When was the last time you played without mods?

lollers

It has been so long since the last time I went without a mod like atweaks or SCS to mix things up that I don't think I remember what vanilla BG is like. I think maybe I'll just play vanilla along with some quest mods and it will give me a chance to create a bhaalspawn that is kind of crappy like a swashbuckler with poor stats. Maybe some quest mods too like grey clan or whatever just because BG1 seems kind of empty without them.

Grond0

I played an unmodded original BG game recently. It's a very different game even than original BG2 - things like not allowing pause in inventory, the small size of the screen, the inability to bump icons when you want to move past them, the small size of missile stacks all have significant effects on game play even though the basic enemies are little changed.

Maurvir

Hmm... when did the game come out? I think I played a vanilla game *once*, got frustrated that Jaheira hit the XP limit just a few hundred points shy of gaining a level, and installed the XP cap remover. I've never played an unmodded game since.

jmerry

Sometime last year. I reached the point at which playing at Insane (no damage increase) difficulty wasn't hard enough, and installed SCS to deal with that. Along with some other mods, because why not once you have one?

Now I'm at the point of playing SCS/Insane, with themes and variant rules to restrict myself in different ways every run. That seems to work for me.

Quickblade

Don't think I've played an unmodded game since 2001.

I know I've never completed an unmodded game.

Too much stuff to tweak, NPCs to add, more banters, etc.

Skitia

I play with very few mods, usually only mods that add more chatter (Banter packs) or Custom NPC Mods. I've beaten both games without mods, but ironically, have never finished a full playthrough with an NPC mod character, at best, only finishing SoA.

Maurvir

The only "mod" I played with for years was the XP cap remover. However, now that I've played with SCS, I'm not sure I will ever go back to a vanilla install.

SharGuidesMyHand

I never tried mods (or barely even understood what they were) back when the vanilla games were first released.

After beating BG:EE unmodded for the first time, I began experimenting with mods and haven't looked back.

megamike15

when sod broke bg 1's mods but that was only for like 10 minutes.

DinoDin

I used to play runs with lots of mods, pre EE. And after the EE games came out I did have a few runs with SCS and some other mods. But, if you count it, I've run the EE games for the past few years now without any mods.

I started doing no-reload and limited reload runs. And I feel like the base EE game has the perfect combination of challenge and reward like that. I've actually found that a lot of the difficulty mods turn the game into a bit of a slog, encouraging things like rest spamming, excessive use of spell protections/removal, pre-buffing and summoning.

I finished my last complete saga run in the first half of this year, with a Stalker->Cleric dual.

Kamigoroshi

Nearly 20 years ago, give or take a month. Never looked back.

Renshtalis

Well... I’ve played the game every year since 98. (Still got my original cardboard fold out CD case and boom, I’ll fully admit there are STILL quests I haven’t done. I find no reload and hardest difficulty is the way to go. I’ve tried soloing, duo games and full parties. Played each class more than once. Romanced each person I’m able to and NEVER EVER PLAYED WITH A MOD OR A TRAINER! 22 yrs kids, vanilla ?

sarevok57

for me, its more of; when was the last time i PLAYED with mods, and lets see.... 15 or so years ago....

now the only "mods" i use are just NI fixes for the game and clearing up extra rubbish ( like not having 10 million save games, ugh )

ironically i find mods make the game extremely boring because 9 times out of 10 they make the game easier and for the better AI mods its seriously just too much effort to deal with unstoppable AI where the only way to win in some circumstances is to use extreme cheese, which in my opinion completely defeats the purpose, but im a lazy gamer so there's that as well

luckily for me, i've always loved the BG series for what it was, never needed mods to make the game better, and to this day i still play modless hahaha

Selerel

Similar to Renshtalis. Never used a mod. My lifetime quest is to play through the saga with every class and kit and combo. I probably get done ~75-80% of the content per playthough and use a wide range of NPCs depending on RP.

iosfrustration

I play a lot on the plane/train on my iPhone.
A tiny screen and no mods is a fair trade for BG2 goodness in my pocket wherever I go :-)