Blau's Blog

Blau's Skyrim Mod List: April 2024

Date: [14th Oct 2024]
Categories: [Video Games], [Skyrim]
Tags: [modlist], [skyrim-modlist]

Watching a friend play with some new mods that made the game look like an entirely different thing made me want to play again. Making a mod list last time ended up being super helpful for me because I had to purge all of my mods and fresh install Skyrim this time, so now that my mods are mostly settled, I wanted to make another list.

Current save is Anxul-Xei, an Argonian mage, focusing on the magic schools, Speech, Alchemy, and Enchanting. Playing primarily in third person, which is very new for me in Skyrim. Sorted by Nexus / Vortex category (mostly). Mods common to my old mod list have just been copy-pasted over to save time.

Before We Begin

Glossary

• LE / Oldrim - Old Skyrim, the OG release from 2011
  • Some mods made for LE can be used in SE, either directly or with minor tweaking to rebuild them for SE. We do this later on in the Alchemy section
• SE - Special Edition, the newest release
• AE - Anniversary Edition; Special Edition + Creation Club content
• SPID - Spell Perk Item Distributor, a tool that lets mods distribute items, spells, perks, etc to NPCs
• ENB - Postprocessing tool that makes the game pretty at the cost of some performance
• SMP - Skinned Mesh Physics, e.g. what makes hair and cloth move

Requirements

• Skyrim Anniversary Edition v1.6.1170+
• Skyrim SE Creation Kit
  • Not critical, but useful. Used later on to convert a mod from Oldrim
  • Install and run this BEFORE you deploy all of your mods, otherwise it will eat your mod scripts. Found that out the hard way. Oops
• Skyrim Script Extender
• Vortex Mod Manager and a Nexus account
• AFK Forums account
  • Most of Arthmoor's mods are here on his modding forum and not on Nexus. Need an account to download them
• Latest version of ENB for Skyrim SE

Common Dependencies

These sections may have more mods later on, but these mods in particular are required for a lot of other mods, so they're up top.

Skyrim.ini Edits

• There are a handful of edits to Skyrim.ini (in your My Documents -> My Games -> Skyrim Special Edition folder) that you can do yourself. Some mods require these edits to work properly. Add these lines underneath their specified sections in the ini.
  • [General]
  • bModManagerMenuEnabled=0 hides the in-game Mod Manager / Creations menu item, so you don't accidentally click it.
  • [Grass]
  • You can find more specific info about this section here, I recommend checking that out for a better explanation of what these are doing
  • iMinGrassSize changes the density of grass. With the grass fix later on, you'll want to lower the density. Default is 20. Higher values lower density. I set mine to 80.
  • iMaxGrassTypesPerTexure (typo included) allows for more diverse grass. Increase this if you're using a flora mod. Two of the mods below require it. Default is 2. I set mine to 15.

Animation

• Faster HDT-SMP: Adds support for skinned mesh (e.g. cloth, hair physics), this version gives less of a performance hit
• Project New Reign: Nemesis Unlimited Behavior Engine: Behavior framework and patcher; helps combine mods that modify actor behavior so they play nicer together
• XP32 Maximum Skeleton Extended: Skeleton, physics, and animation framework
  • Patch to fix some scripts: XP32 Maximum Skeleton Special Extended - Fixed Scripts
  • Patch to optimize some scripts: Optimised Scripts for XPMSSE
  • Patch to play nice with Nemesis: XPMSSE - Nemesis - Papyrus Stack Fix

Audio

• Sound Record Distributor: Lets sounds be distributed at runtime, making audio mods much simpler

Bug Fixes

• powerofthree's Tweaks: SKSE plugin, has a bunch of game engine tweaks and bugfixes; required by some other mods. Individual fixes can be toggled; see the description for more info.
• SSE Engine Fixes: Fixes a bunch of engine bugs
  • NOTE: IN AE, YOU WILL NEED TO MANUALLY MODIFY ONE OF THE FILES OR SKYRIM WILL FREAK OUT AND DISABLE ALL YOUR MODS
  • Open EngineFixes.toml in your favorite text editor and change the following:
  • EnableAchievementsWithMods to FALSE
  • SaveAddedSoundCategories to FALSE
  • SaveScreenshots to FALSE
• Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch: Fixes hundreds of bugs in the base game and DLCs. Many mods require this
• Unofficial Skyrim Creation Club Content Patch: Fixes hundreds of bugs specifically with Creation Club content in AE

Modders Resources

• Address Library for SKSE Plugins: Helps make SKSE DLL plugins version-independent. Required by a bunch of mods.
• FileAccess Interface for Skyrim SE Scripts - FISSES: Lets mods and MCM menus save their settings externally
  • If using newer AE version, will need this patch: FISSES patch for Skyrim AE 1.6.1130 (or later). Vortex will complain that the mods are redundant, but you need both.
• Several Papyrus extenders / utilities:
  • JContainers SE
  • MergeMapper
  • PapyrusUtil
  • powerofthree's Papyrus Extender

Models and Textures

• Static Mesh Improvement Mod (SMIM): Massive mesh object replacer - swaps out vanilla models with improved models (the barrels animate when you open them!)
  • Load this before most of the other mods that modify meshes, otherwise SMIM will overwrite them

Utilities

• Base Object Swapper: Lets mods easily swap out / replace base objects
• BodySlide and Outfit Studio: For making sure outfits fit non-vanilla bodies. I honestly haven't messed with this much yet, but it's good to have around just in case
• ConsoleUtil SSE: Lets Papyrus scripts execute console commands
• Keyword Item Distributor: Used to apply keywords to things on startup
• MCM Helper: Helps mod authors make better MCM menus, helps keeps settings persistent and helps hotkey assignment
• Open Animation Replacer: Used to add, replace, or otherwise alter animation sets. In-game menu lets you modify animation priority, toggle animations on/off, etc. Backwards compatible with Dynamic Animation Replacer (DAR), so older animation mods that use DAR should work well with OAR
  • Open Animation Replacer: Dialogue Plugin adds dialogue-related support to OAR
• SkyPatcher: Lets mod authors modify game files without using plugins
• Spell Perk Item Distributor: Lets mods add spells, perks, items, etc to NPCs
• Survival Control Panel: Lets you modify Survival Mode features
  • Even when you don't have Survival Mode on, the engine behind it is still doing its thing; this lets you make use of some of the adjustments without actually turning Survival Mode on

User Interface

• Constructible Object Custom Keyword System: Adds categories to crafting systems by using keywords
• Description Framework: Lets modders add descriptions to inventory items that previously did not have them
  • Vanilla Item Descriptions makes use of this to add descriptions to a ton of vanilla items that previously did not have them
• Dynamic Activation Key: Lets you use a modifier key + interact key to change what you're doing - e.g. you can cheer for a bard with SHIFT+E
  • Based on Read or Take that does something similar, but specifically for books
• Inventory Interface Information Injector (SE): Lets mods inject custom information and icons to SkyUI without actually modifying it
• More Informative Console: Shows more information about selected objects in the console
• RaceMenu: Greatly improved character creation menus, preset support, texture import/export support, custom color support, etc
• SkyUI: Changes the game interface to be more PC- and user-friendly
  • SkyUI Survival Mode modifies SkyUI to show the warmth values for items if Survival Mode or a related mod is active
  • Quest Journal Fix fixes a bug with newer versions of Skyrim and custom UIs including SkyUI

The Mods

Alchemy

• Alchemy Plus: Improves Alchemy products by changing their name and model to the nearest in-game equivalent, appending (Impure) to denote impure potions, and appending +1, +2 etc to denote additional effects
• Better Better Skooma: A mod for Oldrim that actually adds some wild effects to Skooma instead of it just being a stamina potion. You'll need to convert it to SSE for it to work properly (it does work if you just plop it in, but not as well as it should)

Animation

• Conditional Tavern Cheering (OAR): Adds new cheering animations and bard interactions, conditional based on location, voice types, armor etc
• EVG Animation Variance: Adds some variety to vanilla animations
• EVG Conditional Idles: Custom idle animations that play in specific circumstances (stamina low, magicka low, using a shield as an umbrella, etc)
• Feral: There are some pretty cool unarmed animations for Khajiit Argonians, their respective Vampire counterparts, and Werewolves that the devs never finished, but left in the game files. This mod enables them and recycles some other animations to fill in for the ones that never got finished.
• Gesture Animation Remix: Adds gestures to NPCs when in dialogue, depending on personality, armor type etc
• Lively Children Animations: Adds new animations to children to make them more child-like
• NPC Animation Remix: New conditional idle animations for NPCs (scratching head, checking pockets, etc)
• Organic Player Animations: New idle animations for the player
• Paired Animation Improvements: Helps synchronized multiple animations
• Player Character Gestures: Dialogue gestures for the player
• Riding Animation Overhaul: Adjustments for horse riding animations
• Simple Fishing Overhaul: Adds animations while fishing, but also adds spliced audio to fishing quests so it's not "it's all in this note" over and over, adds a simple bait system, lets you fish in third person, NPCs will chatter at you if you are fishing or have a rod out
• Take a Seat: New sit-on-ground & meditation animations for player and NPCs

