Are vanilla followers interesting ?

[Howarde]

Hi everyone !

I have a question for you guys ! I have never really finished skyrim, so after months of modding i'm finally starting my real playthrough but i am asking myself a question : what kind of follower should i use ? vanilla with RDO + EFF + Amorous Adventure or a custom one like sofia ? 

I don't really care about the strenght of the follower, actually, i want them to be weak, like this i am one playing the game (not my follower). BUT i really care about the dialogue, the story.

Am I missing something if i use vanilla followers and not sophia, or am I missing something if I use sofia and not vanilla followers (with EFF+RDO+Amorous adventure) ?

 

Thx in advance for your contribution ! 

 

P.S : having two followers would be really boring, because they would be too OP for my modded game

[SexDwarf2250]

22 minutes ago, Howarde said:

P.S : having two followers would be really boring, because they would be too OP for my modded game

Make them slaves, kit them out in devious devices, don't let them use weapons or armor.

[Harvald]

In my opinion the quest driven Followers are fine.

 

Sophia is just funny with her comments, just like Recorder. Selene Kate and Tania the Hermit have a more personality than vanilla followers. Rigmor of Bruma and Aurlyn Dawnstone have very big quests. They are a Questmod walking around in Skyrim. Mirai and Vilja have smaller quests but are interesting. Also interesting Song of the green and Ambriel with their Quests.

 

Vanilla follower should get am upgrade with Bijn Warmaiden or another beautification mod. 

 

I play with Followers life package, My home is your home, and CS Tag and Track. With these mods even a only good looking Follower gets more "life".

[manchuligans]

I use EFF.

 

I find EFF is the most flexible and it allows me to have a lot of followers, as many as the scripting engine will bear (which is about 20 on my system).  EFF lets me give combat commands to my followers during battle without using the dialogue menu, and EFF will also let me change the CBBE morphs on my followers while in game.

 

I hardly ever use vanilla followers.  I think I've hired Jenassa once or twice when I was low level and I just needed to get something done.  The housecarls, I never bother with.  

 

I use some follower mods, like Capri, Naria and Promise.  I have some others, but I forget who they are right now.

 

My main source of followers is Familiar Faces with my own characters  saved into it.  That gives me 12 followers I've created and customized to perfection right off the bat.  Then I just cruise through my playthrough, recruiting anyone interesting with EFF.  Of course, I don't mess with potential quest giving characters.  I check internet with my phone to make sure they're quest safe before recruiting them.  I recruit interesting people, like the hired bodyguards from Immersive Wenches, a couple of characters from Inconsequential NPCs, and minor vanilla NPCs that my appearance mods have made look interesting, like Hroki, Dravnea Stoneweaver, and the Dunmer priestess after the Star of Azura quest.  Sometimes I'll park them in my house and just take a team of 3 out for a quest, or just go out by myself.  If a dungeon is particularly vexing I'll roll the army.

 

Interesting NPCs is another great mod for finding some interesting quirky followers.

 

I tend to stay away from powerful followers, especially the magic using ones.  They kill everyone before I can draw my sword.  I use ordinary characters set to level with the PC in EFF.  I also use a lot of opponent generation mods, like OBIS, Immersive Patrols, the Populated Skyrim series, Genesis Towers Reborn, and Genesis Surface Spawns.    One Genesis tower can kick the living shit out of my PC and her gang of skooma'd up killers if I'm not very very careful.  With Defeat installed it can turn into a very ugly scene indeed.  I used to use Warzones, and it was great, but I just had to lighten my Papyrus load.

 

I generally make up my own stories for my followers, but if you want some followers with quests and dialogues, there's Inigo, Hoth, Sophia, Recorder, Bri, and many others.  I usually don't use them because I may not appreciate their appearance or the stories and dialogue that their creator made for them, but those are pretty popular.

 

[SmedleyDButler]

Pretty much Inigo and Interesting NPCs with me. Also Serana Dialogue Edit is a must - immediately makes her one of the better followers out there, with an actual personality.

 

Vilja has always sounded really interesting as a follower but I just can't past HOW BAD her audio is. The voice acting isn't great, but I could live with it if the audio quality didn't make it sound like it had been recorded in a hurricane using half a broken pair of speakers instead of a microphone.

[SleepyJim]

I've tried a few custom followers over the years, but although some are very well done I don't usually keep them installed for long. My favourite follower - by some distance - is Amorous Adventures Lydia. She'll happily sing to herself on occasion once her quest is done and you've asked her if she ever feels amorous. And her "apple cabbage stew" is simply to die for.

 

I use EFF, RDO, and Bijin Warmaidens - overwritten by the Lydia 2.7 optional file.

[Howarde]

Well thank you very much guys ! Your advices cleared my mind a bit. I think i'll have to make two characters : one with vanilla followers enhanced (Bijin+RDO+EFF+Amorous Adventure) and one with custom followers.

 

Thx a lot !

[woodsman30]

22 hours ago, Howarde said:

Hi everyone !

I have a question for you guys ! I have never really finished skyrim, so after months of modding i'm finally starting my real playthrough but i am asking myself a question : what kind of follower should i use ? vanilla with RDO + EFF + Amorous Adventure or a custom one like sofia ? 

I don't really care about the strenght of the follower, actually, i want them to be weak, like this i am one playing the game (not my follower). BUT i really care about the dialogue, the story.

Am I missing something if i use vanilla followers and not sophia, or am I missing something if I use sofia and not vanilla followers (with EFF+RDO+Amorous adventure) ?

 

Thx in advance for your contribution ! 

 

P.S : having two followers would be really boring, because they would be too OP for my modded game

This mod changed everything for me makes followers out of anyone with whole system of AI https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/33002/

[Reesewow]

22 hours ago, Howarde said:

Hi everyone !

I have a question for you guys ! I have never really finished skyrim, so after months of modding i'm finally starting my real playthrough but i am asking myself a question : what kind of follower should i use ? vanilla with RDO + EFF + Amorous Adventure or a custom one like sofia ? 

I don't really care about the strenght of the follower, actually, i want them to be weak, like this i am one playing the game (not my follower). BUT i really care about the dialogue, the story.

Am I missing something if i use vanilla followers and not sophia, or am I missing something if I use sofia and not vanilla followers (with EFF+RDO+Amorous adventure) ?

 

Thx in advance for your contribution ! 

 

P.S : having two followers would be really boring, because they would be too OP for my modded game

Honestly, you are generally missing very little by avoiding vanilla followers.  A few have location-specific voice lines, and Freya in Dragonborn gives some decent story at the beginning (then goes super silent).  I'd say the exception would be Lydia + Amorous Adventures, as she gets lots of extra lines for completing her quest and is much more fleshed out (and lovey-dovey).  She's still pretty limited however, as obviously all her voice lines are spliced vanilla lines.

 

Super followers like Sofia, M'rissi, Vilja and Inigo are always interesting, and often their authors have so many lines attached to main quest lines, player skills, or locations that each of them can stay somewhat fresh throughout a whole playthrough.  Vilja and M'rissi have large involved questlines attached as well, that directly effect how they interact with the player character.  I'd honestly recommend trying all of them out, as they are some of the better modded content if you like characters/story in a game.

 

Another big recommendation if you care about character story more than mechanics in a follower - Interesting NPCs.  The mod is huge, and adds many potential followers that are generally the same strength as vanilla followers.  The followers generally have a personal questline, with a few getting multiple quests that have them meeting each other and interacting while you travel.  The "super-followers" among them have a silly amount of comments for the main quests as well, I've used Zora for most of my current playthrough and she still surprises me with funny comments about the current vanilla quest I'm on.

 

To put it into perspective, my current save has hundreds of hours dropped into it, and I've mostly been using M'rissi and Zora and haven't gotten bored of them yet.

[SexDwarf2250]

Personally, I much prefer Jenassa. She generally doesn't have a shitty attitude about carrying your burdens, loves killing and won't refuse any orders due to morality (she has none, despite that there exists a quote of her refusing orders.) Further, she is a good stealther (skills: Archery, Light Armor, then One-Handed, Block, Sneak) because she prefers archery and fights ranged, but is one of the few that will prefer to dual wield when in melee, so you know where to put those extra daggers of paralysis. The only down side is that she's definitely not as tanky as say Serana, and her level tops out at 40.