" I personally think it would be more realistic to reduce the percentage of female bandits, making them very unusual as well, but that idea has received a ton of negative feedback from almost all users that brought it up, hence it's a tweak that hasn't been made."
Dude....why would you give in to this Vocal minority, It is overwhelmingly obvious that 99.9% of violent bandits in real life would be men, at the very least can you make the OPTION to reduce female bandits?
But in addition to that, there is also the technical issue, which has been discussed before. The original mod had to be patched because one of the new male melee Nord bandits replaced a female mage character, causing issues with their dialogue not working in a quest. Resolving the issue was as simple as making them a female melee bandit again. So in other words, the class did not really matter for it to function, but the gender did.
A fairly large amount of NPCs are or could be based on those bandit templates, so changing their genders now could cause similar glitches to pop up. Ever since that fix was made, the issue has not been reported again, and unless someone would check every single character, dialogue and encounter in the whole game to confirm something similar would not happen, the current design is much safer, both for the mod itself, and also in terms of compatibility with other mods.
I agree 100% with the objective truth you mentioned above and would also like such an option as it would definitely be more accurate and feel more immersive. This is why I'm thankful for mods as it's helped add longevity and interest at times when I felt I was losing interest in something I love. I feel just as every game hasn't always been commercial that they still shouldn't all be and especially after what we've seen lately with AAA gaming as it's obvious with more demands and limitations but less creative freedoms you will get less creativity and quality. These games that follow this same formula have less growth and become boring, predictable, and less interesting all to soon both artistically and narrative wise.
Besides it doesn't makes sense to want commercialize or politically correct a game that has been and is successful as a result of being inspired by and based around Medieval Europe and the many folk tales and lore of that time period and cultures as you'd only ruin what made it successful in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong but at least for me part of the fantasy and fun was not only experiencing a different time period and what it may have been like but also having to find ways good or evil to overcome, fight through, and solve many of the cultural differences and narratives one likely could and would face then that I myself may not be accustomed to.
Personally I honestly think those who are looking for more authenticity, immersion, and that actually care about lore will like, understand, and even want more changes like this not less. The truth is It's bad enough that it seems to appear that those at the top of and in charge of gaming at the moment are making sure every game released nowadays is commercial and politically correct first and foremost at the expense of creativity, quality, and what the majority base of a particular game or franchise may want. I'm definitely hoping this same cancer doesn't spread and never takes root within the modding community.
If you have dug into to the lore you will come upon the theory that bandits are actually skyrim's true Nords. They are the only Nords in the game that reference the ancient Nordic pantheon, and to be frank they outnumber Skyrim's civilized Nordic population. Thus, it makes more sense that this huge population of people would produce itself naturally with balanced sex ratios.
Yeah all strong fighting honorable true (although stereotypical, very missed by the TES fans) are either out fighting in the civil war, (mostly for the Stormcloak rebellion I'd assume, but not all) living day by day fighting to survive in the cold tundra as bandits- fed up with the domestication of Skyrim culture and Imperial lawmakers. Litteraly all the bandits scream is "Skryim belongs to the Nords" as you keep approaching their camps after numerous warnings to stay back. Finally the last honorable occupation for a strong, proud Nord would probably be guard duty- and they ALL so happen to be nords with thick "Skyrim accents" all over the 9 holds. The city guards wear shortsleeved armor in Falkreath as well as Windhelm, because a true Nord doesn't care for freezing cold.
Sorry for the tangent, just realized a week ago that what you experience in all towns are the weak people and non-nords that DIDN'T join the civil war, leaving the player with the impression that Bethesda profoundly diminished the Nord's we thought we knew from previous games, although those games took playe 200-1000 years ago. Skyrim's Nord story is essentialy the real life events that caused and wiped out the pillaging nordic vikings as the mainland settlements grew into law-abiding, taxed and civilized/imperialized cities.