Armor

• Immersive Armors: Adds a LOT of new lore-friendly armors. Pretty comprehensive settings let you control distribution, crafting, etc
• Shadowscale Reborn: Custom Shadowscale Dark Brotherhood armor
  • SPID plugin to give Veezara a set without a hood in Optional files
• Skyblivion Necromancer Robes: Adds Master Necromancer robes from Skyblivion.
• Skyrim Unlimited Rings and Amulets: Lets you wear multiple rings / amulets instead of just one of each. Certain unique rings and amulets are unaffected. (I don't know if that's intended or not; I just consider it "balancing")
• Sokco's Helmet Hider: Lets you hide your helmet using a power.
• Almost all of Xavbio's Retextures, I'm not linking them one by one there are too many
  • I'm specifically using the half-res versions so my VRAM doesn't bite me

Audio

• Conditional Dog Barking OAR: Makes it so dogs don't constantly bark; they bark conditionally
  • Falmer "Dialogue" Overhaul: Changes Falmer voice lines to sound more like echolocation clicks and squeaks
• Currently using the Standalone version because the Replacer edition made Goblins from CC start clicking and squeaking and it was very weird
  • Immersive Sounds Compendium: Adds a ton of new sound effects
  • Male Argonian Shouts Revoiced: Custom Shout audio for Argonian Males to make them sound more like Argonian Male voices
• Was using V2 when Anxul-Xei was male, these lines are really well done. Don't really need this installed right now, given they're female on this save, but I'm tempted to see if I can get these to work anyway so I'm leaving them alone
  • Revenant Spirits of the Soul Cairn: Overhauls the audio in the Soul Cairn to be more creepy
  • Ribbit Remix: Adds more variety to the frog noises around streams and lakes
  • Whispering Tomes of Apocrypha: Overhauls the audio in Apocrypha to be much more ominous

Body, Face, and Hair

• Beast Race Bodypaints SE: Adds new body, face, hand, and foot paints for Argonians and Khajiit, usable in RaceMenu
• BeastHHBB: Adds dozens of new options for Khajiit and Argonians, replaces NPCs with versions utilizing those new assets
  • Don't forget the Patches and Addons optional file!
  • I also have this patch that adds SMP physics to Khajiit hair, but one of its dependencies updated and this has not updated to catch up yet, so it's not active
• Nudity Warning!! Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Enhancer -CBBE-: Female body replacer
  • I'm currently using the Vanilla preset with NeverNude
• Nudity Warning!! Highly Improved Male Body Overhaul -HIMBO-
  • Currently using the NeverNude option, I like the new boxers lol
• Nudity Warning!! RaceMenu Undress: Toggles clothes on/off in RaceMenu. Useful for actually seeing the body paints from the above mod
• Vanilla Hair Remake SMP: Work in progress update to vanilla hair that uses SMP for hair physics

Bug Fixes

• First Person Animation Teleport Fix: Fixes a bug that sometimes happens in first-person when activating things
• Animated Static Reload Fix - NG: Fixes an engine bug that makes animated mesh (e.g. water wheels) not animate on reload
• Animation Queue Fix: Fixes the game having a fit if there are too many animations in the animation queue, especially when loading a game
• Aurora Fix: Fixes auroras getting stuck when changing zones
• CC Bow of Shadows Lingering Invisibility Fix: Fixes a bug with the Creation Club Bow of Shadows where the game permanently thinks you're invisible
• Deathhounds Pet Animations Restored - Cut Content Restoration: Restores some cut content for CuSith and Garmr in Castle Volkihar
• Grass Sampler Fix: Makes grass look sharper and more full. You may want to decrease grass density after you install this (at top of post).
• Light Limit Fix: Fixes the limit on the number of lights in an area.
  • This relies on Community Shaders, which I don't use. I think one of my other mods recommends it.
• Mannequins Behave: Mannequins like to wander off sometimes especially if you have a lot them in a modded home like I do. This helps keep them from doing that
• Myrwatch - Editable Home Cells (Cell Bug Workaround): Interior of Myrwatch isn't editable normally. This fixes that
• NARC Remade: Prevents animals from reporting crimes
• NPC AI Position Fix: If a sleep, wait, or fast travel lasts longer than 2 in game hours, runs a script to update NPCs to be in their proper locations instead of hanging out where they were initially
• Sky Reflection Fix: Sometimes the sky bugs out in reflections, this fixes that
• SMP-NPC Crash Fix: Fixes a crash when NPCs use things with SMP physics hair

Buildings

• Castle Volkihar Rebuilt: Lets you clean up and rebuild Castle Volkihar, regardless of which faction you choose for the DLC

Cheats and God Items

• Hearthfire Building Materials God Chests: Adds chests near the Hearthfire building areas with an ungodly amount of materials so you can quickly finish building your Hearthfire house. (Getting the materials as intended is fun the first few times, but I've had enough lol)

Cities, Towns, Villages, and Hamlets

• Arthmoor's Town Overhauls from AFK Forums
  • I'm not going to link them all but I'm using Darkwater Crossing, Dawnstar, Dragon Bridge, Falkreath, Fall of Granite Hill, Helarchen Creek, Ivarstead, Karthwasten, Keld-Nar, Kynesgrove, Oakwood, Rorikstead, Shor's Stone, Soljund's Sinkhole, Telengard, and Whistling Mine
• Cooking Pots in Inns: Adds cooking pots to (most) inns
• Open Cities Skyrim: Lets you freely walk between open world and in-city
  • This can cause issues with mods that modify cities. Please be sure to check for patches!
  • I ran into an issue with this and my water mod later in the post around Riften. It works fine, it just looks goofy.

Clothing and Accessories

• Adventurer's Magic Backpack and Lantern - Adds a SMP physics enabled backpack with an optional ENB light lantern
• Bandoliers Bags and Pouches: Adds pouches, pockets, etc to increase carry weight
  • Note: with SunHelm, wearing the belt pouches makes the waterskin from that mod visible even if it's turned off
• Better Archmage's Robes: Improves the enchantments on the Archmage's Robes, makes them diseanchantable
• Colovian Noble Clothes: Adds a new set of Noble clothes styled after ones in Cyrodill
• Different Bonds of Matrimony: Offers different options for the Bond of Matrimony depending on your playstyle. I have the Magickal one right now
• Kyne's Token: Voice of the Sky effect: Changes Kyne's Token to use the Voice of the Sky effect (the one you get from the statues up the path to High Hrothgar; animals won't flee or attack you)
• Modernize: Vanilla Version: Adds SMP physics to vanilla clothing.
  • I prefer the next mod down that does this, but this mod covers some clothes that that one doesn't, so I use both for maximum coverage (not recommended lol). You'll probably want the CBBE body for either one of them though - works fine on vanilla but you will see nipples with custom skins.
• Rustic Clothing - Special Edition: Texture overhaul for all vanilla clothing, including underpants
• Vanilla SMP Clothing: Adds SMP physics to vanilla clothing.
  • I prefer this one to Modernize. You'll probably want the CBBE body for either one of them though - works fine on vanilla but you will see nipples with custom skins.
• Tathrin's Matching Clothing: Common, Crafter, and Uncommon
  • These add new models so that the clothing you see in the inventory is actually what you put on. This means that guys can wear dresses now!
  • Since these are custom meshes, they aren't affected by Modernize or Vanilla SMP Clothing. I think that's acceptable for what these mods do
  • Use this SPID plugin to distribute the clothing to NPCs

Collectables, Treasure Hunts, and Puzzles

• Underwater Treasures SSE: Adds hidden underwater treasure chests

Combat

• Apocalypse Spells for NPCs: Adds spells from Apocalypse to NPCs. Mildly terrifying given some of the spells that Apocalypse adds
• Human Enemies drop Hearts and Flesh: Random enemies have a chance to drop Human Heart and Human Flesh on death
• NPCs Take Cover: Slightly smarter anti-cheese AI; if a player is somewhere they can't reach, they'll try to find cover so you can't cheese them as easily. They'll also insult you about it
• Wildcat: Combat overhaul; adds injury effects (e.g. head injury = drains magicka and stops regen) and adjusts difficulty

Crafting

• Ars Metallica: Forge arrows, break down old armor and weapons for materials, get EXP for smelting, etc

Creatures and Mounts

• Convenient Horses: Horse overhaul, lets you level up horses, change their barding / saddles, configure their AI
  • Don't forget the AE patch!
  • I'm using this because I'm not using any custom followers on this save. Otherwise, I recommend the one in my last post.
• Creatures of Nirn: Alfiq: Adds Alfiq Khajiit NPCs & followers to the world and replaces the Courier with an Alfiq
• Diverse Dragons Collection SE: Adds new dragon types
• Durnehviir Resurrected: Every time you call Durnehviir, his appearance changes to be less undead
• Giants Overhaul: Adds new giant variants, female giants, and child giants
• Skyrim Immersive Creatures: Adds a ton of new creatures, including critters from other TES games, including minotaurs, goblins, ogres, dwemer constructs, etc
  • Don't forget the patches!
• The Blood Horker: Adds a new kind of horker to Solstheim. Terrifying looking. Predatory.
• Udefrykte. Uderfrykte. Udyrfrykte. (Bloodmoon Creature Restoration Project): Makes the unique troll in the Dawnstar Sanctuary as fierce as its family from prior games

