Skyrim Mod Roundup

1 Dec, 2011

Quite unbelievably, it’s only been twenty days since Skyrim was released. I know! The latest instalment of The Elder Scrolls has been out less than a month, but already there are a healthy amount of mods available for the PC version of the game. The main function of many of these mods is to further beautify the already stunning game, while others offer more practical improvements to heighten the enjoyment of the Skyrim experience.

Beautification
Let me be perfectly clear here: Skyrim looks awesome. Every aspect of the game’s aesthetic appears considered and well made, but inevitably for a game of this scope there are a few niggles which slip through the net. Never fear, however, for there are modders aplenty with a keen eye for this sort of stuff who have already cooked up some fixes for those which required the most urgent attention. They may not be essential, but they sure are pretty:

Xenius’s Character Enhancement
I personally dislike mods that seek to ‘correct’ the ‘ugly’ default character models by way of such heretical acts as the smoothing of the dark elf forehead or by amplifying certain aspects of the female anatomy. I prefer straight-up extra detailed textures which remain faithful to the original artist’s designs, and to that end I highly recommend the character enhancement mod collection by Skyrim Nexus modder Xenius. The pack includes more detailed faces and bodies, as well as lips and eyes, while reducing a ‘blocky’ effect that is noticeable on the default models under intense scrutiny. Recently added were visual upgrades to the Khajiit and Argonian races, so everyone can enjoy the mouthwatering goodness of extra texture resolution. I myself was not convinced of the enhanced quality until I loaded up the game with the mods enabled, where the improved textures are fantastic in action.

Realistic Magical Impacts
This one might seem trivial, but if you’re heavily reliant on destruction magicks (as I am) you’ll really appreciate the improved quality of the impacts left behind by spells. After eight six hours of casting so far, the relatively low resolution of the original impact marks became something of a pet peeve for me. Realistic might be a slight misnomer, but improved is uncertainly a fitting descriptor. Thanks to modder PinPanade you can enjoy the fruits of your destruction even more.

Enhanced Blood Textures
Here’s one for you more melee-oriented types. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of a room painted with the blood of your enemies, right? Right? Right. Now you can spill the innards of those who oppose you in slightly more style, as this mod from dDfinder1 removes the slightly unwieldy glare from the default blood and improves the texture resolution enormously.

Functionality
When picking the mods I use, I try to choose only those that I feel don’t break the difficulty or mechanics of the game. There are plenty of those ‘god-mods’ floating around should you fancy installing one, but the following are more suitable if you’re looking for changes that don’t feel like cheating. I’ll include a small justification for each, if like me you’ll have to defend your honour against the disapproving clucks of your friends.

Rich Merchants
This one might be a little contentious, I’m not really sure. It basically gives all vendors ten thousand gold, which allows you to sell all of your items in one visit rather than hopping from merchant to merchant, or being forced to wait the requisite two days for their gold supply to replenish. My justification for this mod is that it’s simply a time saver. If you’re if you think ten thousand is a couple of thousand Septim too far, there’s a two thousand option too.

Craftable Arrows
Smithing is a useful feature of Skyrim, allowing you to forge all manner of weaponry and apparell. One notable omission from the arsenal, however, are arrows. This mod allows you to craft a set of twenty five arrows from an ingot and some firewood, making for a very hand method of getting your hands on your preferred projectile. As this mod requires the aquisition and use of raw materials in order to make the arrows, the window for exploitation is reasonably small. It’s not cheating if you had to work for it!

Craftable Tools
Keeping with the crafting theme, this useful mod from Leezi allows the creation of axes and lockpicks using recipes including iron ingots and firewood. Again, this is nothing game breaking and while wood and pickaxes seem abundant when out adventuring it can be tiresome to have to seek one out when you actually want to use them, making this mod another time saving convinience. The only questionable element is the ability to craft the Notched Pickaxe, a unique pick found in the game which provides a boost to smithing when equipped. If this bothers you like it bothers me, just don’t craft the pick. Simple!

Unlimited Rings
Let me explain! Rings have always annoyed me in the Elder Scrolls. I have two hands with ten digits and ten perfectly good toes on which to wear rings, but Skyrim limits me to one. One single ring, of all the weird and wonderful rings to be found. It’s simply not enough! There are plenty of explanations for this, of course, ranging from the practical (10 magically enchanted rings are sure to propel any character into the heights of godmode) to the lore-based (a person can only take so much magical influence!), but neither satisfies me. I use this mod and limit myself to a reasonable two rings. One per hand. That seems fair to me.

These are most of the mods I use which I felt were the most worthy of sharing. If you want to see more of what’s on offer, I suggest heading over to the amiable SkyrimNexus and having a browse. I recommend installing these mods with the SkyrimNexus mod manager, which automatically handles even the trickiest of installations and cleans up the mess made by a misbehaving mod, should you encounter any.

Use a mod you think deserves recognition? Mention it in the comments!