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r/EnaiRim•
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Exclusively Ranged Follower for a Crossbow Trapper?

Ordinator

I'm playing a character off and on who is a Crossbow Trapper, using Bear Traps from the Lockpicking line in Ordinator. It isn't a stealth build, I'm doing crossbows only, heavy armor, and restoration too.

Its pretty dope but my followers I've tried (Erandur, Sven, and a follower named Among-The-Hist from a non-Enai mod iirc) all love to run up and do melee, even when I've given them ranged weapons and magicka pools.

As you can expect, they keep running over my Bear Traps constantly, and getting themselves KO'ed. I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a follower from the base game who almost never does melee? Do any of the pure mages use ranged exclusively? I've not teamed with many mages when playing Skyrim, so I'm just wondering if anyone knows of any followers that never run up and never do melee?

Thanks!

Posted Feb 27, 2021, 5:38 AM UTC

413
contrastes•

You can try Inigo. Just tell him to focus on the bow, and give him lots of arrows.he will use it even in melee range

18
xSaturnxModerator•

I was so going to suggest that when I've read the topic title. :D

4
Portgust•

Ahh. He never cease to amuse me

3
RainstormWander•

iAFT lets you assign combat styles to followers (including Ranger, Bow and Arrow, Magic, and Magic and Staff), so that should help with vanilla followers.

You can also train Lucien to focus on specific fighting styles. You need to be skilled in them as well, so if you've been using a crossbow, I reckon you could totally teach him archery skills. He has a dialogue option to ask him to fight as an archer.

And as someone else suggested, Inigo. You can ask him to favour the bow and use a ranger fighting style.

You could also try Marcurio. That man seems to love his lightning spells. Ya may want to use iAFT's "Ignore Friendly Fire" option though. 😅

5
JAFANZ•

J'zargo is infamous for ranged magical attacks.

Also, you might try giving your followers a few staffs, a lot the time they'll prioritize staff use over attacks.

Unfortunately they don't/can't recharge their staffs, & I don't think the Fortify <School> 100% armor/apparel trick works to get them infinite uses, so AIUI you want them to carry some spares for when they run out of charge on the current one (& you may need them to be different staffs for them to actually switch to a new one), & make sure that you do the recharging yourself (probably after each fight).

4
AnimationOP•

I think I have a follower mod that lets me allow them to recharge staves, either with soul gems or for free. I could give that a whirl. I dont think picking up J'zargo would fit the character in that I'd have to become a mage. But I guess I could just do the first bit only and then "decide that being a mage isnt for me". :)

Cheers!

1
JAFANZ•

The staves thing should apply to nearly everyone, including normally melee followers.

A few other ranged choices (from the UESP) might be:

  • Jenassa the Whiterun Merc is a Ranger, I'd expect her to use bows.
  • Valdimar, the Morthal Housecarl is a Sorceror, & so should use spells (but also wear the heaviest armor he can get his hands on, fortunately you've stated you don't Sneak so much).
  • <Actually, I'm lazy, here's the page, anyone with Archery or Destruction in bold has a pretty good chance of meeting your requirements (AIUI)>.
2
AnimationOP•

Thanks much!

1
Thalmairo•

You could look into Special Edition Followers. It overhauls the individual AI for some and fixes other followers to have better AI. I recall there being a few who are good at range, Agmaer from Dawnguard coming to mind immediately.

3
Gazimir•

Inigo

2
julius27900•

Auri, from Song of the Green, is a pure archer as is Thaeril.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/11278

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/14317/

2
Simbansi•

Inigo! Has a huge amount of voicelines for many situations, is funny, you can control his combat style, and change how much he talks if you dont like, couldnt recommend him more.

2
ASilentMoon•

Auri from Song of the Green is Bow only, she will never go into melee.

She's pretty sassy and funny too, couldn't recommend her more.

2