Starting recommendations for character generation and main quest - Omni-guides/Tuxborn GitHub Wiki

This page covers several recommendations for creating your character in Tuxborn, and things to keep in mind as you plan for when you should launch Skyrim's main quest.

Tuxborn's load order includes three different sets of pre-made presets. You should be able to get at these by using RaceMenu's UI to get to the Presets tab.

If you are a Steam Deck (or Ally or other handheld) player, or playing with a controller on PC, you should then be able to use your left stick to load the dialogue for finding the provided presets.

PC keyboard players, you should use your F5 key.

By default, the UI should take you to the correct directory immediately. You should see subdirectories that contain all three of the sets of provided presets, from Foamimi, Lamenthia, and Zooey. There are a large number of presets in each directory, so feel free to browse all of them and see if any of them are to your liking.

If you have your own previously made preset files you'd like to use, in .jslot format, this is also an option.

You will need to manually place any such files you want to use in the following path in the Tuxborn install, once it's completed:

/mods/[NoDelete] Custom Presets Go in Here/SKSE/Plugins/CharGen/Presets

You should place such files before starting the game, so that RaceMenu will actually see them.

Once you get your character design the way you want it, if you want to do so, you can save out a new preset with that design for later use.

Deck/Handheld/Controller players, you can do that on the RaceMenu Presets tab with your right stick.

Keyboard players should use F9 to save a new preset.

Look in this location for your newly saved preset file:

/overwrite/SKSE/Plugins/CharGen/Presets

It is recommended that you move or at least copy the file out of that location, to whatever other directory you like, so that you have a backup copy if you need one.

Players have reported issues to the Tuxborn team with the BFCO profiles behaving oddly if you want to load or save a character preset. We do not have a real fix at this time, but we do have a workaround. If you're playing on a Steam Deck, try the following steps:

1. Follow the same instructions given to keyboard players in the official Readme about turning on Combat Keyboard Keys, and turning off Tuxborn Combat Controller, in the Optionals section of MO2
2. Launch the BFCO profile you want
3. Once you're in RaceMenu, you should see the same input options available to non-BFCO players for dealing with Presets, specifically:
   1. Left Stick click to load a preset
   2. Right Stick click to save a preset
4. Make whatever changes you want to your character, then proceed out of RaceMenu to the starting cell
5. As per standard instructions, wait for museum list building to complete
6. At this point, make a new save and exit the game
7. Reverse what you did in step 1, turn Combat Keyboard Keys back off, and turn Tuxborn Combat Controller back on
8. Load up your new save, and now you should be clear to enter the world

Note: at this time, to the best of our knowledge, this issue seems to be specific to the Steam Deck. PC players using keyboard or controller do not appear to be impacted. If you are a PC player though and can see this issue, let us know and we'll update this info accordingly. Also let us know if you're reproing this issue, and you're on a non-Deck device such as the ROG Ally.

Our main install guide already warns you about additional steps you should take to make RaceMenu work correctly if you're going to run a BFCO profile. Be sure to follow the guide's recommendations on that.

But if you're specifically playing on a Deck or other handheld, or playing with a controller on PC, please see previous section for a workaround you may need to follow to make it through RaceMenu correctly.

We've had semi-regular issues with players trying to name their characters and not actually exiting RaceMenu as expected.

At least on Deck, a way to avoid this problem is as follows:

1. When you get the input box to enter your name, you should also see the Deck's on-screen keyboard load
2. Enter your desired character name
3. Do not dismiss the on-screen keyboard
4. Instead. either click on the Submit button on the on-screen keyboard, or hit your right trigger button, either of these should count to submit your character name properly
5. You should then proceed out of RaceMenu and see the Pronouns dialog appear.

While you should in theory be able to dismiss the on-screen keyboard and then click on the Submit button on the dialog where you enter your character name, in actual practice, this seems to be the cause of Deck players getting stuck.

We will update this section of the page if we confirm this workaround applies on other devices, as well.