Just like it would perhaps feel more immersive to you that they should be wearing longsleeved armor in Windhelm and Winterhold, according to lore, Nord women are almost just as strong and brute as the burly men, certainly stronger than a female from any other race. So yeah irl obviously most men would be and WERE male, but in deep skyrim lore. I do wish the Nords were more comically bunga and tall like in the old games tho.
when fan theories, historical accuracies, and calling a random distribution of gender is being pc collide. skyrim ain't the game if you're wanting a historically accurate medieval europe experience.
Huh, that's actually a neat idea. But that makes them very blurred with the Forsworn from a design standpoint. Still, renaming "Bandit Outlaw" to "Nord Barbarian" or something might actually change the flavor a lot, for the better. It's an interesting idea!
Hey, glad this mod exists. I felt the same even 11 years ago. Like for an entire nation that violently mistrusts or hates magic, there are armies of "rogue mages" floating around. Made no sense, and was very aggravating from a gameplay perspective too.
I've kind of made my own leveled list mod with the same idea, to cut the bandit mages down sharply until higher level and reduce the number of lady bandits as well until higher level. What I'd really like to do is somehow replace the majority of bandits with something else... even more Draugr... just because if you think about it for even a second, the dragonborn is a freaking CRYPTID MONSTER with the trail of bodies he/she leaves behind and even monsters like Lord Harkon probably don't match your "hero" bodycount... I accept but dont like that. I'm just not into mass slaughtering poor people...
Is there an "all male bandits" version floating around? Would be nice to see an all male combatants mod. Except for mages, all combatants should be male for the legion, stormcloak, and bandit factions. Forsworn should be left alone, they are not as "cultured".
For technical reasons, no. It's unclear exactly how many they are, but a bunch of unique and quest-related characters are actually based on the bandit template, so making all bandits male would cause issues with their lines of dialogue, where some might just remain silent during conversations.
Thank you for this. Magic is clearly frowned upon in Skyrim. The first two important characters the player meets (Ralof Hadvar) are disproving (if diplomatic since you just fought alongside them) of magic and they are supposed to represent the views of both Empire citizens and Nords to a player new to Skyrim. True, there are battlemages among the Empire but I have the impression they are means to an end and in general, they are not trusted among their ranks as much as warriors. Same with Stormcloacks, even more so I would say.
And yeah, having every bandit group rank a mage raises questions? Can't this mage, with superior knowledge and education earn a living in a less risky way? Go to the college? Try to win the favour of a Jarl as a local wizard? Anyways, thank you for this mod. A must-have from now on. Kudos.
Based on its description, it briefly touches the subject of leveled lists, and how some mods that alter them might be incompatible. I am however under the impression that it primarily has to do with items, rather than bandit NPCs.
In terms of whether they can be used safely together or not, I cannot say for sure. If I was to just make a guess, I would assume there shouldn't be any problem, but you will have to test your way through in order to be certain they will work for your game.
Thanks fr15827 for the reply! So with my limited knowledge of Skyrim modding and xedit I went ahead and pulled both these mods up in xedit to see if they conflict (conflicts are red). This mod only touches the Leveled NPCs. It changes the type from magic to melee and that is it. I didn't see anything about items in the edits so I think those are just randomly put in each bandits inventory.
For MLU the Leveled NPCs section wasn't even touched. It only sets the level for Zones. In any case I didn't see any red text between the two mods in xedit.
I also loaded up my game and traveled to Halted Stream Camp. There were no magic wielding bandits outside or inside the camp and they were all still the appropriate level for MLU.
That's about all I know for how to see if two mods need a patch. If someone has a good link to a tutorial I would appreciate it!
skyrim doesnt belong to the nords... it belongs to me, i bought it for 60 dollars. lmao great mod btw, bugged me that a lowly bandit could know more magic than a apprentice mage
65 comments
IMPORTANT NOTICE
SBtN-BE does NOT remove all female bandits from the game, something which some previous comments may incorrectly suggest.
