat-changing mod for realism lovers. Mod offers 2 version where this effect works as it is in general, or when you reach certain archery level. Make sure to install the required mod (CIF). Slit Troat ==NEW== This mod allows you to have a 15% chance to bleed your enemy when you attack them with a dagger to head area, provided you have enough sneak skill. Make sure to install the required mod (CIF).

Smaller combat mods:

Hellblade - Timed Block Replaces your usual 1 second Creation Kit timed or script lagging timed block with a 0.2 second behavior timed block. Removes the normal recoil and implements it only for timed block. Reimplements unused two-handed weapon recoil animation. You can watch a brief showcase here. Realistic Melee Range Simple as that. Decreases hit range for all melee weapons to be more realistic. Note: not needed with Precision mod. Non-Exploitable Crossbow Reloading Manual crossbow reload and optional stamina drain option during reloading in MCM. Visceral Combat and Movement Simple mod inspired by movement adjustment of Wildcat and other movement mods in addition to mortal enemies/attack commitment features. No Saving in Combat Simple as that, for hardcore fighters. Stealth Detection Fixes ==NEW== Changes the fact that the player is being instantly detected after a stealth kill and other detection issues. This said, this was likely "not a bug but feature" thing of Skyrim, hence the mod is placed in this section as it can't be directly called a bug fix. Melee Power Knockback Simply adds knockback + ragdoll to power attacks. Dynamic Impacts Adds new audio and visual effects for combat, depending on the material type of armor hit. CIF patch here. Horsin' Around Allows enemies to knock the player off their horse during combat. Knockout and Surrender - Non-Lethal Pacifist yielding options You can configure how easily your enemies should surrender, and you can choose to knock them out rather than killing them. Dynamic Sweep Attack Adds ability to perform a sweep attack and bind it to a preferred hotkey in MCM. Casting Aiming Reloading Impede Movement Casting Magic, Aiming a Bow, and Reloading a Crossbow can all reduce movement speed by a configurable percentage. Has a version with MCM for configuration. Stoppage of Staggerlock To prevent NPC stagger-lock, staggers now trigger a perk granting stagger immunity for a short duration. Taunt Your Enemies - Taunting Matters Enemies taunt you, but it serves no purpose in vanilla. Well, no more! NPCs will get a bonus to their damage after taunting you, and now YOU can also taunt them as well. And even hiss at them! Bow Charge Plus Adds a Charge attack to the bow. You can also add a Dodge shot and Power Shot in the MCM settings. Wait Your Turn - Enemy Circling Behaviour A lightweight combat add-on mod that adds circling behaviour to enemies. Enemies will no longer attack all at once. Lightweight, compatible other combat overhaul mods, and can be turned off or tweaked using the MCM. Dual Wield Parrying SKSE Simple as that. An SKSE-based rework of an old version of the same mod. Showcase here. Cancel Attack SKSE ==NEW== Cancel your swing and switch to blocking in the heat of battle. omg1234 profile For some tiny nice combat additions or fixes. Witcher Dodge Replacer TW3 dodge animation replacer for TK Dodge/TUDM mods. Simple TKDodge Sidestep Simple and quick dodge animations replacer for TK Dodge. (SJG) Dual Wield Parrying Reimplementation Simple parry mod for dual wielding/spellcasting. ArrowBlock(REAL Deflect Arrow) This mod allows you to block arrows and magic projectiles with your weapon or shield which will cost you some stamina/magicka. For making mod better balanced, I'd recommend to raise this cost value using xEdit, otherwise you can be near to invincible often for too low cost. Disarmless I personally always enjoyed this enemy ability, but if this bothers you - mod removes Disarm shout from either draugrs only, or the entire game including mods. Unarmed Hotkey SKSE Press a key or controller button to toggle unarmed. JS Immersive Tripwires Tripwires will now have a chance tp trip up any NPC (including the Player) that run into them. Shouting Obliterates Skeletons Unrelenting Force now instantly kills weaker Skeletons and sends their bones flying. Three options in installer. Dragon Breath VFX Edit Overhaul of both fire and frost attacks of dragons - with improved basic visuals, brand new particles and afterhit effects. While technically this mod is (almost) purely visual, these effects are happening only during combat, hence the mod is placed in this section. Stamina and Magicka Regen Rebalance ==NEW== Though not directly a "fix" as the mod page implies, but rather a relabance of various Stamina/Magicka regeneration stats. Stamina of Shooting Keeping a bow drawn costs stamina. When you're out of stamina, the bow is let down. Note: Keep only one plugin after the mod is installed (difference is explained on the mod page) and disable/delete the others.

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations and more in-depth review, you can take a look at some of best alchemy mods in action:

Let's start from a most (deservedly) known, complex and simply epic alchemy overhaul, which is close to be an essential mod for almost any walkthrough.

Sacrosanct Blood Potion Patch

Alchemical Studies - CACO Ingredient Book

Tamrielic Coffee and Tea (Growable Coffee and Tea)

Bo-yo-yo-yo-yo.

Toxic - A Venom Mod

Skytoxin - Realistic Dangerous Poison

Now, a few mods which are wrapped about making potions usage more thoughtful, double-edged, similar to how it was done in Witcher games. These are absolutely optional as they, ofc, will make game harder. Choose one:

Potion Tolerance

Good.

Mealtime - A simple ESO inspired Food Overhaul

Alchemist Compendium

Alchemy Recipe Expansion

Simplicity of Seeding

Respectable Inventory -- Well-Stocked Alchemists

Apothecary Inventory Rebuild

The Alchemist's Cookbook

Blacksmith and Enchanter's Potions Enhancements

White Phial - Tweaks and Enhancements

Lotus Poison

Realistic Skooma

Collect Ivy

Before you start, if you prefer the visual presentations and more in-depth review, you can take a look at some of best immersion mods in action:

First of all, the camping/resting section - mods allowing you to rest and relax in an immersive way, setup your camps and do stuff there. Can vary in complexity.

Collision Patch

Warm Drinks - Simple Tea And Coffee Recipes - for Campfire

Gather Wilderness Resources - A plugin for Campfire

Campfire Collectable Deadwood and Branches

Eremite Fixes & Patches

Campfire Spooning

Cuyi's Campfire Backpacks

Cheery Crafting - Campfire Edition

Dynamic Campsites

Simple Bedroll

Simple Inn Bath

Great! now directly the "needs" mods - your character need to eat, drink and sleep, and respective ingame bonuses/penalties. Choose one.

iNeed - Food Water and Sleep - Continued

CACO patch

iNeed Patch

Another CACO/Be A Milk Drinker patches

Falskaar patch

Beasts of Tamriel patch

Fruits addon

Realistic Needs and Diseases All-In-One for USSEP

patch

Last Seed - Primary Needs Wellness Disease

Last Seed - Craftable Cure Potions Add-on

Last Seed - Inn Meals

Last Seed - Water

Edmond's Immersive Needs - Light Weight Needs Mod

Frost survival:

Various other survival immersion mods - from hardcore effects to purely cosmetic ones:

Fish Anywhere With Water

Simple Fishing Overhaul

Nordic Cooking

Mealtime - a Food and Recipe Mod

Skyrim Food Expanded

Stop Overencumbered Scavenging

Simple Encumbrance Effect

Immersive Swimming

Gourmet Gourds

General Stores sells Salt and Flour

Wood Frame Backpacks

Travel related mods:

Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul A lightweight but immersive overhaul of both the vanilla Skyrim carriage system and Dawnguard's ferry system, making the whole travelling system of Skyrim much more comfortable and realistic. No dirty records or script, no navmesh edits - clean, simple and effective. Use this mod or the one below, not both at the same time. Also grab the improvement addon here and a tiny fix .
Helgen Reborn patch and some tiny patches here, here and here (several patches in author's profile) are available. Also if you're an ultra-perfectionist, grab this tiny fix too.
Note: if you're using Inconsequential NPCs mod, grab the patch from LE verison of CFTO here - it works just fine in SE. Convenient Carriages ==NEW== A great alternative to the mod above, with similar goal but own approach. Up to 27 destinations and 17 carriages, depending on installed version. The drivers sport a more "lifelike behavior with new AI and personal campsites, as well as with high-poly covered carriages, several other optional features and large number of compatibility patches for popular mods. Detailed Carriages 2.0 Apperance variety for Skyrim carriages and different immersive details added to them. Compatible with CFTO and other popupar carriage-related mods. Wayshrines of Tamriel A more simple and lightweight wayshrine fast travel system. Liminal Bridges - A portal mod Inspired by the eluvians in the Dragon Age universe, Liminal Bridges is a different take on the traditional teleportation and portal mods. Point The Way Simple, but greatly immersive one. Road signs have been placed at several major intersections that were either lacking signs, or didn't have enough signs to indicate the full extent of where you could travel on a road. Ask The Way Another little yet immersive one - allows you to ask the way to certain places in city. Fast Travel Cost Fast traveling from the map now costs gold based on the distance traveled. Fast Travel by Horse Fast travel by horse. Sojourn Over Signposts - Witcher-Style Fast Travel Alternative Use signposts to fast travel. Normal fast travel is disabled. Compatible with new lands and mods that move or place signposts. Note: if the mod will stop working at some point, refer to the solution in the sticky comment at the mod page. Boats - Operational Animated Travel Functional boats to ride on. With some patches for popular mods like CTFO. Though it's recommended to test the mod work ingame, as there still can be cosmetic glitches depending on your personal settlements mod setup. Functional Ships And even ships! Delphine's Map Reveals Dragon Mounds This mod adds map markers to all dragon burial mounds around Skyrim. When you have Delphine's map in your inventory, you'll have to click it (like you were equipping it.) Then the markers will be enabled and automatically revealed to you as undiscovered map markers. Atlas Map Markers patch available. Hunters Mark Animal Dens on Map Hunters and fishermen can point you to an animal den for a mere fee of 10 gold. Dynamic Cart Horses Dynamic texture replacer for carriage horses. Helps To Have A Map This mod restricts using the map menu. You'll need to have a physical map in your inventory, in order to open the map menu. A few patches available. No Crime Teleport Disables the teleportation when paying off bounty. Note: not needed if you're using Crime Overhaul. Immersive Stables Tired of your horses returning to the place you bought them from? Stable your horses anywhere, and they will return there when dismissed. The Ferrymen An overhaul to the ferrymen of Skyrim that makes them come to life. Compatible with CFTO. The Coachmen Similar mod from the same author, for the carriage drivers. Compatible with CFTO as well. Bromjunaar Journal Adds a journal in Labyrinthian giving direction on where to locate all eight Dragon Priest masks. WordWalls of Skyrim Adds a collection of journals that tells locations of all of the word walls. Road Signs Fast Travel Allows to fast travel to town and cities from road signs. Khajiit Has Wares - A Caravan Camp Overhaul Adds new objects around the Khajiit Caravan Camps for some exotic flair. Snowy Ships for Snowy Regions Gets all longboats and large ships snowy in snowy environments. TMD The Rift Leaves Leaves to the Rift (including fallen leaves on water), because it actually makes sense. Animated Ships NPCs sail their ship through ports, beaches and sea. Player can take them too. Compatibility patches here. Animated Carriage NPCs travelling by carriage on the road. And extra routes addon here . Striding Silt Strider Over 11 years after DLC release, that's finally possible. Silt striders start to stride Solstheim. Better Skyrim Parties What it says. Better (read - more crowded and believeable) Skyrim parties, weddings, and a funeral meetings.

