Dragon War - A Dragon Overhaul is a comprehensive overhaul for Dragons designed to give a breath of fresh air to the most important enemies of Skyrim. Dragon War makes dragons much, much harder than vanilla and expands their variety in a lore-friendly way.
Other user's assetsSome assets in this file belong to other authors. You will need to seek permission from these authors before you can use their assets
Upload permissionYou can upload this file to other sites but you must credit me as the creator of the file
Modification permissionYou are allowed to modify my files and release bug fixes or improve on the features so long as you credit me as the original creator
Conversion permissionYou can convert this file to work with other games as long as you credit me as the creator of the file
Asset use permissionYou are allowed to use the assets in this file without permission as long as you credit me
Asset use permission in mods/files that are being soldYou are not allowed to use assets from this file in any mods/files that are being sold, for money, on Steam Workshop or other platforms
Asset use permission in mods/files that earn donation pointsYou are allowed to earn Donation Points for your mods if they use my assets
Author notes
This author has not provided any additional notes regarding file permissions
File credits
Isoku for Deadly Spell Impacts textures; Jay093 for poison sounds; yousukeve for Fiery, Glacial, Icewing, Mystic, Radiance, Snow, Sting, Supreme Dragons; Versispellis and opusGlass for Glacial Dragon glow map; Darenii for cold fire gradients.
Fixed an issue where Dragons could obtain shouts they shouldn't have.
Version 3.2
Fixed an issue where Dragons continued to use the same shout over and over. Doing that, I've also made Dragons have individual cooldowns for each shout.
Alduin and Skeletal Dragons don't trigger Health Injury anymore.
Version 3.1.4
Fixed Storm Shouts ignoring resistances.
Version 3.1.3
Hazards have been reworked. They now deal 3 damage per 10 seconds, doubled if the it's spawned from long range Shouts (i.e. Fireball). Fire, Poison, Sun and Coldfire hazards deal take extra damage over time.
Coldfire assets and shader have been slightly changed.
Storm Shouts area of effects has been slightly increased.
Tooltips have been improved.
Renamed Plague Breath into Poison Breath.
Fixed a few keywords on hazards and Storm Shouts.
Fixed Solar Breath dealing way more damage than intended.
Poison Shouts have been reworked, excluding Poison Breath. They now instantly deal damage instead of putting a DoT on the player.
Version 3.1.2
Hazards limit has been reduced.
Hazards damage has been reduced, but now will be applied every time you step on them.
Fixed Shock Hazards instant kill the player.
Version 3.1.1
Fixed an oversight on Dragon Combat Styles.
Version 3.1.0
In preparation for an add-on that I’m planning to release, the following changes have been made:
Removed Health and Magicka Injuries.
Removed Damage Magicka Weakness.
Dragons are again getting forced to stay on land at 25% or less Health.
Dragons are more likely to land and stay longer on ground.
Changed a few Game Settings.
In preparation for Dragon Hunting, a mod that I’m gonna release later today, the following changes have been made:
Removed Esbern’s Potion changes
Removed Dragonslayer’s Blessing changes
The following changes have been made to Dragons:
Alduin again uses Fire and Frost Shouts, as vanilla.
Alduin now has 100% Fire and Frost Resistance.
Vulthuryol again uses Fire Shouts, as vanilla.
Fixed a vanilla issue where Dragons were not using the correct animation when using certain Shouts.
Version 3.0.6
Fixed Stagger not working with Blade and Blunt installed.
Version 3.0.5
Fixed a bug where Dragons could cast Storm Shouts in interiors.
Fixed Dragon Infusion tooltip.
Rasp now correctly reduces Stormcrown's Shouts effectiveness.
Lowered min. level of Dragons. As a consequence, Main Quest is easier than before.
Increased min. level to encounter highest level Dragons.
Reduced Unarmed Damage of Dragons.
Removed Stagger Resistance (it was useless).
Version 3.0.4
Storm Shouts Explosion AoE is reduced to vanilla values.
Storm Shouts Explosion visuals for Bilious Blight, Cold Storm, Meteor Storm and Radiant Storm have been changed.
Radiant Storm now gets correctly dispelled when Clear Skies is used.
Version 3.0.3
Fixed Intro, again.
Landing and Takeoff Stagger has been reduced. If an ally Dragon is nearby, the player will be unaffected, and no longer triggers followers.
Armor Rating has been reduced to 300.
Added 25% Magic Resistance.
