Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate II Mod Thread

[Hydro]

Are there any mods for the original Baldur’s Gate worth of attention?

 

[d1r]

Yeah, aciferbg is a godsend when it comes to 2d area graphics. Excellent stuff.

 

[d1r]

Are there any mods for the original Baldur’s Gate worth of attention?

BG1 NPC mod.
BG1 Unfinished Business
BG1 Quest and Encounters

 

[Fictive Cunt]

Are there any mods for the original Baldur’s Gate worth of attention?

There's three big classic mods

Dark Side of the Sword Coast
Northern Tales of the Sword Coast
Drizzt Saga

These are quest mods but mostly just a ton more combat. Northern Tales has the best story and well integrated with the main campaign. But also shit like raiding a small temple with 40 archers inside. Dark Side has new spells but many reused dungeons so kind of feels like a slog. It also has 4 or 5 cannon-fodder party companions. Drizzt Saga has his crew as joinable companions and his quest is basically a linear battle gauntlet to recruit them. Lilura's blog has good info on these mods and of course lots of editorializing.

I would never recommend any of these unless you are are just desperate for content in bg1. Play Icewind Dale instead.

There's also Stone of Askavar which is more in line of original quests. Still lots of new combat encounters. Would recommend.

Are there any mods for the original Baldur’s Gate worth of attention?

BG1 NPC mod.
BG1 Unfinished Business
BG1 Quest and Encounters

Unfinished Business and Quests/Encounters add a lot of fun stuff to the game including companion reactions which is strange for bg1, but hey it's cool it's a mod. NPC mod, though adding tons of interactions and characterization which were never part of BG1 experience, crosses the border into annoying fanfiction for me.

Plus of course BGtweaks which lets you customize many things from cosmetics to cleric abilities to infinite item stacking. There is at least one option in that mod you will want to add.

I'm sure there are more quest mods and "fun" companions for original bg1 but also many (better) mods have been made for the EE version.

 

[Hydro]

Thanks frens. I prefer to avoid fanfic content. UB seems interesting. Is it compatible with the pre TotSC BG? I wasn’t able to confirm this in the official readme.

I was thinking redesigned encounters, less trashmobs or enhanced AI for the pre TotSC BG, but those seem not to exist

Other than that I find OG to be pretty wholesome content wise except for a couple of instances which UB seems to address e.g. Branwen & Tranzig and Kivan & Tazok

 

[roshan]

Are there any mods for the original Baldur’s Gate worth of attention?

I don't think so. If you play the EE's then I've heard rave reviews about Black Hearts and lots of praise for Gorgon's Eye, Shades of the Sword Coast, Loretakers and Balduran's Seatower.

The mods for classic BG1 all have poor reputations and are best avoided as these are mostly munchkin experiences - Dark Side of the Sword Coast, Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, Drizzt Saga, The Stone of Askavar, Secret of Bonehill, Dark Horizons, The Grey Clan etc. The BG1 NPC mod also sucks, it's mostly terrible fanfic.

 

[d1r]

Absolutely disagree on the opinions about BG1NPC project.

If BG1NPC is terrible fanfic, then so are mostly all dialogues of the BG2 companions.

 

[Hydro]

If BG1NPC is terrible fanfic, then so are mostly all dialogues of the BG2 companions.

They are

 

[octavius]

BG1NPC is quite variable, both in quality and "quantity", since the whole mod was written by lots of different people.
Kivan has interesting encounters, but also endless emo whining, but fortunately you can tell him to STFU.
Others are quite bare bones, like Skie and Tiax, IIRC.
The best are Monty&Xzar IMO. Many interesting encounters and interjections, and quite well written, and a must if you play an Evil CHARNAME.

 

[Melcar]

Montaron and Xzar have the best NPC mod content. The rest is very cringe, particularly the romance components.

 

[d1r]

BG1NPC is quite variable, both in quality and "quantity", since the whole mod was written by lots of different people.
Kivan has interesting encounters, but also endless emo whining, but fortunately you can tell him to STFU.
Others are quite bare bones, like Skie and Tiax, IIRC.
The best are Monty&Xzar IMO. Many interesting encounters and interjections, and quite well written, and a must if you play an Evil CHARNAME.

Well, Kivan has a CHR score of 8. It definitely makes sense that he is a whiny bitch.

 

[Melcar]

Never understood everyone's infatuation with Kivan being "cool" and "gruff". He's a whiny emo bitch.

 

[Hydro]

Disgusting soap operas adorers

 

[Taim]

This is like calling Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry / Gran Torino a whiny emo bitch.

There are multiple ways to be a misanthrope and I feel its pretty obvious the influences to Clint Eastwood in Kivan's limited characterization in BG1. Hell, Kivan's voice actor did a straight Clint Eastwood impression for the "Don't bother me" bark.

Giving a character like that dialogue akin to Linkin Park lyrics is a travesty.

 

[Melcar]

They gave him a Dirty Harry type voice (to appear cool I guess), but the character itself is very whiny.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

The writer has Kivan conversing too readily and verbosely about Deheriana's death. The character in the base game is presented as a reserved and gruff man whom you feel like you'd have to significantly earn the trust of to get him to talk at length about anything, nevermind the worst thing that ever happened to him. A small window into his true feelings late game after a lot of time with the party would feel much more significant.

Long suspected some of the writers on BG1NPC were probably teenagers at the time they wrote it. Observe, from a banter between Branwen and Quayle:

Well, much easier than it is for women who are unaware of feminine hygiene products. Why, if I had a copper for every time you've had the fragrance of our aquatic friends wrapped about you like my scalp is around my well-tuned mental muscles, then I'd be richer than every noble in Baldur's Gate by now.

This interaction somehow does not end in Branwen punching Quayle's lights out or have any significant consequences for party unity as anybody over the age of about 15 would reasonably expect.

 

[d1r]

A midget talking shit? Yeah, a neutral character with a wisdom score of 16 probably would roll their eyes and move on.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

A midget talking shit? Yeah, a neutral character with a wisdom score of 16 probably would roll their eyes and move on.

Maybe dude, but the response indicates some offense on her part:

...what?

With Quayle finishing the exchange:

Sheesh, just try using some soap sometime, will you? Or at least, y'know, water.

Not really something that would get left hanging like that. Possible over-read on my part to be sure, but just speaks to an absence of life experience. Lots of little things point towards it, like Kivan's lack of emotional restraint as above.

 

[Melcar]

Talking about the base game. BG1NPC made Kivan even worse. And yeah, most mods for the BGs out there are crawling with teen humor. After all it was mostly teens that originally played the games.

 

[roshan]

I started another mod by Acifer, the creator of Dark Tidings. It's called Call of the Lost Goddess. It's based on 2nd ed materials and lore which takes you back to a time when DND was a much, much more interesting setting.

In this mod you visit Goldspires, a temple to Waukeen just outside the main city of Athkatla.

Interior. You're charged with going to the Abyss to rescue the goddess Waukeen.

To do this you need to take the Infinite Staircase in the plane of Selune above Ysgard. There are bariaurs and other planar creatures to interact with. Serious PST vibes!

In the staircase I'm ending up battling new enemies. There's lots of interesting encounters and a real sense of exploring something alien and different.

 

[d1r]

EE only...

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

 

[Strig]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me. Nobody else should either and the whole damn company should go to the gallows for rape.

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

 

[Strig]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

It looks like shite, it plays like shite and every addition they made is pure fucking garbage. The writers especially should have their faces caved in, but whoever programmed this was probably an Indian or outsourced his work there.