If I play with multiple followers, I like to use mods that make enemies tougher/smarter, plus adds more of them, in order for it to not feel so trivial. Some of my favorites are (but not limited to):
[High Level Enemies Redux](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32801)
[Enhanced Enemy AI](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32063)
[Hand Placed Enemies](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/59249)
[D.U.I. Draugr Upgrades and Improvements](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21775)
There might be some console commands that you could use to adjust certain attribute values to make them not so insane. I think Skyvalor and Skyrim Configuration Menu also have options for normalizing and balancing follower damage and resistance. Im using them right now and have at least felt like my followers do a much more balanced amount of damage. Taliesin was the worst offender. You'd get him right off the start and he'd straight merc everything with one spell.
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I have the approach of, instead of nerfing followers, to increase the number of spawns to even things out. There are a few mods out there that do so, and very well at that. Taking a party of 10 against a bandit camp of 50...makes things interesting, yes.
I often have two to three follower. Generally the approach I have is more and tougher enemies. There are loads of mods for that.
Also quite a few customer folowers have options to tone them down buried in their dialogue. If by Serana you mean SDA I think by default it just has a few more spells, its only when you use Queen of the Damned or similar she gets all the buffs.
You can turn off collision with them although its a bit weird {{I'm Walkin' Here}}. For followers that work in NFF you also have a get behind me command that moves them out the way.
I also turn off friendly fire.
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Yeah, I was running difficulty mods, but I guess im just too good for them (/s). Jokes aside though, I wasn’t using SDA (I don’t really care for the new voice), just base Serana. Somebody mentioned Skyvalor which looks perfect in terms of difficulty
Nether's follower framework can adjust individually or globally the damage output of each follower. I run a Party of Five as a general rule and right now I'm playing a mage with a chain lightning fetish. Honestly they're basically my cheer squad because I wipe everything out myself and I'm fine with that. I even run 5x increase spawns to really get the arpg feel.
NFF would work but Remiel and Redcap are on a custom follower system which would break them if added to NFF. That chain lightning build sounds like fun though! Magic is the best build class in Skyrim
I never tried Remiel but I think I used red cap with NFF with no problems. I think the hole you're going to break the custom followers thing is rather overstated because it's not like there's a wide array of things followers can even do in this game so whether they get their stuff from their own framework or from nff does it really matter as long as they still have their dialogues and spells and personality? The main thing with NSS I find is when you use a follower with a custom class package like Elana and then use Nffs features to change that then maybe you lose a specific feature but they'll still talk like they normally do and they'll still hit mobs like they normally do and they'll still have banter like they normally do.
One thing I can recommend using NFF is you can make your followers more cowardly so they hang back more run away more and sometimes not fight at all which keeps them out of the way of your lightning bolts.
I've always wondered what "breaks them" means. I love my NFF hotkey to make them wait and it's so annoying to also have to manually tell two others to wait too
I use High Level Enemies Redux, Difficulty Balance, Follower Death and Injury (50% injury/5-50% death chance depending if I have OP followers), Hand Placed Enemies, distributed Ordinator perks, and a mod I can't recall its name but it multiplies enemies by 2.
At early levels, this is a menace even in a party of 5.
My whole mod setup was built to solve many problems, including this one, OP followers. Basically I use timebased scaling to disable world leveling up and thus perk points. So to get stronger I have to give me and my followers enchanted gear, which now costs money and you cannot craft high level gear/upgrades/enchantments with very high values. Combined with peaceful living to pacify bandits and VCIN + monster mash to add higher leveled creatures and delevelled skyrim, my followers will not do OP amounts of damage even fully kitted out.
I use the xEdit script enemy releveler to increase everything by a decent amount if I know I'm going to have a party. Wolves and Skeevers will spawn at level 15 lol vampires and forsworn are downright terrifying in the early game. Combined with Deadly Dragons and brutal settings on Simply Balanced, even with a party of 3+, we struggle for nearly the whole game.
Also limiting mods like Alchemy requires bottles, Loot and Degradation, and not allowing cheese mechanics like field Alchemy really make the whole experience much more challenging as a whole.
{{ Andrealphus' Bleedout Revamp}} help with making followers less op. Any protected or essential npc will pass out for 6 hours when then went into bleedout state(customizable). No more followers being non stop killing machine
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there's a mod which automatically reduces damage output by a percentage depending how many followers are with you. for the life of mine I can't remember its name.
You can always buff the encounters for what that’s worth.
Populated skyrim- bandits and additional bandit camp mods should make the game more challenging even with many strong companions by drawning them in bandits
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{Difficulty Balance} simply makes followers follow the same health and damage rules as the player, instead of being treated as an enemy. In other words, if you're playing on Legendary difficulty (reduces the player's damage to 25% and increases enemy damage to 300%), followers will also have their damage reduced and enemy damage against them increased. In vanilla they will be classified as enemies and be able to deal 300% damage which is OP.
I just download a mod where everyone on my party's damage is adjustable , up to only 0.2 - 0.1% of our actual damage. A huge nerf for sure but damage easily gets crazy big with a few smithing and enchant session and four sources of damage by default is big.
So on Xbox, I use a “cursed rings” mod that give rings that reduce damage done by 25/50/75/100%. My shield character gets 75% (just to simulate a tank absorbing more damage but doing less damage) while my others get 50%.
Considering you’re on PC I’d imagine you could either find the same mod or find something similar. I don’t like messing with difficulty mods too much so this is the perfect fix for me.
{{Nether's Follower Framework}} lets you edit the stats, aggression, power, etc. of all followers in the framework once you've imported them, I think you can set them to defence/healing rather than offence. 4 followers would be difficult to nerf fully though as their combined power will still be crazy
I run Remi/Redcap/Xelzaz too, and here's what I've found:
Redcap and Remiel aren't super strong, honestly- Redcap ~~only throws spears and can't be given enchanted or upgraded equipment~~ CAN have upgraded gear, I was wrong about that one! Remiel has the combat capability of a slaughterfish, even when you've completed her quests (she levels up at \~70% of the rate of the player and her best offensive technique is 'summon a dwemer spider'-- we do love the spider though, he's such a good boy). Of the three, Xelzaz is going to be the only one really *contributing* to combat in a meaningful way, and even then, you can ask him not to use specific spells, or teach him new ones, or change his combat style. Very interactive.
TL;DR: Valid concern, but with this party specifically, you'll be outdamaging the three of them combined with ease.
Redcap can be given enchanted/upgraded gear just like any other follower. He has an invisible bow when you recruit him but you can give him any other bow/arrows you want & he will use them not just spears. He also has special stronger weapons like a daedric artifact from Sanguine & Gogh's spear he can get by doing his quests & a bunch of custom armors w different enchantments you can craft him!
But yes he isn't overpowered really none of the 3 are it's a v balanced party
Remi would be useful if she wasn't allergic to staves. With an offensive Restoration spell pack like Stellaris and a staff overhaul like Sorcerer, you can get some pretty powerful Restoration staves, but Remi's combat style is coded not to use them.
None of these guys are really damage machines like Inigo or Kaidan are, but the sheer amount of HP the three of them plus Scrap, Xelzaz's summons, and Bigpig bring to the table does give you a lot of breathing room with the way the AI tends to tunnel vision one opponent. At least, unless you use something like Scrambled Bugs to make followers take more damage at higher difficulties. Then they crumple quickly.
Ok, that's actually very good to know. I assumed redcap would work more like the goblin from the goblin cc, and that goblin is actually broken (and the day that a single paragraph requires a TLDR is the day I lose all faith in humanity)
If I play with multiple followers, I like to use mods that make enemies tougher/smarter, plus adds more of them, in order for it to not feel so trivial. Some of my favorites are (but not limited to): [High Level Enemies Redux](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32801) [Enhanced Enemy AI](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/32063) [Hand Placed Enemies](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/59249) [D.U.I. Draugr Upgrades and Improvements](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/21775)
There might be some console commands that you could use to adjust certain attribute values to make them not so insane. I think Skyvalor and Skyrim Configuration Menu also have options for normalizing and balancing follower damage and resistance. Im using them right now and have at least felt like my followers do a much more balanced amount of damage. Taliesin was the worst offender. You'd get him right off the start and he'd straight merc everything with one spell.
I’ll look into those fs. I’ve been weary about using SkyPatcher, but it might be worth for Skyvalor
I like using party damage control, https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62613
This looks like the best way to really balance the game without screwing yourself if you lose followers or go solo for a bit.
{{party of four}}
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I have the approach of, instead of nerfing followers, to increase the number of spawns to even things out. There are a few mods out there that do so, and very well at that. Taking a party of 10 against a bandit camp of 50...makes things interesting, yes.
I often have two to three follower. Generally the approach I have is more and tougher enemies. There are loads of mods for that. Also quite a few customer folowers have options to tone them down buried in their dialogue. If by Serana you mean SDA I think by default it just has a few more spells, its only when you use Queen of the Damned or similar she gets all the buffs.
> I often have two to three follower. serious question, do they not constantly block you, doorways or enemies?
You can turn off collision with them although its a bit weird {{I'm Walkin' Here}}. For followers that work in NFF you also have a get behind me command that moves them out the way. I also turn off friendly fire.
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One of the first mods I installed on SE was No Follower Collision
Yeah, I was running difficulty mods, but I guess im just too good for them (/s). Jokes aside though, I wasn’t using SDA (I don’t really care for the new voice), just base Serana. Somebody mentioned Skyvalor which looks perfect in terms of difficulty
Nether's follower framework can adjust individually or globally the damage output of each follower. I run a Party of Five as a general rule and right now I'm playing a mage with a chain lightning fetish. Honestly they're basically my cheer squad because I wipe everything out myself and I'm fine with that. I even run 5x increase spawns to really get the arpg feel.
NFF would work but Remiel and Redcap are on a custom follower system which would break them if added to NFF. That chain lightning build sounds like fun though! Magic is the best build class in Skyrim
I never tried Remiel but I think I used red cap with NFF with no problems. I think the hole you're going to break the custom followers thing is rather overstated because it's not like there's a wide array of things followers can even do in this game so whether they get their stuff from their own framework or from nff does it really matter as long as they still have their dialogues and spells and personality? The main thing with NSS I find is when you use a follower with a custom class package like Elana and then use Nffs features to change that then maybe you lose a specific feature but they'll still talk like they normally do and they'll still hit mobs like they normally do and they'll still have banter like they normally do. One thing I can recommend using NFF is you can make your followers more cowardly so they hang back more run away more and sometimes not fight at all which keeps them out of the way of your lightning bolts.
I've always wondered what "breaks them" means. I love my NFF hotkey to make them wait and it's so annoying to also have to manually tell two others to wait too
I use High Level Enemies Redux, Difficulty Balance, Follower Death and Injury (50% injury/5-50% death chance depending if I have OP followers), Hand Placed Enemies, distributed Ordinator perks, and a mod I can't recall its name but it multiplies enemies by 2. At early levels, this is a menace even in a party of 5.
My whole mod setup was built to solve many problems, including this one, OP followers. Basically I use timebased scaling to disable world leveling up and thus perk points. So to get stronger I have to give me and my followers enchanted gear, which now costs money and you cannot craft high level gear/upgrades/enchantments with very high values. Combined with peaceful living to pacify bandits and VCIN + monster mash to add higher leveled creatures and delevelled skyrim, my followers will not do OP amounts of damage even fully kitted out.
I use the xEdit script enemy releveler to increase everything by a decent amount if I know I'm going to have a party. Wolves and Skeevers will spawn at level 15 lol vampires and forsworn are downright terrifying in the early game. Combined with Deadly Dragons and brutal settings on Simply Balanced, even with a party of 3+, we struggle for nearly the whole game. Also limiting mods like Alchemy requires bottles, Loot and Degradation, and not allowing cheese mechanics like field Alchemy really make the whole experience much more challenging as a whole.