Please be aware of this before commenting.
Dude....why would you give in to this Vocal minority, It is overwhelmingly obvious that 99.9% of violent bandits in real life would be men, at the very least can you make the OPTION to reduce female bandits?
A fairly large amount of NPCs are or could be based on those bandit templates, so changing their genders now could cause similar glitches to pop up. Ever since that fix was made, the issue has not been reported again, and unless someone would check every single character, dialogue and encounter in the whole game to confirm something similar would not happen, the current design is much safer, both for the mod itself, and also in terms of compatibility with other mods.
Besides it doesn't makes sense to want commercialize or politically correct a game that has been and is successful as a result of being inspired by and based around Medieval Europe and the many folk tales and lore of that time period and cultures as you'd only ruin what made it successful in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong but at least for me part of the fantasy and fun was not only experiencing a different time period and what it may have been like but also having to find ways good or evil to overcome, fight through, and solve many of the cultural differences and narratives one likely could and would face then that I myself may not be accustomed to.
Personally I honestly think those who are looking for more authenticity, immersion, and that actually care about lore will like, understand, and even want more changes like this not less. The truth is It's bad enough that it seems to appear that those at the top of and in charge of gaming at the moment are making sure every game released nowadays is commercial and politically correct first and foremost at the expense of creativity, quality, and what the majority base of a particular game or franchise may want. I'm definitely hoping this same cancer doesn't spread and never takes root within the modding community.
Sorry for the tangent, just realized a week ago that what you experience in all towns are the weak people and non-nords that DIDN'T join the civil war, leaving the player with the impression that Bethesda profoundly diminished the Nord's we thought we knew from previous games, although those games took playe 200-1000 years ago. Skyrim's Nord story is essentialy the real life events that caused and wiped out the pillaging nordic vikings as the mainland settlements grew into law-abiding, taxed and civilized/imperialized cities.
Just like it would perhaps feel more immersive to you that they should be wearing longsleeved armor in Windhelm and Winterhold, according to lore, Nord women are almost just as strong and brute as the burly men, certainly stronger than a female from any other race. So yeah irl obviously most men would be and WERE male, but in deep skyrim lore. I do wish the Nords were more comically bunga and tall like in the old games tho.
I've kind of made my own leveled list mod with the same idea, to cut the bandit mages down sharply until higher level and reduce the number of lady bandits as well until higher level. What I'd really like to do is somehow replace the majority of bandits with something else... even more Draugr... just because if you think about it for even a second, the dragonborn is a freaking CRYPTID MONSTER with the trail of bodies he/she leaves behind and even monsters like Lord Harkon probably don't match your "hero" bodycount... I accept but dont like that. I'm just not into mass slaughtering poor people...
And yeah, having every bandit group rank a mage raises questions? Can't this mage, with superior knowledge and education earn a living in a less risky way? Go to the college? Try to win the favour of a Jarl as a local wizard? Anyways, thank you for this mod. A must-have from now on. Kudos.
In terms of whether they can be used safely together or not, I cannot say for sure. If I was to just make a guess, I would assume there shouldn't be any problem, but you will have to test your way through in order to be certain they will work for your game.
So with my limited knowledge of Skyrim modding and xedit I went ahead and pulled both these mods up in xedit to see if they conflict (conflicts are red).
This mod only touches the Leveled NPCs. It changes the type from magic to melee and that is it. I didn't see anything about items in the edits so I think those are just randomly put in each bandits inventory.
For MLU the Leveled NPCs section wasn't even touched. It only sets the level for Zones. In any case I didn't see any red text between the two mods in xedit.
I also loaded up my game and traveled to Halted Stream Camp. There were no magic wielding bandits outside or inside the camp and they were all still the appropriate level for MLU.
That's about all I know for how to see if two mods need a patch. If someone has a good link to a tutorial I would appreciate it!