Dialogue/objectives/notifications mods:

Instantly Skip Dialogue This SKSE plugin allows the player to skip dialogue instantly, bypassing the 750 millisecond delay. This includes dialogue that's normally unskippable (Hermaeus Mora, Molag Bal, Augur of Dunlain, etc). Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Mod adds more than 5000 voiced lines of dialogues. All lines are voiced using the original voices from the game and consists of existing lines that have been added in new and suitable situations, as well as completely new dialogues created by editing multiple lines together to form brand new ones. Friends talk to you more like friends. Followers have more much to say when speaking to them. If your spouse is a follower, he/she will talk to like a spouse instead of a generic follower. NPCs who dislike you (not bandits and forsworn, but citizens of towns and cities) will have more insults to say and may even completely stop talking to you if you continue to pester them.
Note: Install the update with MCM and make sure to peek at Files tab and install respective patches needed. Optional (but recommended) khajiit look addon here . Guard Dialogue Overhaul Fixed and improved version of popular mod. Guard Dialogue Overhaul alters the guards dialogues, changing it from something that breaks your immersion in the world of Skyrim to something that actually increases it. You can also install an MCM addon to control some of the features in it. Extended Guard Dialogue Even more voiced lines for city guards. Compatible with Guard Dialogue Overhaul. Extended Bandit Dialogue From the same author - now for bandits to have a bit more soul in them. Realistic Conversations Every social logic in Skyrim for NPC is changed, they talk more often to each others. And will less likely greet to you from a distance, they will also greet less often too, making them to not act as much as robots. NPCs are also more clever and will know for example if they talked to a NPC and will therefore talk to another or not talk at all. Compatible with both mods above. Misc Dialogue Edits This mod improves dialogue that other mods don't, contributing to make conversations in Skyrim as plausible and immersive as possible, while taking compatibility into account. Everything here is intended to feel like it could have been part of the vanilla game all along, but it also supports alternate start mods. Mod patches are More Dialogue Options A mod from the same author which adds dialogue options in a simple and immersive way to improve various conversations in the vanilla game. The responses are all voiced by using the original voice files of the game. The new options are meant to feel like they should have been in the game all along. Mod patches are More to Say You have more to say. NPCs have more to say. This mod adds miscellaneous inconsequential dialogue to existing NPCs. Can be used with two mods above, RDO and most of dialogue mods in general. As it's completely standalone. Hunters Not Bandits NPC's will not use taunts or insults when fighting animals. Especially hunters will behave in a more realistic manner, as well as fixing the odd behavior where enemies could start using greetings and other unfitting dialogues right after they killed you. Compatible with RDO and GDO. Sleeping Expanded - Animations and NPC reactions Ever noticed how NPCs don't react at all to being woken up in the middle of the night? Or how characters stop breathing while they sleep? Or.. how it takes them YEARS to get in and out of bed? Well, no more! WAKE UP, JARL BALGRUUF - Sleeping Expanded is here! Interesting NPCs patch available. Bandit Lines Expansion Tired of hearing the same bandit lines over and over again? This mod provides 500 new spliced lines to bandits, giving each bandit prototype their own personality and making each of your encounters with them more unique, personal and unexpected. Also, if using these mods, grab patches for OBIS or Race Compatibility Dialogue. Civil War Lines Expansion This mod adds new lines to Imperials and Stormcloaks, giving them more personality and making them react to current events, their environment, the player, their enemies, their friends and more. Forsworn and Thalmor Lines Expansion Similar mod, for Forsworn and Thalmor NPCs. Requires both mods above. Vampire Lines Expansion Tired of hearing the same lines over and over again? This mod provides new spliced lines to (mostly) vampires, giving them more personality and making each of your encounters with them more unique, personal and unexpected. Brawl Lines Expansion and Fixes Fixes some issues with brawling dialogue, while also expanding it with new lines. Dremora Lines Expansion Significantly expands Dremora Lines, bringing new life to the most fiercesome warriors of the plane of Oblivion. 350 new lines and a total of 7 different voices. Make sure to install required mod here (can also grab some of the provided patches, for instance, for VIGILANT, Apocalypse or Odin) and (optionally, but recommended) optimized textures here. Dremora Lines Expansion Echoes of Oblivion ==NEW== Echoes of Oblivion aims to bring some features from Oblivion into Skyrim, including radiant dialogue, comments, NPCs and more. Immersive Persuasion A complete and immersive overhaul of vanilla persuasion dialogue. Mod patches are NPCs React To Necromancy (And More) Despite what the game and lore says, most often than not NPCs don't really react to necromancy in any way. You can walk into town with a corpse and no one bats an eye. With this mod, NPCs will now react in ways that reflect their bias against those that openly practice the dark arts. NPCs React To Invisibility You become invisible in front of people and no one bats an eye... Well, no more! With almost 300+ custom voiced reactions, NPCs will now react to both someone disappearing and someone materializing in front of them. NPCs React To Frenzy Makes NPCs react to Frenzy/Fury/Mayhem spells. Enemies will be surprised to see their friends turning against them and will say fitting lines. Scared of Shootings - NPCs React To Aiming Bows Weird how NPCs in vanilla were reacting on melee weapons or spells unsheathed, but not ranged weapons, amarite? NPCs will react to aiming bows and crossbows by complaining, fleeing, attacking, and reporting you to the guards. Shouts of Stallholders Adds new lines for all vanilla market stall sellers to attract you to their stall, with support for mod-added vanilla-voiced market traders. Lightweight and script-free. Nightmares of Skyrim Makes NPCs sometimes to have nightmares with reactions from other NPCs. Configurable (read the mod page for instructions). NPCs Take Cover This mod makes NPCs smarter and capable of dealing with the most cheesy strategy Skyrim has ever seen: shooting NPCs from locations they cannot reach. They will now hide properly and relocate if necessary, while also shaming you for using dirty tactics (with 200+ voiced reactions). Face Sculptor Expanded Makes the Face Sculptor feel like an actual NPC that belongs in the world. New fully voiced scenes, new AI schedules, the removal of bounties when you change your face and more. Collision Dialogue Overhaul Adds around 500 new voice lines for when you bump (sprint) into NPCs. Has optional file to add MCM to toggle certain features. Inn-Tegrated NPCs - Oblivion Style Conversations This mod is partly inspired by the radiant conversations in Oblivion where NPCs talk about mudcrabs, what books they've read and other mundane things. Some of the lines from Oblivion are repeated word for word in taverns in this mod with other lines inspired by the conversations in Oblivion. If you want for this mod NPCs to have vanilla-like look, use this patch . Carriages and Stables Dialogue Bundle Carriage drivers will randomly comment on the weather, their day, etc. Goodnight Skyrim A mod to make NPCs comment when they are getting into bed. Immersive Rejections How comes nobody ever rejects your marriage proposal? Now with immersive, hilarious voiced rejections. From "I'm not drunk enough" to "Sorry, we're better off as friends". Interesting NPCs patch available. Switch Camera During Dialogue Does exactly how it's named. AdamDunmer profile For multiple "Dialogue Expansion" mods that add many new dialogue lines to mostly "forgotten" factions or NPC groups. Also install typo fixes from here. To Your Face SE-AE-VR SKSE plugin that stops NPC comments unless they're directly facing the player. Immersive Speech Dialogues Vanilla speech dialogue options are overhauled to have more personality, suited for more immersive roleplaying. Random Guard Dialogues New funny and random voiced dialogues for guards. Thalmor Dialogue and Quests For those enjoying a Thalmor-themed playthrough, this mod adds many conversations for a Thalmor player character to have with the people of Skyrim, as well as some Thalmor-related short adventures. YOT - Your Own Thoughts This mod basically changes most(if not all) of the second person messages and texts in game and makes them 1st person. Reflection - Level Up Messages Reflection brings back the level up messages found in previous Elder Scrolls titles. Even Better Quest Objectives - EBQO This mod enhances the quest descriptions in the vanilla game so that you have a clear sense of where you are supposed to go and what you are supposed to do besides looking at the quest markers. Let's face it - the quest descriptions were quite bad, not specifying where you are supposed to go by themselves, and forcing you to play with the quest markers on all the time. This affects nearly 250 quest objectives/descriptions, spanning over 160 quests, editing descriptions that were either really vague or didn't exist at all. Quests Are In Skyrim patch available, as well as few other patches . Better Intimidation Replaces Skyrim's whimpy intimidation dialogues with something more fearsome. Showcase here.

Everything else you wished to have and everything you didn't even know about:

