Fav Mods??

Sciobtha

Hi folks, quick little post just for fun. I am getting close to finishing up the content of SoA and ToB and am curious about mods. I know there are a lot for practicality and stability reasons so I'd like to know about those, but I can google them

My question is what everyone's favorite mods are and why? What makes them "da bomb?" Maybe post screenshots of particularly goofy ones you guys like?

Cheers!

Lord_Tansheron

For me the must-have mod is SCS. I would not be playing this game without that mod, much less play it for ten years as I have. It's a purely tactical mod, though, no story etc. It's not for everyone, but it can be customized in quite some detail.

I've also grown very attached to both Spell Revisions and Item Revisions, two mods by @Demivrgvs that re-balance the spells resp. items and some of the associated rules. These mods tone down some of the blatantly overpowered things, and boost underused ones. Overall a lot better than the vanilla game in practically every respect, I find.

BG2Tweaks has some QOL modifications and creative "cheats" to spice up things a bit for those who'd like to go a bit of an unconventional route. It allows you to e.g. bypass race restrictions for classes, allows multiple romances, etc. Naturally all the components are highly modular and optional.

That's about it for my core setup. On top of that I occasionally add some romance mods (can recommend de'Arnise Romance) or NPC mods (always been a fan of Solaufein, but haven't tried that lately; might be broken with latest EE) as I feel like.

EDIT: Derp, how could I forget Ascension? As @Artemius_I rightly said, it is an absolute must-have. ToB is not complete without it.

doggy

Dungeon be gone is a must for me. I don't want to waste my time trudging around Irenicus' dungeon more than once. And this way you spare the time and get all the XP, the gold, and the gear. Useful for all types of playthroughs.

Unfinished business also needs mentioning for closing a lot of holes in the story.

But search this forum. There is a great list with links for downloading. And it tells if the mods are compatible with EE and the installation order.

Am on a cell phone right now so can't find the link but you will find it easily or someone in here will most likely be able to post it underneath.

TheArtisan

I'll put up my top 5:

5: Ascension/Wheels of Prophecy - probably one of the most famous mods for turning arguably the least fleshed out arc of the game into something bearable. I mainly enjoy it because of the minor things - Sarevok interacting with the Sword of Chaos, teaming up with Balthazar, etc. but the final fight with the Five is pretty badass. I'm lumping these two together because they have overlapping features, but Ascension ups the difficulty of ToB greatly. It's no. 5 for me because it only affects the relatively short ToB section of the game and the current usable version is rather glitchy.

4: Fade NPC mod - I like a romance which doesn't involve the NPC in question piling on personal issues with you. She's entertaining and a great thief. Lacks a full soundset but everything else is fun. What bothers me is that dialogue is very 'saturated'. Each line of speech is normally two or three sentences at most but this mod frequently has up to four lines of sentences, which can be frustrating.

3: Tales of the Deep Gardens - A really fun and deep quest mod for people looking for something different. Without spoiling the plot, you're put into an unfamiliar world where people think and act differently. The issues with the mod are mainly that it's fairly short after your first run since most of your time is spent reading the dialogues (tip: talk to everyone, even the nameless people) Also the voiceacting is... not great, in my opinion.

2: Xan NPC mod - I can not do justice to how fleshed out this mod is. It has not one, not two, but technically three romance paths, a friendship path, tons of banters and player-induced dialogues, hilarious comments, and more. The characterization of Xan is lovable and never gets boring.

1: Quest Pack - exactly what it says it is. More quests + roleplaying options. Playing a paladin? Now you get to wipe out the Shadow Thieves without working with Bodhi. It just adds more to do in general without feeling tacked on.

Keep in mind, these are all (well, except for Ascension) roleplaying mods, because generally those are my preferred ones. I've left out gameplay mods because other people will probably mention them and they're not to everyone's tastes.

Ravenslight

Two threads that I would recommend would be:

This thread for BGII:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/23726/bgii-ee-compatible-mod-list/p1

This thread for BGI:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/15380/bg-ee-mods-and-modding-tutorials-quick-links/p1

These are a great place to start when looking for mods compatible with the new EE editions of the games. You can follow the links provided there to learn more about each mod to help you decide if they sound like something you would be interested in.

What kind of mods are you most interested in trying?

semiticgoddess

Sword Coast Stratagems. Highly compatible, highly customizable, lots of variety, well-balanced, and realistic.