Increased Dragon attributes to help dragons not die faster than they should against a high level character.
Increased Hovering Time, Perch Time and Min. Ground Time.
Reduced Max. Ground Time.
Made tweaks to Shouts Damage.
Made some tweak to Drain Vitality visual effects.
Unrelenting Force now deals 50 Magic Damage and no longer ragdoll the player.
Reduced Explosion AoE and removed Stagger from Storm Shouts projectiles.
Reduced Hazard Lifetime, added a limit and increased damage.
Hazards no longer attach to the player at impact.
Dragon Lairs difficulty has been slightly reduced.
Removed unused records.
Version 3.0.2
Fixed Meteor Storm dealing damage during the intro at Helgen.
Reworded the text into a loading screen to be more consistent with vanilla.
Version 3.0.1
Fixed missing a few missing gradients for Poison shouts.
Version 3.0
Reworked almost the whole mod, including abilities, effects, meshes etc. Please re-read the description.
A FOMOD with all the patches is now available.
LOTD Patch has been added.
Version 2.1.9
Removed injected records to fix a bug with latest Infinite Dragon Variants version.
Version 2.1.8
Fixed incorrect description for Esbern's Potion.
Added support for Infinite Dragon Variants.
Variants plugin is now obsolete. If you want more dragon variants, check my new mod, Infinite Dragon Variants!
Updated Wyrmstooth Patch for 2.1.8.
Updated Reduced Difficulty for 2.1.8.
Version 2.1.7
Fixed Durnehviir Stagger values.
Fixed missing No Absorb flag to landing damage and tail stagger.
When dragons fly off, nearby actors are staggered.
When jumping, landing damage and tail stagger don't affect you anymore.
Version 2.1.6
Fixed Blizzard, Bilious Blight and Glacial Storm duration, now they correctly last 30 seconds.
Version 2.1.5
Reduced Meteor Storm, Blizzard, Storm Call, Bilious Blight, Auriel Punishment and Glacial Storm duration to 30 seconds.
Fixed Blizzard, Bilious Blight and Glacial Storm area of effect.
Improved Marked for Death hit shader.
Version 2.1.4
Changed how land damage works. Now it has less range and scales with the level of the dragon, and is resisted by your Armor Rating.
Version 2.1.3
Fixed missing stagger record to Blizzard, Bilious Blight and Glacial Storm.
Fixed missing lightning bolt to Storm Call.
Reduced area of Blizzard, Bilious Blight and Glacial Storm.
Increased area of Auriel Punishment, Meteor Storm and Storm Call.
Version 2.1.2
Bilious Blight was changed to work like Blizzard and Glacial Storm. Duration increased to 60 seconds.
Reverted Skeletal Dragon speed to vanilla value.
Dragons’ flight radius was reduced. This may prevent being ignored by dragons too often. Alduin was left vanilla to avoid problems with the main quest.
Fixed bite bleeding not working.
Reverted stagger to vanilla. This is done to let Blade & Blunt 2 manage it, so if you have it installed, the stagger has 5 seconds of cooldown.
Stagger values are rebalanced.
Version 2.1.1
Improved Chaos, Cold and Sun gradients.
Improved Audio Overhaul for Skyrim patch.
Version 2.1
Dragons’ stats are changed. They now have only one immunity and one weakness. Armor Rating and Unarmed damage scale with their level. Health was also rebalanced.
Dragons receive 25% less damage from every source. This bonus is doubled if they are not in combat. This can be negated by Dragonrend.
Removed both Injuries added in previous updates. You can’t force a dragon to land or to not shout if they have no stamina\magicka anymore.
Two new types of dragon are introduced: Chaos and Cold. Chaos is exclusive to Alduin, and his shouts have a 50% chance to deal Fire, Frost or Shock damage. Cold Dragons instead, deal frost damage that burns and slows the target.
Four new dragons were added.
New shouts were made available for dragons, such as Meteor Storm, Storm Call, Blizzard and so on.
Cyclone and Disarm were removed.
Hazards from breaths and shouts like Fireball are different. The former are smaller and last longer, dealing less damage, the latter instead, are bigger and last shorter, dealing more damage.
Marked for Death reduces Armor Rating by 300 and Magic Resistance by 50%, for 30 seconds. It’s now possible to absorb it but not to resist.
It’s now possible to resist, with Magic Resist, and absorb Drain Vitality.
Unrelenting Force ragdoll is resisted if you have Force without Effort meditation.
