UESP Forums

Frostfall - Definitely get it, trust me. I was hesitant at first too, but it's a really excellent mod that adds a whole new and exciting mechanic.

Immersive Armors & Weapons - A sort of "compounding" mod that adds a whole treasure trove of new armors and weapons to the game. It's simply wonderful.

Cloaks of Skyrim - Self explanatory. Cloaks look great, but they're also really important for Frostfall.

UFO/Ultimate Follower Overhaul - Good mod if you like companions, but sometimes problematic. If you want a mod that adds one, all-around incredible companion, use Inigo, and forget UFO.

Wet And Cold - Adds subtle effects for snow accumulating on the player's body, or wetness after taking a dip in water. A minor element, but I personally think it adds a lot of realism.

aMidianBorn Textures - This mod (or, rather, set of mods) is incredible if you're looking for highly detailed armor and weapon retextures. Be warned, though, on low-end machines it might cause some performance drop.

Skyrim HD 2K - Retextures of, well, basically everything environmental. Incredible mod, but you should probably have an above-average machine to run it. It hampers FPS far more than aMidianBorn, otherwise.

SMIM/Static Mesh Improvement Mod - Excellent mod that alters static meshes of anything from barrels to chains in the game to be far more realistic, streamlined, and professional.

The 'Populated' Mods - Populates cities, roads, camps, etc. with more NPCs, making them seem like actual living places. Fantastic mod for realism, though it might (and that's a very uncertain might) hamper the CPU or RAM if they're sub-par. I don't really know for sure.

Climates of Tamriel - An interesting but essential weather overhaul, that just makes all weather... well, better.

RLO/Realistic Lighting Overhaul - Overhauls all lights, and the entire lighting system, making everything far more thematic and generally more atmospheric and realistic. Great mod, though is known to sometimes conflict with Climates of Tamriel (though, there may be compatibility patches out there nowadays?).

SkyUI & A Quality World Map - SkyUI is essential. It makes the UI actually good. There's really nothing else to be said, other than that this mod is not optional. A Quality World Map is a small mod that makes the world map far easier to use and look at, with more clear roads and less cloud blockage.

Enhanced Blood Textures - If you're a Tarantino fetishist like me, then you'll appreciate this mod. Skyrim's vanilla blood textures are... well, sub-par, to say the least. This mod actually makes them look like they've not only actually bled out of a person, but makes them so that they're not just vaguely red blurs on the ground or sword.