SmilingSword

BP Ascension: A better ToB, a lot of tactical challenge and some of the old tactics mod added. With this I recommend just installing the Ascension bit. The rest SCS has covered and the tactics mod is being updated separately.

SCS: more tactics and better AI most visible on mages. Really one of the best mods out there.

Tactics: Even more tactical challenge.

BG NPC project: A huge NPC banter mod for BG1, really makes the world feel more alive, Also made it not possible for me to ever dump Imoen ever again.

BG2Tweaks: Some nice tweaks, removing helmets animations, multiple romance options and a bunch of other stuff.

Banter packs: More NPC banter in BG2.

NPC flirt packs: More flirting options in BG2, including a click to talk option.

Imoen Romance: sshhhh is really good ok.

Xan NPC mod: Xan in BG2, much dialogue, a few quests and romance or friendship path. Also it's all voiced, but there is a audio replacer if you prefer the original voice acting.

NPC Strongholds: Give your NPC's the Strongholds you don't pick up in BG2.

Scales of Balance: Only started using this one very resently, but I really like most of it. It's a kind set of house rules that rebalances the game. A lot more weapon pips, with mastery and grandmastery taking a lot longer to obtain. Also a bunch of kits and other stuff.

If you decide to install a bunch of different mods, make sure to take note of what you change. If you use BP Ascension Beholders, don't install the SCS beholders and so on. You can get very strange results, I had beholders that didn't cast anything and just tried to eat my dudes. Funny yes, but also boring after a bit.

Install order is a important thing. I normally go,

1.Ascension

2.Soundsets, portraits and other fluff.

3.Kits, Spells

4.Items

5.Quests

6.NPCs

7.Banter.

8.Romance

9.Tactics

10.Tweaks

11.Scales of Balance

12.SCS

That generally works, if I made a mistake in the install order or forgot anything, please tell me.

Sciobtha

Thanks everyone for all the responses! I have some places to direct my research.

Ravenslight said:

What kind of mods are you most interested in trying?

Not really even sure what is out there, but I am open to trying loads of stuff perhaps. I had been doing some looking at different threads and decided to start my own just to get sort a "review" with the mod from the user standpoint.

Romance and Banter mods sound cool, same as added content/quests. I will have to do more research to be sure I install things correctly, sounds like it can be a touch more involved than minecraft modding

abacus

Rogue Rebalancing is probably my favourite mod. It adds a handful of story elements, and a few nice new thief/bard-only items, but the main things for me are the alterations to the Bard and Thief kits... with interesting and useful traits throughout.

I'm also an SCS convert... don't be too trouble by what people say about the increased difficulty, all it really does is give you opponents more consistent abilities and allow them to use them in the same way that you do. (Also, it's incredibly modular, so you can leave off the really nasty stuff if you want to.)

Item Revisions and Spell Revisions are great if you've reached the point where your familiarity with the game is too great, as they remove some of the meta-gaming (in the sense of "Must go to place X and collect item Y immediately!").

Lord_Tansheron

abacus said:

I'm also an SCS convert... don't be too trouble by what people say about the increased difficulty, all it really does is give you opponents more consistent abilities and allow them to use them in the same way that you do. (Also, it's incredibly modular, so you can leave off the really nasty stuff if you want to.)

This should really be highlighted, as I absolutely agree many people mistakenly think SCS is a "hardcore" mod that will shatter their soul with the first goblin. Far from it. The vanilla game's combat is very simplistic, all SCS does is bring it up to a reasonable standard. It CAN go beyond and crank things up, but only if you explicitly tell it to. Most of the truly frightening options even come with warning labels like "Extremely difficult, not recommended" or some such. Give it a try!

Genryu

I've been unable to get them working with the enhanced editions yet (Though I've been assured they are compatible), but I always loved David Gaider's Ascension and Improved Tougher Bhaalspawn mods.

I like to think of Ascension as a Throne of Bhaal Directors Cut. Whilst not officially endorsed by Black Isle, it could be considered semi-official. Due to pressure to release ToB on schedule, they had to rush the end of the game (final chapters) and ended cutting out a lot of cool content. David Gaider was one Baldur's Gates head writers, and was so dissatisfied with the rushed conclusion to TOB, that after its release he took it upon him self to produce Ascension and change the build up to TOB's ending to how it had originally been envisioned (I don't want to post any spoilers, but there are some really cool differences, especially where Balthazar is concerned....)

