Recommend/evaluate me mods!
BrutaleBent
Member Posts: 36
Hey mates
Got to play some of Siege of Dragonspear during the summer holiday, and found it very fun - so I ended up buying the BG series.
Played the series ages ago when they were released, unmodded - as a CG human fighter, with a 2h sword, bonking people on the noggin til they died, core difficulty, without that much thinking on spells. Was a great game still.
As a sidenote; I remember I somehow also ended up screwing up my Aerie romance and for some reason got Viconia in BG2:ToB - which in the end was very satisfactory too.
I've in my later years since playing it, become aware of the awesomery of spellcasting in BG/BG2 (apparently too advanced for my 17-18 year old self), and planning to make this full playthrough as a Berserker 9 or 13, then dualclass to mage.
Party setup will likely be:
CHARNAME
Imoen/Nalia
Boo and his trusty human, Minsc
Jaheira
Aerie
Viconia
(Also open to suggestions in this regard)
Anyways, on to the real topic - There's now a ton of mods available, some almost bugfree too. Seeing this is a huge maze of available mods, I'm just making this thread, for recommendations of good, thoroughly tested, (mostly) bugfree mods, and evaluation of already planned mods. Also, please let me know if you happen to know listed/suggested mods below are either bugged, conflicting, otherwise bad news or just gonna suck the fun/challenge out of the game.
So far, what I'm planning to install:
Tweaks Anthology v3 (Containers, PnP tables, autolearn spells, shapechanger fix, grandmastery for multiclass, true grandmastery, etc etc and some QoL changes)
Unofficial Item Pack 2.7 (some good items, missing SoD items and removal of free action ring hindering speedy boots)
Golem Construction for Spellcasters (seems like a solid addition)
The maybe list:
IWDfication (for more spells - but unsure about this one, as it seems not updated)
Ascension (Idea is very great, but on the fence, since I read it's hard to get to work properly)
The BG1 NPC Project v22.8a (For more actual interaction in BG:EE, and music pack too, but not updated recently - maybe a good thing?)
Banter Packs v15 (For BG2, from pocket plane group - but again, too likely to bug?)
Wishlist:
More spells! (Don't mind spells being somewhat OP either, as long as I'm gonna be on the receiving end too.)
More summoning spells!
Potential bugfixes not yet fixed.
Better AI from the enemy. Though, they did seem smarter in SoD than I remember in the old BG games, but might just be me.
Items, that are not too OP.
I might not know I even want somthing, so surprise me!
Lastly, I hope to see some suggestions/input here and that I posted this in the right section.
Got to play some of Siege of Dragonspear during the summer holiday, and found it very fun - so I ended up buying the BG series.
Played the series ages ago when they were released, unmodded - as a CG human fighter, with a 2h sword, bonking people on the noggin til they died, core difficulty, without that much thinking on spells. Was a great game still.
As a sidenote; I remember I somehow also ended up screwing up my Aerie romance and for some reason got Viconia in BG2:ToB - which in the end was very satisfactory too.
I've in my later years since playing it, become aware of the awesomery of spellcasting in BG/BG2 (apparently too advanced for my 17-18 year old self), and planning to make this full playthrough as a Berserker 9 or 13, then dualclass to mage.
Party setup will likely be:
CHARNAME
Imoen/Nalia
Boo and his trusty human, Minsc
Jaheira
Aerie
Viconia
(Also open to suggestions in this regard)
Anyways, on to the real topic - There's now a ton of mods available, some almost bugfree too. Seeing this is a huge maze of available mods, I'm just making this thread, for recommendations of good, thoroughly tested, (mostly) bugfree mods, and evaluation of already planned mods. Also, please let me know if you happen to know listed/suggested mods below are either bugged, conflicting, otherwise bad news or just gonna suck the fun/challenge out of the game.
