v1.4.0 Fists now count as blunt weapons and the mod is esl-ified. Note that updating to v1.4.0 requires a new game. SPID expansion patches are available as a separate download here, make sure to redownload them if updating because they have also updated.
***Know Your Enemy 2 has been released. I consider it the successor to this mod, and it has a number of advances. Future development of this mod is not stopped, but I will likely focus my efforts on KYE2 ***
Please post below any thoughts, questions or concerns. I try to maintain an active (and friendly) presence in the comments :-)
Thanks for your downloads, comments and endorsements.
Those specter undead in Meridia temple are not classified as ghost despite leaving ghostly remain, I can kill those specter with a steel dagger, also I'm not sure if armor flesh spell like oak and stone flesh are affected by this mod
Thanks for the heads up about the specters, it means they are probably missing the vanilla ghost keyword, there might be a patch to correct this somewhere, possibly USSEP?
I got USSEP, unless the change from USSEP got overwritten by other mod that I have, which I doubt since I didn't have any other mod that modify specifically specter
In wiki the corrupted shade death item are bone meal and they sound like skeleton, I think it's one of those lazy vanilla game design that just modify skeleton to look like ghost, but are actually skeleton, even if it float with no leg
Yes, I think you're right. Vanilla is super unreliable with how it uses the ghost keyword, mostly because I think the keyword is used to trigger specific NPC dialogue responses and this is not relevant to the specters so they were not given the keyword. Sounds like USSEP doesn't address it either.
KYE1 did address this issue, but KYE2 has a "lighter touch" approach, so I'm going to leave it as is.
Working fine so far, fantastic actually, frostbite spider in bleak fall barrow forced me to take a mace from bandit, use that fireball scroll in bleak fall barrow, and made me use that paralytic poison along with that scroll only to find out I can't actually poison the spider, that fight was pretty satisfying, and arrow feel like scratching it's itch instead too, and had to axe my way out of those draugr too
Also with the know your armor trait, it seems to display it's trait in players magic effect section that show fire resistance when wearing leather armor, so I was wondering if it work the same when I become a werewolf or vampire, does werewolf and vampire trait strength and weakness show in magic effect section too? I would like to see that since inspect power can only target other and not self, and book about those trait and exclusive to dungeon loot
And about those book, how's it's interaction when player became vampire or werewolf? Does those insight effect provided by those book apply to player? Does it make it so enemy will suddenly be able to deal more damage to vampire/werewolf player because the player read those book?
For vampires and werewolves, I think you do get the effects, but they might now show in your active effects list. Its so long since I've done a vamp/wolf playthrough that I can't really remember.
The book effects only apply to the players outgoing damage, so they won't let NPCs deal more damage to the player when the player is in werewolf form etc.
As long as SKSE works, this mod should work. To be honest, its so long since I've worked on this (it was superceded bye kye2 a while ago) I can't actually remember why it needs SKSE. There's no MCM, and the scripts looks like vanilla functions (though maybe not), so I'm not sure exactly where.
Well I'll be the guinea pig and try it on latest version then, I prefer this over KYE 2 because this one have immunity and it seems to be a lot less generic, like only animal in KYE 2 compare to having furred, aquatic, big, fat, even brittle.
So with KYE, I can just learn and memorize about strength and weakness of traits instead of specific enemy and make rough guess work by looking at appearance of enemy, also the immunity make it mandatory to know your enemy instead of brute forcing with pure power in KYE 2. After all, one of the reason I use this is because of ghost, and now I can get screwed over by ghost, go get ghost weapon or learn magic, and get my revenge.
The only thing that bug me is that inspect power exist, I don't think it's necessary, it would be better to just have player learn by trail and error, or find those book in this mod to learn about quirks of those trait
Sounds good. I agree with your take. KYE2 has the same polished ethos as skyrim, but KYE1 has more of the jank of Oblivion/morrowind, so if you like that KYE1 is probably more your thing. A major issue for me though is that KYE1's complexity under the hood makes balancing and updating it a real hassle, KYE2 is easier to manage.
Should be fine with sacrosanct. Let sacrosanct overwrite KYE, and you'll just get the combined effects of both.
The mod page for KYE2 basically starts with a summary of the differences:
Sixteen damage types: The classic types of blade, axe, blunt, fire, frost, shock, poison and disease remain. Bows are now split into regular bows and crossbows. New damage types include fists, shield bashes, sneak attacks, sun, drain, and illusion.