Environmental

• No Grass in Caves: Removes grass from caves where grass does not make sense
• Obsidian Weathers and Seasons: Overhauls the weather system and adds seasonal changes
  • Don't forget the True Storms patch!
• True Storms SE: Overhauls weather to be much more impactful and unique
  • Wet and Cold Compatibility Patch

Followers and Companions

• Bring Meeko to Lod SE: Lets you bring Meeko, a dog whose owner died, to Lod, who's looking for a good loyal dog.
  • This patch adds more behavior to them afterward - lets Meeko follow Lod around, gives him a nice blanket and treat bowl
• Nether's Follower Framework: Overhauls the follower system, allowing for up to 10 followers, with history, tweaks, commands, etc. Lets you import almost any NPC to be a follower controlled by that framework.
  • I recommend this patch if you use followers with custom AI (e.g. Inigo). It will stick a token in their inventory to tell NFF to not import them.

Gameplay

• Alternate Start: Live Another Life: Lets you skip the intro cutscene and pick a different starting location and scenario. You can start the main quest by visiting Helgen afterward.
• Andrealphus' Tweaks - Locket of Saint Jiub: Changes the Locket of Saint Jiub from Light Armor to Clothing
• Andromeda - Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim: Changes Standing Stones to have much more robust and unique effects: each stone has 2 effects, with a 3rd unlockable power once you discover all of them
  • I'm currently using the Apprentice Stone - all Novice spells are free & spells have a chance to either be 50% more or 50% less effective. It's very silly
• Battle Ready Candlelight Fixes: Moves the Candlelight effect to above your player and removes the gigantic obnoxious particle effect so you can actually see what you're doing
• Better Third Person Selection: Modifies third person selection so you don't have to be looking directly at something to select it, also lets you scroll between nearby items rather than fidget your camera around at them
• Cutting Room Floor: Restores a ton of cut content from the base game
• Dynamic Collision Adjustment: Changes your character's collision volume while sneaking/swimming, so you can fit under things
  • Very handy for a mod later in the list that changes racial heights pretty dramatically
• Enhanced Reanimation: Fixes bugs with reanimation spells (e.g. dead thralls vanishing on fast travel), adds some new features (reanimated necromances can cast reanimate spells)
• Hearthfire Multiple Adoptions: Lets you adopt up to 6 children; adds a spell that lets you easily mark any home as your current home, even custom homes (as long as it has enough beds for your children)
• Immersive Leveled Lists: Most NPCs will only wear / sell leveled gear that makes sense for them (e.g. makes dwarven armor much more rare)
• Instant Mining: Instantly mines ore nodes, skipping the animation. Be careful with Clay and Stone deposits, they will chuck a LOT of materials at you because they're "endless" mining nodes!
• Locational Encounter Zones: Makes the enemies outside an area the same level as those inside
• Madmen of the Reach: Overhauls the Forsworn, Hagravens, and Witches to add many more variants and skills
• Name Those Ash Piles: Ash piles are now named based on what entity made them
• Run For Your Lives: Makes NPCs run and hide when there's a dragon attack instead of... trying to fistfight them and dying
• Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers: Quest markers that point to each of the Stones of Barenziah. I should probably finish this quest at some point. I have this on here so maybe I'll remember
• SunHelm Survival and Needs: Needs and cold survival system that pulls on the in-engine Survival Mode features
  • iNeed is still pretty good, but it was giving me some wild conflict issues. SunHelm is working out really well so far. Compatible with Campfire (which I don't have installed on this run) if that's your jam
• The Eloquent Reader: Get Speech XP for reading books
• True Directional Movement: Overhauls movement so you can move and attack in any direction, adds a target lock system, and adds some help for projectile aiming
  • If you're using a controller I recommend using SmoothCam, it smooths camera changes and there are a ton of presets that mimic other games' camera styles. I'm using mouse/keyboard and I don't care for the delay, so I don't use it personally right now

Guilds / Factions

• Thieves Guild For Good Guys - Taking Care of Business Redux: Lets you do the Thieves Guild questline without being a jerk - adds alternate routes for almost everything

