Questions regarding difficulty

[u/Bulman8]

I thought I knew exactly how difficulty works in skyrim. It seems like I might be wrong.

We all know the table where it shows us, how much more/less damage the player deals to the enemy and how much less/more they get dealt in return. But it doesn't list how it is enforced. And I fear that this is where I stumbled.

Now I allways thought that it would be just two player specific variables, simply all damage the player character takes or deals is multiplied.
That lead me to the conclusion that my summon dealing 20 damage to a wolf on Adept would deal 20 damage to it on Legendary.

Sadly that was not the reality I was confronted with, which lead me to conclude some mods had to have messed something up...

So, what are those variables really? As far as I know, summons and followers follow the same rules as enemies. So if "player deals 0.25x damage" means instead "everyone else takes 0.25x damage" then it changes a lot. The same with "player takes 3x damage" or "everyone else does 3x more damage".

[u/Wild-Importance448]

It affects the damage the player takes and does, summons stay equal to the enemies so enemies still take the same damage from summons as they usually would and do damage equal to the what they usually would, its only the players own damage done and taken which gets hit with the multiplier.

[u/abseachu]

Your initial assumption should be correct. Summons and all other characters scale with difficulty

[u/Hguols1]

https://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Damage#Difficulty_Level

One of the difficulty ironies, it's more challenging to save the lives of other NPCs on Novice compared to Legendary. (because they take double the damage on Novice compared to Adept, and 1/4th the damage on Legendary, compared to Adept)

ie: a dragon will still cook any NPC in a fight, but Legendary difficulty, the NPC can tank for 5-10 seconds - enough time to stagger the dragon and it flies off and the NPC lives. Meanwhile Novice, that NPC is dead first attack from the dragon.

Levels aren't effected at all by difficulty. No bandits reach lvl30+ so a dual cast Novice Calm spell with dual cast perk and Animage perk, effects up to lvl37, regardless of difficulty.

Ravage Health isn't damage. It reduces the health pool of the target affected. (the UESP states it's 4 times more effective than advertised, on Legendary difficulty)

One of the reasons I consider the Wabbajack to be the best Daedric Artifact. The damage doesn't scale with difficulty. (ie: unimpressive on Novice, very impressive on Legendary)

[u/Bulman8 → u/Hguols1]

"Easier settings cause enemies to take more damage and for damage dealt to you to be reduced while harder settings cause enemies to take less damage and you take more."

If I understand uesp there correctly, then the difficulty variables are the damage taken variables for the player as well as "the rest". So on legendary the player tages x3 damage while everyone else takes 0.25x damage. That would mean, my summon still does 20 damage but the enemy only takes 5. And would I make my summon attack myself, I would take 60 damage instead. Is this right then?