Gameplay Guide

How to play The Phoenix Flavour - Dragon’s Edition.

This guide highlights major gameplay mods included in The Phoenix Flavour - Dragon’s Edition, while also giving you some pointers on how to start your new adventures. I have tried to write as little information as I don’t want to spoil the content for you, but it is hard to do, so you have been warned.

Alternative Start and Ending

Right in the beginning of the game you can pick one of our character presets, which were made by me and some other list users.

Ralof or Hadvar allows us to skip the carriage drive and enter right into Helgen’s Keep with Ralof or Hadvar. In some way it isn’t an alternative start, but at the same time it is. What matters is this mod’s simplicity, which allows us to jump right into the action.

Then Choose Your Starting Skills makes it easier for us to define our character’s strong sides right at the beginning of the game by allocating our skill points and base stats according to what we are going to use the most (magic, hand to hand combat etc.).

End Times adds a bit of spice and action to the game as it will simply end it (immersively) if you don’t finish the game’s main quest line in 14 real life days, that means 336 real life hours. That should be enough to do many other things in between saving the world for the first time. There are many reasonings for it - for you to stop ignoring the main quest and so you can get some of the new quests which are locked behind the main quest line. Also consistence, because sooner or later there will be mentions of you being Dragonborn. Then it doesn’t make sense gameplay wise to ignore it, especially considering the fact that now Alduin is a real threat to the world. And don’t worry - the game won’t end if you finish the main quest. You can always enter into the mod’s MCM to see how much time you have left if you have forgotten about it. Be sure to remember.

Gameplay Overhauls

Overall:

  • Levelling is slower than in vanilla, but you receive more perk points as you level up.
  • Combat is more difficult than in vanilla, but feels more fair.
  • Like in vanilla, you are limited to one follower at a time (if we don’t count followers with their own unique AI like Inigo and Lucien).

If you want to go deeper, The Phoenix Flavour - Dragon’s Edition includes several Simon Magus and DeltaRider’s overhauls to core gameplay system, which greatly improve the experience, but at the same time stay as close to their origins as possible:

  • Aetherius - A Race Overhaul - Overhauls all racial powers to passive abilities (if we don’t count khajiit, who still have access to Night Eye, but have their own passive ability too), which fit their respective races well while being useful through all time.
  • Arena - An Encounter Zone Overhaul - Tiers dungeons according to enemy types to provide a sense of progression, so don’t be surprised if you decide to run onto vampires right in the beginning of the game and turn into a snack. Also levels enemies according to your level for you not to stumble upon the first level NPC, while being high level, while giving you some more higher level enemies to fight too.
  • Blade and Blunt - A Combat Overhaul - Adjusts the difficulty modifiers, slightly increasing incoming damage, while also capping elemental resistances to 75%, while also making it harder to stack too much armour. With those changes, combat will feel noticeably more difficult than vanilla to the point where you may be one-shot by certain enemy types. Stamina now also plays an important role in any fight as if you or your enemy run out of it, you will move and attack slower while being much more easy to be hit. Gives you an opportunity to think about when to strike, because if you or your enemy strikes when the other one power attacks, draws a bow or casts a spell, be ready to take or make a good chunk of damage. Also if you are playing with a one handed weapon, the mod allows you to parry by blocking with a weapon, what doubles your block effectiveness for one second. Targets who attack you during this window suffer a light stagger.
  • Adamant - A Perk Overhaul - Some key features include spells and perks that finally scale and remain strong options in the late game, shouts that will also scale in strength based on your Speech level and advance your Speech skill, removal of Arcane Blacksmith perk and its availability for payer right from the beginning, splitting the smithing perk tree into a crafting and a tempering branch and perks that activate when wearing a full set of heavy or light armor work with only three pieces worn (no need for a helmet).
  • Hand To Hand - An Adamant Addon - Merges Lockpicking and Pickpocketing into a single skill and adds a new perk tree for Hand to Hand combat. Merging Lockpicking and Pickpocketing into a single tree improves thief gameplay by reducing the number of non-combat skills that players need to invest in. It also creates space to add a new, fully integrated perk tree for Hand to Hand. This allows for full support for unarmed combat as a legitimate and competitive gameplay style, while also untethering unarmed from either light or heavy armor.
  • Mundus - A Standing Stone Overhaul - Greater powers given by some of the stones have been removed in favour of passive abilities that will define and support various builds. The more powerful stones often have downsides, in order to give you a choice between building around these downsides in exchange for powerful buffs or avoiding these downsides in exchange for more modest buffs. Additionally, Guardian Stones no longer provide experience bonuses, which often encouraged players not to trade them out for more interesting gameplay bonuses.
  • Apothecary - An Alchemy Overhaul - Significantly reduces the gold value of both player-created potions and generic potions while ensuring that the player still levels at a faster rate than vanilla. In addition, the mod rebalances generic potions so that their strongest and weakest variants match the potency of player-created potions. Finally, it removes several useless or poorly implemented effects in order to make room for more interesting new effects without adding new ingredients.
  • Thaumaturgy - An Enchanting Overhaul - Now most skill enchantments can only be placed on two items, reducing the massive power creep offered by armour enchantments. Magnitude values for fortifying many skills were extremely high in vanilla and have been significantly reduced (do you remember 50% magicka regeneration right from the beginning of the game?). New weakness enhancements can be put on weapons to allow spellswords to buff the damage of their spells and even poisons, which now can damage even draugr and automatons if their resistances are cut down. College robes with school-based enchantments have a unique enchantment that gives 25% cost reduction to level-appropriate spells from their specific school.
  • Pilgrim - A Religion Overhaul - After you pray at the shrine, you won’t get cured from any disease, but you will get a power to pray everywhere, not only near shrines. Like always, when you do so, you get unique power from the deity you were praying to, but a more unique one than those you get in vanilla. You can even take those powers further by obtaining two new perks in your Restoration or Conjuration tree.
  • Manbeast - A Werewolf Overhaul - Gain extra armour rating, unarmed damage, health, stamina and magic resistance as you level to ensure that being a werewolf is relevant at higher levels of play.
  • Scion - A Vampire Overhaul - Vampires were good enough in vanilla, but there was surely a room for improvement and fixing. Scion also scales your vampire lord form to be as relevant as the werewolf one.
  • Dragon War - A Dragon Overhaul - Dragons are enemies you shouldn’t take lightly. Now they are truly the main bosses of the game with all the changes to their stats and shouts, which even include some new tricks, which vanilla dragons weren’t capable of. The mod also introduces new different kinds of dragons and makes all types of dragons have resistances and weaknesses.
  • Forceful Tongue - Shouts Overhaul - Shouts scale, they don’t benefit from magic perks anymore, while actually being more useful in many situations other than just being our character’s gimmick.


Then there are some additional overhauls, which compliment these changes:

  • Timing is Everything - Adjusts some quests to start at a later time to improve their balance as some quests have been made harder.
  • Radiant Requirements - Modifies radiant quests so that they don’t send you to locations with dangerous enemies until your level is high enough.
  • Adamant Perks for NPCs - Adds some of the perks from our perk overhaul to a little amount of NPCs to make them stronger. No more unique strength from perks just for our player character. There is only 15% change of perks being added to NPC, so it shouldn’t be too hard for anyone.
  • Crossbow Integration - You will be able to see NPCs around Skyrim and Solstheim using different kinds of crossbows, while being able to use and craft them by yourself too. Enhanced Crossbows were renamed to Marksman’s Crossbows, they do 4 points of damage less than their standard crossbow equivalent, but ignore 50% of armour and do critical damage equal to their damage. Dwarven crossbows and all explosive bolts can only be crafted once the relevant Ancient Technology quests for the Dawnguard are completed or the reward for the quest Unfathomable Depths quest has been acquired. Dawnguard crossbows also deal bonus damage to vampires now like other Dawnguard’s weapons.
  • Smart NPC Potions - Finally bandits, mages and assassins will also have an option to have and use some potions. And not just healing potions, which they already use in vanilla to, to make our lives a little bit harder.
  • No Lockpicking - The end of the annoying lockpicking game. Now your actual lockpicking skill is used to pick a lock, which make the skill much more useful. Locks will break according to your skill too. For example, if you are a novice at lockpicking and you try to pick a novice lock, you will have only 40% chance to break a lockpick. That’s the easiest lock you can pick, so that is pretty fair for both balance and roleplay. But if you as total rookie will try to pick a master lock, be prepared to always lose at least 15 lockpicks. Sounds reasonable for me, maybe you should lose even more. And that also works in other way - if you are a master thief (your lockpicking skill is big enough), you will get only 40% chance to break a lockpick on almost any chest.
  • Reading Is Good - Makes us become smarter in an immersive way by giving us a permanent boost to a levelling speed in a skill, which we have read about.
  • Party Damage Control - If you have 3 or more members inside your party, be ready that you all will deal much less damage than before. For example, if you have 3 members in your party (you + 2 people), you all will deal for 30% less physical damage, if there are 4 members - for 60% less physical damage and so on. A must have for balance.
  • Open World Loot - Rebalance of Skyrim’s loot system. It attempts to maintain the same open world feel of Skyrim while adjusting the levels certain items appear and makes it so Daedric and other special weapons must be acquired from special quests only. No longer will iron equipment be completely irrelevant in a matter of a few hours.
  • Simple Smithing Overhaul - Simply makes all recipes consistent with each other. I also used it to patch our armour and weapons mods’ recipes.
  • Honed Metal - You are a person, who is destined to save the world, but to even do that you have to become the best blacksmith and/or enchanter in Skyrim too to craft a decent equipment to rely on. This can’t be immersive for each and every Dragonborn, so let’s make NPCs take care of that, while introducing some disadvantages of getting gear with help of others such as their services being costly and taking time to complete.
  • C.O.I.N. - Coins of Interesting Natures - Draugr will stop stealing any septims around Skyrim and bringing them to crypts. But if we serious, there are many different coins around Skyrim now in places, where septims didn’t make any sense, which will then be converted to their value in septims, when you pick them up.
  • Vampire Feeding Tweaks - We were too polite with people. But not any more as now you will be able to bite and feast both in combat, by being sneaky if you are powerful enough and possibly by seeking blood of already deceased ones. Just press the activation button on your enemies, when these scenarios are met and when your weapon is unsheathed.

New Mechanics

  • Jumping attacks - Feel free to jump and swing, cast, shoot etc. all times.
  • Dodging - Spend some stamina to be able to dodge attack of your enemies while moving. Mouse 4 button is chosen by default for dodging.

If you want to change the button for dodging, do the following:

  1. Press on SKELETON & ANIMATIONS EXTENDED separator.
  2. Double click on TK Dodge RE mod.
  3. Choose INI files tab.
  4. Press on SKSE\Plugins\TK Dodge RE.ini.
  5. In line 5, change DodgeHotkey parameter according to instructions found here after = sign.

Because of some kind of Skyrim’s oddities, for mouse buttons each of them there is actually for one unit smaller than in any other game or program. For example, Mouse 4 button is actually Mouse 3 button according to the Creation Kit’s documentation. Take that into consideration.

  1. Press on Save button.
  • Crouch sliding - While sprinting, you can press Left Ctrl button to perform crouch slide. Useful, when you need to hide as fast as possible or get to some kind of barrier between you and enemy while dodging projectiles.
  • Interacting with different terrain - Press ; button, then seek and interact with floating white orbs in dungeons to traverse through different obstacles on your way. Press the same button again to toggle orbs off (just for visuals, you will still be able to do all the action if you can guess where the markers are placed).
  • Knocking - Knock on locked doors by activating them. Good for roleplaying and also useful.
  • Claiming strongholds - Claim several outposts for the faction you support to keep hostile enemies from coming back making Skyrim a safer place.
  • Upgraded horses - Realistic (faster) horse speed and better handling for horse riding. Increased base stamina of all horses.
  • Call your horse, put items in sachet - Call your horse after fights by pressing H button, hold H button and then release it to open your horse’s inventory.
  • Control your followers and/or summons, resurrected enemies behaviour - Use ' button to open a special menu for followers and/or summons to be able to make them wait or teleport them to you. Feel free to to do the same things and also dismiss and equip items to your summons and resurrected minions by simply activating them.
  • Loot while riding on horse - Loot as always by pressing E button. Hold E button to dismount.
  • Paragliding - Be sure to travel around Falkreath. Something interesting might happen. When you get the paraglider, toggle paraglider by pressing your activation key (E by default), while in the air. After finding and learning neat spell around the platform, use your shout key (Z by default) to fly higher. Paraglider can be used only in the third person.
  • New powers for Dragonborn - After finishing The Way of the Voice, you will unlock an interesting power, which gives you access to a completely new custom perk tree. You will be able to upgrade this power by shouting and killing dragons. Accessible by pressing Tab button and then by pressing ? button.
  • Respeccing - Buy Draught of Fate Unwound at Elgrim’s Elixirs in Riften to automatically refund all your perks upon consuming it.

