A New Adventure (Mod Suggestion/Help)

[Urborg Vengrath]

Hello,

 

 

While Baldur's Gate 2 is one of my favorite gams, I haven't played it in a long time. Years actually. One of the reasons was the great modding community that sprang up around it and kept feeding life into the story. Recently I decided to take up the adventure again and did some looking around to see how some mods I'd been interested in developed. Lo and behold there are many more than I remember.

 

　

If anyone would care to make some recomendations, I would apreciate it. I recall some almost being a requirement, and it would be helpful if someone pointed me towards those types up fixes/updates. As for what I look for in a mod, I enjoy new role playing potential, NPCs, Quests, Encounters, and item/class options so I can customize my character and their companion's gear. Normally I play an Evil alligned character, so NPCs that don't mind working with an amoral leader would be prefered. I'd also favor story material/NPCs that progressed through SoA and ToB for continuity sake.

 

　

It has been a while since I worked with mods for BG2, so any special notes or reminders are likewise welcome. Thanks for giving this a read, and I look forward to the input of those more experianced than myself.

[ericp07]

BG2 Fixpack is a must. and is installed first (except in the case of a small number of other mods that overwrite some game files). 1PP makes for a delightful visual experience with the on-screen animations and items and such. Dungeon Be Gone is fantastic as a quick and easy alternative to slogging through Irenicus' dungeon before exiting to Athkatla. W-GUI offers a beautiful alternative user interface for the game.

[Jarno Mikkola]

And Widescreen mod is a must if you wish to use anything else than the 800x600 or 1024x768 resolutions as the other natives are unsupported and so will crash the game. The only thing there is that you need to install all the area adding mods and GUI mods, as the widescreen mod can modify the files that are involved.

 

Those are the must... then there's tons of mods, and if you are on PC, and you want to have every mod under the sun easily installed without the wish to know the exact order with as few crahes due to the install order, you will want to use the BiG World Setup to process the mods, it will make the download and extracting and installing the files easier, as it does that itself, and it's fully customizable. But it only works on PC, and it's update is a few months old, meaning it could use an update... but it's not like there's 100's of mods coming out these days, so.

[Thimblerig]

Well, the BG2 Tweak Pack (installed last) is one of my must-haves (http://www.gibberlings3.net/bg2tweaks/) as is IEP Extended Banters (http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/558-iep-extended-banters/). Unfinished Business (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=content&task=blogcategory&id=101&Itemid=80/) brings back a lot of content intended for the game that never made it in.

 

Don't really play Team Evil, myself, so I don't think my romance preferences and character expansions would suit you. Romantic Encounters (http://www.gibberlings3.net/romanticencounters/) does add a spectrum of mini-encounters to play around with, though, and some of them are aimed at evil PCs.

 

And you might enjoy a quest like The Sellswords (http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=183&Itemid=126) (lots of new content; plenty of room for an amoral protagonist).

[Urborg Vengrath]

First off, thank you for the responses.

 

Though a note, I'm largely interested in additional content, not graphic changes, sound sets, or the like.

 

I'm a bit leery of Megamods. I think that's what things like BiG World are called. It seems there is a huge selection of material a person probably won't use, and what is there isn't likely to be up to date as the latest version of a given mod.

 

BG2 Fixpack is a must and is installed first (except in the case of a small number of other mods that overwrite some game files).

Isn't there a Bioware patch that should be installed right after installing the game proper? If so, does Bioware still have it up somewhere? I remember reading somewhere, recently, not to get the latest patch but a previous version.

 

Romantic Encounters ... does add a spectrum of mini-encounters to play around with ... And you might enjoy a quest like The Sellswords

Both of those look good. I remember Kulyok's work fondly. There should be an Assassination mod too, if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to look over their work.

 

A thumbs up to the Banter Pack and Unfinished Buisness too. Talking companions are a good thing.

 

 

 

　

So far I've only spotted two, maybe three, Evil alligned characters that have content all the way through to ToB: Adrian (http://www.shsforums...rum/627-adrian/), Ninde (http://www.spellhold...os.net/ie/ninde), and Kindrek (http://mods.chosenofmystra.net/kindrek/). Ninde I am uncertain about as I've seen posts that suggest there might be ToB content, but nothing solid. Kindrek, being a mage slayer, wouldn't do well with Adrian, Ninde, or Edwin.

 

I'm not sure how the existing Neutral aligned characters would do with an Evil protagonist.

　

As for quest and item related mods, I'm still researching them.

[kreso]

@Urborg

If you're into evil NPCs, you might like Kido (I do!), an evil Jester bard. I can reccomend him.

As for quests, Sellswords is ok, albeit a bit short. Back to Brynllaw is good. White Queen from Lava is nice as well. Assassinations is ok, Alternatives may also appeal to you.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Isn't there a Bioware patch that should be installed right after installing the game proper? If so, does Bioware still have it up somewhere? I remember reading somewhere, recently, not to get the latest patch but a previous version.

Well, there's the v(2.5.)26498 ToB patch yeah, but that's today in most of the BG2's you purchase as it happens to be smaller that the original. The SoA also had a patch but it's in the ToB already... And yeah, there's a recommendation not to install the latest but not official(as it's a beta, for reasons that it tries to patch the multiplayer, but fails mostly) v(2.5.)26499 patch.

 

I'm a bit leery of Megamods. I think that's what things like BiG World are called. It seems there is a huge selection of material a person probably won't use, and what is there isn't likely to be up to date as the latest version of a given mod.

The large reserve of material is a good thing in a megamod game, as you can customize the cheese out of it.

The BiG World megamod today is actually quite up to date, it's not a centuries old, meaning that the SCS for example in the BWS uses the v28, not the SCSI & SCSII.. etc.

And there's actually compatibility fixes to the mods.

[Urborg Vengrath]

@ Jarno Mikkola:

I may have misunderstood what BWS is. It sounds like it is an install aid, while I had thought it was a massive collection of mods you needed to download all together. Something I don't care for. But an install aid sounds cool. Thank you, also, for the patch information and the link.

 

　

If you're into evil NPCs, you might like Kido (I do!), an evil Jester bard. I can reccomend him.

Thank you Kreso. I'd overlooked Kido's update, but remember him from before I took my break. Real sad about the Mod for the Wicked stopping development. BG2 needs something like that. Maybe it was a little too ambitious for one expansion. Glad to hear about Kido getting largely fleshed out though.

 

I'm eyeballing some of those others you mentioned too.

[Jarno Mikkola]

@ Jarno Mikkola:

I may have misunderstood what BWS is. It sounds like it is an install aid, while I had thought it was a massive collection of mods you needed to download all together. Something I don't care for. But an install aid sounds cool. Thank you, also, for the patch information and the link.

Well, it's kinda both, you need to use the customization option it has, but you can install 5 mods if you want with it. Also there's a few of other options than the BWP/S. Like the BGEE moding options: