5 Mods to change my experience!

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You can find the subrace mod at Black IWD2, I never tried it. It's part of another mod. I don't remeber the name.

Edit: Hmm maybe this was redundant

 

Only where necessary (this femme fatale is going to be romancing Xan in both BG1 and BG2). Thanks to the advent of EasyTutu, I can have Tutu on my machine and still be able to play my beloved vanilla BG1 or BG2.

 

Arh, I see . Smart move actually, though I perish the thought of romancing Xan

 

I used to speak quite a bit with WindWalker (the author), and I was under the impression that he developed it for BlackWyrm. It would seem I was mistaken, however. Apologies for the confusion.

 

i think there's something wrong with the link for the revised hell trials download

 

You will want dungeon-be-gone. It makes life much easier for chronice rerollers. If you enjoy rogues, then the rogue rebalancing mod is a must. If you enjoy thieves, or just use the EoU multiple strongholds component then the improved thief stronghold mod is a must. A nice shortsword, an awesome offhand dagger, and a bit more thiefly goodness are a huge improvement over the rather lame guild you got in the vanilla game.

You may also want to take a look at the millions of kit mods out there. A good place to start would be the Song and Silence mod which gives several interesting rogue kits. Tactics and Sorcerers Place stuff mod both have several kits which i have fallen in love with (blademaster and anti-paladin are godsends).

If you enjoy clerics, the Gibberlings 3 divine remix mod is essential. Spices up the existing kits and adds a bunch of new (and balanced) ones. Gibberlings 3 also has the npc kit pack which gives npcs kits that fit them better (Mazzy and Imoen are the greatest benefactors from this).


Solaufein is one of the few late-game npcs, and the only late-game npc mod i know of. I recommend him, Saerilith, and Kelsey. I dont know how good the Fade npc mod is, if anyone could give me some info on it I would be much obligied.

For extra items nothing beats the Item Upgrade mod. You might also want to look at the Improved Anvil mod (the two are not compatible), but it also increases the games' difficulty which you said you didnt want.

EoU, Unfinished Business and Quest Pack are all rather standard mods that improve the game. EoU does about a million different things, from disabling all locks and traps so your barbarian can solo to making the bag of holding truly bottomless to shutting up "You Must Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth". a must have. Unfinished Business and Quest pack give some new encounters and tie up some loose ends whithout improving the overall difficulty of the game.

That was quite a long post, but if it helps you at all then it was worth the time.

One final note: make sure you are fully patched and have the Baldurdash fixpack installed before adding a bunch of mods. It will make your life so much easier.

 

RHT is no longer a solo mod. It is part of the PPG Quest Pack now.

 

I feel the need to put in some words for my favorite mods.
First, Dungeon-be-Gone. This is absolutely necessary if you, like me, can only handle Irenicus' dungeon so many times before you break something.

Second, Kelsey. IMO Kelsey is by far the best NPC mod out there. The writing and voice-overs are both done very, very well. He's got some great banter and interjections throughout the game, and he adds an excellent spellcaster NPC to the game, which is excellent if you dislike Edwin or just want some extra firepower. He's available to join as soon as you get to the Government District in Athkatla, as well.

As far as I'm concerned, those are the only mods you'd really need, but plenty of others are great to have around. Unfinished Business adds lots of content to the game, and Ease of Use is great for convenience. The Item Upgrade Mod adds lots and lots of items, most of which are pretty nifty.

Check out the PPG modlist (I don't have the URL, but there's a link to it somewhere around here) for just about anything you'd want. It's all categorized and most everything has a decent description. You can't go wrong.

 

Tried that Cromwells' Smithy..but does not seem to work, just throws up an error message and collapses.

Dag nab-it!

 

I had the same problem, but I needed some extra file. You can probably get it somewhere around here

But I think this is a bit

 

I found the Fade mod excellent, DBG. Nicely thought out, interesting plots, and she actually ACTS like a thief! There are only a few drawbacks:

1. If you don't romance her, you will not get any of her quest content. Mistress E is working on a friendship track, but things are progressing...rather slowly.

