Top 10 Skyrim Mods

[rothbardian]

If you were going to give a friend Skyrim and install 10 mods to give him/her the best experience possible (assume a fast PC), what would be your top picks? Thanks for the input!

 

Edit: thanks to pStyl3's list, assume the unofficial bug fix patches and SKSE are already installed, so any 10 other than those. :)

Edited February 14, 2015 by rothbardian

[pStyl3]

First, I would say that it is impossible to find the "Top 10" mods, as there are so many great mods, and thus, many would've been skipped by such a ranking. But I could tell you 10 mods that I really, really like and wouldn't want to play without. Those are:

 

SKSE

SkyUI

USKP - UDGP - UHFP - UDBP - UHRP

RaceMenu

INIGO

Immersive Armors

A Quality World Map - With Roads

Frostfall - Hypothermia Camping Survival

Convenient Horses

Book Covers Skyrim

 

Again, these are just my personel preferences, and I have skipped a lot of other great mods by defining this list. But that gives a great start, by fixing a lot of bugs, adding nice armors and features, giving the vast amout of books the visuals they deserve, making navigation better and giving you a genius level follower.

[rothbardian]

Thanks pStyl3! I of course agree that value is subjective, hence there's no such thing as an objective top 10. But I'm not an experienced player so am hoping to learn from veterans' views on this. :) For instance it's fascinating to me that the book covers mod would come at the exclusion of an ENB or Starac's textures.

 

Based on your response I'm going to edit my original post to include the bug fixes and SKSE since those are more infrastructure related. So if you had 2 more to pick, care to share what they'd be? Thank you again for the list!

Edited February 14, 2015 by rothbardian

[Nozzer66]

SKSE,

SkyUI, 

The Unofficial Patches,

Racemenu,

A Quality World Map - With Roads,

AMidianBorn Book of Silence,

Book Covers Skyrim,

Main Font Replacement,

The Eyes of Beauty,

Superior Lore Friendly Hair

 

It's hard to stop at 10, but I wont ever play Skyrim without these 10 at a minimum.

Edited February 14, 2015 by Nozzer66

[rothbardian]

Thanks Nozzer66! I edited the OP to assume the unofficial patches and SKSE were already installed. So if you had 2 more to go, what would they be?

Edited February 14, 2015 by rothbardian

[Nozzer66]

Hmmm Ok given that:

 

I'd then say:

 

Static Mesh Improvement Mod

Realistic Water Two.

[pStyl3]

If it is assumed, that SKSE plus the Unofficial Patches are already installed and thus my list had two slots free, I probably would go with The Paarthurnax Dilemma and Run For Your Lives. Both help with some outright infuriating situations in the vanilla game.

[rothbardian]

Fantastic, thank you! Looking forward to seeing what else come down the pike. :)

[crime_syndicate]

Immersive HUD. costs essentially nada in resources, can be run on anything and yet improves immersion massively (imo)

Immersive Creatures (I remember being very reluctant to try it but I can't really play without it now, it feels too redundant and boring)

Inconsequential NPCs, just to add life to the world

mfg console (sure it's just a utility mod more than anything else, but it's just so convenient)

RaceMenu (already been mentioned twice I know but fack it, it's just that good)

as for the graphics part :

SMIM since you said "assume a fast pc"

whatever texture pack(s) that he or she likes

 

... and of course ENB, lol

[rothbardian]

Thanks Crime! Since the unofficial patches and SKSE are grandfathered in, are there 2 more that come to mind?

[crime_syndicate]

Oh well, tons of other mods come to mind like Expanded Towns and Cities, Convenient Horses, not to mention the million asset replacers I use but nothing that I'd rank as high I suppose :)

I kind of forgot Skyrim Project Optimization though since that's pretty much a fix that everybody should use.

Edited February 14, 2015 by crime_syndicate

[Greg]

If I had to limit Skyrim to just 10 mods, the initial set of mods are somewhat easy because they essentially fix Bethesda's UI to make the game easier and more enjoyable to play, or correct what I think is unrealistic NPC behavior. The next set of mods make the game a wee bit easier to get around. Finally, I just can't see playing Skyrim without Complete Crafting Overhaul since I use it so much to break down items into ingots that can be sold or remade into something more useful.

 

This leaves one slot open and I'm having a difficult time choosing between Static Mesh Improvement Mod and aMidianBorn Book of Silence.

 

SkyUI

Better Dialog Controls

Better MessageBox Controls

Run for Your Lives

The Paarthurnax Dilemma

Guard Dialog Overhaul

A Quality World Map with Roads

HiRes Legible Road Signs

Complete Crafting Overhaul

[rothbardian]

Thank you Greg!