Lanterns of Skyrim II Improved and upgraded version of the original mod. Simple and immersive creation that add lanterns to main roads, villages, towns and settlements. The light sources of the lanterns are lit between a lolgical time from evening till morning. Once installed, it quickly becomes an essential mod. It’s especially good for people who play with weather/lighting mods/ENBs that have dark nights. Mod also has MCM through which you can control lanterns' working time and enable/disable lanterns in settlements for better compatibility. Please also make sure to endorse the original mod.
Additionally, there's a patch for JK's Riverfall Cottage here .
If you also have Weathered Road Signs (with fix) installed, and experiencing random crashes when fast travelling to or approaching the settlements, install this patch after installing LOS II itself, and overwrite its own patch plugin. Wearable Lanterns Another great immersion mod from Chesko. May the light be always with you! Also grab the MCM fix . Improved Traps Enemy NPCs will now pay attention when trap is triggered near them. Also, as you can remember, vanilla traps damage was barely noticable. this mod fixes this and makes traps much more dangerous. Note: "Mining Makes Noise" file is not needed as same and configurable option exists in CCOR MCM. Solstheim Earthquakes This mod adds earthquake events in Solstheim. It's customizable and it has sound and visual effects. Destructible Skyrim - Base Object Swapper The definitive realism mod that Skyrim should had have loooong ago. Works as it's named - makes you able to crush and destroy many game objects. Note: The mod is still in beta, meaning it's being developed atm, so test if properly with your mod setup before keeping it for a real walkthrough. Improved mod version based on Base Object Swapper. Immersive Laundry Adds decorative clothes lines and other washing-related items throughout Skyrim, for a touch of realism. Also make sure to install this improvement addon for it by Pfuscher. Simpler Knock A simplier analogue to popular "Simple Knock" mod which is sadly just broken in SE. Simplest Knock EVEN more simple. Yeah, for real. Skyrim Is Windy Skyrim is a windy place but there is no signs of any strong winds in Skyrim. This mod will fix that. Bells of Skyrim Mod adds bells to major skyrim towns and cities that will alarm citizens in case of danger, like dragon/vampire/bandit attacks. Skyrim on Skooma Tired of skooma being so boring? This mod turns skooma into a proper recreational substance with 69 possible scenarios, and a thousand different variations. Funny, yet still immersively immersive. MCM addon here. Bring Out Your Dead Adds proper burial sites for various unique NPCs found throughout Skyrim. Note: May cause clipping issues with settlement mods, so test before actually playing. Heal Injured Guards Adds the option to offer guards healing potions via dialogue to heal their wounds. Hail - Hailstorms of Skyrim ==NEW== SKSE plugin that adds a chance for hail to occur if it's thundering outside. Configurable through the .ini file. NPCs React To Fire ==NEW== NPCs will now react to being set on fire. Put Out The Fires - Dynamic Fire Control System ==NEW== Take control of fire - extinguish and reignite it using appropriate spells. Or just shove enemies into open flames. Pay Your Respects - bury the fallen NPCs This simple mod allows you to bury fallen NPCs in Skyrim, friends and foes alike. MCM configurable. Serana's Hood Fix with Animation Adds a conditional animation for aucomatically wearing/taking off Serana's hood. Serana Dialogue Addon patch available. Skyrim Souls RE - Updated Realism lover? Don't want to "magically" pause the game when you're opening inventory or other game menus? Grab this! Holidays Mod from the same author that brings holidays to Skyrim settlements and will change their appearance based on TES lore. SFO patch available. ENB particle light patches for various lanterns here and here. Skyrim Battle Aftermath The civil war has begun, and it's not a pretty sight! Adds civil war battlefields throughout Skyrim. Little Library - New Books in Skyrim A collection of new lore-friendly books to collect and read in Skyrim, seamlessly distributed around the game world. Heimskr Emotional Speech Adds actually fitting facial emotions to Heimskr's famous speech. Pumping Iron - Dynamic Muscle Growth This mod was not updated for a very long time, but it’s still working great. It adds dynamic muscle growth system. Every time your character gets a skill increase in a combat skill (or smithing) his muscles will be considered to have been trained a little. The more skill increases, the more training. When a 'trained' character sleeps, his muscles will grow ever so slightly. Also grab this improvement addon for it. Ask Innkeepers To Show Room Instead of always showing you to your rented room, you can ask innkeepers to show you or tell them you know where it is. Use this mod or the mod below. Tavern AI Fix A similar mod with a bit different approach, read the mod page. Use one or another. Improved Camera SKSE plugin that enables a visible body while maintaining the look and feel of vanilla first person. Highly configurable. Inspired by Enhanced Camera mod in Skyrim LE. Showcase here. Note: If using Comprehensive First Person Animation Overhaul, make sure to enable the fix for this mod in Improved Camera menu. Alternate Conversation Camera Makes conversation with NPCs more immersive by zooming in to their faces. Fully supports both 1st and 3rd person camera, also supports on sitting and lock-on states. Includes "Witcher 3" camera style. You can also try an a bit altered version of it from here . Sharpen Other Swords II Distributes different swords and daggers to sharpening wheel and tanning rack animations. If using Leanwolf's Better-Shaped Weapons or Believeable Weapons, grab patches here or here. Go To Bed This mod allows your character to actually sleep in bed. A DAR patch and spooning addon ==NEW== available. Hold Border Banners Adds banners along roads showing which hold you are about to enter. Unique Border Gates Unique Border Gates redesigns the border crossings of Cyrodill, Hammerfell and Morrowind by adding new, unique and immersive gates. Also grab the fixes. AI Overhaul Similar mod, which is somewhat more simple, but much better in terms of compatibility. Many various patches are available here, here, and here, and also JK's Skyrim, Dawn of Skyrim DC , ArteFakes patch and ICOW patches are available. Destructible Display Cases Hate lockpicking? Ever wonder why you can't just smash that display case and take all the loot easily? Well now you can. Object Impact Framework And Related Mods ==NEW== A SKSE plugin that allows to add custom effects to items when they are activated, grabbed, released, thrown or hit. Mod doesn't do anything in your game on its own and serves as a core for other mods to work. These mods will allow various tiny yet pleasant interactive immersion features - for instance, for roasted animals or fish meat to disappear when you take those from where they are hanging at, barrels with oil to explode when burnt, pine trees to drop pinecones when getting hit, etc. To browse the growing number of mods that are based on this framework, open the "Requirements" tab at the mod page, and then look on the mods listed under the "Mods requiring this file". Make sure to read those mod pages before installing to see if there are any bugs present, as the framework itself is innovative, and yet, can result in bugs with certain mod-added interactions, though those will be not directly dangerous to your game and save. Loot Spillage Makes living entities and NPCs drop items in their inventory on death, while with type dependant loot shaders vfx. Configurable SKSE Plugin, compatible with both SE and AE. Inspired by MMOs and other games that have loot spillage systems. Rotmulaag - Immersive Meditations on the Words of Power Allows the player to meditate with Paarthurnax on every shout, providing new unique powers and adding immersive feeling. Loot and Degradation Great immersion mod that basically offers 2 main features: - Enemies now can use enchanted weapons. - Weapons and armors will now eventually degrade because of combat. You can repair and temper your weapon/armor Mod also provides useful widgets to display your current armor/weapon status. You can see a video showcase of the mod here. Equipment Durability System This may be a more lightweight alternative to previous mod. It's also an SKSE-only plugin so it doesn't occupy an .esp slot. Immersive Speechcraft Adds several dialogue options to most of Skyrim's NPCs (even ones initially without any dialogue options) allowing for increased immersive interactions and role-play. Compatible with all mods that affects dialogues. Farmhouse Chimneys Adds chimneys to farmhouses that have fireplaces. JK's Skyrim patch available. Time Passes Actions like crafting, bartering, eating, reading, and training will cause the game time to pass. Spooky Philter of the Phantom Use the Philter of the Phantom from Shroud Hearth Barrow to spook civilians and play a prank on Wilhelm. JS Misplaced Septims NPC's now have a chance to drop some gold when getting up from furniture. Random Barrel Roll Randomly rotates all barrels in the game so they are never aligned in those static piles. Improved Shadowmarks Improves the placement and appearance of the Thieves Guild shadowmarks and adds dynamic shadowmarks to player homes and other quest-related locations. Sepolcri - A Complete Burial Sites Overhaul Does exactly how it's named. Death Expressions Applies random death faces to actors/NPCs that's killed in game. People won't look like they're sleeping after getting stabbed in the stomach or shot in the face. Sesiously, I can't believe we didn't have such mod all the years before. You can see a showcase of it here. Imperial Knowledge Lorebook Collection Vol. 1 A mod which adds several new lore books to the world of Skyrim on a variety of interesting and obscure lore topics. Simple Cow and Goat Milking Adds an animated interaction that lets you milk cows and domestic goats once a day. Usable Lantern Turns those useless lanterns you can pick up all over Skyrim into an alternative for a torch. Lanterns are usable now. Immersion and Lore Continuity - Additions and Tweaks A collection of tweaks to add in flavorful elements from lore and the game world and its stories for more immersion. BA Khajiit Speak Redux Greetings, traveler! Khajiit wishes for you to browse this clever modification. You will download and utilize it in your playthrough, yes? Trust in Khajiit, he would not lie! This is known.. Inconsequential NPCs patch available, and some other patches here . Contraband Confiscation Guards will now take illegal things from you when they arrest you. If using "No Crime Teleport", also install patches from here and here . Civil War Refugees This mod seeks to increase the immersion of the civil war by adding refugees. Generic NPCs Additions - Hunters and Fishermen Adds 14 new actors to use when generic hunters/fishermen are generated in game to offer a bit more variations in their appearance (so the mod just effectively gives existing ones diverse apperance, not adds any new). JS Badges of Office Inspired by the "Hand of the King" pin from GoT/HoTD, gives Skyrim's Stewards their own Badge of Office. Hunters Loot - And Skin Animals When a hunter kill their prey, they'll walk towards the carcass and loot the items, and perform a skinning animation. If you have Simple Hunting Overhaul installed, the carcass will be also skinned (if the option is enabled). Notes With Something To Read Added something to read to the notes used in the animation performed by your character or a NPC. Water Douses Fire Jump into the water to douse yourself when set on fire by spells or dragons. Simply Rest (or Sleep) Anywhere One hotkey allows sitting (cross legged/on a ledge) or laying down on the ground (or anywhere else) with a possibility of waiting/sleeping. Thieves Random nighttime thieves upsetting the city. Configurable by MCM. Skyrim Particle Overhaul Lots of various particles added here in the in Skyrim for ambience purposes - groundfogs, dripping blood, smokes etc. Note: Mod also edits interiors, so if you don't want to deal with compatibility patching in xEdit, you can use the exterior-only version available. Hit That Corpse Weapon impact physics effects to Corpses for either immersion or maybe for when a corpse is blocking you from hitting an enemy. Slip off Slopes When you take fall damage, you twist your ankles and ragdoll. This makes parkouring off mountains dangerous. Orc Strongholds Use Orchish This mod gives all the warrior orcs of the strongholds orchish armor and weapons from the beginning of the game, making them not just a push over to any enemy even a dragon or a band of bandits while also adding to immersion. Ancient Nord Stalhrim Distributes ancient stalhrim weapons to high-level draugr in place of the Vanilla ebony. More Thieves Caches Simple mod that adds 25 Thieves Caches all across of Skyrim. Locks Are Just Locked A lightweight and immersive way to hide the level of locked objects. Seagulls of Skyrim Adds seagulls along the coasts of Skyrim and Solstheim, with animated models and sounds. Herds Adds dynamic herders with their animals and camps to Skyrim, purchasable and milkable cows & goats, and more. Picta Series - A Critters Life - Additional Insect Spawns Adds more spawn points (such as Mountain Flowers or through spawn markers near ponds and lakes) for critters to spawn. Mummified Animals - Elements of Skyrim Add a touch of creepiness to the marshes around Morthal, adding to it the mummified corpses of animals that perished victims of traps, accidents, or even curses, and that now exist as macabre statues adorning the gloomy scenery of the misty swamp. Animal Bones - Elements of Skyrim Similar mod from the same author. Handicapped Citizens - Mihail NPCs and Followers In a world ravaged by wars and conflicts, where the law of the sword still reigns, and inhabited by the most terrible and bloodthirsty creatures, it is to be expected to find citizens with the most varied types of injuries and deformities caused by these events, in addition to those already born with them. Merchants of Skyrim Aadds new merchants into the game, filling the gaps where merchants would be useful and making use of areas that otherwise are left wasted once certain questlines have been completed. Immersive Khajiit Caravan Mules Small and lightweight immersion mod. Adds two pack mules to every Khajiit Caravan so they now actually have a believable means of transporting all their tents and wares. Elderly and Adults Offers differentiation of adult bodies (whatever you have installed) and elderly bodies. Sleeping On Solstheim Adds an MCM for controlling the chance of being teleported to an All-Maker Stone when sleeping on Solstheim (0-100%). Conflict-free, no vanilla records edited. Slayable Offspring SKSE SKSE plugin that makes children killable. No patches required. Dog Backpacks and More Backpacks...for dogs. Courier Delivers to NPCs The courier will now occasionally deliver letters to NPCs in Skyrim. Whiterun Watchtower Doesn't Start Broken Do you delay the coming of the dragons? Annoyed that the tower is broken right from the beginning before dragons even appear? This mod is for you then! True Thane When you first became thane, did you FEEL like a thane? Well, this mod makes sure that you do. Once you become the thane of a hold you gain the ability to collect taxes, have the hold's guards follow you, have the hold's guards arrest people, exchange your thane weapon for a better version and more. You can a see a brief showcase of it here. Mourning Restored A simple plugin that restores the mourning interaction that is present in the Vanilla game files but was left unused. Unique NPCs can now express anger/grief after a relative or friend dies, run away to be left alone for a moment, or greet you differently as they mourn. Hearthfire Fixed This mod fixes some basic features of Hearthfire like mead brewing and butter churning . Splashes Of Skyrim SKSE plugin that adds projectile based water splashes and ripples, and underwater explosions. Flying Crows Adds flying crows to various locations around Tamriel to create a more nordic atmosphere in your Skyrim. If you want a bit amount of crows in the flying packs, also install this . Ravens - Mihail Monsters and Animals Adds ravens to some villages and farms. Also make sure to install the optimized textures for it. Pigeons- Mihail Monsters and Animals Pigeons to settlements. Ducks and Swans Ducks and swans for lakes and ponds in Skyrim. Chicks - Mihail Monsters and Animals Chicks near chickens at farms. Also make sure to install the optimized textures for it. Immersive Death Cycle See dead animals decay over time, eventually turning into bones. Vampires Cast No Shadow 2 Simple as that. SKSE plugin. Open Your Mouth When Grunting Arrrghh!! Cough in your hands Not my face Simple mod that tweaks the basic idle noises that NPCs make, and implements custom animations to most of them. No More Silver In Castle Volkihar Removes all silver paraphernalia from castle Volkihar. The Dragonborn Dreams The Dragonborn Dreams allows your character to occasionally wake up having had a (written) dream. Immersive Display Overhaul Select the item you want to display from your inventory instead of needing to equip it beforehand. Nocturnal Moths Adds moths to lanterns at night, with animations and sound effects. Simple Block Sparks - Script Free SKSE plugin that spawns sparks effect on weapon/shield while block attack, visual effect only. Locked Chests Have Keys Many chests in Skyrim are locked... but truth is no one has the key to open them. Do bandits pick the lock every time? With this mod, most locked chests will have a nearby hidden key that can be used to open the chest. You can still pick the lock as usual, but you can now also use the key... if you manage to find it. NPCs Wear Amulets of Mara PLUS Why is the Dragonborn the only character actively looking for marriage in the entire Skyrim? With this mod, NPCs might now be wearing an amulet of Mara, allowing you to ask them out following the Nord tradition. Fare Thee Well - Spouses and Children Give Blessings Say a proper farewell to your spouse and children before leaving on your next adventure. Let them know of your intentions, and they may confer a blessing - or a portent of doom upon you. Kasala123 profile For small, immersive "Burial Sites" mod series. Equippable Underwear for NPCs Gives NPCs equippable underwear so they are no longer naked when you loot or pickpocket them if you are using a nude body mod Indecent Exposure - Immersive Naked Reactions Being naked around guards and children is now a crime. Pickpocketing an NPC's clothes causes them to run away. Mandragorasprouts profile For tons of tiny mods adding TES deities statues to the game world. Many patches for popular mods here. Stroudx profile For shorter males/females mods. Fertility Mode If you're playing a female character and wanna have that much realism - yes, there's a mod even for this :) Also grab the tweaks/fixes patch. CG4 Horse Muck Because...uhh..well yes. Individual Shout Cooldown Remake You can change cooldown of any shout now for your ingame purposes. Can be pretty OP though, if used too wide. Unlucky Loot Adds a chance for Draugr to ambush when looting ruins, Daedra to ambush when handling soul gems, and Skeevers to ambush when looting dungeon food. Enemies Follow Me Make enemies chase you through loading doors. Classic Werewolf Transformation The player should be naked after transforming back from a werewolf. Here it is. Hidden Hideouts of Skyrim Adds 21 new areas spread across Skyrim. Sleep Tight Sleep-related enhancements to NPCs. Also grab the fix. Lanterns for Guards etc A simple mod to add carriable lanterns to guards, vigilants, wardens and all NPC's that normally carry torches. Basically it's a torch replacer but without removing torches from the world. Dirt and Blood - Dynamic Visual Effects Your character will accumulate dirt and blood dynamically, which you can clean by swimming, standing in the rain or taking a bath. The effects are mostly visual only and do not affect gameplay. NPCs will also get bloody as a result of battles. Mod is designed to be simple and lightweight. Grab the HD textures patch and optionally, soap distribution patch . You can also install a lite alternative instead. Khajiit Merchants Buy Stolen Items Because stereotypes work. Talkative Dragons Ever found it weird that dragons, fully sapient beings, have never spoken a word while you’re doing your best trying to defeat them? This mod changes that. Also isntall this (overwrite mod files). Also, if you want to control how frequently you will meet a "talkative" dragon, grab this (configurable). Crafting Requires Tools Redone Crafting now requires appropriate tools. Best used in conjunction with survival mods. Remote Interactions Interact with friendly and enemy NPCs from afar, with different animations and results based on context and distance. Dynamic Animal Variants A standalone plugin that randomly distributes unique texture variants to creatures and animals. Blowing in the Wind Lite Makes all lanterns moveable by the wind without any worldspace edits. Flies Around Corpses You can now hear blowflies flying around rotting corpses, whether human or animal. End Times Tired of the Dragonborn prophecy's success being a given? This mod gives your savegame a timer that you have to defeat Alduin by, otherwise he'll swallow the world! Fully customizable with an MCM. No Level Up Healing Prevents you from fully healing health/magicka/stamina when you level up. Take Notes - Journal of the Dragonborn Dear diary... After the Civil War - Siege Damage Repairs An immersive way of repairing the damage left by the Civil War without using the console. Twenty days after the final battle the cities will be back to normal, but a generous donation will speed-up the reconstruction. Repair crews will be at work fixing the damage. Reading Improves Speech Gain Speech XP upon reading a book for the first time. Note: I'd recommend to decrease the XP reward value in xEdit. HighHrothgar Shelters and Hotspring Expanded version of the original adding a total of 3 places to sleep in shelters on High Hrothgar and added a hot spring on the mountain near the first cabin. Imperial Post Introduces an Imperial-based news system which updates throughout the quest lines. Fires Hurt Seriously. Let Your Hair Down Automatically switch your hair style in interior locations or with a hotkey. Drinking fountains of Skyrim This mod adds several drinking fountains around Skyrim. When you "activate" a fountain, it will give you three bottles of water and if you play in 3rd person you can see an animation. DLC addon here . Skyrim Artwork Imports Adds dozens of paintings and tapestries to homes across Skyrim. Hold Riders Inspired by Oblivion. Realistic Capacity Your inventory space is no longer capable of holding several suits of armor at a time. You can carry the clothes on your back and the weapons on your belt without issue, and your armor will likely have some pouches to store some meager supplies, but unless you get a backpack, you likely won't be able to carry much more than that. Public Executions Adds public executions to Solitude and the option to capture bandits for executions. Bottles Of Skyrim Adds unique bottles to each beverage. I'm a Customer Dammit Allows eating of food and bartering with merchants directly from world. Just Do It - An inventory-free way to use items A more feature-packed alternative to the mod above. Creature Size Variants Adds some diversity to Skyrim creatures, and generic NPC's, by dynamically resizing them. Customizable with the MCM. Ultimate Spinning Arrows Because FWOOOSH. Harvest Those Mammoth Skulls Makes the tusks on all mammoth skulls harvestable. Immersive City Gates Now the guards won't let you enter the city when you want. Cities are closed during the night and you need to pay the tax to enter during the day. Note: Mod may conflict with city mods. Frozen in Time Add frozen bodies to Skyrim. Tamrielic Culture Mod adds various different elements of Tamriel cultures to Skyrim here and there. Note: Coverage is pretty massive, so it may conflict with landscape overhauls/dungeon/quest mods. CACO patch and RnD patch are available. Goldenglow Is Yours On reading the Goldenglow deed that you get from Gulum-Ei, you actually become the estate's owner. Then you can keep it and get a monthly income, or sell it to Maven for a hefty sum. Banners of victory Simple fix of Bethesda overlook - after winning the war the imperials and solitude banners are replaced for Stormcloak banners at Dragon's Bridge, Solitude, and Castle Dour.

