Better Arvak LE
This mod makes Arvak look a bit more like a normal horse, gives him better stats and a few new abilities to make him more interesting.
Better Arvak
::Features::
This mod replaces Arvak’s skeletal horse mesh with that of a normal horse, it improves his attributes and adds a few fire themed abilities as a nod to his roots in Norse mythology.
This mod DOES a few things:
It edits Arvak’s textures and meshes.
It gives Arvak his own stand-alone horse saddle which can also be crafted at tanning racks.
It allows Arvak’s level to scale with the player – Arvak will now have more health at higher levels unlike the vanilla Arvak.
It ensures that Arvak will not break the player’s stealth when sneaking and sets him to not “report” any crimes that your character commits.
It sets Arvak to only be aggressive in fights against weaker enemies and grants him a fire cloak spell that activates during combat and damages enemies within range.
It grants Arvak complete immunity to fall damage.
It gives Arvak a 100% poison and disease resistance.
It gives Arvak a 100% resistance to fire, but with a 100% weakness to frost.
It grants Arvak the ability to water walk and a few spells to fight enemies.
It adds a few of the stealth perks for good measure and the quiet casting perk for his abilities and spells.
It grants him a few bonus stats for better survivability like extra armor, health, health regen, damage reflection and spell absorption.
It increases Arvak’s speed by 50% and gives him some extra stamina to sprint for longer periods of time. Stamina regen was also increased to reduce the downtime between sprints.
Arvak enters the “Star Strider” state at night, once the stars are out and it isn’t cloudy. Arvak will become ethereal in this state with tiny orbs of light like stars emanating from him. In this state Arvak will gain a 12.5% speed bonus (a net 62.5% bonus speed) and some extra stamina to help “increase” Arvak’s speed further via sprinting. Tip: Players can strategically use the Clear Skies shout at night to make starlight shine upon Arvak. Star Strider will grant him a 50% immunity to physical damage and will also boost his skills at melee combat.
Arvak enters the “Daywalker” state between 5 am and 9 pm and once it isn’t raining. In this state Arvak will be covered with small flames. The Daywalker will gain a 25% bonus speed (a net 75% bonus speed) as well as some extra magicka to cast his spells. Daywalker also increases the effectiveness of Arvak’s spells.
This mod DOES NOT:
Edit the Summon Arvak spell.
Edit the horse race or use its own custom race.
Give him overpowered stats to instantly kill his enemies.
Add any scripts.
::Requirements::
Skyrim – Latest Version
Dawnguard
::Installation::
Install the mod virtually with your preferred mod manager or copy and paste the contents of the zip files into the Data directory. Please note that you can only use any ONE of the main files, any ONE of the saddle mesh replacers and any ONE of the Arvak mesh replacers. The “Default” version provides all of the aforementioned features, while the “Mundane” version strips away all of the bonus spells and special effects but preserves all of the bonus attributes. Finally, “Vanilla” goes beyond “Mundane” and strips away all of the passive buffs like the immunity to fall damage and increased movement speed, so that version basically functions as a texture and mesh replacer.
For midplaythrough installs of this mod, the changes to Arvak should immediately take hold once he’s summoned again.
::Updating::
You can update the mod by reinstalling it with the updated version through your mod manager or by manually deleting the mod and installing it again with the updated version. The changes will take hold immediately after applying the update.
::Uninstallation::
Uninstall the mod manually from the Data folder or virtually with your mod manager. The mod doesn’t add any scripts or persistent objects, so it is 100% safe to remove at any time.
::Mod Compatibility::
This mod will be incompatible with any other mod that tries to edit Arvak. How can I tell if there is a mod conflict with Arvak? Any mod that indicates from its mod description that it will change Arvak’s appearance, stats like speed, factions, spells or perks will be incompatible. Unfortunately, some mods don’t mention clearly that they edit Arvak, so if you suspect a conflict you can use TES5Edit to load your current load order to immediately find any conflicts with Arvak (Form ID: 0200BDD0) or the template that Arvak’s based on (Form ID: 0200966D). You can resolve conflicts by loading Better Arvak.esp after any conflicting mod, so Arvak’s changes will be visible in-game.
In addition to playing around with the load order to fix conflicts, certain mods (like those which add new perks, factions or spells to Arvak) can be made even more compatible via the use of a Merged Patch, a Bashed Patch and/or a Smashed Patch. What will happen if I just load the conflicting mod before Better Arvak? All of the new perks, factions or spells added by the conflicting mod won’t be carried forward (or won’t be given to Arvak in-game). See the next section below for more details on those three patches and how they can help transfer those bonuses over to Arvak (if you really want Arvak to have them).
If you found any conflicting mods, then please send me a message, so I can list the conflicting mod by name within this compatibility section for the sake of other users:
::Compatible Mods::
Convenient Horses
Immersive Horses
Any mod that edits his summoning spell.
Any mod that doesn’t directly edit Arvak or the template that he’s based on.
::Incompatible Mods::
Any mod that directly edits Arvak or the template that Arvak’s based on.
::Recommended Mods::
Please note that the following mods aren’t actually required for this mod to work:
Mod Organizer 2 will give you better flexibility when installing this mod and its optional files. Other than being able to virtually install mods (installing them safely outside of the Data folder thus keeping the Data folder clean), it gives you the ability to choose which assets from one mod will overwrite the assets of another mod – a feature which will make customizing Arvak with this mod’s optional files a lot easier.
A Merged Patch created with TES5Edit is recommended to increase compatibility with mods that adds certain attributes to Arvak like perks or keywords. You can learn how to create a merged patch here. Hint: A merged patch can preserve perks, keywords, factions and more that would otherwise be “lost” to mod conflicts, fixing these can lead to better consistency in-game, fix minor bugs and even crashes with certain scripted mods.
A Bashed Patch created with Wrye Bash could improve the likelihood of items, that were added to Arvak by other mods, becoming available even if Better Arvak.esp overwrites the conflicting mod, provided that the mod author added them to the appropriate leveled lists. You can learn how to create a bashed patch here, while it may not be necessary for this mod it can be handy to create one for your load order for better stability with your weapon and armor mods. Hint: A lot of the crashes that players tend to experience when bartering with merchants, opening NPC inventories and containers, or even just exploring Skyrim (during the spawning of certain NPCs in dungeons or random encounters) can be fixed with a Bashed Patch.
A Smashed Patch created with Mator Smash can also be used, it can eliminate the need of creating both a Bashed Patch and a Merged Patch and in many ways is more effective than either of those patches. You can learn how to create one here.