Utility Tools and Quality of Life Additions

  • Toggable camera - Press F key to toggle between the first and the third person view.
  • Toggable compass - Press X key to turn it on and off when you need that.
  • Camera’s side - Change camera’s side by using your Mouse 5 key. If you don’t have a mouse with many buttons, feel free to change bindings in Smoothcam‘s mod configuration menu in Thirdperson tab.
  • Headtracking - Press your V key to disable or enable headtracking at any time.
  • Toggable headgear - Use Arrow Down button to toggle it off and on.
  • Even better map - Try to use the map in a place like Blackreach and you will be pleasantly surprised. Also try zooming it all way out and then in.
  • Add items from mods to your inventory - A mod, which makes it possible to test all items other mods have to offer inside their plugins. I have added it for people to know that there is an option like that and for your own testing purposes (can’t decide, which armour I would like to get more, let me see and then I will reload my earlier save). I hope you won’t use it for cheating.
  • Do not kill anyone accidentally - Mages in Skyrim suffer from their success as they can accidentally make friendly or neutral NPCs hostile towards themselves, while fighting with their enemies. Now you will do no damage to these NPCs by default. Press O (letter) to toggle friendly fire. If you disable friendly fire, allies will still tolerate you if you hit them, but mainly during combat.
  • Looting quickly - One of the best additions to Fallout 4 (FO4) was the looting menu, which appears right when you move your cursor over lootable item without need to open game’s full menu. This mod allows us to use this addition, but in Skyrim.
  • No fast travelling - By default fast travel is disabled, because it becomes much more interesting that way (you travel and discover much more) and there are plenty of ways to travel around - as in vanilla (horses, carriages, boats), paragliding, spells and another mean, which is tied to a quest (don’t want to spoil that). If you still aren’t sold, feel free to reenable it by disabling Disable Fast Travel SKSE - No Janky Map UI mod under the INTERFACE EXTENDED separator before starting your adventure.
  • Binding items - Now you can bind not just one item to one button, but much more. Feel free to check the mod to learn how to set it up.
  • Hiding quests - Gives you an option to hide a quest you will do later from your journal by using MCM.
  • No need to remember combinations on the claws any more - Just interact with the keyhole to have it automatically solve itself.
  • Forgetting your older spells - Forget spells you don’t use any more by going into the spells menu and pressing R button.
  • Automatically changing outfits according to different scenarios - For example, I use it to change my default gear to ordinary clothing with speech etc. enchantments for traders, when I am inside big cities. Be sure to check its MCM to activate it.
  • Stealing without accidents - Now you need to be crouched to see items, which aren’t the ones in containers.
  • Clairvoyance (Guiding Wisp now) - Clairvoyance, but much more useful. Just try it out (be sure that you have an active quest in your journal).
  • Animated shouts - Press your Right Alt key to disable or enable animated shouts at any time.
  • Appreciation to followers - Allows you to thank your companions for being with you during hard times. Just tell them that you are glad they are helping you. The appreciation works in the other way too.
  • Horses for followers - All vanilla stables have a second horse for sale that you can buy from them when you have a vanilla follower. All buyable player horse are flagged as protected and behave cowardly.
  • Werewolves - Now there are much more of them than in vanilla Skyrim and they look pretty different from each other. And be accurate as now there is another way of becoming a werewolf, which you will maybe discover after fighting with them.
  • Enemies during College of Winterhold quest line - Now you will actually need magic to beat College of Winterhold. You have been warned. Conjured minions, enhanced weapons, illusion, of course, destruction magic, shouts. Good, old steel isn’t as reliable now.
  • Hjerim without joining the war - It is enough to just take the care of the Butcher.
  • Revert back to your human form after feasting as werewolf (or vampire) - Just press Q button.
  • Sun can’t just kill you as a vampire - Now you can be safe from sun the same way as Serana by wearing any kind of head gear on you (circlets don’t count).