First of all, a mod, or rather, an engine, that allows gazillions of other animation mods work to begin with - a must-have installation to proceed into this section. Note: Nemesis supports [all] mods that are dependant on FNIS - so you won't have any issues.

Now, a mod that's required by, without exagerration, nearly every other modern animation mod for Skyrim.

Grab this because it won't hurt to have this as a base anims fixes collection:

Couple other nice fixes and/or improvements:

And finally, a cosmetic, but satisfying fix that you never knew you need:

Let's continue to animation mods themselves, shall we?
Now, let's grab some essential (in your humble's opinion) animations mods which will either serve as a solid improvement base that or as an element of controlling the new animations:

Good! Now let's see some other qualitative animation mods. These type of mods in general are always and absolutely a matter of taste, so I won't be recommending much personally here - just list some qualitative/original looking mods, from which you can choose yourself :)

A thing to note here: animations is effectively the most active part of Skyrim modding stage rn, and there are both new mods being made to stick with "oldschool" animation system (simply said, the "2D" movement and combat), and "new gen" mods ("3D" animation mods which are based on or made in mind with animation overhauls or complex movement mods, like MCO/TDM etc). As for today, animation segment of Skyrim modding is huge, and also pretty complex. It's not possible to list whether this or that animation mod is compatible with a certain behaviour overhaul or some other large animation mod - some "2D" animation mods work just fine with "3D" overhauls and frameworks, some are not.
Thus, first of all for yourself - decide what kind of animation style, the "Elden Ring/Hellblade" one, or the classic Skyrim one, you prefer. Then, take or skip certain animation overhauls - and thus build your further animation setup around them, or not. This will take some time experimenting, but with animations, what's better - "3D" or "2D", simple animations or combos, etc - it's a personal preference of every player.

Large animation mods which are either a complete overhauls of certain animation aspects, or adding decent amount of new animations:

Animated Armoury - New Weapons with third person animations This amazing (and imo, just essential) mod adds new, really working animations for rapiers, pikes, halberds, claws and more, as well as adding those weapons to the game. You can see a brief showcase of it here. Precision patch here. Lots of various katana mods patches here and Ordinator better perks descriptions patch here .
Also, some users consider whips to be the "wonky" part of the mod. Try them yourself, and if you will come to the same conclusion, try this version with an optional rebalance patch . Immersive Equipping Animations See your character and followers actually wearing their armors. Animations for equipping/unequipping necklaces, helmets/Hoods, cuirass/clothing, gloves and boots. Look Around - Searching Animations For NPCs Adds new animations that make you feel like NPCs are actually searching for you. Movement Behavior Overhaul Enhanced behaviors allowing for proper direction transitions, momentum stop, and much more. Compatible with the mod below (patch provided). To disable the sprinting stop animations, install this . 360 Walk and Run Plus AND YY Animations Jump Behavior Overhaul Who knew jumping could be this immersive? Get ready for brand new animations, improved behavior, and much more... With NO scripts or plugins at all. Dova Jump One more modern jump animation overhaul. Animation Motion Revolution This SKSE plugin removes the mismatch between displacement and animations (the infamous ice-skating problem). Creature Behavior Generator Creature Behavior Generator allows you to add new custom creature animations into Skyrim. You can add basic, sequenced, paired, and killmove animations. Supports Nemesis.

Now, two mods to mention specifically (or rather frameworks that change the notable part of animations core as whole, and allow many other modern animation mods to work on this base). Simply said, you need to choose one or another here, with BFCO being newer than MCO, but still in active development, and when it comes many different animations mods that were made for MCO in the last couple years, to use them with BFCO, you'll need to convert them. There's a tool for that and BFCO generally was made to be more advanced, but as for now, general recommendation to use MCO and switch to BFCO a bit later (I'm still on MCO so far, but will likely switch in a few months). At the same time, even now, BFCO works really well and in the end, that's up to you.

Modern Combat Overhaul A combat behaviour mod that allows chainable power attacks, animated charged attacks, animated transitions and non linear movesets. Also, if you have some SkySA animation mods, you can convert them into MCO using the file provided on the mod page. If you're modding Skyrim AE (game version >= 1.6), also install this.
Note #1: To properly use this mod with Animated Armoury, install this version of Animated Armoury instead the original mod (2 small optional patches here and here are also recommended).
Note #2: If you're modding with NMM, for Payload Interpreter (required for MCO), make sure to implement the instruction for "needs to have 2 folders" (yes, it's mentioned for Vortex, but needed all the same for NMM as well).
Note #3: Also install this lil fix (still needed for latest MCO version).
BFCO - Attack Behavior Framework An animation framework made to be a more advanced replacement for MCO (so again, use one or another). For example, one of its advantages over MCO is automatic compatibility with perk overhauls like Ordinator (while there's no game-breaking issues, MCO doesn't play well with some of the perks which involve vanilla combos or attack speed modifiers), and there are some other. In the rest, the goal and principle of the work is very similar. BFCO also provides NPCs combo support, which SCAR, mod below, does - but in case of these two you don't have to spesifically choose one and can use both, as for now. Again: Choose either MCO or BFCO, don't use both together. Read through the mod page to understand its full feature set, differences from MCO, and also through author's pinned comment as it has a few extra instructions (of how to convert MCO animations into BFCO animations and some others). Note: If you're on AE/VR, get this patch.
SCAR - Skyrim Combos AI Revolution SKSE plugin that brings up the modern ACT game‘s combos attack AI into Skyrim. Remember those unique attacks of bandits and some other creatures in Ultimate Combat mod? Now imagine these is upgraded to actual combos and used logically by the NPCs. That's it! Can be used (and I suggest you if you like this mod idea) with the two mods below. Also, install the magic support patch and, to balance NPCs combos a bit, optionally, install this patch.
Note #1: If you're modding AE, install this on top to be able to use the mod.
Note #2: While SCAR doesn't technically require MCO (mod above), it won't make much sense without it. True Directional Movement Overhauls the third person gameplay similarly to modern action RPGs, entirely through SKSE. Move and attack in any direction. Includes a custom target lock component and animated healthbar widget, target headtracking, projectile aim support during target lock, boss bars, mount support and more! Modular and customizable through MCM. Note: The mod is still WIP and has some bugs here and there, and due to being a really massive movement (mostly but not only, some more combat-related features exist in it as well) overhaul, it has compatibility issues with some other popular mods. Read the mod page carefully and test it with your current setup to see what and how. You can see a video showcase of the mod here.
Patches/addons:
Diagonal Sprinting Fix Lock-On Fixes Simpler Dragon Targeting Better Horses Turning Glenmoril Boss Patch Wheels of Lull Patch Note: boss patches is simply a line in the .ini file, so if you'll just install both, one will overwrite another. It's generally recommended to just grab the needed line from the patch file and paste it in the latest TDM version .ini file, without fully overwriting it. Precision - Accurate Melee Collisions Physically accurate collisions for melee. Procedural, physics-based hit reactions. Weapon trails. Hitstop and camera shake. Recoils when hitting certain materials. Supports both first person and third person, as well as other NPCs and creatures. Custom collisions for new movesets. Supports both SE and AE. Note: if you're using other mods for the next: hitstop (Stop On Slash mod, for instance), weapon trails or recoil, it's recommended to remove those mods as same features in this mod will work better with it as they are inbuilt natively. Optionally, install a patch for more vibrant enchanted weapon trails from here (and the ENB partcile lights patch for it here ==NEW==).
Note: VR users should use this instead. Precision Creatures Fixes some bugs related to hit boxes and improves attacks precision of some creatures - for instance, werewolves and vampire lords. Requires the Precision mod itself, of course. UNDERDOG - Animations Highly-realistic animation overhaul for movement, sneaking and some new idles. It both changes existing animations and, most interesting, adds new. conditional diversity for existing animations. If you'll be playing with Serana, get the fix , and there's Leaps of Faith patch available too. You can see a showcase of it here. Smooth Moveset - OAR ==NEW== Adds large number of smooth combat idle, non-combat idle, move stop idle, draw, locomotion and transition animations depending on the situation. BFCO - MCO - Diverse NPC Movesets ==NEW== A massive collection of movesets to diversify NPCs attacks. Riding Animation Overhaul - RAO Vanilla animation replacer that overhauls horse rider/riding animations to be more realistic and visually appealing. Can also install this lil mod on top - it's not technically required, but goes well together. Horse Behaviour Improvements Horse behaviour mod that adds leaning to horse riding based on slope angle, and does minor pose adjustments for horse creatures. Compatible with iding Animation Overhaul via a single simple tweak - read at the mod page. EVG Animated Traversal A new layer of world interaction immersion - climb ledges, squeeze in tight spaces, jump over walls and more. Note: due to the mod's nature, it most likely will conflict with mods affecting same places as the mod does - city/dungeon overhauls, etc. New land kind of mods will also require patching - gladly, there are plenty available.
Addons/patches:
Integration Patch This mod adds more than two hundreds EVGAT markers into most Skyrim and Solstheim dungeons and forts to give you a whole new experience while exploring. Dungeon Addons Some other Skyrim dungeons added. Compatible with the Integration Addon. Maleficus' Traversal (EVGAT) Utilizes the EVG Animated Traversal framework by adding parkourable areas into the major hold capitals. Patch Collection For various mods. Bleak Falls Barrow - Animated Traversal Grab a file here if you're using "Dungeons Revisited" overhaul for BFB. Hammet's Dungeons patch JK Skyrim patch Note: only IF you're using "Deadly Shadows" addon for it. Let's continue. Skill Based Dynamic Animations Animations for both the player and NPCs will be different based on the character's skill level or race. Immersive Equipment Displays Display unequipped gear and custom items on the player or NPCs. Works with any item with no additional meshes required. Does not use body slots. SKSE plugin. Custom in-game user interface for configuring everything in real-time while you're playing. Includes a flexible positioning system for both equipped and unequipped gear.
Some presets/addons for it:
Use Those Horses Immersive Equipment Displays - Mura Presets IED - Weapons Repositioner Dynamic Crafting Animations Addon Staves Walking Animation Addon Let's continue. DCA - Dragon Combat Animations Overhauls vanilla dragon attacks with new animations with fair attacks in mind. Sky Idles Adds over 40 idles that can be tailored to users needs and more. Take a Seat - New DAR Sitting Animations 14 new sit-on-the-ground/meditation animations that will play at random for you and the NPCS thanks to DAR. Random Emotions Adds a script that will control the player character's facial emotions in a semi-random way. Optional version also supports up to 10 followers. Animated Eating Redux Definitive animated eating mod. Works on both NPCs and the player. MCM-configurable. Eating Animations and Sounds Over 100 new animations for eating. Can be used together with the mod above if player animations are disabled in Animated Eating Redux MCM. Many patches here , as well as multiple improvements (and also patches) here . Animated Ingredients Adds custom movement enabled animation for when player is consuming ingredients. Has an MCM for configuration. Animated Potions Adds custom movement enabled animation for player and NPCs when consuming potions. Has an MCM for configuration. ElSopa potions patch here. Animated Potion Drinking Helping the Dragonborn be more fancy while remaining nimble. Adds a small animation when you're drinking potions "just like Dark Souls" that works will moving. Use this mod or the mod above. Animated Poisons Custom movement enabled animations for all vanilla poisons with correct animation meshes. Has an MCM as well. Smooth Combat non Combat idle Animation Mod adds a difference between idle animations in combat and non-combat situations even when holding a weapon. You can a see a showcase of it here Conditional Armor Type Animations Changes the player and NPCs animations depending on their armor type (heavy armor, light armor, non-armored). EAD - Every Attack Different Animation replacer for all 1h and 2h attacks, but with a twist: there is a different animation for every swing, cycling between several animations for every weapon type. Diverse Random Normal Attack Similar mod that randomizes normal attacks animation. Extra Drawing Animations A behaviour edit that adds in a few extra equip animations.