As for the Tougher Bhaalspawn fights, originally the battles against the five, as well as Demogorgon and the final boss (no spoilers!) were much much harder, but they soon decided they were too hard for the casual gamer, and so greatly nerfed the difficulty. David Gaider created this mod to once again, restore the battles to their original glory for players who wanted a challenge (And they are not for the feint hearted!).

You were also supposed to be rewarded with new powers each time you completed one of the pocket plane trials, including upgrades to your slayer form, but these was once again cut due to time constraints. Ascension re-added these, though IIRC they were a bit buggy.

If you can get them to run, then they are definitely worth a playthrough.

Ravenslight

As I tend to prefer new role-play and dialogue based content, my favorites reflect that.

The BG1 NPC Project is a must have, for my installs. It brings the party NPCs to life, whereas with only the base game, the world seems eerily quite now. It also adds both very nice friendship and romance options to experience.

The BG2 Tweak Pack (Despite the name, these tweaks work for both BGI and BGII.)
This mod contains many different components to choose from. Some of my favorites are, Alter Multiclass Restrictions, Remove Racial Restrictions, Alter Dual-Class Restrictions, Unlimited Ammo Stacks, and XP Cap Remover.

Entangle Restored (Restores the Druid Entangle spell to work as it did before the EE editions changed it.)

I am a big fan of romance mods. A few that I have enjoyed are:

Gavin for BGI- A very well rounded character and mod.
Angelo- A little more dangerous, forbidden.
Kelsey– The boy next door.
The Haer’Dalis Romance for BGII– This one pulled a little more emotion from me than some, as well as being just a little spicier in parts. I like that.

The NPC Flirt Pack adds some nice content to the base game romances in BGII, along with the ability to talk to your romance options through PIDs (Player Initiated Dialogue)

NPC Banter Packs
Anything that adds more interactions between party members and my protagonist is a very good thing in my book.

Romantic Encounters
A variety of different type encounters that you may or may not like, depending on personal tastes.

Mini Quest Encounters
I really like several of the little quests in this one. Really well done, I think.

Sciobtha

Wow, thanks again everyone! I have loads of stuff to research now. The mods you are suggesting @Ravenslight sound super interesting to me. Do the romance packs just add male options for female PC's or do they have female additions to male PC's as well?

Sciobtha

Sry for late(ish) responses. I am reading through @LadyRhian 's Castle Greyhawk thread in the RP forums and am really enjoying it. She is a great storyteller and her players really play the roles well!

Ravenslight

The romance packs add options for both male and female. The individual romance mods I mentioned add romance options for a female protagonist or friendship dialogue for either. I can’t personally recommend romance mods for a male protagonist as I usually play as a female.

Sciobtha

right? I am usually playing a male so I can understand. Thanks loads for the recommendations and informations though!

Ravenslight

The BGI NPC Project and The NPC Flirt Pack for BGII would offer you some fun new options then.

woowoovoodoo

I have only SCS installed, I'm afraid of using more mods.

EDIT: but after reading this topic I'm convinced to try Ascension.

Sciobtha

Are these all pretty much WeiDu or whatever type of mods then?

Ravenslight

Sciobtha said:

Are these all pretty much WeiDu or whatever type of mods then?

Yes

Lord_Tansheron

Genryu said:

I've been unable to get them working with the enhanced editions yet (Though I've been assured they are compatible), but I always loved David Gaider's Ascension and Improved Tougher Bhaalspawn mods.

From what I understand, he's too busy atm to worry about a release. In the meanwhile, you can use BP Ascension, which is essentially the same mod just in a different package and compatible with the EE. It may have some hiccups here and there but it works fine for most people.

ojthesimpson

tweak pack is essential.

I love pretty much every single gibberling 3 mods. seriously those guys could make their own bg sequal

Genryu

Lord_Tansheron said:

Genryu said:

I've been unable to get them working with the enhanced editions yet (Though I've been assured they are compatible), but I always loved David Gaider's Ascension and Improved Tougher Bhaalspawn mods.

From what I understand, he's too busy atm to worry about a release. In the meanwhile, you can use BP Ascension, which is essentially the same mod just in a different package and compatible with the EE. It may have some hiccups here and there but it works fine for most people.

That explains it then, I was unaware of this BP version, and I was trying to install the original!

Thanks a lot!