In-depth advice on what race you should play is outside the scope of this doc, but I will note that the Tuxborn load order includes mods which influences racial buffs, so this may play into your build choices. Players may wish to do a little preliminary research on the following mods, to see what these buffs are:

• Freyr - Integrated Standing Stones of Skyrim
• Mannaz - Integrated Races of Skyrim

There are two loose groups of profiles in Tuxborn's install: the profiles that use the BFCO combat system, and the profiles that do not. In the latter set, the combat system provided is Blade and Blunt.

Players not familiar with either combat system might wish to play with both sets of profiles to see which one you prefer. However, follow the recommendations on the Save-safe page if you want to do such testing. As that page advises, you cannot safely switch between BFCO and not-BFCO on the same save file.

Doing at least a little bit of research and/or testing of the available profiles is recommended, as this, too, may influence your build choices.

Note that BFCO is not recommended for players who prefer first-person play, and Skyrim's AI may sometimes have issues with its provided set of moves. However, if you prefer third-person play or if you are familiar with and like the combat system in Elden Ring, BFCO may appeal to you.

If you want more in-depth detail on how both systems work, here are the mods to look up on Nexus:

• Blade and Blunt - A Combat Overhaul
• BFCO - Attack Behavior Framework

Once you get out of RaceMenu, as per how Alternate Start works, you will then find yourself in a prison cell that contains a statue of Mara. You should interact with that statue to choose the start method you want.

Please note that Tuxborn's selection of Alternate Start options is smaller than the standard set. We have limited the number of available options for performance and stability reasons. What options we do include are:

This one lets you proceed to break out of the cell you're in. Why you're in that prison to begin with could be an intriguing question to consider for your character's backstory and RP choices.

Strategy and spoilers for how to handle this option...

1. You will find yourself in the Abandoned Prison near Fort Amol.
2. This prison is haunted and contains several angry ghosts. They will kill you if they see you, and as a starting character, you will die very quickly. So your best strategy is to sneak past these ghosts.
3. Once you lockpick your way out of your cell, you will see a short corridor that leads forward to six cells. Creep carefully forward, and grab a few potentially useful items off the nearby table.
4. On the UESP link given here, you can find details about the layout of the place. Paragraphs four and five of the "Abandoned Prison" section of that page will give you some details on routes you can take to sneak out of the prison. Keep in mind that they're written from the standpoint of you coming into the area from the opposite direction, so take a few moments to account for that when deciding your escape route!

This is the option you should use if you want to do the Relic Hunter start with Legacy of the Dragonborn, in which case you should choose Solitude as your destination. You can take any other option as well, if you do not want to do the Relic Hunter start.

If you choose Solitude, once you land on the docks, you should get an additional prompt asking you if you want to be the museum relic hunter. Choose whichever option you prefer.

This is a very easy one to take. It's a useful one to consider if you want immediate access to:

• Falkreath, to find Lucien, Auri, or Gore as followers
• Markarth, if you want to recruit Remiel
• Riften, if you want to join the Thieves Guild, or be in range of finding Xelzaz
• Riverwood, for a close-to-vanilla start
• Solitude, for quick access to the museum (maybe for a non-Relic Hunter start), if you want to do the Bards College very early, or if you want to join the Imperial Legion
• Whiterun for a close-to-vanilla start, or if you want to join the Companions
• Windhelm, if you want to join the Stormcloaks
• Winterhold, if you want to join the mage college

Keep in mind that starting in locations along the northern half of the map, or in Markarth, will put you up against opponents more likely to be challenging for starting characters. You may need extra time to equip and train your character up a bit, before trying to fight anything. Plan wisely.

It's worth considering this option if you want to do Survival Mode, just to put yourself somewhere reasonably easy to start with, and to stock up on supplies before you begin adventuring.

This one is good for an easy way to get near Helgen for purposes of launching the main quest. May also be appropriate if you want to play a hunter type character, or perhaps a Bosmer.

This could be a start choice for a Survival Mode run, too. You'll have a starting camp, a campfire if the weather is poor, and enough gear on you that you should be able to hunt for food.

