Favorite NPC Mod

Gabeg21

Like the title says. There are tons of NPC mods out there. Some of the are good, some are great, some not so much. Everyone likes different stories, romances etc....

Which BG2 EE mod is your favorite? I am only including ones I have played, or the popular ones that I have not. Let us know why they are your favorite!

Gabeg21

My favorite is Fade. I like her story, her sense of humor and her romance. I usually EEkeeper her to an assassin or a F/T as I think that fits her personality and story a little better.

I really like Adrian as well, but interjects to much IMO. Almost every event he comments on. It's annoying after a while.

Isra is my 2nd favorite.

ThacoBell

This is a tough call. Its between Sirene and Aura for me. Both by @AionZ . Sirene is an older mod of theirs and relatively simple, but the themes and characterization of Sirene mirror that of the Bhaalspawn perfectly, while not overshadowing them.

Aura is much newer, and has more complicated mechanics with her custom class, maing her play different from just about every other npc, mod or otherwise. While her story and background is a bit different from other npvs in the game, You can see how the author's writing has evolved and the character is more complex both in story and character.

So its a choice between a project that's a little rougher aroudn the edges, but fits perfectly in terms of tone and theme, versus a more polished product that feels just very slightly out of place. Both are very good and worth looking at.

Balrog99

My days of modding were long before the EE's so I have to vote for Weimer's Solaufein mod. Sure he was overpowered, but his quest fights were super-tough to make up for it. I used to juice up the difficulty with the Tactics mod too. That was a Hell of a fun ride!

ilduderino

I am really enjoying Sirene so far

Arent’t the Beaurin Legacy and Evandra separate mods? Do you mean Minyae? Saving her for a future more neutral party play through and looking forward

Gabeg21

ilduderino wrote: »

I am really enjoying Sirene so far

Arent’t the Beaurin Legacy and Evandra separate mods? Do you mean Minyae? Saving her for a future more neutral party play through and looking forward

You are right..... opps. It won't let me edit it.

DJKajuru

My favorite npc mods are those that offer well written dialogue and banters amd aren't powergamey . Oh, I have a thing for BG1 npcs back to BG2 .

My favorites are Xan (one of the best BG2 npc mods ever) , Sir Ajantis (consistent with its BG1 mod, well written and he's adorable!) ,Kivan (perfect for BG2, though it needs some adaptation for ToB) , Skie : Cost of one girl's soul , Branwen and Coran for BG2.

Ulb

DJKajuru wrote: »

Oh, I have a thing for BG1 npcs ..

Yeah, if this wasn't limited to BG2 NPCs then BG1NPC Project's Imoen would win by a mile. She is hands down the best written NPC in the entire game, including all official content.

DJKajuru

Ulb wrote: »

DJKajuru wrote: »

Oh, I have a thing for BG1 npcs ..

Yeah, if this wasn't limited to BG2 NPCs then BG1NPC Project's Imoen would win by a mile. She is hands down the best written NPC in the entire game, including all official content.

Actually I meant BG1 npcs modded for BG2 such as Kivan , Ajantis, Xan, Branwen...
But I agree with you, @Ulb ! Bg1 npc project Imoen is so alive and well developed, even her recent SoD version seems a bit flat in comparison.

ilduderino

Good to know about Xan - am contemplating a play through of the whole saga with him, Branwen, Ajantis, Coran and Imoen, they seem to all cross mod and it will hopefully be a lot of fun - intend to use EEKeeper to mod across use of stat tomes, will be a change from using everything on charname

Bertle

Adrian was the first mod NPC I played and holds a special place in my heart. As a female playing BG before EE, I played the Anomen romance a bunch of times and it was so not for me. Adrian's character and romance was so different and I really appreciated finally having options. He is also well fleshed out and his backstory fits with the natural BG world building. He does interject a lot, but I don't really mind that. Probably some nostalgia in my choice but he has always been one of my faves.

megamike15

it was a toss up between isra and sirene. but i ultimately went with sirene. her story goes in parallel with charname's and the two feel like they belong together. and while i did not romance her the last time i used her it does seem like it would flow naturaly from a friendship.

she might become one of my canon party members i will use.

