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Skyrim boasts good variations in the many foes that the player faces.
There are six distinct major dungeon factions in bandits, mages, falmers, forsworns, vampires, and draugrs without even taking DLC-added mobs like reiklings or ash spawns. However, the actual variety of common mobs within these factions starts to fade quickly over repeat playthroughs.
Wildlife in the overworld also becomes tiring with the same wolf packs and the occasional sabrecat. Moreover, unnamed generic bosses, who usually crop up at least once per dungeon, leave a lot to be desired without overhauls like Requiem.
To address this, here are five mods that are solely geared towards ramping up the visual and mechanical diversity of Dragonborn's enemies.
Top 5 Skyrim mods that add more enemy types while overhauling existing factions
1) Heritage / Heritage 2
Heritage - Reflexive Enemies is considered by many to be the magnum opus from PestChristmas, adding a whopping 2070 enemies to the echelons of five factions: bandits, forsworns, falmers, vampires, and warlocks (i.e., mages), as well as the reavers from the Dragonborn DLC.
Notably, it also adds new NPC subclasses with distinct fighting styles and perks: alchemists, enchanters, illusionists, callers, and unarmed brawlers. Heritage 2 is the sequel to Heritage - Reflexive Enemies, but it acts as a sidegrade rather than an upgrade.
Instead of continuing down Heritage's perk and spell implementations, Heritage 2 streamlines and removes some of the feature bloat from the original mod. The result is a more lore-friendly and compatible version of the author's original vision, complete with its distinct fighting classes.
Currently, Heritage 2 only covers bandits and vampires. Forsworns, reavers, and warlocks are to be added at a later point.
2) Skyrim Immersive Creatures
For players who want Witcher-like elements in the form of an expanded bestiary, Skyrim Immersive Creatures can qualify as a load-order staple. The mod adds a huge number of creatures to the game, some mash-ups from vanilla creatures, and some completely custom and imported from other games.
Overall, its total number of variants is a whooping 3800. The mod's feature-creep surpasses its original intent to add new visual upgrades to vanilla bosses, the inclusion of more radiant quests, as well as 180 new spells. While some of these creatures are not lore-appropriate, they can be toggled off easily by enabling a purist version through the mod's MCM.
3) Organized Bandits in Skyrim
Bandits make up for the majority of encounters in nearly any comprehensive Skyrim playthrough. Their commonality also places them at the lower end of the leveled list, in that they are the most basic enemy faction that the player faces.
Organized Bandits in Skyrim turns this near-indistinguishable band of highwaymen into a colorful faction of diverse mob clusters. While more modern Skyrim mods like Improved Bandits take a slimmer, streamlined approach, OBIS is an older mod that prides itself on its content variety.
In total, this mod adds nearly 2500 new enemies to the leveled list other than its modifications to the vanilla groupings. The new bandits also come with an affinity for certain bandit clans, such as the unloyal, who are army deserters, the addled, who use drugs and potions for physical enhancement, or the vermin, who use poison magic and spectral skeevers to aid their cut-and-run fighting style.
Out of these 2500, about 200 are named 'bounty bandits' who specialize in more than one skill to switch up their fighting strategy on the fly. OBIS also adds its own custom spawn points and patrol routes for bandits in the overworld to truly bring the much-discussed bandit raid party menace to reality.
4) TES V: Hunt of Hircine
While Skyrim Immersive Creatures is designed to be a fully stacked creature overhaul strong in numbers, Hunt of Hircine is instead an immersive expansion of wildlife to inject creatures from Morrowind and Oblivion. It was introduced through a lore-friendly questline with two opposing guilds: The Huntsman Guild and the Temple of Kyne.
Other than its Larendil ruins full of Ayelid pottery, coinage, armor set, and other collectibles, the actual creatures it introduces include goblins, imps, ogres, minotaurs, and flesh atronachs, as well as Daedric creatures like hungers.
5) Draugr Upgrades and Improvements
Arguably Skyrim's most iconic and central enemy faction for its main quest, the Draugrs deserve their own dedicated overhaul mod. Draugr Upgrades and Improvements presents itself as the one-in-all solution in this category, with its functional and visual modifications to the guardians of the ancient Nordic crypts.
The baseline buff makes it so that Draugr's cosmetic armor is a visual representation of their actual durability. It also introduces six separate new tiered Draugr classes that join the scourges and wights: sentinel, berserker, warlock, diseased, priestess, and dragon talons - distinct both visually and functionally.
Note: The article reflects the writer's own views.