This one can be challenging. If you choose this start, you will spawn in the Wreck of the Skinny Horker, which went down in the Sea of Ghosts roughly at the center of the very top of the map. You will need to find your way out of the shipwreck, and this will require you to dive a time or two before you can finally find a hole in the hull large enough to escape through. Be sure to take any items you can find as you flee.

Once free of the wreck, you will be in visual range of the ruin Yngvild. Depending on which direction you decide to take to get back to shore, you may also be within range of the island where Warden of the Coast takes place. If you go ashore onto that island, though, you most likely will not be able to do anything of interest--that mod requires you to play up through The Way of the Voice before its quest will launch.

If you take this start, and you intend to use Starfrost to play Survival Mode, you might wish to adjust its settings to your liking before you leave the chargen cell, to reduce the risk of hypothermia as you try to swim to safety!

This one is likewise challenging. You can spawn in a large variety of places all over the map, including Solstheim. So you may need to run at top speed for the nearest known settlement!

But this one, and the previous, are potentially fun to consider for inventing a backstory for your character.

Strategy and spoilers for if you spawn near Steamcrag Camp in Eastmarch...

1. You'll be very near the wrecked wagon that normally appears in vanilla Skyrim at this location. In Tuxborn's load order, since we're running Interesting NPCs, there will be a seemingly wounded Khajiit by that wagon.
2. I say seemingly, because she is of course setting a trap for unwary travelers, and she will attack you. And she is likely to kill you very quickly, since you're a starting character.
3. However, you are also very near to the giant camp. So a handy way to deal with this Khajiit is to run over near the giant camp and get the giant's attention! Then turn around and run in any other direction, to get out of the giant's way.
4. Let the giant kill the Khajiit for you. Then wait for the giant to stomp off about his business, loot the Khajiit's body, and voila, you have gear.

Strategy for if you spawn on Solstheim...

1. Depending on where you are on on the island, make a mad dash for Raven Rock or the Skaal village, whichever one is closer.
2. It is very likely you'll get killed by something, bears or nix-hounds or even ash spawn. If you haven't turned off Shades of Mortality, this will also mean you'll take the nerf off that mod's death mechanic, and you'll need to either get potions of Cure Disease to fix it, or else find somewhere safe to sleep it off.
3. Do anything in your power to get gear ASAP, as you won't have much on you.
4. If you have the coin for it, consider recruiting Teldryn Sero as a follower at the Retching Netch, because he will help keep you from getting killed. He'll be the fastest follower you can acquire on Solstheim.
5. Do any favor quests you can find to raise coin. Also, hunt around the shore for any black pearls you can find, because those are expensive and easy to sell to get coin fast!
6. Get back to the Skyrim mainland ASAP, once you have enough coin to pay for passage back to Windhelm.

We mention this on the main starting guide, but I'm going to call it out again here because it's important.

Initial startup of the game needs to take several extra minutes to generate a bunch of lists used by Legacy of the Dragonborn. We strongly recommend that you hang out in the starting cell until you receive the alert that the list generation is complete. The alert you're looking for will read:

Museum list building complete.

And you actually do need to dismiss this alert, so you can't miss it. So hang out in the starting cell until you can see and dismiss this alert. Then you should be able to use the bed in the cell to proceed with your chosen start option, or, lockpick your way out of the cell if you want to go that route.

It is a common player preference to hold off on running Skyrim's main quest line, and that is possible in Tuxborn.

However, be aware that several of our mods expect you to proceed through the main quest at least to the point of finishing The Way of the Voice, when you have your first visit to the Greybeards. These mods are:

• Legacy of the Dragonborn. You do not need to launch the main quest in order to run LOTD in general, but you do need to play through The Way of the Voice as a requirement for getting the Dev Aveza. See the Player homes available in Tuxborn page for more specific details on that.
• Midwood Isle
• Warden of the Coast
• Wyrmstooth

So take this into consideration when planning how your playthrough should go.