Animations packs that are mostly improving large amount of existing animations in a single pack.

Standalone animations mods, small packs, and profiles of authors that have plenty of standalone animation mods for certain moves:

Reduce Attack Skating Movement Simple as that. Look on the modpage for demonstration. Not needed if you're using MCO/BFCO (if you're using "classic" animations mods in general). Enemy Magelock - NPC Magic Casting Commitment A really simple mod to switch up combat rhythm especially for those who love enemy enhancer mods - it makes enemy mages to briefly stop moving when spellcasting. You can also watch a showcase of it here. No Spinning Death Animation Note: not needed if you're using Underdog animation pack and picked the death animation variations there. Dynamic Swimming Devil in immersive details! Changes the swimming animation depending on stamina level and armor weight. You can see my showcase of it here. Dynamic Female Swimming Idles Exclusively for female characters. Vanilla Eating Animation Fixes Many players likely would never pay much attention to these issues, but if you do - that's your mod. Obscure Animations Overhaul ==NEW== Remakes of a bunch of vanilla movement/idle animations with a simple, but well-made ones. Left Hand Equipment Overhaul Adds left-hand equipment swap animation and enabled movement of left-hand weapon/shield. EVG CLAMBER - Slope Animations New dedicated animations for traversing up & down slopes, like stairs and hills. Feminine animation replacers here. YY Anim Replacer - Zweihander Two-handed animations from talented YY. Disable Turn Animation Removes turn animation. Look on the mod page video for demonstration. Animated Inebriation Adds drunk idle and walking, running and even spriting animations to most needs mods inebriation effects. Dynamic Dodge Animation Weapon-specific 8-way dodge animations with support for TK Dodge, Ultimate Dodge, and DMCO Verolevi profile For lots really beautiful and smooth animation replacers - movement, combat, magic & stances. Orakin2020 profile For beautiful alternative melee weapons animations. distar66 profile For various, mostly dark-souls inspired animations. stuxjr profile For some brand new animations for various creatures. Sabre Cat Attack Animations ==NEW== Replaces the vanilla attacks of Sabre Cats to make them more fun to dodge when using combat overhauls. miken1ke profile For some nice animation replacers for each certain weapon type (battleaxe, dagger etc). edenexile profile For a middle-fantasy weapon animation movesets. UncreativePontiff profile For a manly two-handed weapon movesets. ptowndrew21 profile For some combos and movesets. wkk654321 profile For WoLong inspired animations. 5poiler profile For various badass vanilla+ animations. ADXP I MCO ER Twinblades (SCAR Precision) Inspired by Elden Ring, this animation brings together most of Elden Ring's Twinblades moves, and makes some modifications. Note: you have to have some actual twinblade weapon mod installed, like this or this. Daughter of Coldharbour - Serana Valerica Combat Overhaul Gives Serana and Valerica unique combat style with custom animations. Note: This one works on MCO. If you're using BFCO, get respective version here. Random First Person Magic Animation Randomized first person magic casting animation with Dynamic Animation Replacer. DAR - Modesty - Cover Yourself Uses the Dynamic Animation Replacer - Framework to hide nudity with Cover yourself animations. DAR - Onehand Melee Exhaustion This DAR Plugin will change human Actors one handed weapon attack-grip to its slower two handed counterpart if his Stamina fall below 33% and changes back, if its Stamina is higher than 33%. Sprint Swimming This mod allows you to swim faster by pressing the Sprint button while swimming. Large Stagger Animation A smooth animation for large stagger. Very immersive in melee fights. First Person Stagger Animation Remade ==NEW== New custom made 1st person stagger animation. Animation in Blizzard Animation in Ashstorm Girly Animation Feminine Pickup Animation mcgFemaleWalk for Skyrim Feminine Jarl Sitting Animation Pretty Sit Idles FNIS Sexy Move Simple Female Idle Replacer A really simple replacer for the female idle. Very neutral. Subtle Jump Simple jump animation replacer. Simple Female Running Animation Simple and nice. Male Idle Animation Basic replacer for the derpy male idle made via DAR. 2H katana attack animations Mofu 1h Sword Power Attack forward Phalanx Stance - A Shield Block Idle Animation Replacer SIdeSaddle Combat Animations A mod that adds sideSaddle horse rider combat animations. Stronger Swimming Animation New swimming animation. Cross and Jab Speed fix Fixes unarmed animation mod cross and jab, so that the animation's match the ingame unarmed combat speed. First Person Artifact Animation Replacer This mod adds new first person animations to some artifacts in Skyrim. Momo Acrobatic Jump Elegant, acrobatic-looking jumping animation replacer. Random Emotions Mod adds a small script that will rule emotions of player's and up to 10 followers' faces in a semi-random way. Crawling Bleedout A new animation for the bleed-out event that happens when an Player's or NPC's health goes down. Two versions available, for player and both player and NPCs. Unique Player Throne Animation Simple animation replacer for the way your character sits on the throne. E3 Witcher 3 Dodge Animations Animations similar to the dodges shown in the e3 presentation for Witcher 3. Can be used with TK dodge and The Ultimate Dodge Mod. Samurai Killmove port Samurai-inspired killmove animations. Requires Violens. Steel For Humans - Killmoves Replacer Replace ssome vanilla killmoves with witcher style execution animation. DAR - Animated Fear A mod which adds new NPC animations to fear magic effects. SonderBain profile ==NEW== For many (mostly) female idle and weapon anims. Subtle Feminine Carriage Sitting Animation Subtle Feminine Mount Sprint Animation Exactly what mod names say. Parkour in Skyrim As flashy as usual, you can now jump with those stylish freerunning stuffs like front flip, side flip etc. Jump animations are player only and only played while weapon sheathed. sgtoy259 profile For quite unusual, bot so needed mods - new animations for various attacks of draugrs, which are one of the most common enemy type in the game. Wolf Attack Animations Will be now different instead of the same spam all the time. New Husky Animations Modified a handful of animations for Dawnguard's huskies, giving them a more confident stance, with curved tails... CURVED. TAILS. Austioxv profile For AC inspired animations. samuelga24 profile For various animations for popular mods (Wildcat, Wounds etc) - for conditions that were not animated before, or extensions to immersive animation/idle mods (like EVG series). GiraPomba profile ==NEW== For dozens of animation mods either adding brand new animations, or adding variety to existing animations, including ones from other mods. cheming1228 profile For some other AC inspired anims for MCO. Stuxjr profile For some nice combos and Nier Automata inspired anims. LilBadJj profile For dozens of standalone combat anims for MCO. CiomeG profile For some MCO anims for Animated Armoury weapons. Gunslicer profile For simple yet nice animations for various actions - running, swimming, sneak etc. Skypia profile For "Smooth" animation series for most of actions of your character. CHIMgarden profile For various conditonal animations for secondary actions in the game world - praying, gestures and even cart drivers. black364 profile ==NEW== For dozens of high-quality animations for MCO/SCAR/Precision, mostly inspired by DS/Elden Ring. Unique Animations Reworked Overhauls two unique animations: bathing hunter near Darkwater Crossing and Astrid Dark Brotherhood introduction scene. Note: lay down idle animation doesn't work if you have EVG Animation Varience intsalled, so you may want to delete the "idlelaydown.hkx" from the mod files. Customizable Faster Mining Animation Customizable Faster Woodcutting Animation Self-explanatory. Jarl Sitting Animation Replacer Replace the Jarl sitting animation with the ones used by Arch Curate Vyrthur during the Dawnguard questline. Comes in as a full replacer, randomized (DAR), as gender-specific replacer (Nemesis). The Ultimate Sit Animation - Men's Edition Behold the ultimate sit animation for men. A long, robust, lifelike idle sit animation replacer intended for male characters. Sit the only way the dragonborn knows how: like an absolute boss. Feminize - Crafting Animation Crafting animations adjusted for female characters, including the player. Currently includes Alchemy, Enchanting, Blacksmithing, Tanning, and Cooking. Note: If you have camera mods and experience bugs with this one, install the NPCs-only version of the mod. No More Swimming In Air - Fixed Floating SwimIdle Fixes the awful swimidle animation which plays well above water instead of below, causing the impression to be flying rather than swimming. Animated Whistling Whistle to your horse properly. Disable NPC stretching idle If this bothers you. MCO - ADXP - Elder Creed - Blade A one-handed moveset for MCO, inspired by Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Flute Animation Fix Do your male bards play the flute with their noses? Do your female bards play the flute with their psychic powers? Quick fix for both! Enhanced 1stperson Parry Animation This will change first person parrying for all melee weapon and add stabbing bash. Jumping Attack Adds in the ability to jump attack with custom animation as well as allows you to use ranged weapons and magic mid air. First Person Animation Replacer - Swimming Adds a water kicking animation to the first person camera mode while swimming. First Person Animation Replacer - Idle Adds a light sway to the character camera in first person mode. Nier Automata 2B Dodge Replacer Replace dodge animations for The Ultimate Dodge Mod and TK Dodge. Sky Sprint Player exclusive handmade sprint animation replacers. Quicker Bed Exit Yup. TK Dodge AddAttack SE by Ni-iru Adds ability to perform a stylish attack while dodging. Requires TK Dodge mod. Twohanded animations inspired by Guts from Berserk Twohanded animations for all attacks, except for normal attacks, inspired by Berserk games. Randomized One Handed Block and Idle Animations Three new one hand block animations (four with the vanilla one), and one new idle animation (two with the vanilla one). Hand to Hand Blocking Animation AWS - Animated Wedding Scene Breathes more life to the player wedding scene by playing a new set of animations between you and your new spouse. A Skyrim Kiss Try a little tenderness: Hug and kiss any human NPC at the use of a spell. A Skyrim Waltz 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3... Waltz with a partner of your choice at the use of a spell. From the author of mod above. Sit Crosslegged Yup. Reanimated NPC Animations New animations for reanimated NPCs. Make dead thralls act more soulless. Even more animations addon here. 1st Person Dagger Stab with DAR Replaces 1st person dagger power attack with strong forward stab. Weapon Animation (Dawnbreaker) Unique animation when using Dawnbreaker. Note: not compatible with Better-Shaped Weapons/Believable Weapons improved model for Dawnbreaker. GuitarthVader's Better Battleaxe and Warhammer Equipping Animation Tavern Dancers of Skyrim Raks Sharki Adds dynamic dance for the women in Skyrim, provided they are using the beer drinking animation in a conditional way. Combat Animation Overhaul - Dwarven Sphere New attack animations for the dwarven spheres. Combat Animation Overhaul - Draugr ==NEW== And for draugrs. Crosshair-aligned Crossbow Improves first person aiming with crossbows. You can see a video showcase of it here. Idle Animations WheelMenu Allows you select and play idle animations through a wheel menu, kind likes the "emote menu" from fallout 76, fortnite or other games. Totally contains 75 different idle animations, all animations can be easily selected and played through the wheel menu. Witcher Style Meditate Waiting By pressing a custom hotkey, you can meditate waiting just likes in Witcher 3. Crouch Sliding Adds in a crouch slide, when you're sprinting press your sneak key to perform a crouch slide, this gives you i-frames and(optionally) cause surrounding NPC's to ragdoll away from you. Works in first person as well. No Throat-Slashing Animation (Sneak Attack Killmove) Always backstab ("Rear Stab") instead of slitting throats ("Rear Throat Slash") Rolling after landing (Controllable) Allows you to do a forward rolling animation after landing from high to reduce the fall damage. This action is activated by a custom hotkey. Faster Mining Animation (DAR) Rumple's Dual Wield Idle Artifact Animation Replacer - Wabbajack Adds custom animations to the Daedric artifact Wabbajack. Monster Facial Animation (MFA) This mod adds facial animation to werewolves, werebears and vampire lords. (DAR)Death animation variation 5% chance to play "You Too Brutus..!!" kind a death animation. Note: not needed if you have UNDERDOG animation mod, as similar but much more variative feature is implemented there. Undead Summons Emerge From The Ground This mod makes all summoned undead emerge from the ground when summoned. Faster Reanimation A simple mod that reduces the duration of the reanimation animation by editing the three corresponding .hkx files. install one of the preferred versions. Use this mod or the one above. Faster Transform - To Werewolf and VampireLord

Just a sidenote: If some classic-made animation mod you like is available for LE, but not for SE, you can attempt to port animations from LE to SE yourself using this tutorial.