Vanilla Blood FX was restored.
Dragons don’t see you from another world anymore.
Shock and Poison dragon sounds reverted to previous version, as the new ones were not that good.
Projectiles of shouts like Fireball are now much bigger than before.
Dragon Infusion and Dragonslayer’s Blessing were improved. The former gives a permanent 25% damage reduction from every dragon attack and the latter gives 25% extra critical chance vs. dragons.
Wards were fixed. To protect from dragon breaths, you now need to use a ward of appropriate level.
Death Items were improved to make the rewards a bit more interesting.
Dragon movements were improved by 25%.
Dragons can only be staggered if they are shouting, if you use Dragonrend or Unrelenting Force, or if you have Force without Effort meditation.
Animation files were removed.
Dragon Animation Replace patch was removed.
Dragons’ tail stagger has more range.
Dragons inflict bleed damage if they hit you with a bite. It's blockable with a shield or a weapon.
Dragons deal damage to nearby actors when they land.
Durnehviir enhances his summons with extra Armor Rating, Magic Resistance and Health, Magicka and Stamina.
Durnehviir summons were made stronger like ones you can summon using Mysticism - A Magic Overhaul.
Updated Audio Overhaul for Skyrim patch.
Updated Deadly Spells Impact patch.
Updated Deiform Alduin Particle Light patch.
Updated Durnehviir Resurrected patch.
Updated Wyrmstooth patch.
Version 2.0
Encounters, Stats and Damage have been adjusted to be much more balanced, but still difficult.
Wards Effectiveness bonus has been removed.
NPCs' damage has been reverted to vanilla value.
A Loading Screen text has been edited for consistency.
Dragonrend reduces stats by 50% instead of 25%, again.
Dragons Spawn Time has been reverted to vanilla value.
Shock and Poison Breath have now a proper "breath sound".
Tail and Wings Attacks don't deplete Stamina anymore. This caused the Alduin’s Bane bug, which has now been fixed.
Wyrmstooth patch has been rewritten. Suggested level to start the quest is now around 15~20.
Other patches has been updated too, except for Audio Overhaul for Skyrim, which will be done as soon as possible.
Encounter Tweaks plugin is discontinued.
Version 1.3.1
Fixed an issue with new injuries. Now they work as intended.
Version 1.3
Dragons spawn every 7 days instead of 3.
Fixed some wrong values in Race records.
Health, Magicka and Stamina rebalanced to reflect new changes.
Tail and Wing attacks are flagged as Power Attack. This means that both use Stamina.
Reverted range changes to Breaths.
Removed Mouth VFX, as it randomly removes itself in combat.
When Dragon's Magicka depletes, they can’t use their Voice until they recover at least 50% of their points.
When Dragon's Stamina falls under 10%, they can't fly until they recover at least 50% of their points. Flying uses 5 Stamina per second.
Frost and Shock Shouts damage Stamina and Magicka by 100% instead of 50%.
Extra damage to Skuldafn Dragons removed.
Made some changes to the AI.
Version 1.2
Fixed invincible Vuljotnaak.
Raised Level Modifier of Water Stone's Dragon fight to Hard.
A VFX is added to dragons' mouth when they use a shout. Serpentine Dragon excluded, for now.
Bites deal always 100% damage, even while affected by Dragonrend.
Dragonrend's weaken effect lowered to 25% from 50%.
Dragon Breaths have 33% more range.
Improved Sun Breath mesh.
Fixed missing slow effect on Ice Storm shout.
Wards effectivness on shouts lowered by 50%.
Removed MQKillDragonScript. Now it's natively compatible with everything that edits it.
Dragon War - Encounter Tweaks 1.0.1
Forwarded an USSEP fix.
Raised Level Modifier of Water Stone's Dragon fight to Very Hard.
Version 1.1.1
Improved AI.
Fixed Dragons using only bomb-shouts.
Version 1.1
Increased all dragons' statistics.
Removed Disarm from Ancient Dragons and unique ones. Instead, it is exclusive of Shock Dragons (Revered+).
Added Cyclone to Poison Dragons (Serpentine+).
Renamed the Radiant Dragon in Radiance Dragon.
Removed Hornless Skeleton.
Patches updated, and FOMOD removed.
Version 1.0.6
NPCs spells deal 75% less damage, same as physical damage.
Inhale Animation speed increased by 30%.
Ground Attack Chance increased.