Anniversary Upgrade

Creation content available in the modlist:

  • Alternative Armors - Daedric Mail
  • Alternative Armors - Daedric Plate
  • Alternative Armors - Dragon Plate
  • Alternative Armors - Dragon Scale
  • Alternative Armors - Dwarven Mail
  • Alternative Armors - Dwarven Plate
  • Alternative Armors - Ebony Plate
  • Alternative Armors - Elven Hunter
  • Alternative Armors - Iron
  • Alternative Armors - Leather
  • Alternative Armors - Orcish Plate
  • Alternative Armors - Orcish Scaled
  • Alternative Armors - Silver
  • Alternative Armors - Stalhrim
  • Alternative Armors - Steel
  • Civil War Champions
  • Elite Crossbows
  • Expanded Crossbow Pack
  • Ghosts of the Tribunal
  • Netch Leather Armor
  • Nordic Jewelry
  • Rare Curios
  • The Cause
  • The Forgotten Seasons

I feel that I included some of the best creations available, which blend in well with the content we get from other mods. Unfortunately, there are also ones, which conflict with the already existing content (like Divine Crusader with Tate Taylor’s Knight of the North and Interesting NPCs) and can’t be added, also some, which are already available to us and even better quality (like Artifacts - The Ice Blade of the Monarch or Artifacts - The Breton Paladin), but if you believe that there are another hidden gems behind the remaining CC, feel free to share in the corresponding channels of feedback.

All creations, which are related to armours and weapons, you can get the same way as every other gear - by looting or by making your own equipment. But it works the same way as with other items, so don’t expect to find new piece of Dwarven equipment, while being low level. Also quests associated with these armours and weapons were removed as they lacked interesting content to explore.

You will be able to find the information about how to start the Creation Content’s quests later in the guide, while Rare Curious is available right from the beginning by finding Khajiit caravans.

Beginner Tips

Now some juicy tips for peeps, who are still here after mingling with the fork:

  • Be sure to do the main quest series as some added quests are tied to it (more information later).
  • For people, who would want to adopt children and live with them (and/or with your spouse) not in vanilla homes, there will be a neat spell book waiting for you somewhere around Riverwood.
  • Aela in a way is much more unique than other followers in battle. Pick her on a tough adventure to learn how. Lydia and Serana also have been changed and even more. Be ready for a big improvement. Also be ready that you will be able to get a follower you haven’t even thought you will be able to play together with in vanilla.
  • Some of the added armour can be crafted by yourself only after reading specific materials. I would have started looking in one of the cities, which makes the most sense to be associated with clothing. Other books will be pretty close.
  • Feel free to use Divine Elegance Store near Old Hroldan inn. I have added it to serve a resource for making different screenshots. Of course, you can also use all those outfits, accessories etc. to make your character just prettier. There are things for everyone to play with, even warriors.

Player Homes

The modpack features a bunch of different player homes. Some of them by default don’t have any immersive way to get them, they are available to you right from the start of the game, so I have locked them and hidden the keys all round Skyrim. To find them, you will have to solve these riddles:

Viking’s Longhouse

Makes it possible to make a respite for each weary traveller. Home of hundreds. Will burn greatly!

Red Rose Mill

My goat! Inside realm of pleasure and revelry. Some nights should better be forgotten, but will be remembered.

Ruska

Sight of nature, life. Time to bask in its glory. Then some peace in the soothing hot springs. Those three, not ever talking hunters… Great! Will stay here for a while.

Wind Path

The first, the second, the third and the fourth teacher of the Dovah came outside. Still didn’t see the fifth one. Those trainings… Running like the wind… The one, who talks, finally took Dovah to meditate with him to the top.

The Scrivener’s Croft

Sometimes the things we need are right near us.

New Quests

And then just a little heads up and how and when and how you should start newly added quests. They can be split between early and mid game and late game ones, because their difficulty slightly differs.