Various mods, patches and fixes - these can tehcnically belong to any of categories above, but are usually really tiny or matter of taste ones, so grouped here.

Patches, tweaks and tiny additions:

QUASIPC - Qwinn's Unified Automated Self Installing Patch Compendium A very simple yet very useful mod - a super-patcher. Just run the installer and let it automatically detect whether you need or not one, few or many patches from 103 patches it has. Using this patcher is not something you will have crashes without, but it will polish various minor compatibility issues here and there. WiZkiD Patches Compendium One more similar patcher mod. Note: While most of the patches provided in these 2 packs are working just fine, considering the growth of modding stage in general, there's no 100% guarantee you won't have a few newer patches for same mods in your setup in the end. In vastly majority of cases, this won't cause any issues as one patch will like take over other one depending on the load order, but if you want to make sure no such cases are present, just search for plugins with similar names in your setup after installing patches from these ones FOMODs. Miscellaneous Patches And a few more patches for some mods. Xtudo profile For a few hundreds of patches, addons and improvements for hundreds of other popular mods. In many cases, that's either mesh/texture polishing patches for armor/weapon/artifact mods, or their immersive/logic additions to them. Yet, they also have dozens of other improvements for different type of mods, so just go through their arsenal of mods and pick some improvements here and there, depending on your own setup. Notably, always take a look at Ancient Dwemer Metal patches page as there are 140+ patches there only, and new ones being added gradually. Whose Quest Is It Anyway NG Swaps the "Quest items cannot be removed..." message for a more descriptive message informing you which quest the item belongs to. Yes Im Sure NG Disables annoying message prompts asking you if you're sure you'd like to craft/improve/exit menus. Updated version of the original mod. Simple Edge Glow Remover NG ==NEW== SKSE plugin to remove ugly edge glow from shader effects. An updated version of several previously classic plugin versions of similar kind of mods. Better Combat Escape Improves the vanilla game combat escape\stopping mechanism, to prevent you stucking at combat state with super far away enemy. PACE Allows you to set the PACE of the game, via MCM, to your personal preferences. Alter movement speed for every circumstance **NPC's included**, decide exactly how quick, or slow, every weapon should swing, and control time itself at the push of a button. All features toggleable via the menu. BorderSense Ported from Skyrim LE, a small mod that lets you know when you are near the borders of a hold. Optionally notifies you of your bounty in that hold. Classic Sprinting Redone Makes sprinting behave the same way as it did in old Skyrim. Hold instead of toggle. Reading Is Good This mod reworks skill books so that instead of granting levels instantly, they give you a permanent boost to your leveling speed in the respective skill. This means that you benefit more by reading them as soon as you find them. Raven Rock - Fix Exit on Horseback When using horse mods in Solstheim, you might have issues exiting Raven Rock through the small shaft. This small tweak aims to fix that. Get On With It - No more waiting for doors No more door animations if you wanna save some time.
Note: This is a pure mesh mod, meaning it will overwrite any mod that is changing doors in game, like high-poly door mods by Hype1, etc. It's one or another. Better Descriptions Not much realistic ofc, but may look useful for some players - it adds on-screen information and more precise names to various objects, containers, clutter and misc items and activators. Fast Travel by Horse Simple as that. No More Standing Too Close Simple mod that make NPCs never say "Huh?" and step back from you again. Realistic Regeneration - RealRegen Control regeneration rates for Health, Magicka and Stamina at any time in the game. Immersive Stolen Goods Adds over 30 new unique treasures to the game, that you can steal from various places in Skyrim. Pirates Wield Cutlasses No way huh. Concerning Chillrend Adds a note that adds a backstory to how Mercer Frey came to possess Chillrend. The Real Lusty Argonian Maid A Skyrim's version of the "The Lusty Argonian Maid - The Untold Story" mod for Oblivion by BlackPuma. Trespass The fort soldiers are sometimes displaying erratic behavior about trespassing, attacking followers even though player is an ally - this mod helps. Burning Bodies Always Trigger Oil Traps NPCs (dead or alive) burning from spells like flames or with fire cloak spells (ex: Flame Atronachs) will trigger oil puddle-like hazards in dungeons. The Skyrim Bestiary (WIP) Do you wish Skyrim had a bestiary, but don't want to write your own? Here's my solution: Craft bestiary books using creature components gathered from your kills. Shrub's Little Riddle Hunt A little scavenger hunt with riddles as clues to take you across Skyrim, for a bit of treasure. Saw Logs How many saw logs you have left to build your next house? With this little plugin no more you will be able to view the amount left in your inventory. Gems in All Mines Find gems in all mines and throughout the depths of Blackreach. This mod also adds the missing Diamond and Garnet Geodes to your game. Unquantum Forgemaster's Fingers The existence of the Forgemaster's Fingers is no longer based on whether or not you're observing them. Welcome Back to the Bee and Barb A small dialogue tweak. If you give them the three amethysts, Keerava and Talen-Jei will forgive you for extorting the 'owed money'. Respect for the Legate You've been promoted to Legate, the Imperials should know who you are by now. The imperial patrols will no longer harass you. tarlazo profile For over a hundred tiny yet great mods (and some fixes) for most different purpose. Patchy McPatch Face - Cyb's Misc Patch Bin ==NEW== For around 20 minor patches and fixes for some well-known mods. Aela Doesn't Approach If You Don't Help You just happened to pass by, and she comes up to you and reproaches you for not helping her or just waits and doesn't go until you talk to her? No more. Note: not needed if using At Your Own Pace Companions plugin. Respectful Ravyn ==NEW== Ravyn of the Thieves Guild was a member of the Morag Tong, the enemy of the Dark Brotherhood. If you are part of the Dark Brotherhood, there is no option to tell him this. Also, he's rude to you even if you're the Guild Master. Well, that is until now! Put Ravyn in his place and force him to respect you! Sensible Sleepwalking - Wake up at nearest All-Maker Stone Sleep on Solstheim, secure in knowing that you won't get sent to some random other part of the island when you wake up. Pray With Amulets Wearing religious amulets gives you the ability to pray anywhere to receive blessings. Thugs Not Assassins Hired thugs shouldn't be killing you. That's the Dark Brotherhood's job. Improved version of the original mod with more options. CloudQuest profile For some minor tweaks. turtlegodking profile For lots of patches for most various mods. Skyhaven Additions Adds more Blades to Skyhaven, along with a forge, alchemy bench, 3 merchants, and a barracks. More Salt Adds more salt to food vendors. Useful for survival-oriented mod setups. Amulet Evangelism - Priests Sell Amulets Priests sell amulets for their Divine. Mapseller Adds the cartographer Nataly Dravarol to the game. She sells maps of the territories. If you have the DLCs, there will be mapsellers for those new areas too. These maps show you every map marker in that territory (except the military camps), but they're not for fast travel. Neutral Hjerim After Blood on the Ice, Hjerim is purchasable, regardless of Civil War involvement or lack thereof. Whiterun Navmesh Optimized Navmesh for Whiterun that improves performance. Not recommended if you're using any Whiterun overhaul, ofc. Thalmor Don't Report To Stormcloaks Thalmor don't report crimes in holds controlled by stormcloaks. Truly Neutral Prisoners Finally stops those pesky prisoners from snitching on you. No Boring Sleep-Wait Menu Now you can rest/wait without interruptions up to 744 hours (31 days). Summerset Shadows Banner Fix The Summerset Shadows Banner is now able to be set ablaze by the swing of a torch. AndrealphusVIII profile For over a hundred various tiny gameplay tweaks for different preferences. Agentw profile For various small nice lil mods - from mod-added objects retextures, to patches and addons. Mur4s4me profile For various patches between popular mods. Citachi0 profile ==NEW== For couple dozens of small patches and corrections for well-known mods. USSEP Patches By Celaker ==NEW== Plenty of extra tuning patches for USEEP. Read the mod page for the full list. Scrolls Are Common - Scrolls Intregated ==NEW== Distributes scrolls from various magic mods to mage type enemy npcs so you can more naturally find them. Mages Drop Tomes ==NEW== Enemy Mages have a small chance to drop spell tomes. Tiny but Useful - Yet Another Patch Hub A compilation of 170+ patches for various mods, mainly resolving clipping issues. A Patch For Deadly Spell Impacts and Audio Overhaul - Immersive Sounds Integration There is an additional patch for Arctic - Frost Effects Redux and Immersive sounds Compendium, one for Lethal Traps and AOS, and one for ISC and No Force for Illusion Spells. Slow Time Particles FX Restored (Script Fix) - Cut Content Restoration Restores floating particles for all slow time effects. They were erroneously conditioned out not to apply. It may seem small but the effect is very noticable. Spriggans Drop Wood Spriggans Drop Wood enables you to harvest the Deadwood and Branches added by Chesko's Campfire from the corpses of spriggans and burnt spriggans. Actually Useful Butter Churns - Base Object Swapper Turns useless Hearthfire butter churns into useful Butter Churns. Return to Pelagius' Mind Travel back to Pelagius' mind to retrieve items you forgot about. The Karthspire Giant Restores the "reviving of the dead giant" scene at the Karthspire camp. Equippable Tomes and Bandolier Books HDT-SMP Meshes Like Bandolier and/or Equippable Tomes but also need physics? Here you go. Mesh Patch for Various Mods Conflict resolution between some of popular mesh-related mods combinations. A collection of mesh patches by Andrias Bartlett And a few more. Markarth LOD Unlock Mod makes sure Markarth worldspace uses Tamriel lod objects - Results in better LODs looking outside the walls of Markarth from Markarth with trees and correct object LOD. Note: If using Lux Orbis, make sure to download the corresponding version. Far Object LOD Improvement Project Additional far object LOD resources for use with DynDOLOD. Simple Leather Backpack A craftable backpack to the game, with three variants in two different colours. Simple Offence Suppression SKSE plugin that prevents neutral NPCs from turning hostile when you accidentally hit them. Angi's Camp Tweaks Reworks XP gain from Angi's archery challenges to be independent of your current skill level, and allows you to gain extra XP from practicing on your own. Your character won't be a beginner anymore if you can complete all the challenges. Only Dead Lovers Cause Inheritance Letters This mod increases the required relationship rank, for inheritance letters to occur, from 1 (friend) to 4 (lover). Czasior profile ==NEW== For some useful patches (mostly for settlement overhauls). DarthVitrial profile For several patches for quest mods. No Undetected Thieves Guild Dark Brotherhood Dialogue "Psst. Hey, I know who you are. Hail Sithis." Tired of guards saying this to you when they should have no idea you're an assassin? Then this mod is for you. Lizzy's Patch Library Some patches that may get in handy. elwaps' Patches and Fixes For various patches/fixes/addon between/for various mods - ofc not all, but possibly couple of them may come in handy for your setup. kj's Patch Collection Similar things. lilebonymace's patches And a few more. Janquel profile And lots more. Required Key Tweaks When you try to open a door, that requires a key, you can get a message with the name of the key. Pretty simple. Don't Talk With Your Mouth Full A simple mod that prevents NPC eating and drinking animations while talking to the player. Silenced Prisoners Guards shouldn't let walking weapons of mass destruction run around freely. All prisoners are now fitted with anti-magic cuffs that prevent them from casting spells or Shouts. Ragged Flagon secret entrance Makes a secret entrance from next to Riften maingate to Ragged Flagon in Thieves guild. Not that much secret actually, but definitely saves some time. Custom Skills Menu - Custom Icons Adds custom icons for custom skills that didn't have one or looked dated, for multiple skill-adding mods. Auto Read Notes Optionally read quest notes as soon as you get them automatically. Auto Input Switch Ever get annoyed that you can't use your mouse with your gamepad plugged in? Now you can switch between them painlessly. ACC - Autorun Console Commands Simple as that. Seamlessly and silently runs any number of console commands. Useful for testing your modded setup before starting a complete walkthrough.

