I’d say MOST mods will play perfectly fine with it. There are a handful which introduce incompatibilities due to physical placement of “structures” (be these buildings, trees, etc.).
If you go to the “patches” page (there’s a single patch file to download and install AFTER you’ve installed the other mods along with LotD, as it looks for any needed patches), you’ll also find a list of mods which add more displays & potential items to collect for the museum.
Currently, the museum in its “vanilla” mod state has spots for 1985 artifacts (these include weapons, armor, jewelry, books, etc.). Currently, the patch-supported mods add another 1384 along with 16 additional set displays.
Here’s the patch site, and there are menus you can click to open which show these mods which then also have links to them (including off-nexus mods, such as Wyrmstooth).
The list which adds stuff to the museum will all work together, although if you’re a completionist then don’t expect to be finished before the heat death of the universe.
You’ll also see a list of mods which DON’T add any displays or items yet have patches to make sure they’ll work fine.
Keep in mind, these lists aren’t exclusive; there are thousands of mods and the vast majority will coexist peacefully with LotD. Right now, this is the established incompatibility list:
INCOMPATIBLE:
- Open Cities
- Creation Club stuff (potentially - it may be fine, but no effort will be put into making sure it’s compatible)
- Dawnguard/Clan Volkihar Epilogues (a mod to add an extra quest to any given side of Dawnguard to let you get a special artifact; there’s a different approach built into LotD)
- Solitude Skyway - an admittedly neat bridge underneath the city, but it just didn’t work with LotD
- The People of Skyrim - a massive tweakfest of the whole world. Nice, but it created some conflicts.
- Moon and Star immersion patch - redundant patch which causes issues if it’s also loaded
Of course, the problem with all modding (in my opinion) is deciding when enough is enough, lol. As many have talked about in this thread, it’s easy to dedicate a MASSIVE amount of time into putting together a giant mod list, placing it in proper order, “cleaning” it, etc., long before you ever start the game.
From what you described, you wouldn’t be going for the “completionist” angle in trying to knock out every single mod, as some have lengthy stories.
Mods which add lengthy stories in those lists (ones you don’t seem to want):
Beyond Reach (adds another land, lots of travel and time investment)
Falskaar (adds another land, lots of travel and time investment - sound familiar?)
Forgotten City (one long quest without break, but a good one if you haven’t done it before!)
Helgen Reborn (lots of mini-quests, although you can space them out at your leisure)
Moonpaths to Elsweyr (old mod with a good story, but it’s long and the pacing isn’t up to snuff with more “modern” tales)
Project AHO (long-ish uninterrupted quest line, albeit well-done)
Undeath Remastered (old mod which requires some TLC, but is interesting should you want to devote the time to it)