TheArtisan

In all honestly Sirene-BG1 qualifies as an old shame for me as it suffers from very inconsistent characterization and writing style, to the point where I completely abandoned certain traits when I moved on to writing her BG2 stuff because I just couldn’t find a point to them.

Personally I think Aura is objectively my best NPC in terms of quality of content, but I am aware it’s a lot harder to really get attached to a character that isn’t in BG2 yet.

Actually, after a fourth NPC I have planned for BG1 (spoiler alert!) I will be focusing more on writing NPCs that start from BG2 instead and I may not return to BG1 for some time if at all. Some will be okay with it, others will probably hate it, but truth be told I have found the payoff for BG1 content extremely lackluster.

Just a few of my thoughts, none of them that relevant to the topic at hand, I suppose. Carry on.

megamike15

i dunno i kidna liked drake alittle more then aura. but i can't really judge until they get their bg 2 content. but he was very much like sirene in term of a relationship with charname. but more an older brother one then a they share a common bond.

ilduderino

Aura is awesome and may become my favourite once she is in BG2. A very well fleshed out character, with some great unique abilities, also she fills a number of possible roster gaps very well (an early BG good cleric NPC and a multiclass cleric/thief in BG2, where I like most of the fighters and mages in the base version of the game but don’t particularly enjoy any of the clerics or thieves)

And looking forward to npc 4!

I understand the point about adding characters to BG2 over BG, I have always felt that BG had a fairly good spread of base characters, apart from a few niggles (good and evil clerics being hard to find and a lack of multi class options until late, though I think the latter is probably deliberate so you are forced to work with what you can find early on). There were many characters I felt I wanted to travel with and it was a dilemma who to leave behind. In contrast BG2 feels as if it is lacking options (obviously evil options but also most npcs are vanilla humans, there are no cleric/thieves, very few thieves etc). By the time I have left Keldorn with his family, tried to incorporate Anomen until he starts making racist comments about Mazzy, I feel I often end up using the same bunch unless mods are used. Also I feel the events of BG2 give more scope for interesting writing

megamike15

i dunno i kinda like mods that go through the whole saga. you get to know them in bg 1 and it sets up the conflict in the 2 section. then we get to bg 2 and the character gets fleshed out and we get to resolve their personal conflict by the time of tob.

i also kinda prefer the npc knowing charname before the events of bg 2 as apposed to them just meeting them in bg 2. bg 1 lets us get an introduction to the character and by the time of 2 we already got a full relationship so if the mod has a romance it goes more naturally as apposed to meeting them for the first time and then falling in love.

ThacoBell

I always found it weird when so many NPCs from BG1 just happen to find their way down to Amn just in time for you to meet them. I think more npc mods need to keep their npc in one of the games.

jastey

@ThacoBell I'm with you but it depends on how the NPC got to Amn. Ajantis for example is natural as he resides from there. Jaheiras, Minsc, and Breagar (as an example) come with you into ID.
BG1/NPCs without any connection to Amn miraculously appearing in BGII is Immersion breaking imho.
But I prefer NPCs to come the whole way, if I have the choice.

DJKajuru

jastey wrote: »

@ThacoBell I'm with you but it depends on how the NPC got to Amn. Ajantis for example is natural as he resides from there. Jaheiras, Minsc, and Breagar (as an example) come with you into ID.
BG1/NPCs without any connection to Amn miraculously appearing in BGII is Immersion breaking imho.
But I prefer NPCs to come the whole way, if I have the choice.

Wouldnt it be cool if most BG2 mod npcs had the option "start at chateau Irenicus as part of the original party" ?

megamike15

ThacoBell wrote: »

I always found it weird when so many NPCs from BG1 just happen to find their way down to Amn just in time for you to meet them. I think more npc mods need to keep their npc in one of the games.

there is like a year between you getting captured and bg 2. so it makes sense with some people. alot of them just happen to be in the area for their own reason or are natives to that area.