Immersion

• Bandit Lines Expansion: Adds a ton of very well spliced lines to bandits
• Civil War Lines Expansion: Adds a ton of very well spliced lines to civil war NPCs
• Enemy Friendly Fire: Lets enemies hit each other with friendly fire
• Equippable Beast Tails SMP: Lets you make craftable physics enabled tails, but also makes all Khajiit and Argonian tails by default have SMP physics
  • I use this preset for Argonian tails so they aren't as floppy
• Forsworn and Thalmor Lines Expansion: Adds a ton of very well spliced lines to the Thalmor and Forsworn
• Gildergreen Regrown: Replacing the Gildergreen with a sapling, it will grow to full size over several in game months
• Go To Bed Patch: Uses DAR / OAR to randomize sleeping animations.
  • I don't use Go To Bed so I genuinely don't know if this is actually doing anything, but it's not throwing errors, so uhhhhh
• Hold Border Banners: Places big banners at the borders of holds so you know when you're going into a new hold. I use the no-text version.
• Holidays: Adds holidays and celebrations. You can set your character's birthday as well. Will record the end dates for the main questline and the civil war and celebrate them appropriately
  • Don't forget the patches!
• Immersive Children: Enables child mortality, pickpocketing, other miscellaneous bug fixes (Got this originally to punt a particularly abusive child in Rorikstead)
• Immersive Citizens: Improves NPC AI to help them behave better
• Immersive Patrols: Adds patrolling Stormcloak, Thalmor, Imperial, Dawnguard NPCs to Skyrim and Reaver, Riekling, and Skaal patrols to Solstheim. I'm using the Heavy variant
• Improved Alternate Conversation Camera: Improves dialogue camera, lets you modify the camera offset, can swap camera between you and the NPC
  • If using Player Headtracking below, there's a setting in here you'll want to disable, just in case it's being naughty
• Khajiit Has Wares: Makes Khajiit caravans prettier
• Lore Friendly Ghosts: Ghosts can only be affected by magic and specific weapons, following how they behaved in prior games
• Lusty Argonian Skills: Makes the Lusty Argonian series of books level up one-handed
  • I don't even use one-handed in this run but this mod made me laugh so hard I had to get it
• Player Headtracking: Enables headtracking; lets your player character look at other NPCs, things, etc
• Misc Dialog Edits: Modifies many dialog areas to make them make more sense - e.g. Arcadia won't constantly call you pale if you aren't a vampire or sick
• Moon and Stars: Overhauls the night sky and stars to look very pretty
• No Camera Collision: Actors do not fade out when zoomed in closely
• NPCs React to Frenzy: NPCs panic when one of their allies is hit with Frenzy
• Relationship Dialogue Overhaul: NPCs will now respond to you more accurately based on their relationship with you - give you gifts if they like you, etc. Also restores some cut dialogue
• Take a Nap: Lets you nap in chairs. You don't want to, but you can now
• Talkative Dragons: Non-unique dragons will now talk to you during combat, like Mirmulnir
• Wet and Cold: Adds cold, wet, and dusty effects to yourself and NPCs
• Wintersun: Lets you follow a chosen deity and perform acts and prayers to earn Favor and unlock perks and skills. Adds a ton of shrines, includes deities outside of the more commonly known Divines and Daedra (including Elven deities like Syrabane and Phynaster; Redguard deities like Morwha and the HoonDing; and other powerful entities like the Hist, the Old Ways, the Magna-Ge, Ebonarm, Mannimarco, and St. Alessia)
  • Don't forget the patches!

Magic - Gameplay

• Acquisitive Soul Gems Multithreaded: Makes sure you never under-fill a soul gem; souls will only go into their designated size gems (e.g. Lesser only into Lesser)
• Magic Sneak Attacks: Lets you get sneak attacks on unaware enemies with spells
• NPCs React to Necromancy: Makes NPCs react when you have an undead minion with you (or some other conjured creatures)
• Spider Imbuing Chamber in Severin Manor: Adds a Spider Imbuing Chamber to Severin Manor. (A friend of mine made this originally for oldrim! If you're reading this, hi! I miss you!!)

Magic - Spells & Enchantments

• Apocalypse: Adds a ton of new spells and corresponding scrolls and staves
  • Also using these addons: Ocato's Recital Auto-Dispel, the Waterstride optional on the main file, More Apocalypse for more spells, and Optimized Scripts for Apocalypse
• Summermyst: Adds a ton of new enchantments and improves vanilla enchantments
• Underwater Shock Pulse: Gives a power that shocks and stuns nearby enemies underwater