If you don't specifically want to delay running the main quest, we do recommend you launch it as early as possible, if nothing else to unlock the ability to get Shouts, as well as Lydia as an early follower. We're running the Improved Follower Dialogue - Lydia mod, which is a Lydia overhaul, and adds a lot more characterization to her! So that's worth doing at least once, if you're not already familiar with that mod, just to experience its changes to everybody's first housecarl. (See the Lydia section of the Followers available in Tuxborn page for a more in-depth look at her changes.)

No matter which option you choose in Alternate Start, you'll have an objective in your journal that won't go away until you do finally go to Helgen, so there's another reason to get that done early.

You have a few ways to do this:

1. The camping start option will put you right near Helgen, so you'll see Alduin immediately, and can investigate Helgen as he flies off.
2. If you take the Relic Hunter option for Legacy of the Dragonborn, once you meet Auryen, he'll include Helgen in a list of places he asks you to go to get some initial relics. (Note: of course Helgen will be destroyed when you get there; you are not expected to actually FIND the relic Auryen asks for. This is just LOTD's way of giving you an excuse to go there.)
3. Ask the nearest innkeeper about rumors, and you should learn about Imperial activity near Helgen, and get an objective to go check it out.

Note: Alternate Start adds in a few new lines that are not voiced. You will need to have subtitles activated in order to see the lines in question! These include the rumor line from innkeepers, as well as dialogue with Hadvar and Ralof once you investigate Helgen, if you choose to go looking for them in the cave.

It is not critical for you to go talk to innkeepers, though, or to look for Hadvar or Ralof. If you don't want subtitles on and want to skip those bits so you don't have to worry about unvoiced lines, you can take the camping approach or the Relic Hunter approach. And once you finish investigating, you can also go straight to Riverwood to warn them about the dragon.

Starting the main quest early in your playthrough also means you'll want to think about Bleak Falls Barrow as well as fighting Mirmulnir at the watchtower. In a vanilla game, you could charge all the way through killing Mirmulnir in your very first session. With Tuxborn, though, you should take at least a bit more time than that.

First and foremost: Tuxborn's load order and configuration makes things more difficult by default than in vanilla Skyrim. Both of the available combat overhauls make combat more difficult, no matter which profile you want to play. Roughly speaking, you should expect each level of difficulty in vanilla Skyrim to map to the next highest tier in Tuxborn. So for our load order, the default "Adept" Difficulty will actually be "Apprentice" in our load order.

If you want to see the actual numbers for these difficulty levels, you can do so in the MCM for Custom Difficulty UI, under System -> Mod Configuration -> Custom Difficulty UI. In that same location, you can also adjust those numbers if you want to.

You should also go into System Menu -> Settings -> Gameplay, and make sure the vanilla Difficulty setting is where you want it to be. In a default clean install of Tuxborn, it should still say "Adept" since that's the default for vanilla Skyrim. Change it at this point if you want it to be something else.

Second: once you're comfortable with your difficulty settings, then assuming you're on Novice or Apprentice, I personally recommend you target somewhere in the 5-8 range for level before you try to take on Bleak Falls Barrow, and especially before you try to fight Mirmulnir at the watchtower. I've been able to take out Mirmulnir at level 8 in one go in Tuxborn. Adjust that range higher if you want to play at higher difficulty levels, to give yourself more time to get appropriate gear and training of your skills.

Alternately, consider recruiting one or more followers. Having good backup will help your chances of taking out Mirmulnir faster, especially if your squad has bows and/or Destruction magic. This could help you keep the level range for the fight a bit lower, even if you're on higher difficulty levels.

So balance out a) how much difficulty you want, b) how many followers you feel like running, and c) how much time you want to spend on leveling up and getting gear before you want to take on the dragon.

There are several followers easily recruitable within range of Whiterun, to help you make that call. Look on the Followers available in Tuxborn page for more details.

Thanks to the following players on #txbn-general:

• TSP, for commentary on BFCO
• LilBeee, for corrections on how the Shipwrecked Off the Coast Alternate Start works