So far, what I'm planning to install:
Tweaks Anthology v3 (Containers, PnP tables, autolearn spells, shapechanger fix, grandmastery for multiclass, true grandmastery, etc etc and some QoL changes)
Unofficial Item Pack 2.7 (some good items, missing SoD items and removal of free action ring hindering speedy boots)
Golem Construction for Spellcasters (seems like a solid addition)
The maybe list:
IWDfication (for more spells - but unsure about this one, as it seems not updated)
Ascension (Idea is very great, but on the fence, since I read it's hard to get to work properly)
The BG1 NPC Project v22.8a (For more actual interaction in BG:EE, and music pack too, but not updated recently - maybe a good thing?)
Banter Packs v15 (For BG2, from pocket plane group - but again, too likely to bug?)
Wishlist:
More spells! (Don't mind spells being somewhat OP either, as long as I'm gonna be on the receiving end too.)
More summoning spells!
Potential bugfixes not yet fixed.
Better AI from the enemy. Though, they did seem smarter in SoD than I remember in the old BG games, but might just be me.
Items, that are not too OP.
I might not know I even want somthing, so surprise me!
Lastly, I hope to see some suggestions/input here and that I posted this in the right section.
1
Comments
After that, you make your selection of mod choices from here http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27741#entry240673.
You get the same sophisticated enemy AI for the whole game, you can develop your PC and NPCs from Sword Coast to ToB, arrange your journey through all three parts of the game with one worldmap, one GUI, one ruleset etc, etc.
The mods from your wishlist are supported and many others as well - even some that you do not find for the vanilla games.
@lefreut I'll try your mod, and then without - see what I like best, looks good though. UI is kinda "outside" install order, right?
@PaulaMigrate Soo, after checking it out, that's probably what I'm gonna end up doing - specially if it's really newbie user friendly, as advertised. Thanks for that.
Liches, vampires, this sort of thing are actually a problem in BG2EE. Maybe something from my mod gets your attention.
Subtledoctor was humble. I think that everyone should use the sphere system from Faiths and Powers. It just adds a great flavor to the game and makes every priest unique.
If you decide to use something from my mod, just make sure to install it after everything but mods that alter the proficiency system (what apparently you won't use).
Oh, and, play on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty, of course.
@Lord_Tansheron I like it periodically hard, not continously frustrating head-to-the-wall hard. :P
@subtledoctor @Raduziel Gonna give B_spells a shot, even if it doesn't add IWD Wizard spells yet.
@PaulaMigrate Does that mean it's as likely to screw it up as I am, if only fatfinger modding myself?
Anywyas, even though I haven't decided on EET/BWP or just doing the games, standalone and importing - I'm considering modding BG1 only a little, and BG2 somewhat heavier - Would installing mods following these rule of thumb from the SCS page, be badong?
The Ascension mod
The BG2 Fixpack
Mods which change the spell or item systems
Mods which add new quests and similar game content
Mods which add new joinable characters
Mods which tweak aspects of gameplay
Which leads to:
BG1 mods and install order:
The BG1 NPC Project v22.8a
Tweaks Anthology v3
BG2 mods & install order:
Ascension - From here.
Banter Packs v15
B_spells
Unofficial Item Pack 2.7
More Style For Mages
Golem Construction for Spellcasters
Tweaks Anthology v3
SCS
LeUI
Does it look even remotely sensible?
I can't believe that Unfinished Business, Almateria's Restoration Pack, and Quest Pack haven't been mentioned yet.
edit: And since we're talking BGEE too, BGQE.
Then *I'm* gonna say those. Those are great!
https://github.com/BiGWorldProject/BiG-World-Fixpack/archive/master.zip
This is mostly for mods that have not yet been updated to fix them inside or for older stuff that may never get fixed. Does not contain those new mods that are still very active. It also fixes some long lasting vanilla bugs that never got fixed.
I've no idea if it is still updated these days but it still is pretty useful for bigger mod installations.
Caution with mods that come packed as self-extracting exe files. Run them outside of the game folder first, then move the mod folder and setup.exe to the game folder, otherwise they start to install prior patching.