Miscellaneous

• Auto Hide Ammo: Auto-unequips ammo when no bow / crossbow is equipped
• Bee Hives: Adds beehives to Honningbrew Meadery
• Better Jumping: Lets you jump while sprinting
• Bring Out Your Dead: Adds unique graves for town NPCs
• Classic Sprinting Redone: Makes Sprint a Hold instead of Toggle, like in oldrim
• Crash Logger, Crash Logger for AE, and Skyrim Crash Decoder: Crash Loggers dump a crash file into the SKSE folder, you can copy paste the contents into the Decoder to get an idea of what made the crash happen
• Dawnguard Map Markers: Adds a map and fast-travel map markers to the Soul Cairn & additional markers to Forgotten Vale and Dayspring Canyon
• ESO Skyshards: Adds Skyshards akin to ESO's throughout the world. Every 3 you find and interact with grants you a skill point
• Fuz Ro D'oh: Adds support for unvoiced dialogue
• Khajiits Steal Too: Khajiit caravans will act as fences and buy stolen goods
• Manor Roads: Adds roads to Heljarchen Hall and Lakeview Manor so they connect to nearby major roads
• Morrowind Imports: Changes Brand-Shei, Revyn Sadri, and New Gnisis Cornerclub stock to include Morrowind content from Dragonborn
• Rich Skyrim Merchants: Gives all Skyrim merchants more base gold
• Shadowmarks: Adds Thieves Guild shadowmarks to player homes
• Storefront: Lets your spouse open an actual store, with a chest you can put items in for them to sell when you're not home. They will tend the store during the day

Models and Textures

• Actual Glowing Beast Race Vampire Eyes: Improved eyes for vampire beast races
• Book Covers Skyrim SE: Gives books unique, detailed covers
• Embers XD: Completely overhauls embers, sparks, and fire effects
• Fancy Sleeping Tree Replacer: Swaps out the Sleeping Tree with a pretty, glowing model
• Nudity Warning!! Flawn's Vanilla Argonians Redux: Very well done replacement skins for Argonians
• Fluffworks: Adds shell fluff to furry animals to make them look extra fluffy
  • I'm using Medium
  • Don't forget the patches!
• High Quality Ivy Replacer: Swaps out the vanilla ivy with a higher quality animated version
• Sleeping Tree Sap Replacer: Swaps out the Sleeping Tree Sap bottle with a new custom model
  • Don't forget to pick up the cubemaps add-on if you're using ENB or something similar
• Nix-Hound Eyes Fix: Adjusts the Nix-Hound eyes to be less walleyed
• PELTAPALOOZA: Adds more pelt textures (the ones used in inns and farms)
• Security Overhaul SKSE: Adds lock variants
• Skyrim Food Expansion: Adds a bunch more food, includes patches for various survival and other food mods
• Skyrim Flora Overhaul: Greatly improves tree, grass, bush models and textures
  • Don't forget to change the Grass section of Skyrim.ini, as in the beginning of the post, otherwise this will not work
• Tempered Skins for Females and Tempered Skins for Males: Replacement skin sets for humanoids for use with replacement bodies
  • I'm using CBBE and HIMBO and these work just fine
• Weldingman's Enchanting Table Variants with ENB Lights: Adds variants to the Enchanting Tables depending on location

NPC

• Majestic Greybeards: Gives the Greybeards unique vanilla-friendly beards
• OBIS - Organized Bandits of Skyrim: Adds a ton of new bandit variants, organized into gangs with different difficulty tiers

Overhauls

• Depths of Skyrim: Overhauls underwater areas to be much more lush and full of life
• Lux: Completely overhauls lighting systems. Specifically, interior lighting. Requires several additional files:
  • Lux Patch Hub
  • Lux Via: Reworks roadway lighting (contains most of the actual resources)
  • Lux Orbis and Lux Orbis Patch Hub: Overhauls exterior lighting (aside from roadways)
• Moonlight Tales: Werewolf overhaul, adding perks, skins, transformation control, etc
  • This plugin adds an MCM menu for Moonlight Tales
• Sacrosanct Vampires: Vampire overhaul, adding perks, tweaks, new spells, etc
  • Note: My current character is neither a Vampire nor Werewolf, but I find that these mods improve NPC vampires and werewolves, so I keep them installed)
• Sentinel: Adds several packs of new armors and armor variants and distributes them organically through the world
  • Don't forget patches!

Patches

• Andromeda Convenient Horses Patch: Fixes an issue with the Steed Stone between the two mods
• Castle Volkihar Rebuilt - Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Patch: Fixes some issues between these two mods
• Gate to Sovngarde Small Mods and Resources: Specifically using the Description Framework for Holidays and the CC Plugins Universal Start Fix.
• Open Cities Creation Club Patches: Patches for Open Cities and AE Creation Club content
• Relationship Dialogue Overhaul - Update and MCM: Adds some updates and an MCM menu to RDO
• Sunder and Wraithguard - Vault Fix: Same issues as Myrwatch above, the file isn't actually modifiable by mods; this patch allows mods to modify it

Player Homes

• Breezehome by Lupus: Reworks the interior of Breezehome to be much prettier, without going too wild with it
• The Hoarder's Chest Rebuilt: Player home with automatic inventory sorting, a ton of mannequins, displays for artifacts, a bed and crafting stations, and (optionally) a living area for followers and children
  • Can teleport in from anywhere, which is why I don't have Campfire active on this save, I can just port to the Hoarder's Chest and sleep

