Anyone knows about AI or minimal combat improvement mod keeping in spirit with STEP?

[opty123]

First of all, I apologize if this is posted in wrong section of forum. The only other Skyrim forum seemed to be more focused on tech support, so I chose here. Feel free to delete (or move) if mods can.

I am happily running STEP, but unfortunately, I have gotten to the point where I am simply too powerful even on Legendary difficulty and it really is starting to suck the magic out of the game when I am nearly invincible. I have been looking into AI improvement or minimal (vanilla+) combat overhaul mods, however, most of the stuff I see transform the game into Dark Souls and that is NOT what I am about. I was wondering if the community here has dabbled in any such mods that address these issues while staying true to and being compatible with STEP.

The reason for AI: the NPCs in Skyrim are quite mentally deficient and they attack at a very slow pace. They stand there for most of the time and get stuck behind small obstacles. I was hoping a more aggressive combat AI would address this. (AI Overhaul mod in STEP I believe does not focus on combat).

For combat mods I was thinking of something to make combat more deadly and difficult while being close to vanilla (but more modern combat) but there are a billion different options. The two most talked about ones I found were Valhalla Combat (no update since 2022) and Blunt and Blade (constantly updated but seems to do more changes than I'd like).

I'd appreciate any and all suggestions. Thank you.

 

Edited February 14 by opty123

[EnyuStar]

Have you heard of Smilodon? It takes some notes from Oblivion's combat and definitely adds quite a lot of difficulty to Skyrim, very modular and configurable too.