Mod help for BGII playthrough

acw18

Hey everyone! This is my first post here. I have a few questions regarding mods and I am hoping I may find some help here.

I have played and completed BGEE and it was great fun and I really enjoyed it, however, I am having a hard time waiting to play BGII and I really want to. So I have decided to reinstall the game and play through BG2 once more. However, I want to change up the experience a bit by installing a few mods, something that I have not done before.

So my questions are:

1.) What are some good mods to use for somebody who has not used mods before?

2.) I have heard much about the SCSII and the Tactics mods but I am slightly confused about how they differ. If anyone could enlighten me on that subject or help to point out if one is better than the other that would be excellent.

Thanks!

acw18

Also, I forgot to mention, I also own BG:II TOB and plan to play that as well so if any of the mods require the xpac, I do have it.

Wisp

The main difference between SCSII and Tactics is that the latter adds some encounters of significantly higher difficulty, while the former systematically overhauls the AI of pretty much everyone and everything, in addition to beefing up encounters here and there (at your discretion). You can use them both if you want, provided you observe the proper installation order. However, be advised that unless you consider the game easy, any more than the basic AI upgrades from SCSII would probably be frustrating. Personally I don't like Tactics and consider SCSII wholly sufficient.

You definitely want the G3 Fixpack. The G3 Tweakpack is also very handy. 1PP adds some gorgeous graphics improvements. Unless you actively want something different from standard BG2, I'm not sure how much more you'd need. Is there anything in particular you are interested in?

acw18

I have heard many things about the Ascension mod, is it a must have?

Wisp

Some people think so. Others don't. If you are interested, you should try it and make up your own mind. It adds some nice content and some fights of generally higher difficulty.

Itstucktwice

In my opinion, Ascension is superior, but only after you have played through TOB without it at least once. I feel like you have to have a comparison to truly appreciate all of what ascension does.

In regards to tactics, and remember this is all just opinion, it just isn't that fun. If you are the kind of player who likes powergaming to the max, and having to resort to cheese to get past some of the massively overpowered encounters, it is a good mod. Otherwise you should stick to SCSII.

As for other mods, Unfinished Business is a fun one, as it restores a lot of quests that were supposed to be in the game. The only problem with it is that those restored quests stick out like a sore thumb from the other quests.

BanterPack adds several more dialogue interactions between NPCs in your party, and FlirtPack gives you the option to initiate dialogues and flirt with the NPCs you are romancing(If romances are fun for you).

Then there are the stream of Romance/friendship mods. Out of all that I have played, none of them was particularly terrible. Although generally, it seems that people dislike Saerileth. Imoen is also a controversial option because some people can't get past the "incest".

karnor00

You also might want the widescreen mod which allows you to play in any resolution, rather than just the original (and by now rather outdated) resolutions.