2. You will not be able to get into the Guarded Compound until a specific event happens, and even then, only if you're romancing Fade. Which means, no Celestial Fury. This is also being addressed (and could be fixed by now, for all I know); in the meantime, you'll have to CLUA your way in, or SK yourself the sword (if you don't romance Fade).

3. No ToB content. I wouldn't hold my breath for this one.

All that being said, it REALLY is worth it to romance Fade; she's one of my favorite love interests in the game. My only personal problem with her is that Mistress E's portrait (while very nice) is a bit jarring in that it clashes completely with the Bioware style portraits. However, if aesthetic stuff like that doesn't bother you, I'd definitly give her a go.

Also, back to the original topic, I'd like to add my praise for Keto. This has become my FAVORITE NPC mod. I actually LIKE the fact that you can't romance her, it makes her more realistic, and, perversely, more desirable somehow. Romance aside, the content of the mod is EXTREMELY well done...funny, poignant, and heroic. AND, she really ACTS like a bard!

 

I believe Fade's friendship track may be already completed, because they're working on the ToB content at the moment. And they have addressed the Guarded Compound issue, though I don't remember how exactly. I think it's open if you're not romancing her and closed if you are, or something like that.

One thing I'd add is not to miss "Fade's Escape". It's a nifty little mini-game that works completely on its own. That thing had me addicted for a full month, especially after I heard the music.

 

I'm currently in the middle of romancing Fade and I agree with Gregor that (so far) she has been excellent. While the picture looks very out-of-place among the original ones, it's a small flaw. The love talks and bantering have been of high quality- the scene in the Trademeet crypt is highly amusing, for example.

As the TOB section is not yet complete, at the moment I'd take her only if you intend to stop at the end of SoA.

Quest pack does seem to fit one of your desires very well as it adds extra content without improving the difficulty. Or rather, it doesn't necessarily increase the difficulty. IIRC it does have an optional improved AI section, although I wouldn't particuarly reccomend it as I'm currently blaming it for increasing the irritation of troll fights.

To explain: I normally loathe trolls because they take so much damage from my party continually that they refuse to collapse. What the improved AI does is allow them (seemingly at random) to launch themselves at party members standing out of the fight. They will even do this if they cannot get past one of my tanks in the doorway and so will just sit there taking damage until they decide to reattack the closest target. My second problem with that is the lack of realism evident in a monster walking past two heavily armed fighters hacking chunks out of it with their swords, to attack an elf standing back slinging pebbles at it.

*takes deep breath*
Rant over.

Returning to the topic, I would reccomend Kelsey as an early NPC. He is very well done: he has a voice pack, his portrait fits in reasonably, he has a romance track and none of the original NPCs were sorcerers. While I personally disliked his romance, a lot of good things have been said about it.

I would recommend the Flirt and Banter packs as standard- they don't affect the game difficulty or force you to change anything, they simply add more conversations and more depth to the romances.

Some components of Ease-Of-Use I find invaluable (such as the shut up 'You must gather...') but caution must be observed here. Some of the components are simply unbalancing and should be avoided e.g. 'Wear both magical rings and magical armour'.

Finally (at long last), I would recommend Dungeon-Be-Gone if you have already completed the game. This is simply because many games I have tried to begin have floundered at the thought of trudging through the starting dungeon.

Fel: Are you sure the Guarded Compound is open if you aren't romancing? I seem to recall it being inaccessible even before I let her join me.

Apologies to all for my rather lengthy and often rambling post.

 

@ Fel:

Just checked the Fade forum, and didn't see anything about the friendship track being completed.

There's a patch for the Fade mod that will allow you to enter the Guarded Compound in Chapter 6, whether you're romancing her or not. This is still a bit problematic if, like me, you always go to the GC as early as possibe; I don't want to wait til after the Underdark to get CF. So I'll continue to CLUA my way in til the new Fade release (which, hopefully, will be coming fairly soon, as Mistress E is on summer break, and planned to spend time working on Fade ToB).