Bent Will Overhaul

When I first played the Dragonborn DLC, I absolutely loved it and thought (and still think) it was the best part of Skyrim so far. However, it always baffled me that Bend the Will's Cry always felt so debilitating despite most of the main quests being centered around it. It's supposed to be a cry of a dragon that bends to your will, but all it ends up doing is 30 seconds of dragon or human combat at your side, coupled with what I think is probably the most pathetic excuse for a dragon-riding mechanic that a developer could have come up with. Well, I found a mod that fixes dragons and dragons in the form of rongphale's Command Dragon Mod: Kit playing around with it and researching it later, I got this: The Bend Will Overhaul.

What does it do?

Essentially, this mod does four things: makes the bend affect the duration, adds any level 2 or higher NPC hit as an ally, adds it as a potential follower, and removes it from any previous faction.

For those who don't know, adding an NPC as an ally allows players to sort them by simply holding down the use key while the crosshair cursor is hovering over it. In my opinion, this makes using the mod much smoother, as it allows you to open an NPC in the middle of a battle and start giving them orders immediately, without having to wait for the battle to end.

Removing all factions may seem like an odd choice, but this serves a dual purpose: allowing players to add NPCs from hostile factions as followers, and allowing players to order NPCs to attack their old allies, i.e. allowing players to order town guards to attack citizens. However, this feature may interrupt some quests, so try to avoid hitting any quest NPCs with shouts if you want to continue the quest.

Require

The latest version of the original Skyrim and Dragonborn DLC.

Install

Download the mod, then drag and drop Bend Will Overhaul.esp into the Skyrim/Data folder. Open your Skyrim launcher, click on Data Files, and make sure the box next to Bend Will Overhaul.esp is checked.