5 Skyrim mods for a spellsword playthrough

Skyrim has made massive improvements as compared to its predecessor, Oblivion, when it comes to combat.

One of the most fundamental changes in this regard was in how spellcasting was handled. Instead of a key-bound single spell that needed to be switched from the inventory, Skyrim gives the player the reins to equip spells independently on each free hand.

Other than dual-casting for mages, this also opened up off-hand spellcasting for spellswords.

There are, however, a vast number of mods to nudge Skyrim more towards the direction of a spellsword playthrough. Here are 5 among the best of these mods, which also work in tandem.

5 mods in Skyrim for your spellsword character

1) Spellfury

Spellfury is a re-imagination of the entire Skyrim magicka system. Instead of passively regenerating, magicka with Spellfury becomes a placeholder 'fury' or 'rage' mechanic from fighting games.

The player therefore gains magicka by being aggressive, i.e. 'hitting stuff', as the name reads. Additionally, this mechanic is expanded via the introduction of scaling on-hit magicka gain and destruction potency with maximum mana as well as combat skills.

The magicka depletes automatically outside combat, leading to certain issues with spells like Clairvoyance, but this can be easily toggled off in the MCM.

2) Witchhunter Spells

Witchhunter spells adds 75+ lore-friendly unique spells to the game, all of which are designed to be used with weaponry. This includes imbuing unenchanted weapons with the power of shock, fire, or frost - like buff abilities in Dark Souls, silence augmentations, and magic resistance abilities that befit witch-hunters.

For added compatibility with a spellsword, most of these spells are bound to the power (default Z) key. Additionally, this mod also adds 26 lore-friendly prayers to receive specific buffs and abilties pre-combat.

3) Sustained Magic

Sustained Magic can have multiple Skyrim spells active at a time if the player has enough magicka (image via Nexusmods)

Alteration in Skyrim is a good fit for a sub-skill a spellsword can dabble in. The routine of applying buffs before every battle, however, gets tiring and gimmicky after a few encounters. This is where sustained magic brings a brilliant solution.

Inspired by a-RPG games like Path of Exile, the mod makes it so that the player can have buff spells up at all times at an upkeep cost. This upkeep cost is a direct penalty to maximum magicka, effectively locking out a chunk of the player's mana reserves as a tradeoff.

4) Wizard Warrior

Generally, players can only hold a one-handed weapon and a spell on each hand as a spellsword in Skyrim. There are workarounds to enable players to use a third spell on a keycast, very similar to dual wield parrying.

Instead of reimplementing spellcasting into a new key (as it was in Oblivion), Wizard Warrior is an alternative that assigns the spells to physical combat itself. With it, players can import as many spells as they want into melee combat actions like regular swings, bashing, and power attacks.

For example, one could assign a ward spell to block to fully make use of their restoration and block skills together.

5) Ordinator

While the complete scope of Ordinator, the most perk overhaul mod in the Skyrim modding scene, goes above and beyond most perk mods. Its new perks particularly open up spellsword classes. The alteration perk tree, for example, includes the likes of:

Spellblade - Whenever you cast a spell with one hand, you deal 20% more attack damage for 4 seconds.

The Vancian Magic perk in the same tree reworks the magicka system to finite-usage spells, as perceived in Dungeons and Dragons. It also has additional out-of-the-box synergies with the two other mods on this list - Wizard Warrior and Spellfury.

For all the conjurers who like bound weapons, Ordinator has them covered with conjuration trees. Moreover, a whole berth of spells in the enchantment tree such as 'Might and Magic' encouraged a mixed spellsword class.