FG's Modlists
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Living Skyrim wouldn’t be complete without an entire set of mods to increase the population of the world. Immersive College NPCs, Inconsequential NPCs, and Citizens of Tamriel make up the core of the population increasing mods, fleshing out cities and towns with tons of new NPCs to interact with. On the enemy side of things, Unlimited Hostile Encounters and Hand Placed Enemies increase the enemy count of the world. You’ll need to prepare heavily to take on larger dungeons or bring along some followers.
To round out the population mods, we also have Immersive Patrols, Man Those Borders, and Populated Solstheim. Overall, the world is jam-packed with people.
Living Skyrim includes a huge number of changes, expansions, and entirely new quests. Almost everything that can be overhauled has been, as well as a selection of some of the best quest mods available.
Smart Cast has returned in Living Skyrim 4. With Smart Cast you can set up specific rules and conditions under which spells will be cast for you - assuming you have the magicka to cast them. It also lets you combine spells into a single cast, again, assuming you have the magicka to cast them both at the same time. This mod has quite a few features available, reading its mod page is highly recommended.
Spellforge completely changes how your character learns new spells. Instead of “eating” the book and learning the spell, you now craft the spells you want from the Spellforge, which can be found just beside the bridge leading to the College of Winterhold, or alternatively you can buy the Spellforge Manual at any novice vendor, such as court mages. From the Spellforge, you can craft spells using handy and informative menus, using Arcane Resin as a resource to do so. More in-depth info can be found in-game or on the modpage.
Mysticism, Triumvirate, and The Elder Scrolls - Tomebound make up the mods adding new spells to Living Skyrim. Between all of these and the additional options found below, it is possible to have multiple mage playthroughs and never do the same build twice.
Thaumaturgy, Pilgrim, and Mundus are all included to make magic as diverse as possible with a huge breadth of options. Pilgrim covers the religious aspect of the game, Thaumaturgy covers enchantments, and Mundus covers the various standing stones of the world.
The core of combat in LS4 is comprised of Valhalla Combat and MCO - ADXP, the former being a modern combat overhaul, complete with a custom stamina system and timed block mechanics, the latter being an animation overhaul for all attacks, bringing attack commitment and general combat gameplay more in line with modern action RPGs. To compliment this, TK Dodge RE allows you to dodge attacks, and Precision brings hitstop, swing trails, and realistic collision for a very tight and modern feeling combat package. Additionally, Know Your Enemy Redux brings new depth to fights, allowing you to deal with enemies easier with a bit of planning. The Archery mod brings more realistic archery gameplay, with faster arrows and gravity to overhaul ranged combat.
At the core of the Living Skyrim leveling up process is Experience, which changes how you level up to require you to complete quests, explore, and clear dungeons. To make this process more rewarding, we’ve also included Achieve That and Perks From Questing. You’ll also find overhauled perk trees from Adamant, Scion, and Manbeast. Living Skyrim also includes Reading is Good to make finding skill books more incentivizing.
The economy in Living Skyrim is built to be as dynamic and interesting as the rest of the list, starting with Economy Overhaul and Speechcraft Improvements. Similarly, you’ll also find the inclusion of NPC Bartering and Trade Routes to make trade something you can engage with fully. For completeness, Khajiits Steal Too is included to round out the caravaneer experience.
On the loot side of things, we start with Loot Overhaul - Rarity and Abundance. This makes loot more dynamic and interesting, especially when coupled with Dynamic Dungeon Loot, Narrative Loot, and Lock Related Loot. For you treasure hunters out there, Living Skyrim also includes New Treasure Hunt.
As with all versions of Living Skyrim, the HUD and menus have been completely overhauled. At the base, we have Nordic UI to bring a consistent and much improved look to the entire menu and HUD setup. You’ll also find your usual suspects like moreHUD, A Matter of Time, SmoothCam, and TrueHUD. Living Skyrim also includes a number of additions and improvements to the vanilla HUD experience such as a custom main menu setup, Detection Meter, Oxygen Meter 2, Security Overhaul, Atlas Map Markers, and Compass Navigation Overhaul.
Living Skyrim features a number of new and improved player homes to suit all your characters’ needs. Several quest mods such as Clockwork, and Project AHO also include player homes that you can earn by completing those quests.
Living Skyrim includes a number of quality of life mods that improve the overall playing process, whether it be to make things easier or more intuitive or to fix issues with vanilla Skyrim.
You’ll find stealth to be much more difficult and less of an “easy button” in Living Skyrim. This is thanks to mods such as Realistic AI Detection, Suspicious City Guards, and Store Entrance Doorbells. To help you out, though, Mum’s The Word and Better Stealth AI for Followers are also included.
Most of the crafting systems in the game have been overhauled. This is primarily thanks to Apothecary and Thaumaturgy. For smithing, Honed Metal is included allowing you to order specific items if you don’t have the necessary skill to make them. Be warned, though, the items ordered with Honed Metal are very expensive!
To make self-crafting more convenient, Linked Crafting Storage is also included.
For your roleplaying pleasure, an entire host of mods have been added to improve that area of the game. From Campfire, which allows you to go camping, to Immersive Equipment Displays, you’ll find the game as “immersive” as you like. Some realism mods in the form of Wash That Blood Off, Wade In Water, Sit on Stuff, and Simply Knock are also included allowing you to interact with the world itself in new ways.
Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul and Skyrim’s Paraglider are included to change how you can travel across the land. Changing how you traverse dungeons is EVG Animated Traversal and several realistic animations have been added thanks to EVG Conditional Idles. Take Notes is included as well, allowing you to chronicle your journey.
Several new sets of dungeons and entire new lands have been added to the game. Hammet’s Dungeon Pack adds many extremely high quality dungeons to the world and Dungeons - Revisited expands many of the existing dungeons in the world. On the new lands side of things, we have Wyrmstooth, Beyond Skyrim - Bruma, and New Vominheim. Several quests also add new areas to explore, such as Vigilant, Carved Brink, Project AHO, and Moon and Star.
Living Skyrim would be incomplete without an entire list of followers for you to find and explore with. That list is below.
Living Skyrim also includes Nether’s Follower Framework to make adventuring with your followers seamless. It should also be noted that Living Skyrim includes Leadership, which adds a skill tree that you’ll need to invest in to be able to bring more than one follower with you. For convenience, Simple Offence Suppression is included to avoid any accidents.