What's the general consensus on friendship mods?

[Deleted User]

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LavaDelVortel

I believe you may need to tell what exactly do you mean:
a) new friendships with existing NPCs (Valygar Friendship, Imoen Friendship, Yoshimo Friendship etc.) or
b) new NPCs that include friendship and romance (and then are you asking if friendships are as rich as romances - such as Isra NPC, Dace NPC) or
c) new NPCs that include friendship only, without romances (like Skie: The Cost... or Hubelpot, Pai'Na, Yeslick BG2...)

DJKajuru

Regarding the official ee npcs, some of them may require a little polishing, but they are definitely a requirement to make npcs such as cernd and mazzy as important as romanceable characters like jaheira and anomen.

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Skitia

If you like banters in general, you'll probably enjoy the extension of friendships. The only flaw of any friendship mod, or any mod that adds a romance to a character, is that it is always going to be under the interpretation of the mod author on how the character acts. There's quite a few different Mazzy Friendships now, and each probably has slightly different interpretations. Personally that's a good thing, allowing you to explore a different interpretation on each playthrough, if you so wanted.

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Skitia

I think there was three, both of those, and then another that was unfinished IIRC.

megamike15

i tend to find they help flesh alot of the characters out. the yoshimo ones make him one of my favorite characters.

LavaDelVortel

Obviously I won't share opinion on those as I was the writer or co-author of many IEP Friendship mods, including those you mentioned. But about flaw Skitia mentioned: NPC IEP Friendship projects's aim is to build additional content on features and pieces of information that are already there, in the game. They do not create new facts, plot twists, re-imagine stories presented in the game etc. Example: we know that Valygar is from Amn, biography says "He explains briefly that he is the last of the Corthala noble line, a family that was once one of the wealthiest in Amn" and in epilogue we can read: "(...) In time, he would retire to Athkatla, content to assume a contemplative life on his family estate, but admirers among the nobility would not let him rest. He was pressured into assuming the title of Chief Inspector (...)" thus in the Friendship he will also have a talk about state of Athkatla's law enforcement. IEP NPC mods we work on at SHS are to fill those gaps and join existing elements together. Minsc will mention Rashemen and Dynaheir. You'll drink with Korgan. There are no new items, no new quests so you shouldn't expect those. Their sole purpose is to expand text and existing elements without breaking the balance and settled characters.