5 good mods
My short list of 5 good mods to enhance the game would be:
1. Illuminated Order mod (very large and very well done, adds a lot of new quests, ties up some loose ends, very immaginative as well. You join the IO as if it were another guild or cult and get promoted thru the ranks).
2. Master Index plug-in (allows you to collect all the propylon indexes and have them made into one master index that is controlled through the enchanter at the Caldera mage guild. This is an official plug-in from Elder Scrolls website.)
3. Area Affect Arrow plug-in (adds a fletcher shop in the Foreign Quarters in Vivic that sells all sorts of ranged weapons and ammo. This is another official plug-in and can be found on the official Elder Scrolls web site)
4. The Knights of Tamriel armor plug ins (adds an imposing fortress looking shrine along the road with an interesting quest culminating in some of the sharpest looking armor you'll ever see. You can download one or all of the forts/shrines but I believe you can only have one active in the game at a time. Each shrine is dedicated to one of the Imperial Cult gods like Akatosh, Kynareth, etc. and gets you a unique set of armor). According to the Readme file
http://www.geocities.com/jw_mcguinn/armory.html should be the link if they haven't moved.
5. Other official plug-ins that I like but don't really do a lot are the Bitter Coast Sounds plug-in (adds harmless dragonflies, frogs croaking and cricket sounds when you are in the swamps), the Helm of Tohan and Adamantium plug-ins (the first adds an adamantium helm quest and the later adds adamantium armor you can buy from various blacksmiths), and the Entertainers plug-in (gives you the silly option to sing, tell jokes, juggle objects, dance, etc at the Eight Plates tavern in Balmora for a few coins).
If you like to collect game junk, decorate rooms, set up cozy places, or otherwise waste valuable gaming time you can try one of the furniture plug-ins. I've found most of these to be buggy and pretty much useless. A lot of people are into setting up houses for their main char to store junk they've collected. You can put a lot of time making a custom place but its pointless unless you like that kind of stuff. The mod I have lets you buy your own house in each of the cities/villages and adds nearby furniture shops where you can pick up stuff. Some of the houses don't show up correctly and the furniture is kind of buggy (i.e. you can walk thru it as if it wasn't there).
I am heading to the sticky right after this. I would greatly appreciate some very short answers to these n00b questions:
