List of improvement mods for the Infinity Engine

Alonso

My favourite IE mods are those that don't add new content to the games, but rather improve in some way the original content. These include mods like SCS, which (among other things) improves the AI, The Tweaks Anthology, which provides lots of little tweaks, etc. In this thread I want to create a list of the mods that fit this concept. The list includes the name of each mod, a link to its main web page, a very short description, and a list of supported games. I start with the mods I currently use:

• Sword Coast Stratagems: Vastly improves the game AI and offers some handy tweaks. Supports BGEE, BG2(EE), SoD, EET, BGT, EasyTUTU, and all their expansions.
• Tactics: Adds many components to BG2 that aim to make the game more challenging and rewarding by increasing the difficulty. Some components add new content and others just improve the original content. Supports BG2 and BG2EE. You can find a detailed description here.
• The Tweaks Anthology: Huge compilation of fixes, cosmetic changes, and tweaks. Supports all IE games.
• EEUITweaks Mod Collection: Collection of mods that tweak or fix many parts of the UI. Supports BGEE, BG2EE, SoD, PSTEE, and EET.
• ATweaks: Adds PnP-based rules alterations, especially in the domain of fiends (demons, devils), fey (dryads, sirines), undead and mephits, giving them cool and dangerous abilities and strong and complex scripting to use them effectively. Supports BG2 and its offshoots (Tutu, etc.), BGEE, BGEE/SOD, BG2EE and IWDEE.
• IWDification: Brings some of the elements of Icewind Dale into the Baldur's Gate series. It includes elements like selectable bard songs, two-handed axes, and over 70 new spells. Every component can be installed independently. Supports BG2, Tutu, BGT, BGEE, and BG2EE.
• Portraits Portraits Everywhere: Adds portraits to all the 4617 speaking NPCs in the games. Supports all the EE games.
• Corrected spell descriptions: Corrects and improves in several ways the descriptions of most spells and special abilities. Supports BG2.
• Jimfix: Miscellaneous collection, including notifications about spells, fixes to some spells, and fixes to some Ascension components. It's unclear which games are supported. Probably all in the BG series.
• Blazing Inferno: Prevents zero damage hits (like a fireball hitting a spell caster who is immune to fire) from disrupting spell casting.
• Lighting Pack: Provides options to adjust brightness, contrast, and other visual parameters. Supports BGEE, SoD, BG2EE and IWDEE.
• Ammoless: Fixes an issue with magical ranged weapons with unlimited ammunition. Supports BG2EE 2.3+.

The list is roughly sorted by the scope of the changes each mod makes to the games.

Needless to say, the concept of improvement is subjective, this is a list for mods that are meant to be an improvement, regardless of whether each player thinks that they really improve the games or not.

Please name any fitting mods that are not in this list and let me know of anything I got wrong.

gorgonzola

Some of the tactics mod components probably satisfy the requirements of the thread, like the better scripts for the ai spellcasters, the more challenging beholders and mind flyers and the more challenging random encounters in the town.
Other components add new content, but can be completely skipped when installing.

It does not change the vanilla combat and magic system, but use frequently spells forced by scripts that can not be disrupted and add to some creatures new abilities. As an example the mind flyers can go invisible at will, see naturally trough invisibility and can teleport themselves.

Alonso

Thanks @gorgonzola, I've added it to the list.

Stromael

A favourite of mine has to be ATweaks, which adds lots of PnP-based rules alterations, especially in the domain of fiends (demons, devils), fey (dryads, sirines), undead and mephits, giving them many cool and dangerous abilities plus strong and complex scripting to use those effectively. I always include it in my installation.

I also love the component Icewind Dale Bard Songs of the IWDification mod, giving BG pure-class Bards that unique bit of flavour they were always missing before.

Alonso

@Stromael: Thank you for your contribution. I've added IWDification to the list, but it looks like aTweaks is hosted in Spellhold Studios, and unfortunately Spellhold Studios has been offline for a while. I'll add aTweaks when it comes back online (I hope the problem is temporary).

Gusinda

@Alonso, there is also a GitHub link for ATweaks until Spellhold Studios is bought back to life.

Gus

Alonso

@Stromael and @Gusinda: I've added aTweaks to the list. Do you know which games are supported?

gorgonzola

I will add the link to this topic to the pinned one about useful information that does not deserve to be buried under pages of new threads as soon as i will return home.
Too difficult for me to do it with a cellphone, i am more an old school pc guy

Gusinda

Hi @Alonso, I currently have aTweaks installed on BGEE (standalone), BGEE/SOD (combined), BG2EE and IWDEE. It also, of course, supports the original BG2 and its offshoots (Tutu etc).

Gus

Alonso

Thank you @gorgonzola and @Gusinda. aTweaks entry updated.

I've tried to sort the mods by the scope of the changes they make, but some of them, like aTweaks, I've never played and all I know about them is what you've said here. Which means that the sorting order is becoming a very uneducated guess at best. Let me know of any mistakes I've made.