Trouble Applying Changes

[Gore]

So I've been trying to mod a few different things in the game. I looked all over for ways to do it properly. My first issue is that in my directory/data folder there was no mod folder to begin with so I made my own hoping that I could drop my modified files in there and have them work on a new game so as not to corrupt previous saves. When this failed to work I tried altering the .txt files in the ses.kfs archive itself saying to hell with my save files I just wanted to figure out how to get this working. I tried changing the attack bonus on the training sword as a quick test but have been unable to get it working. My previous saves are still fine which leads me to believe that I'm altering the wrong files. Can anyone point me in the right direction here or just flat out tell me what I'm doing wrong?