Fixes - less "essential" and mostly minor, so placed here and not at the stability section of the guide:

Player Eyes Blink Fix Enables blinking eyes for the player. NPC AI Process Position Fix Fixes the vanilla game engine bug that NPCs AI process positions could not be updated after you waited/slept/fast travelled. Stagger Effect Fix Fixes the character's wrong stagger direction bug when the stagger triggered by spell, shout and range weapon. Improved version of the original mod. wSkeever profile ==NEW== For large number of (mostly, but not exclusively) tiny nice mesh/texture mods that are either improving some forgotten objects in vanilla style, but also often fixing miniature cosmetic bugs with them, as well as tiny but possibly irritating gameplay bugs. Enhanced Reanimation Some bug fixes and improvements to reanimation effects. Modern Toggle Walk-Run Fix This mod fixes the old issue of Shift key sticking after leaving conversation or killcam mode. Updated and script-free version of similar fix in past. SSEEdit Script - Fix Oldrim Mods Waterflow SSEEdit script to automatically edit old Skyrim's mods to enable Special Edition's water flow mechanics and possibly help with water seams if you have them in your game. Note that as the title states, it's not a mod in a classic meaning, but a script to apply in xEdit. Dragon Leveled List Fixes Fixes the missing fire dragon bug, and also mends several other issues related to dragon leveled lists. Heartfires Houses Building Fix Restores proper models of some building parts and furniture in crafting menu. Actor Limit Fix Fixes a bug where if you have more than 128 actors in the same place they start floating around weirdly. Also fixes bug where NPC lips stop moving when a lot of them are nearby. Keywords Fixed Fixes various keywords being miss-matched (or not applied at all) to relevant locations in the game. Clarification: lack of proper keywords in interior cells could result in some location-dependant dialogues of NPCs not triggering, their AI not behaving properly and such. Note: if using "Acoustic Space Improvement Fixes" mod, load it after this one. TAA Flicker Fixer Fixes an issue with TAA which causes grass, foliage and other objects to flicker. Death Idle Fix ==NEW== Fixes a bug where dead NPCs may appear standing or tilted in an idle pose instead of ragdolling after a loading screen. Restores proper physics to affected corpses to maintain immersion. Safe to install or uninstall mid-game. SKSE plugin. Inertia (Floating Gear Fix) ==NEW== Inertia fixes a bug where NPC equipment freezes in the air after death. By temporarily disabling the collision capsule calculation, the mod allows for realistic item falls and prevents NPCs from freezing in awkward poses. Compatible with all NPCs and creatures. Draw Fix - Move Equip Animation Fix ==NEW== Fixes stiff upper body when drawing weapons. Barstool Exit Animation Fix ==NEW== Fixes the awkward barstool exit animation by restoring and fixing Skyrim’s intended forward-exit movement. No more weird backward bench exits — just smooth, natural animations for both male and female characters. Hammering Animation and Sound Fixes ==NEW== Fixes wrong impact sound, syncs animation and sound, improves head tracking, smooths transitions, adds realistic hammer stashing. FYX - Alpha Blood Blending Bug - NG ==NEW== Fixes the blood decal issue on alpha blended meshes with a dynamic, highly compatible SKSE plugin. Non-Horse Mount Animation Fix ==NEW== Improves weird mounting and swimming animations for non-horse (read - mod-added) mounts. Swimming Mount Animation Fix ==NEW== Custom mounts often break when you start swimming with them. This is quite annoying as your character will literally start levitating on top of the mount. This mod aims to fix that with a simple workaround. Attack Animation Fling Fix NG ==NEW== Prevents MCO/BFCO/TUDM animations with great horizontal motion from flinging the player/NPC too far when attacking/dodging on a slope or ledge. Animation Ledge Block NG ==NEW== Blocks MCO/BFCO attacks and TUDM dodges from going off ledges similar to Elden Ring. Dragonborn DLC Fixes ==NEW== Fixes the super annoying bug where you followers get stuck in Tel Mithryn as well as the Fire Wyrm aggression bug. Alt-Tab Stuck Key Fix ==NEW== Fixes stuck key inputs when alt-tabbing in and out of the game. Axes Bleeding Damage Fixes ==NEW== Fixes Skyrim’s broken bleeding damage system for axes. Bleeding now scales properly with weapon damage, perks, enchantments, power attacks and potions. Battleaxes finally get the bonus they deserve, and bleeding effects now follow logical rules—no more useless or overpowered effects! Ganna and Gemma Uriel Voice Consistency Fix ==NEW== Fixes the inconsistent voices of Ganna and Gemma Uriel in Skyrim, where they unexpectedly switch personalities. Re-recorded lines ensure Ganna remains cynical and Gemma stays optimistic, preserving narrative consistency. Invisible Rune Explosion Fix ==NEW== SKSE plugin that fixes the rare bug of invisible runes that explode despite not even existing in the same cell as you do. Remove Orphaned Hazards ==NEW== SKSE plugin to fix visuals of certain hazards (made specifically for clairvoyance, but there may be others as well) sticking around forever if you happen to save while they are active. Camera Persistence Fixes Fixes free camera position and other issues caused by the game not serializing certain camera data to save - useful for those who are using "tfc" console command often. Mage Armor Script Fix Fix major lag/crashes when using Mage Armor (a rare, but annoying issue). LOD Unloading Bug Fix Fixes the bug where LOD objects don't unload if you load an exterior save and fast travel. Softly Obscuring Snowfall - No Dirty Ruins Snow ==NEW== Removes ugly vertex colors on snow objects for a clean, freshly fallen snow look. Provides patches for some popular landscapes-related mods. Edmond's Assassin of Old - Immersive Vanilla Bug Fix By vanilla you will get a quest to find "The Assassin of Old" which is a 1000+ year old assassin found in a Nordic Ruin. When you find him he looks like a nord man who died yesterday. Not anymore. Snowy Surfaces Sound Collision and Aesthetics Aims to fix a series of problems that have always affected models covered by snow. Landscape Mountains Fix Fixes over 600 rocks in Skyrim affected by mountains, which fixes a large part of the rocky seams in the game world. Beard Mask Fix - Beards Use Slot 44 SKSE Plugin Hides facial hair when wearing items using slot 44, so now mask-like clothes will not ruin your character epic look in it. Note: if you're modding Skyrim SE (1.5.97), make sure to overwrite the mod with this. Disease Fixes Fixes a few issues with disease effects so that they can enjoy a minimal consistency. Diseases can only be transmitted to the player, and can be identified by keyword. Finding Derkeethus Fixes some issues with the quest to find Derkeethus, such as moving his cell key to a more logical location (i.e. not inside his cell with him), exposing the quest information in your journal, optionally adding a quest marker, and expanding the dialogue options for all those involved. Heartwood Mill Quest Complement - Flight Or Fight Vanilla Quest Tweak ==NEW== Grosta, the owner of the Heartwood Mill in the Rift has a small quest but it's broken and too short. Thuis mod fixes and adds some part for the quest with spliced voice lines. Taarie's Dialogue Fix Just a small fix for Taarie's dialogue, so that she stops criticizing your attire after having completed the 'Fit for a Jarl' quest. Windhelm Disappearing Objects Glitch Fix When you walk around the corners of Windhelm, there are several spots that some objects suddenly disappear from your view and thus break your immersion. This mod fixes them. Modern Clap Bug Fix Prevents NPCs from going into the cheer idle animation when casting certain spells nearby them. Homecooked Meal Bug Fix Addresses the vanilla bug where your spouse would stop providing daily meal. Lights Out. Solitude Lighthouse Fix Automatically relights the solitude lighthouse during the quest Lights Out. Mount Anthor Dragon Fix This fixes the 'misplaced dragon' bug at Mount Anthor. Source of Stalhrim Quest Fix Allows to seamlessly start the quest "A New Source of Stalhrim" if it gets stuck. For those who don't like using the console and find it unimmersive. Halldir's Cairn Crash Fix Skyrim "Special" Edition is so amazing that devs not only didn't fix most of notorious bugs and engine crash culprits, but vice versa, added new ones. This mod fixes one of them - namely the ghost spawn locations inside of Halldir's Cairn in Falkreath that would cause instant crashing to desktop. OnMagicEffectApply Replacer Frequent call fix of OnMagicEffectApply event in different scripts. Combat Music Fix Simple SKSE plugin to fix the never-ending combat music bug which happens occasionally. Updated version of the mod that works in SE, AE and VR versions of the game. Naked Dead NPC Fix SKSE plugin that ensures that any body, hands, feet, and head slot items present in inventory are auto-equipped if a dead NPC loads naked. Optimized USSEP Valdr Quest USSEP added a script that supposedly avoids a problem with Valdr during his quest. That script however doesn't seem to end properly and can cause performance issues due to how its implemented. Freed Prisoner Uses Items Fixes the issue with escorted prisoners where you have the option to free and give them items but they don't use the items. Aurora Fix SKSE plugin which fixes auroras getting stuck when transitioning between worldspaces. Prisoner Cart Opening Fix Fixes the prisoner cart opening scene from chaotically flipping and bouncing around all over the place when lots of mods are loaded. Fix versions for popular car model replacers available. Twitching Plates Fix This is a fix for twitching plates on tables, in inns and houses. Dwemer Ballista Crash fix Install this if you ever had a crash when killing dwemer ballistas. Plugin version recommended. Riften Ragged Flagon Flickering Fix Fix the flickering into the Riften Ragged Flagon due to various factors both in vanilla and modded cell. SSS-CT - Slaughterfish Stay Submerged - Collision Tweak Alters the Slaughterfish collision slightly to prevent the fish from being half-above the water. Solitude Empty Landscape Fix Fix the landscape emptiness behind the city walls in both worldspaces, Solitude and Skyrim. Unarmed Weapon Speed Scaling and Unlocked Movement Fixes the 1hm_behavior files for 1st and 3rd person so that unarmed power attack animation speed scale with weaponspeedmult AV value. Windhelm Bridge Fix Fixes the terrain seam on it. robertgk2017 profile For many fixes of minor bugs for various known settlement mods. FUS RO DON'T - PushActorAway Crash Prevention Script Tweak If the game tries to throw an NPC with PushActorAway, but the NPC hasn't fully loaded in yet, the game will crash. This mod adds checks to two vanilla scripts to make sure the caster and target both have their 3D fully loaded before trying to use PushActorAway, which stops the NPC from being thrown if the game isn't ready and prevents the crash. Ethereal Immunity A bug fix to stop traps from "hitting" ethereal actors and applying diseases to them, among other things. Allow Dialogue Progress Bugfix In the vanilla game, when you try to talk to an NPC that already has some dialogue running you are often unable to skip it like you can with regular dialogue and therefore have to wait for the entire dialogue line to finish. This is the fix. Killmove Paralysis Prevention SKSE plugin that prevents victim from getting paralyzed during killmove. Useful if you're using weapons with paralyze enchantment. Glowing Mushroom Collision Fixes Fixes the infuriatingly difficult to pick glowing mushrooms. No more mashing keys, or trying to select the tiny tendrils with surgical precision! Large, easy to select hitboxes make picking these a breeze. Has a FOMOD installer with some patch options for popular mods improving the mushroom's look. College of Winterhold Quest Start Fixes Fixes bugs where College of Winterhold MG07 "The Staff of Magnus", MG08 "The Eye of Magnus", MG05 "Containment" and MGRArniel03 "Arniel's Endeavor" refuses to start. Delphine Skyhaven Bugfix MQ203 Fixes delphine stuck when she enters skyhaven temple for the first time. High Gate Ruins Puzzle Reset Fix Fixes High Gate Ruins Puzzle not resetting properly, blocking off half the dungeon on subsequent visits. Floating Ash Pile Fix Fix floating ash piles by making them fall down to the ground. ferrari365 profile For multiple tiny mods that usually rework one or couple of vanilla script files to improve performance. No plugins, just script files. Bash Bug Fix This mod attempts to fix the infamous bash bug, where a bash attack causes the current weapon's damage. Media Keys Fix SKSE Fixes media keys (volume, play/next/mute, windows key, alt+f4, etc) by removing game's exclusive access to the keyboard. Adoption Spouse and Moving Fixes This mod patches many critical errors in the adoption and family scripts, provides full support for CC and AE houses, and functions as a retroactive fix for broken adoption states. Truly Burned Astrid Changes burned Astrid's facegen to one without hair during the quest "Death Incarnate". Shalidor's Maze Puzzle Sound Fix Adds a sound effect to the otherwise silent stone shutter puzzles in Shalidor's Maze within Labyrinthian. Animated Static Reload Fix SKSE plugin that fixed a game engine bug: static object's loop animation not re-activated after loaded saved. The Great Village of Mixwater Mill - Chicken Coop Fix A tiny fix for this mod, look at the images on the page. Battle Cry Fix Fixes Battle Cry so that it only affects *enemy* NPCs. Also, it should now work against undead and daedra as well (but NOT dwarven machines). Labyrinthian Shalidor's Maze Fixes Tiny fix for some of Shalidor's Maze's issues. Scare my Enemy Bug Fix Addresses a longstanding issue with the Scare my Enemy radiant quest. Skyrim Armor Perk Fix This fixes a bug relevant to conditioning / unhindered perk and steed stone. Mannequin movement fix Mannequins will finally stay put. Alduin's Wall - Sven Fix Fixes the issue where sven(bard of Riverwood) will not sing during the entire quest process of "Alduin's Wall". Andrealphus' Exploit Fixes A compilation of various fixes to common minor exploits. Potema Spawn Crash Fix In most of cases you won't have this issue at all because this bug is fixed by XPMSE, which I strongly recommend to use. But if for some reasons you don't have XPMSE - this will help. Elemental Fury Fix Elemental Fury will work on enchanted weapons, bows, unarmed, and will now properly apply to your offhand when dual wielding.

