Installed some new mods last night and tried them out today. Initial impressions:
Better Vampires — Fucking awesome. I really wish I had installed this at the beginning of my Dawnguard playthrough, because it makes you feel more powerful being a vampire, but it also adds more downsides. But maybe you're like me and you don't
want to have extra downsides — well the best part about this mod is that you can turn basically any of the changes on/off in the MCM (requires SkyUI), so you get to completely customize the mod to suit your needs. I would almost call this an essential mod if you choose to play as a vampire.
Royal Bloodline — Another great vampire mod that makes the Vampire Lord perk tree way better. It also gives you Lord Harkon's royal armor while in Vampire Lord form (after you unlock the Royal Bloodline perk), for extra badassery, and it adds some extra stuff to Harkon's bedroom so you can kinda make it your home (I treat it as my vacation home lol). And it
also includes a fix for the Serana bug that makes your Vampire Lord's nuke do way less damage than it should. The author of Better Vampires even made a compatibility patch to make the two mods work together.
Daedra of Coldharbour —
Another really sweet vampire mod. This one gives you a couple cool new destruction spells, but the main focus is that it adds some
awesome daedra summons. The summons are only available to vampires, and it just fits perfectly with my character's lore because I was a powerful mage of the College before turning down the dark path of vampirism. It only makes sense that I should gain some powerful new daedric spells now that I went full Voldemort.
Apocalypse (Magic of Skyrim) — The most popular magic mod on Nexus; I figured I had to give it a try since I'm a mage. It's pretty cool. I definitely prefer
Forgotten Magic Redone due to its inclusion of level-up perks for each spell. Apocalypse just adds a ton of spells, some are neat, but I find most of them to be kinda forgettable. I'll keep it, but I'll mostly be sticking to my Forgotten Magic spells because they're much more rewarding to use.
*Edit - I forgot one!
Immersive Patrols — Awesome mod! Immediately after installing this and loading up my game I found myself in the middle of a big Stormcloak vs Imperial battle, while also getting ambushed by a Dawnguard patrol. Later down the road I got attacked by a dragon, a group of vampires, and an Imperial patrol all at the same time. Between those big showdowns I was attacked by a Thalmor patrol, an assassin, several Dawnguard patrols, and several Imperial patrols (I was between Windhelm and Whiterun). Combined with Better Vampires (which provides additional vampire hunter patrols that seek you out) and Royal Bloodline, it was an absolute blast slaughtering hordes of enemies as a Vampire Lord. I
highly recommend this mod for everyone. It makes the roads feel much more alive.