Configurable difficulty: The MCM lets you choose from 4 levels of effect intensity at any time, magical and physical effects can be configured separately.
A simplified experience: There are no traits, no hidden books, and very few weaknesses. Most enemies fall into one of a small number of categories. Resistances come in only two tiers, "resistances" and "strong resistances".
A better inspect power: The player can inspect creatures at close range to learn their resistances. In the MCM you can activate numerical effect descriptions (e.g. "50% resistant" instead of "highly resistant") or make only dead bodies inspectable.
Finely balanced: All damage types are equally viable, with imbalances in the vanilla game accounted for. Most damage types pair well together for wide coverage.
Upgrading mid-game is probably fine, but make a backup save just to be safe.
Poggers, many thanks. Seems kind of a pity that there are less weaknesses. Shield bashes seem kind of a niche damage type, unless it includes weapon block bashes
Meh, weaknesses basically trivialize the game if you learn them. Skyrim's plenty easy as it is, especially at high levels. Shield bashes should include weapon bashes, they are basically a pseudo blunt weapon.
You'll get both. From that mod Ghosts take 50% less damage from physical weaponry, from KYE they take no damage from most weapons. 0.5*0 = 0, so they will end up taking no damage from most weapons, and half damage from those KYE counts as an exception.
This is a damn good mod, man. Makes which weapon I use and which spell I use actually matter. Actually needing to have situational awareness makes the combat much more interesting. Thanks for the tweaks!
This gets asked once or twice a year. There's a couple of reasons: (1) balance; there are plenty of enemies that are weak (or not resistant) to blunt already (e.g. dwarven machines). If undead are added to this list, blunt weapons are just amazing and things like axes have no reason to be used. So something has to resist blunt. (2) Lore/immersion/plausibility. Undead being weak to blunt is not part of TES lore, even going back through earlier games. Moreover, TES games don't even have a paladin class. The closest is the crusader, which uses blunt weapons, bladed weapons, and restoration spells, which as a trio will handle undead fine. I think the trope of blunt being effective against the undead comes from D&D, and to be honest I don't find it very plausible. Undead creatures are magically animated lumps of meat. If you break a few ribs with a blunt blow they don't care. Instead you need to dismember them, and axes are best for that.
Vigilants of Stendarr use maces. Draugr have a specific killmove animation that involves smashing in their faces with a mace. Skeletons and draugr are rigid and cold so they should smash from being brittle. The trope of maces smashing skeletons and undead is familiar and would make sense to most people who have played other games like D&D or WoW.
I admire your persistence! OK: > The vigilants of stendarr target daedra, not the undead (though they don't like vampires for sure). Daedra are perfectly vulnerable to blunt weapons. > I can't find this draugr specific killmove (it's not listed here). > Skeletons are weak to blunt, its draugr that resist blunt. > Yes, as I said, I think the blunt vs undead trope comes from D&D, it may well be in other games too, but it doesn't seem to fit in TES lore. Moreover, none of these address the balance issue which I think is important. That said, if you don't like it, it's just a single value edit in xEdit to change the resistance into a neutral damage or a weakness. Just look up the undead trait (its a perk) and edit the relevant value.
Vigilants are the equivalent to paladins, obviously. The killmove exists for maces and axes against draugr, it's even in the Skyrim gameplay trailer. Also undead should be weak to fire. A lot of these resistances seem random without much thought put into them. Spriggans resist maces because? Trolls get -50% fire resistance but also get (fat) +50 fire resist? Most enemies resist arrows so that style of gameplay is broken completely too. Oh well, good attempt.
Hey man, if this is not the mod for you that's fine, there are a few other resistance overhauls to pick from, and you don't need to use any at all. But as one more round of responses to your comments. > I really don't think the vigilants are paladins, they are vigilants. They invest in (among other things) sneak, light armor and alteration. None of which are very paladin'y. > I did a bit more digging about the killmove, and I think it's "collarbone crush" but as far as I can tell it is not enemy specific. > Undead being weak to fire was also reduced for balance. Fire is overwhelmingly OP in vanilla, and frost near useless, KYE rebalances them. If you go to the optional files on the original (patcher) version of the mod there's a pdf explaining how the mod was balanced in more detail. > Many traits do cancel out, others stack together, just part of how the mod works. Frost trolls are also frost elemental, so remain weak to fire. > Like fire, arrows are super OP in vanilla. To avoid the classic stealth archer attractor KYE nerfs arrows quite a bit, bringing them in line with other weapon types. The whole point of KYE is that using a single weapon is not a good idea, so if you want to be a pure archer you should not use it. I hope this helps.