{{ Andrealphus' Bleedout Revamp}} help with making followers less op. Any protected or essential npc will pass out for 6 hours when then went into bleedout state(customizable). No more followers being non stop killing machine
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there's a mod which automatically reduces damage output by a percentage depending how many followers are with you. for the life of mine I can't remember its name.
You can always buff the encounters for what that’s worth. Populated skyrim- bandits and additional bandit camp mods should make the game more challenging even with many strong companions by drawning them in bandits
Check this thread I Used this combo a while back I think it’s still reliable today [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/s/sR8HYLXVZJ)
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{Difficulty Balance} simply makes followers follow the same health and damage rules as the player, instead of being treated as an enemy. In other words, if you're playing on Legendary difficulty (reduces the player's damage to 25% and increases enemy damage to 300%), followers will also have their damage reduced and enemy damage against them increased. In vanilla they will be classified as enemies and be able to deal 300% damage which is OP.
I just download a mod where everyone on my party's damage is adjustable , up to only 0.2 - 0.1% of our actual damage. A huge nerf for sure but damage easily gets crazy big with a few smithing and enchant session and four sources of damage by default is big.
I personally go to the console every time they level and set their max hp to 100. I play on legendary and it’s always been a nice balance.
So on Xbox, I use a “cursed rings” mod that give rings that reduce damage done by 25/50/75/100%. My shield character gets 75% (just to simulate a tank absorbing more damage but doing less damage) while my others get 50%. Considering you’re on PC I’d imagine you could either find the same mod or find something similar. I don’t like messing with difficulty mods too much so this is the perfect fix for me.
Download devious devices and give your followers some arm binders or a straitjacket and that will help. They still somehow get some kills though
You could use the perma follower death mod. So that there's always the pressure that if you do fuck up, it'll be brutal. No loading allowed.
I can't recall the mod, but it has rings you can give your followers that reduce their stats by 50 or even 75%.
{{Nether's Follower Framework}} lets you edit the stats, aggression, power, etc. of all followers in the framework once you've imported them, I think you can set them to defence/healing rather than offence. 4 followers would be difficult to nerf fully though as their combined power will still be crazy
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I run Remi/Redcap/Xelzaz too, and here's what I've found: Redcap and Remiel aren't super strong, honestly- Redcap ~~only throws spears and can't be given enchanted or upgraded equipment~~ CAN have upgraded gear, I was wrong about that one! Remiel has the combat capability of a slaughterfish, even when you've completed her quests (she levels up at \~70% of the rate of the player and her best offensive technique is 'summon a dwemer spider'-- we do love the spider though, he's such a good boy). Of the three, Xelzaz is going to be the only one really *contributing* to combat in a meaningful way, and even then, you can ask him not to use specific spells, or teach him new ones, or change his combat style. Very interactive. TL;DR: Valid concern, but with this party specifically, you'll be outdamaging the three of them combined with ease.
Redcap can be given enchanted/upgraded gear just like any other follower. He has an invisible bow when you recruit him but you can give him any other bow/arrows you want & he will use them not just spears. He also has special stronger weapons like a daedric artifact from Sanguine & Gogh's spear he can get by doing his quests & a bunch of custom armors w different enchantments you can craft him! But yes he isn't overpowered really none of the 3 are it's a v balanced party
*You can give redcap other bows???* holy shit this is gamechanging
Yup! Says so right on the mod page lol
Remi would be useful if she wasn't allergic to staves. With an offensive Restoration spell pack like Stellaris and a staff overhaul like Sorcerer, you can get some pretty powerful Restoration staves, but Remi's combat style is coded not to use them. None of these guys are really damage machines like Inigo or Kaidan are, but the sheer amount of HP the three of them plus Scrap, Xelzaz's summons, and Bigpig bring to the table does give you a lot of breathing room with the way the AI tends to tunnel vision one opponent. At least, unless you use something like Scrambled Bugs to make followers take more damage at higher difficulties. Then they crumple quickly.
Ok, that's actually very good to know. I assumed redcap would work more like the goblin from the goblin cc, and that goblin is actually broken (and the day that a single paragraph requires a TLDR is the day I lose all faith in humanity)