Presets - ENB and ReShade

• ENB Helper: Helps ENB enable weather systems
• Rudy ENB SE for Obsidian Weathers - LUX - ELFX: ENB preset

Quests and Adventures

• Face Sculptor Expanded: Lets the Face Sculptor in the Ragged Flagon actually do things instead of sitting on her bench for eternity. Also adds more dialogue and lets you wipe bounties when using the sculptor
• Helgen Reborn: Work together with some Great War vets and their allies to rebuild Helgen into an entirely new settlement.
  • The voice acting on this mod is surprisingly good - mods with custom voices usually put me off because they never sound like they "fit", but they did a very good job with these
  • Heads up: There's mention of SA in this mod. There are also a couple NPC lines that are pretty misogynistic for some reason. It doesn't really strike me as in line with the rest of the game. I haven't played through on a female character yet so I don't know if they're mean to you or just other NPCs.
  • I'm personally giving it a very side-eyed reluctant pass (so far), given most of the mod's content is from 2013-2014.
• Infiltration - Quest Expansion: Overhauls the quest at Treva's Watch in Riften to be much more in depth with lots of player choices
  • If you're using Cutting Room Floor, don't forget the compatibility patch
• Jiub's Opus: Adds map markers to the pages of Jiub's Opus in the Soul Cairn
• Paarthurnax - Quest Expansion: Expands the questline for Paarthurnax and the Blades, adds in a bunch of new spliced lines and uses some existing lore to make the decision not quite as clear cut as it is in vanilla

Races, Classes, and Birthsigns

• Race Balance: Tweaks races to add useful passives and perks. Vanilla friendly, meant to make some of the not-as-great racial perks shine a bit more
• Racial Body Morphs Redux: Greatly diversifies the different races' body types, drawing on lore, the racial perks, and previous game info

Shouts

• Dragon Aspect - Mage Version: Modifies the Dragon Aspect shout to be more mage-friendly by buffing spell magnitude
• True Teacher Durnehviir: When Durnehviir teaches you a word of his Shout, he also grants you the knowledge so you don't have to expend a dragon soul to learn it

User Interface

• A Quality World Map: Changes the World Map so it's easier to see things. I use Vivid with Stone Roads, but the Paper map looks really cool
• Better Dialogue Controls: Improves control when using both mouse and keyboard to select dialogue options
• Better MessageBox Controls: Lets you navigate message boxes with keyboard & improves click activation area
• Immersive First Person View: Adds your body to first person view.
  • This isn't working for me, but I haven't been able to diagnose why yet. (Low priority since I'm mostly in third person)
• Lore-Based Loading Screens: Adds a ton of new lore-based loading screens
• Subtitles: Allows more than one NPC to have subtitles showing at a time
• TrueHUD: Originally included in True Directional Movement, makes the HUD more friendly to third-person camera, adds floating health bars over enemies, adds boss health bars, etc
• Unread Books Glow: Makes unread books have a glowing effect, so they are easier to find

Visuals and Graphics

• Enhanced Volumetric Lighting and Shadows (EVLaS): Improves volumetric lighting, synchronizes it with the sun and moons
  • Also pick up the Underside version to make sure that mountains block light
• Footprints: Adds footprint decals to the ground as you and NPCs walk
• Particle Patch for ENB: Fixes a bunch of issues relating to particles and ENB
• Player Spell Lighting: Makes player spells emit ENB light
• Twilight: Simulates dawn and dusk
• Water for ENB: Overhauls water to play nice with ENB, makes it extremely pretty
  • This doesn't play nice in Riften with Open Cities, as part of the water around the city is modified by Open Cities, so there's a weird seam. It's functional, just looks weird.

Weapons

• Immersive Weapons: Adds a ton of lore-friendly weapons. Robust configuration to control distribution, crafting, etc. Also allows you to melt down those weapons for materials
• No Soul Gem Required: Certain enchanted weapons (e.g. Daedric artifacts) do not require soul gems to recharge

Honorable Mentions

I'm not using them on my current run, but I did use them on my previous one, and they're nice:

• Xelzaz: Argonian Telvanni Lawman follower, huge amount of interactions and dialogue. Interacts with Nebarra
• Nebarra: Altmer Mercenary, Great War (Hammerfell) Vet. Interacts with Xelzaz
  • He kept turning into a pile of ash on my last save. I have no idea why. I can't tell if there was an incompatibility somewhere or what. I don't think it's a problem with him directly.
  • Blau from the future: It's almost certainly not a Nebarra issue, as I had other followers doing this too. I think it has to do with a follower being set Essential and then being hit with a spell or other effect that has a chance to disintegrate them.