New Mechanics to Know

Below you will find a list of important new game mechanics that you should certainly know about before playing the list. This does not cover every new mechanic! Read the Notable Mods sections after you have finished the Mandatory Reading sections for even more information.

Complete Combat Overhaul

The way you will perform combat in this mod list is drastically different from Vanilla, in such a way that it is hardly recognizable. These changes are subject to their own page, read about all of the mods affecting combat here!

The above linked page is rather long, and I would suggest you read it after finishing the Mandatory Reading section. You certainly do not have to read it word-for-word, I did my best to describe each mod in as much detail as possible.

Equip your armor, weapons, and magic with LamasTinyHUD and Wheeler

LamasTinyHUD and Wheeler provide you with instant access to your entire arsenal of armor, weapons, and magic. With LamasTinyHUD, you can configure sequential loadouts for gear in your left and right hands, as well as your Shouts/Powers. The mod also allows you to cycle through restoration potions for health, stamina, and magicka. The mod will intelligently use the best restoration potion it can use. You can also place any potion of your choosing in the loadout.

You can name and select your active Preset within the MCM menu. Your loadout presets are saved to .ini files inside the Overwrite mod, at the bottom of the left pane of Mod Organizer within the SKSE/Plugins folder.

Wheeler allows you to access a Wheel Menu, one which is extremely responsive and easy to use. You can add multiple pages to your Wheel Menu, and add a large amount of items to each wheel.

To learn how to use both of these mods, be sure to check the Important Hotkeys Wiki page to see all available hotkeys, as well as what you need to do to utilize them. It would also be a great idea for you to read the mod pages for both of these mods, as they will provide you with even more information about how they work.

The dialogue camera will switch between you and the NPC

When you are speaking to an NPC, the camera will turn to face the speaking NPC. This provides a great boost of immersion for many, but it is quite subjective. If you dislike this, press F while in dialogue to switch to the 1st person dialogue camera.

Access new Custom Skill Menus in the Tween Menu

When you open your Tween menu, you will notice you now have an extra button labeled “Custom Skills”. Within here, you will find six new skill trees that you can progress through! There are four trees for Warriors, Mages, Thieves, and Priests respectively. These four trees are a part of the Sets of Skills mod that you can read about here, and allow you to further buff your character with benefits specific to your build! You will get a new perk point to use in either of these trees on a new game, as well as every 5 levels.

You will also find the following three unique perk trees;

• A “Dragonborn” tree, dedicated to increasing the power of your Shouts!
• A “Sanguine Contempt” tree, dedicated to increasing your vampiric powers!
• A “Vigilant of Stendarr” tree, dedicated to increasing your combat prowess against undead and daedra!

If you meet either of those bills, be sure to check the perk trees and read the descriptions of them in the UI!

Play the Triple Triad card game with NPCs

As you loot NPCs, you will come across a variety of Card Packs that will give you different “Triple Triad” cards. With these, you will be able to play the Triple Triad game with most NPCs in the world! In order to do so, you will need to buy a Triple Triad Board from a General merchant such as Belethor in Whiterun. After you own this, all cards you get from loot will be placed in a virtual chest you can access with the board in your Misc inventory section, instead of being placed in your inventory. You will also be able to challenge NPCs to a duel with a dialogue option.

This game is derived from Final Fantasy, and is relatively simple however requires a bit of learning. The winner of a Triple Triad game usually gets to take one card from the loser, and you have the option to bet Septims on a game. Depending on where you are in the world, different “rules” will be enabled that change the way the game plays!

Read the mod page for Triple Triad in Skyrim at the following link for the rules of the game! Triple Triad Card Game Mod Page

Interact with NPCs from a distance

You can have conversations with any NPC from a distance! Press the B key to initiate Remote Interactions! This allows you to have full conversations with any NPC without being next to them, opening up a huge door for immersion in many situations. You can use this against enemies as well, potentially opening up new strategies in combat!

Knock on doors

If you interact with a locked door in non-hostile areas, you are given the option to knock on the door instead of pick the lock. If there is an NPC inside, there is a chance they will let you in! This chance is improved dramatically if you have a relationship of some type with the NPC who owns the dwelling.

Light up the area with your Quick Lantern

By using the L key, you can turn on your Quick Light! This replaces a Torch, and can be configured to be a Candlelight spell instead within the MCM.

Fast traveling requires Gold

When you Fast Travel, you will be charged Gold! The amount is dictated by how far you are traveling. You can still fast travel if you don’t have enough Gold, but you will incur Fast Travel Debt. Incurred debt will be included in the cost of subsequent fast travels until you have enough money to clear it.

Climb any ledge that you could reasonably climb, or jump over any wall you could vault over

When you walk up to a ledge that your character could reasonably climb, you will see a glowing green orb appear at the ledge. Press your Jump key (ALT by default), to initiate a climbing animation! This is very Assassins Creed-style, allowing to to scale just about anything! The same thing will occur when you walk up to a low wall/fence that your character could vault over.

Throughout the world, you may also find glowing glowing white orbs. These are pre-placed traversal points, and can allow you to climb up a larger ledge, climb a ladder, or any number of things. Keep an eye out for them!

