Firing up BG2, Looking for mod suggestions

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Hi everyone!

I decided today to revisit BGII; it's been a few years since I've played, and it's time again. However, I figured this time I'd change things up a bit. I've played through SoA and ToB over a dozen times, but I've never installed any of the mods. Looking around, there's a lot of options, but it's hard to find real reviews and compatibility information. There seems to be a good general guide in this thread near the top (http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=57416), but are there any specific combinations to avoid? Right now, I've just installed SoA, ToB, and the patch.

Any help you folks could give would be greatly appreciated!

 

Conceptually I don't like Dungeon-be-gone. Some good ones though are (in my personal order from best to worst) G3 Fixpack (avoid baldurdash at all cost), Unfinished Business, SCSII, Tactics, Banter Pack, Item Upgrade, any/all friendship/romance mods, G3 Tweaks, Solaufein (+ Romance pack). I found these to add a huge amount of depth, realism, character support and challenge, without severely unbalancing the game or making it utterly impossible to play.

For the correct installation order of nearly all known mods, see this http://downloads.spellholdstudios.net/BiG%20World%20v11%20english.pdf. Whilst technically it applies to a Baldur's Gate Trilogy megamod installation, as long as you avoid the mods labelled BGT or intended only for the BG1 part of the game it will give you an extraordinarily complete guide to ensuring the mods you install are all in a compatible order. There's also a list of download links for all the mods mentioned in that guide here http://kerzenburg.baldurs-gate.eu/bwpmods.php (make sure to click the golden box thingy in the download column, not the Bhaal symbol link to the website).

Finally, research each mod you like the sound of a little bit before downloading it, expect the worst in terms of possible mistakes (it took me a few tries to get everything in the correct order, even using the above guide!), and when you finally get there, enjoy!

P.S. I should add that Tactics and SCSII are really for only if you find the battles in BGII to be less of a challenge now. They quite heavily upgrade a lot of enemies (Tactics mostly with more abilities, SCSII mostly with the AI) and can be very difficult to the uninitiated. I should also mention that a lot of the components of Tactics are incompatible with SCSII, and you should carefully consult the latter's readme and ONLY install the components of Tactics that it says are okay (if you want SCSII, that is). And I nearly forgot, in the guide above a lot of the components of Tactics are included in the Big Picture Mod (which only applies to BGT - you won't need this) so again take care which bits you install; it should be reasonably self-explanatory. Any questions, let me know, I'll see what help I can offer.

 

If you have played it through a dozen times, as I ahve, i would recommend Dungeon-be-gone. I would recommend some of the NPC mods. By searching around the various forums, you can find most of them easily. The Pocket Plane has a huge listing of NPC mods.

I would recommend any of the below....

Beyond the Law - Kiyonne(Archer) & Kova(M/T)
The Undying - Callisto(Fighter) & Ninafer(F/M)
BG1 NPCs in SoA - Brings back Alora, Xan, Quayle, Tiax, Kagain, Montaron, Xzar, Garrick, Skie, Eldoth, Yeslick, Coran, Kivan, Ajantis and Safana. Also adds Deekin teh Kobold from NWN)
Kelsey - Sorcerer
Keto -Bard
Kido - Bard
Tsujatha Melalor - Necromancer
Tashia - Sorcerer
Auren Auseph - Fighter
Tyris Flare - DC F/M
Fade - Thief or Fighter/Thief
Neh'taniel - (Wraith with a Fighter Kit)
Rylorn - Blackguard kit
Silverstar - Assassin
Soulafein - F/M
Vanim - Assassin
Worgas - Wild Mage
Xulaye - Mage/Assassin
Yaesraena - Fighter
Yikari - Monk

 

Personally I won't play without
Ascension (better ToB ending)
Refinements (more diverse HLAs)
SCS II
Banterpacks
Tweakpack stuff (stackable jewelry, any class any stronghold)
Spell Revisions Mod
tries to make every spell useable/sensible/balanced. big fan, also works with SCS II. (no more projected image quick slot items ;p)

NPC mods you can install pretty much as many you like, they hardly cause incompatibility (except Amber she closes the guarded compound).
My favorites are Kelsey & Kivan and Deheriana Companions.