Just coming back from playing Shadow of Mordor and I absolutely love weakness and resistance system in that game and just thinking if only Skyrim did that, Too. Thanks for making my wish come true, Man!
Man I've been using Know Your Enemy since like 2018 in Skyrim LE and there wasn't any load order without it since. One of my favorite mods, thank you for the redux version and patches!
405 comments
*** Know Your Enemy 2 has been released. I consider it the successor to this mod, and it has a number of advances. Future development of this mod is not stopped, but I will likely focus my efforts on KYE2 ***
Please post below any thoughts, questions or concerns. I try to maintain an active (and friendly) presence in the comments :-)
Thanks for your downloads, comments and endorsements.
The flesh spells are not affected by KYE2.
In wiki the corrupted shade death item are bone meal and they sound like skeleton, I think it's one of those lazy vanilla game design that just modify skeleton to look like ghost, but are actually skeleton, even if it float with no leg
KYE1 did address this issue, but KYE2 has a "lighter touch" approach, so I'm going to leave it as is.
Also with the know your armor trait, it seems to display it's trait in players magic effect section that show fire resistance when wearing leather armor, so I was wondering if it work the same when I become a werewolf or vampire, does werewolf and vampire trait strength and weakness show in magic effect section too? I would like to see that since inspect power can only target other and not self, and book about those trait and exclusive to dungeon loot
And about those book, how's it's interaction when player became vampire or werewolf? Does those insight effect provided by those book apply to player? Does it make it so enemy will suddenly be able to deal more damage to vampire/werewolf player because the player read those book?
For vampires and werewolves, I think you do get the effects, but they might now show in your active effects list. Its so long since I've done a vamp/wolf playthrough that I can't really remember.
The book effects only apply to the players outgoing damage, so they won't let NPCs deal more damage to the player when the player is in werewolf form etc.
By the way what's the skse requirement for? Does it make it incompatible with latest Skyrim version?
So with KYE, I can just learn and memorize about strength and weakness of traits instead of specific enemy and make rough guess work by looking at appearance of enemy, also the immunity make it mandatory to know your enemy instead of brute forcing with pure power in KYE 2. After all, one of the reason I use this is because of ghost, and now I can get screwed over by ghost, go get ghost weapon or learn magic, and get my revenge.
The only thing that bug me is that inspect power exist, I don't think it's necessary, it would be better to just have player learn by trail and error, or find those book in this mod to learn about quirks of those trait
Also how's it's interaction with sacrosanct?
Should be fine with sacrosanct. Let sacrosanct overwrite KYE, and you'll just get the combined effects of both.
I'll let sacrosanct overwrite, thanks for the fist update too
Upgrading mid-game is probably fine, but make a backup save just to be safe.
I play this mod along CACO, is there any patch existing to get the undead poisons from CACO working ?
> The vigilants of stendarr target daedra, not the undead (though they don't like vampires for sure). Daedra are perfectly vulnerable to blunt weapons.
> I can't find this draugr specific killmove (it's not listed here).
> Skeletons are weak to blunt, its draugr that resist blunt.
> Yes, as I said, I think the blunt vs undead trope comes from D&D, it may well be in other games too, but it doesn't seem to fit in TES lore.
Moreover, none of these address the balance issue which I think is important. That said, if you don't like it, it's just a single value edit in xEdit to change the resistance into a neutral damage or a weakness. Just look up the undead trait (its a perk) and edit the relevant value.
> I really don't think the vigilants are paladins, they are vigilants. They invest in (among other things) sneak, light armor and alteration. None of which are very paladin'y.
> I did a bit more digging about the killmove, and I think it's "collarbone crush" but as far as I can tell it is not enemy specific.
> Undead being weak to fire was also reduced for balance. Fire is overwhelmingly OP in vanilla, and frost near useless, KYE rebalances them. If you go to the optional files on the original (patcher) version of the mod there's a pdf explaining how the mod was balanced in more detail.
> Many traits do cancel out, others stack together, just part of how the mod works. Frost trolls are also frost elemental, so remain weak to fire.
> Like fire, arrows are super OP in vanilla. To avoid the classic stealth archer attractor KYE nerfs arrows quite a bit, bringing them in line with other weapon types. The whole point of KYE is that using a single weapon is not a good idea, so if you want to be a pure archer you should not use it.
I hope this helps.