Lay down on the ground

By performing either one of the following actions, you can lay down on the ground! This prevents enemies from seeing you, but it does not make your hitbox smaller. We can hope for Dynamic Collision Adjustment compatibility in the future!

• Hold SHIFT while sneaking to slowly go prone.
• SHIFT + W while sneaking to jump into prone.
• Hold SHIFT while prone to get up again.
• SHIFT + A/D to roll left or right respectively.

Keep in mind that you can only perform this action with your weapons sheathed. You cannot lie down with your weapons, fists, or magic out.

Find and use a variety of new weapon types

As you play, you will find many new weapon types such as Rapiers, Katanas, Pikes, Halberds, Quarterstaves, Scythes, and more! These weapons have varying damage values for the tier they are in, to compensate for the usually faster animations involved. These weapons benefit from existing weapon type perks. Make sure to take note of the following;

• All Pikes, Halberds, Scythes and Quarterstaves in the game are classified as Battleaxes, and will benefit from perks for Battleaxes.
• All Rapiers and Katanas in the game are classified as Swords, and will benefit from perks for Swords.
• Claws in the game are classified as Daggers, and will benefit from perks for Daggers.
• Whips in the game are classified as Maces, and will benefit from perks for Maces.
• Dai-Katana weapons in the game are classified as Greatswords, and will benefit from perks for Greatswords, despite their “Katana” keyword in the Inventory.

Throw a stone to distract enemies

With the Throw Stone power, you can throw a small stone you found on the ground. This allows you to get the attention of enemies, and send them where you would like quite easily, without wasting arrows or even needing a bow. You can also use these to trigger Runes, for you Warriors with no spells.

Conceal your identity with face masks

At a Tanning Rack in the Clothing category, you can craft a variety of colored Face Masks. When equipped, these face masks will prevent you from getting a bounty for crimes you commit while wearing the mask! If anyone sees you put on or take off the mask, any bounty will be automatically transferred over. Be sure to put on and take off the mask while you are out of sight!

Peek through keyholes in doors

By walking up to most doors, and holding SHIFT and pressing E, you can initiate a door peek! This will allow you to view what is behind a door before opening it. You cannot do this to all doors, and you will receive a notification message if you try to do this on a incompatible door.

Use SHIFT + Interact to initiate a few unique animations

With the same functionality is the above “Peeking”, feature, you can use SHIFT + E to initiate a few unique things! If a bard is playing music, this allows you to clap for them! You can also pet your horse rather than jumping onto it. Try it out on various things!

Open locks with a Two-Handed weapon or Fists

Power attacking a locked chest, door, or even wire-trap with a Two-Handed weapon or your Fists can potentially unlock it! Whether or not you unlock the lock or not, depends on either your Two-Handed skill, Hand-to-Hand skill or Stamina amount. Reference the below table to see what you can unlock at which levels. Your Security skill will be increased if you successfully destroy a lock this way. If you do not have the requisite skill level or stamina, nothing will happen when you attempt.

Many locked chests within Dungeons now have a key

Many previously unlocked chests in Dungeons are now locked, and have a hand-placed key somewhere nearby. This provides more opportunity to pick or bash locks, but you can always find them if you look hard enough. Better Third Person Selection also makes it much easier to spot these keys!

Have blacksmiths and mages craft and enchant things for you

By speaking to a Blacksmith, you can ask them to improve your gear, or craft entirely new equipment from the Forge menu! This will cost you Gold, at a much higher rate than the materials would cost themselves. Blacksmith’s can also only craft gear up to their Smithing level.

You can also commission Court Mages and certain other mages to enchant or recharge your gear!

Casting spells takes a lot longer if you are not skilled

If you have a low skill level in a School of Magic, it can take you a very long time to cast spells. As you level up a skill, it will take you significantly less time to cast respective spells. You will reach Vanilla cast speed at Level 30 in a skill, and have near-instant cast times at Level 100!

You can no longer instantly learn spells

Instead of consuming a Spell Tome instantly, you will instead be offered a choice of how many hours you wish to study the spell tome. After you have studied the specified amount of hours, you will learn the spell. The amount of hours required is dictated by your skill in the respective School of Magic for the Spell Tome. You can study in sessions, to spread out your learning. If you are very unskilled, it can take you a very long time to learn a high-level spell!

Cast Spells as Lesser Powers

Using the Voice Spell powers in your Powers menu, you can assign Spells of your choice to a Power! This will, in short, allow you to cast spells of your choice like a shout! This is great for Alteration or Illusion spells, but can also be used for Destruction spells! This mod opens up a new door for Spellsword gameplay!

You can actually sleep in beds

When you activate a bed, your player will get onto the bed, tuck themselves in, and start snoozing! You can remain in this sleeping idle for as long as you want. To actually sleep, press the T (wait) button, which will open the sleeping menu. Pressing any other keys while in the idle will cause your character to get up.

You can decant your Potions at a Cooking Pot

This allows you to turn all of your small restoration potions into larger ones. For instance, 3 Minor Health Potions becomes 1 Plentiful Health Potion, and so on. You can convert directly from Minor to Ultimate potions! This only works with the base restoration potions, and not with player-made restoration potions.

NEXT -> Important Hotkeys