Early and Mid Game Quests

  • The Wheel of Time - literally just cross the Riverwood’s bridge.
  • Falskaar - Can be started any time. Go to Riften and speak with Jalamar.
  • Winterhold Deep Sea Ruins - Can be started any time by going northeast from Winterhold. A journal can be found there in small ruins, which will point you to the location with a ship marker. Should be done without a follower.
  • Clockwork - Automatically after reaching level 5. Without a follower.
  • Beyond Skyrim - Bruma - Can be started any time in Pale Pass (will be marked as two rocks together) southeast of Helgen. Personally recommend to start it at level 10. Some zones further from where you start the mod’s quest will be much harder in the beginning like in Skyrim.
  • Moonpath to Elsweyr - Can be started any time in Bruma’s Greenwood, the southernmost point of County Bruma.
  • Moon and Star - Automatically after finishing the main quest The Way of the Voice.
  • Carved Bink - After reaching level 10 in Abandoned Grotto west of Lost Knife Hideout.
  • Project AHO - After reaching level 15, head to Braidwood Inn (located at Kynesgrove) and talk to the innkeeper. Without a follower.
  • Midwood Isle - Automatically after finishing the main quest The Way of the Voice. Recommend to start it at level 15-20.
  • Wyrmstooth - automatically after Level 10 and after finishing the main quest A Blade in the Dark.
  • The Forgotten Seasons - Find and enter into Runoff Caverns, which are very close to Lost Valley Redoubt (and/or read a note in one of the mercenaries’ tents that serves as an alternate way to begin the quest). I recommend to be close to level 20.
  • The Wheels of Lull - Automatically after reaching level 20, can be finished after reaching level 35.
  • Helgen Reborn - Must be started after 5 days after you have finished the main quest Unbound to make sure that Helgen has bandits inside it. Otherwise it can work incorrectly. Recommended to be started at level 20. Note in the Bannered Mare can be activated to start the quest.
  • The Tools of Kagrenac - Join College of Winterhold and finish the side questline Arniel’s Endeavor. You’ll also need to have finished The Way of the Voice. A couple of days after you completed Arniel’s Endeavor and claimed Keening, the quest will start automatically. Make sure you have Keening in your inventory, it will turn into a quest item when the mod starts.
  • The Gray Cowl of Nocturnal - After reaching level 20 and after pickpocketing or stealing anything. Level 30-35 is recommended, for thief characters (sneaking and pickpocketing).

Late Game Quests

  • The Forgotten City - Automatically after reaching level 30. The story responds to your character’s individual history, actions, so a high level of speech skill (approximately 60) is also recommended. Enemies will be pretty tough, but not as tough as within other late game quests. That’s and also the immersiveness is the reason for setting this quest requirements as high, because by default it starts at level 5. Without a follower.
  • Undeath - Automatically without anything happening after reaching level 30 (I know, not immersive, unfortunately the patch for making it start in a better way was removed from Nexus, going to deal with that later, the late game quest, considered you should have gotten it after one Dragonborn quest).
  • The Cause - Creation’s questline really suffered from the lack of voice acting and that’s why the mod’s dungeons were turned into normal locations that you can stumble across and explore at your leisure. Find an entrance east from Falkreath or enter in the are from Bruma’s side. Enemies are still going to be hard (before the quest of The Cause started automatically after reaching level 46). Also better explore well as there will be a key around for a very interesting location in Skyrim associated with Daedra.
  • The Ice Blade of the Monarch - Can be started any time in Pilgrim’s Trench northeast of The Tower Stone, hard mod.
  • The Tournament of the Ten Bloods - Can be started after reading The Story of Lyrisius in the Arcanaeum, hard mod.
  • The Breton Paladin - Can be started any time by praying, hard mod after the first part of the quest.
  • The Grand Paladin - After reading a book The Grand Paladin in Bards College or Skaal’s Village Great Hall and after finishing the main quest Dragon Rising. Having more than 300 health is highly recommended. PC must be able to shout, very hard mod.


Won’t tell you any other details about your potential new followers and other surprises like improved vanilla quests as they should be discovered pretty easily while exploring. I hope you were intrigued about something from the modpack and this guide helped to learn about that a bit more.

Last modified March 8, 2024