Utility & QOL (quality of life) mods - often not directly affecting gameplay, can have their functionality similar to cheating etc, but making your life simplier and useful for various purposes:

AddItemMenu - Ultimate Mod Explorer Super-useful mod that can add any item from vanilla game or from the mod. Useful for testing or when you screwed up some quest or its item bugged out, etc. If you're on AE, install this on top. Alternative, you can use the more modern alternative to it from here (read the mod page regarding its usage). ConsolePlusPlus Copy and paste in console. Super-useful for testing. Better AltTab A simple mod to mute audio when game is running background, and show cursor when mouse is over the windowed game. Easy Console Commands Adds a bit of interactivity to the "help" console command. After using it, you can click on the displayed records to quickly insert a relevant console command. Survival Mode No Prompt ==NEW== Get rid of the annoying prompt. Remember Installation Choices - Mod Organizer 2 Plugin Not a mod in a direct sense, but a MO2 plugin that helps you to save time in future mod installation setups. Read the mod page for installation instructions. Hotkey Reminder See all your hotkeys with the press of a button. Survival Control Panel Sleep to level up, arrows & lockpick weight - in a single, MCM-configurable mod. Does [NOT] require Survival Mode itself, fully standalone. No more Radial Blur This mod removes radial blur completely. No More Blur on Hit Simple as that - just for the moments when you're being hit, other radial blur effects remain. Photo Mode Take snapshots of your adventures in game with Photo Mode! Some additional camera overlays here. SkyTrek - Skyrim on Autopilot This mod allows automated horse/dragon riding and walking to set and radiant destinations with varying speeds. Also includes idle mode, automated NPC following, ability to set a custom destination for travel and an automated combat system. For roleplay, videos or screenarchery etc. BlockSteal - Prevents Accidentally Pick Up This mod will prevent you from stealing items. When you try to steal, nothing happens. To steal an item, you have to go in sneak mode, and then you can steal all you like. Quick Light Turn on/off a light when long press the activation key. An improvement patch is available. More Visible Enemies More noticebale shader for Detect Life spell. Collectibles Helper Toggle quest markers for collectibles such as the Stones of Barenziah or Jiub's Opus, or automatically collect these items with one click of a button. I'm Walkin' Here NG with Pets Makes the game to ignore collisions between player and player's allies/summons/allies' summons/pets or during dialogues. Smart Training - Tweaked Mod makes your training sessions carry over to the next level if you don't train the max times allowed on your current level. Notification Log Caches notification messages, so you can look at them later. Disable Character Lighting Skyrim "Special" Edition also got a few absolutely useless additions transferred from FO4 (on which engine version it's made). Use this to disable one. Player walks Indoors The mod switches to walk mode when you enter an interior area and to run mode when you leave the interior. Disable Follower Collision This mod disables collisions between the player and allied NPCs. Allied NPCs include followers, actors commanded by the player, and actors commanded by followers. MO2 - NIF Preview Mod Organizer plugin to support previewing NIF files (3D models). MO2 - Audio Player Plugin Plugin for MO2 to play fuz, xwm and wav files. Debug Menu - In-Game Navmesh Viewer and More ==NEW== Render navmesh, occlusion planes and cell borders in-game, useful for testing of a heavy-modded setups in some cases. Sleep In Lingerie Followers, going to bed or invited to go to bed, will remove their outfits and pick a sleep outfit from one of the lists of sleep outfits with matching conditions (name, location, worn equipment, season). They will reequip their original outfit after waking up or linger in lingerie for some time. MaskedRPGFan profile A nice collection of QOL scripts for various popular mods that have MCM - with support of these scripts, MCM settings of these mods won't be reset when you start a new game. They also have some nice lil addons, like the "harvestable plants" series for popular quest/new land mods. Hide Your Quests Allows you to hide any quest in your journal. MCM-configurable. Show Animation Command Add a console command to display the info of the current animations clips playing on character. Scrolling Speed Optimized Optimized, lighter & simpler implementation of Scrolling Speed. Adjust movement speed with scroll wheel or hotkeys. Fully configurable. Pick Up Radius Enrich your looting experience by looting the same or similar items in a radius upon pickup. MCM Configurable. Stats Editor MCM Menu Allows you to edit your skills, various actor's values, add/remove perks using MCM. Simple Outfit System Set NPC outfits or reset them back to their original outfits. MCM to manage up to 50 NPCs. Ideal NPC Bumping A simple and efficient solution to making NPCs move out of the way. Forgotten Vale Map Markers Adds travel markers to Forgotten Vale and back to Skyrim for mods that give it a separate world map. Regional Save Names SKSE plugin that fixes saves not being named after the region they were saved in. Menu and Load Smoke Removed for ENB Menu/loading smoke remover with latest ENB "no menu and loading screen" feature support. Essential Favorites SKSE plugin that prevents favorited items from being sold, crafted, disarmed, disenchanted, or dropped. Equipped items patch here ==NEW==. Completionist - Quest Tracker Complete automatic MCM quest tracking of the base game, DLC and a whole load of popular quest mods. NPC Lookup An in-game menu to find any NPC. You can teleport them, spawn them, mark them on the map, select them in the console, and more. Comes with powerfully fast filters to find any NPC among the thousands that exist in the game. Marked Treasure Adds quest markers to the treasure map targets for the vanilla maps, maps added by Legacy of the Dragonborn, New Treasure Hunt, and Treasure Hunter. Skyrim Auras Adds roughly 80 equippable cosmetic effects from the game for your roleplay or screenarchery purposes. Start On Save SKSE plugin that automatically loads saves on game launch. Simple Killmoves Removes the slow-mo effect from killcams. Enhanced Death Cam SKSE plugin that improves death/ragdoll camera, with free rotation/fly camera and other features. Powers Keyring Adds an MCM that allows you to add unwanted powers to a sub-menu accessed with a power. Hide Quest Items in Container Menu Hides quest items from the player's inventory when in container menu since you can't put quest items in a container anyways. Outfit Switcher This mod allows you to save your current outfit in its entirety, while switching to a previously saved one. No Silly Physics Damage - Carts Pots Bones etc You will no longer lose HP when walking on dynamic objects such as bones or when walking towards a cart. You Can Sleep Disables the regular restrictions on sleeping (like owned beds, being asked to leave, etc). Configurable. Jaxonz Lights Please Simple but great mod that allows you to cast light spell instantly using a hotkey. RaceMenu Poser Toggleable animations to stop character from moving or test clipping in Racemenu. Sure of Stealing SKSE plugin that makes stealing (and, optionally, sitting on chairs/benches and opening empty containers) while not sneaking require double-tapping the activate key. Take All Loose Gold and Arrows After picking up a coin or arrow from the world, automatically picks up coins and arrows near you. Consume Loose Items Allows you to consume potions, food and ingredients from the world, rather than storing them in your inventory. Open Inventory May be useful for I have no idea what cheating/testing purposes. But still, it may be. Numerical Smithing Upgrades Changes the naming system of upgraded equipment to a number-based system. So instead of items being amended with (fine), (superior), (exquisite), etc., you have (+1), (+2), (+3) and so on. Integrated Face Light This mod adds lighting spell "Facelight" for brighter face when it's needed, useful for screenarchery. Updated and more stable version of the original mod. AreYouThere - Actor NPC Follower Find all NPCs in the mod using the simple tool. No Bethesda Intro Begone.

#1 - BUILD A BASHED PATCH

#2 - MERGE YOUR MODS (optional, if you're still above 254 plugins)

#3 - REBUILD & TWEAK YOUR BASHED PATCH (ONLY IF YOU DID STEP #2)

#4 - MAKE A MERGED PATCH

Q: why not to use Smashed Patch instead? It's said this tool is doing everything both Bashed and Merged patch are doing in terms of conflicts, but just better. So?
A: Mator Smash is indeed an amazing work! And indeed, if often covers more conflicting records merging then Bashed nor Merged patch do, so if you're using Smashed Patch, you don't need neither Bashed or Merged. But the thing is, whatever its algorithm is, it's doing those records merging pretty "wild" - often inaccurate, which can lead to various issues, from just weird ones, like double merchant stock, to more serious ones, like visible ingame bugs and crashes. No automated tool is perfect (Bashed and Merged too), but atm, Smashed Patch is just working too much inaccurate which can sometimes bring you more headache than good results. If you wanna use it instead of Bashed/Merged combination, you're free too, but keep in mind to always check the Smashed Patch yourself manually after building it, and make a deep ingame test. Once again, this is a great tool with a lot of efforts put into it, but I simply can't directly recommend or disrecommend it. Use at your own preference.

#5 - RUN NEMESIS, ASIS & DSR PATCHES (if using them)

#6 - CHECK EVERYTHING YOURSELF

#7 - MAKE YOUR DISTANT OBJECTS BEAUTIFUL AS NEVER BEFORE

#8 - THAT'S IT! YOU CAN START PLAYING!

Have too weak rig but still wanna have some of those tasty graphics mods? Have a strong rig, but need to gain a few FPS? Look here!

1) Open SkyrimPrefs.ini and find iShadowMapResolution= value

2) Use Cleaned Skyrim SE Textures - Performance Optimized

3) Use Ordenador

4) My PC can't afford DynDOLOD and ENB DOF, but I don't want to see these ugly LODs! What can I do?

5) Use Paramount - FPS and Fixes Galore

6) Still need more FPS in wilderness?

7) Still bad FPS in cities?

8) Lower you ingame resolution

9) Mod Skyrim LE.

ENB preset recommendations: Rudy ENB, X ENB, NVT ENB

Additional recommendations for graphics mods: From big texture packs, Osmodius or Skyrim Realistic Overhaul are recommended. As for the main tree mod, I'd recommend to go with EVT [without] bigger trees option in installer. As for the grass mod, go for Northern Grass or Verdant. Don't use weather mods. As for landscape overhauls, I'd recommend to not use any, maybe only Skyrim Better Roads, same goes for settlement mods - keep the vanilla settlements for now.

Mod list:

ABT SE - Arrows and Bolts Tweaks

Good! Now sort your load order using LOOT and you're good to go. Also, if you're owner of a windescreen monitor, install this fix and take a look ad low-end section of the guide if you have weak rig or just need to gain a few FPS.

Note: The "Mods to be installed or actions to be made in the end of modding process" section isn't required for this mod list. You can make step #1 in it, but that's up to you.

ENB preset recommendations: Rudy ENB, X ENB, NVT ENB, Silent Horizons ENB, Intrigued ENB, Visceral ENB.

Additional recommendations for graphics mods: From big texture packs, Skyland or Noble are recommended. As for the main tree mod, I'd recommend to go with SFO or EVT. As for the grass mod, go for Northern Grass, Verdant or Veydosebrom. For a "lite" base of landscapes "overhauling" I'd recommend to get Skyrim Better Roads, Nordic Ruins of Skyrim and Skyrim Bridges. From the weather mods, I'd recommend to pick either Obsidian (also grab the MCM patch) or COT, or just stick to vanilla weathers.

Mod list:

The Gifts of Akatosh

ABT SE - Arrows and Bolts Tweaks

Good! Now proceed to the "Mods to be installed or actions to be made in the end of modding process" section. Required steps are #1, #3 and #4. Step #6 (DynDOLOD) is optional - it will make your game distant objects absolutely beautiful, but it requires some time to read about the installation, so decide yourself. Also, if you're owner of a windescreen monitor, install this fix and take a look ad low-end section of the guide if you have weak rig or just need to gain a few FPS. After you've finished these steps, just sort your load order with LOOT and you're ready to go.

Edmond's Immersive Needs - Light Weight Needs Mod

Lastly, if you're planning to actually play as vampire/werewolf not only during Dawnguard and Companions questlines, install these (one or both):

ENB preset recommendations: Rudy ENB, X ENB, NVT ENB, Silent Horizons ENB, Intrigued ENB, Natural and Atmospheric Tamriel ENB, Visceral ENB, Ominous ENB.

Additional recommendations for graphics mods: From big texture packs, Skyland or Noble are recommended. As for the main tree mod, I'd recommend to go with SFO or EVT. As for the grass mod, go for Northern Grass, Verdant or Veydosebrom. From the weather mods, I'd recommend to pick either Obsidian (also grab the MCM patch) or COT, or just stick to vanilla weathers. Lastly, you may be interested in beautiful Winter Overhaul to add to harsh winter Skyrim abmience in terms of scenery appearance. The Nordic Ruins of Skyrim and Skyrim Bridges can be a great addition too.

Mod list:

balace patch

The Gifts of Akatosh

Campfire Collision Patch

Now, choose between the next 2 mods. Both are great, and both have own advantages and disadvantages over each other. Read the mod pages and choose one your prefer yourself. I'd personally advise to go with iNEED, but once again, that's totally up to you.

Nice, let's continue

ABT SE - Arrows and Bolts Tweaks