Dragons can easily detect you if you don't invest in Sneak.
Changed path for blood shaders, now compatible with Dirt & Blood Retextures.
Mound Dragons are immune to damage while resurrecting.
Version 1.0.5
Improved Radiant Dragon model.
Dragons bleed again, and it's now visually pleasant to see. Thanks to jayserpa for their textures!
Fixed an issue with Alduin at Helgen, where he could kill the player if it stayed too much outside Helgen Keep.
Version 1.0.4
Fixed an issue with Mirmulnir, introduced in the previous version.
Skyrim Unbound Reborn patch updated.
Version 1.0.3
Fixed wrong Magicka value in Race records.
Fixed fomod installer, Deiform Alduin was missing. Thanks Umgak!
Dragons now hover less, but attacks will last more. Raised ground attack chance.
Wyrmstooth patch merged into main fomod.
Updated dragonactorscript to be as much as compatible, to avoid unintended effects with other mods. Version unchanged.
Version 1.0.2
Radiant (Sun) Dragon added. It will appear from Level 40.
Tweaked shouts explosions and projectiles.
Patch for Durnehviir Resurrected and Deiform Alduin (Eyes Light) now available.
Deadly Spell Impacts and Audio Overhaul for Skyrim patches updated.
Wyrmstooth Patch available.
Version 1.0.1
Fixed Blood (Shock) Dragon damage, was lower than expected.
Dragon War - A Dragon Overhaul doesn't require a new game, but must be installed before starting Dragon Rising.
In Dragon War, Dragons retain their vanilla resistances with a few exceptions such as Alduin, Durnehviir and Skeletal. Instead of a vanilla weaknesses, Dragons now have a unique secondary ability that combines new resistances and weaknesses.
Dragons - 300 Armor Rating, 25% Magic Resistance, up to 250% extra Unarmed Damage, 50% Critical Damage Resistance.
Fire Dragons - 100% Fire Resistance Frost Dragons - 100% Frost Resistance Shock Dragons - 100% Shock Resistance Poison Dragons - 100% Poison Resistance Sun Dragons - 100% Fire Resistance Coldfire Dragons - 100% Frost Resistance
When Dragons land and takeoff from ground, nearby actors get staggered, same as the ones that get hit by their Shout. Dragons can still be forced to stay grounded after losing most of their Health. Dragons can also infect you with a new disease called Rasp, which reduces the effectiveness of your Shouts. It is worth noting that Rasp is fully compatible with Survival Mode without a patch.
Dragons variety has been highly expanded. You can encounter new types of Dragons, which use new Shouts as Lightning Breath, Poison Breath and so on, based on their element. Therefore, it makes Dragons encounters more challenging. Higher the tier of a Dragon is, the strongest it is. I recommend to start Dragon Rising at level 10 and to install Diplomatic Dragons, to reduce early-game pressure after killing Mirmulnir.
Lv. 1 - Tier 1 Dragons - Breath and Long Range Shouts Lv. 12 - Tier 2 Dragons - Breath, Long Range, and Unrelenting Force Shouts Lv. 20 - Tier 3 Dragons - Breath, Long Range, Unrelenting Force and Storm Shouts Lv. 32 - Tier 4 Dragons - Breath, Long Range, Unrelenting Force, Storm and Drain Vitality Shouts Lv. 40 - Tier 5 Dragons - Breath, Long Range, Unrelenting Force, Storm and Drain Vitality Shouts Lv. 52 - Tier 6 Dragons - Breath, Long Range, Unrelenting Force, Storm and Drain Vitality Shouts
Dragons no longer drop armors and weapons; instead, they drop a sensible quantity of Bones, Scales, Gold and Gems to help with resource management.
If you are using Dragon War in combination with Locational Encounter Zones and Arena, Dragon Lairs will be significantly more challenging to clear. Some fixes and tweaks have also been implemented to enhance the overall experience of Dragon Lairs, including a fix for the Mount Anthor bug. Additionally, Dragons LODs and bleeding effects have been removed. If you wish to restore the bleeding effect, I recommend using the Just Blood mod. Dragon Stalking issue has also been fixed.
Compatibility
Dragon War does not work in combination with other dragon overhauls, even with a patch. Dragons balance is quite susceptible and anything with the same scope shouldn't be mixed. Texture mods are compatible out of the box. If you want to expand even more dragon variety, use Infinite Dragon Variants. If you want to use GoT Dragons, a patch is available here.
Give Feedback