I also really enjoyed the chosen of cyric & shadow thieves improvements of Rogue Rebalancing, extremely well crafted encounter/changes but be warned tough, really really tough.


Dunno if I should recommend improved planar sphere,.. probably not, a ridonculous plotline, bugs abound but so many new interesting magical items, spells (,spell animations!) & fights.


Also my judgement is based on the probably 2 year+ old versions...so.

 

Thanks for the replies, guys!

I'll admit, I got impatient waiting for it to actual post this thread, so I dived in. I picked up The Darkest Day, Count the Bodies, the G3 Fix and Tweak packs, the banter pack, and the improved thief stronghold mod. Nothing too crazy, went with TDD and CtB because they were supposed to add a good amount and figured it was a good way to test the waters. I'm not really all that ecstatic with the stuff that I've noticed is different, though. The prose is overly florid and kind of cheesy, which is a bit of a turnoff, and the items seem weighted towards "overpowered" and that's hardly necessary. The spells they added also tend to be poorly balanced imo, too. Probably will take them off after this playthrough, but everything's working fine and I've only really seen ancillary stuff so far (mostly been running all the quests available from Chapter 2), so maybe I'll change my mind.

I skipped the tactics mod this time through because it HAS been a while, and I figured my first time playing after a couple years doesn't need to have the bumped difficulty- I remember the broad strokes, where to go and who to talk to, but I don't remember any of the fights like the back of my hand (except Kangaxx and the dragons, because I always try to do them early and I need to work at it). I was planning on doing a second playthrough with a wild mage after I finish my current assassin, and since I've been enjoying it so much, I've been thinking about finding a group to do MP after that, and I'll probably install it for those.

I passed on the NPC mods, for much the same reason. I wanted to refamiliarize myself with the game first, and in addition I wanted to see how the stock NPCs interacted with some of the new content. I've forgotten how much fun Minsc and Edwin are, Anomen's still a dick. I'm able to deal with that by ruining his life and murdering him when he hits rock bottom, though, so that's okay.

I tried Ascension, but my game kept crashing when I tried to start a new game, and it seemed to be the problem, so I skipped it this time. Again, figuring I'll put it on next time. I wanted to dive in pretty quick, not spend 2-3 days troubleshooting.

Thanks for the recommendations, they'll be put to use eventually (well, I don't know about all the NPC mods on that list. That's a lot of NPCs).

 

Hi

I would recommend ; bg2 romantic encounters, definitely spices up the game, it's rather minor add-on I enjoyed it nonetheless http://www.gibberlings3.net/romanticencounters/

bg2 tweaks; like Exor said; stacking things is really really helpful in micromanagement
http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/index.php

1pp flaming swords; they looks great instead of looking like poop
http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/565-1pp-flaming-swords/

also improved 1pp paperdolls
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/24005-1ppv3-paperdolls/page__p__373939#entry373939

i would maybe investigate more into 1pp stuff it makes the game look better

 

I can't believe nobody mentioned dTweaks or aTweaks
http://www.pocketplane.net/sim/
http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/readme_atweaks.html

Check out the rest of spellholdstudio's mods, there are a lot of good ones there.

 

ah yeah i used them too, they good

btw OP remember that sequence in which you install these mods is important as well

one warning about PNP fiends in atweaks- demons become strong, really strong
it's two edged sword though- since Gate becomes by far strongest summoning spell(well ok you can argue HLAS elemental summoning is stronger, but I don't think so really). They are as challenging as demons should so I kept it.
Cool thing is that a Taanari engages Baatezu always, so when you see a demon of certain sort you can gate it's blood enemy to keep jhim occupied for a while
One thing you want to deactivate is fiendish gating- it's gay and rapist when you're unprepared for a mob of demons, and frankly game wasn't balanced for it. To me it's cheap and elongates some battle where there is little need for them to be any longer.

I just finished my second complete run of BGT(but completed bg1/iwd1 twice and torment so my 2e knowledge is average at least). This was aided by reading about million threads on character and party builds. I guess our ideas about balance and difficulty might be somehow similar.
Though you are probably much more exp'ed so you could maybe try scs/scs2 or tatics with no fear.

I finished BGT on normal/scsI&II installed(nothing improved only enhanced AI and PNP fiends/etc without gating- I'd say it was just as challenging as I wanted it to be.