Mantis37

The first mod npc I recall moving me was Kivan (BG2 & NPC Project), so I'll go with him. Some good writing in there. I find it hard not to take him along with me for most charnames.

ThacoBell

megamike15 wrote: »

ThacoBell wrote: »

I always found it weird when so many NPCs from BG1 just happen to find their way down to Amn just in time for you to meet them. I think more npc mods need to keep their npc in one of the games.

there is like a year between you getting captured and bg 2. so it makes sense with some people. alot of them just happen to be in the area for their own reason or are natives to that area.

Not really. Its like if I secretly moved to Canada from the US, and nobody knew where I had gone, and suddenly ALL of my friends and family just happened to appear in the town I now live without knowing that I was there, or that any of the others were also going there. Its such a huge contrived coincidence. Ajantis is the only one that makes sense to be there.

megamike15

i don't remember why Branwen was there
Xan was on a mission from his people
Kivan heard you got kidnapped and was trailing them
Isra lives in Athkatla
Sirene was already on her own before you met up with her and she just happen to be at the radiant heart building.
Drake lives there
we don't know why Aura is there yet.
have no played Yeslick's mod so don't know
Skie goes to Athkatla on her own. this example is much different then the others as this happens much later and after you get to Athkatla.
Tiax was arrested and is in spellhold
Ajintis is from there.

i think thats it for returning bg 1 party mods.

DJKajuru

megamike15 wrote: »

i don't remember why Branwen was there
Xan was on a mission from his people
Kivan heard you got kidnapped and was trailing them
Isra lives in Athkatla
Sirene was already on her own before you met up with her and she just happen to be at the radiant heart building.
Drake lives there
we don't know why Aura is there yet.
have no played Yeslick's mod so don't know
Skie goes to Athkatla on her own. this example is much different then the others as this happens much later and after you get to Athkatla.
Tiax was arrested and is in spellhold
Ajintis is from there.

i think thats it for returning bg 1 party mods.

Indeed, they do have reasons for being there but all of them showing up in Athkatle at the same time makes it look like a Sitcom xD

ilduderino

I agree and often just go and get any BG1 NPCs straight away and head cannon that they were in the party the whole time. On my first run through of BG I had Ajantis and Yeslick instead of Jaheira and Khalid and so don’t take Jaheira but can add those two. You just have to assume neither of them ends up being treated like Dynaheir or Khalid ...

Isewein

Of the ones you listed certainly Adrian and Isra, but it seems you're only listing the more recent NPC mods? Take my word for it: you might want to try classics such as Angelo, Keto, Xan or Kivan. Xulaye and Iylos are pretty much perfect for what they aim to be, although generally underrated because of their compact content.

Gabeg21

I have tried quite a bit of the old ones as well. Unfortunately, I could only list 10 in the poll. I had the list as 22 or something like that and when I went to post, it said a max of 10. I decided to stick to the more current popular ones. I was a big fan of Keto and Angelo. Xan, not so much, especially considering their are two of them. Kivan, same thing. I never did Xulaye or Iylos.

Son_of_Imoen

I like Amber the most, for having an extensive friendship path, without the option to romance her. It's quite boring, all those NPC's that get a crush for Charname. Alas the Amber mod is gone from the internet. Keto is another nice friendship without romance, with an extensive background story that you discover during the game.

tbone1

@kulyok made an excellent Branwen mod that is the only one I use for BGII. She was my favorite BG character and I was so disappointed when she didn't show up in the original game; who couldn't like a vaguely nordic battle priestess swearing by a god's flaming buttocks?

jastey

Son_of_Imoen wrote: »

I like Amber the most, for having an extensive friendship path, without the option to romance her. It's quite boring, all those NPC's that get a crush for Charname. Alas the Amber mod is gone from the internet.

Amber is at G3: https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/npcs/amber/

Itstucktwice

I really liked Valen. Despite her being ridiculously overtuned, I just thought she was neat and the art for her portrait was pretty (hence the profile pic.) Honestly I would trade Hexxat for an official Valen release.