GameBanshee Forums

Firstly hello. I've been lurking for quite a while but this is my first post.

I'm currently playing a BGTrilogy game, with some elements of the G3 Fixpack. It's great fun, but I know that I'll want to replay BG2 far sooner than BG1. What I would really appreciate is some advice on mods. I've read through the sticky threads and done a couple of searches on the forum, but a lot of the information seems to be quite old - a couple of years, at least.

I'm not interested (at the moment) in NPC mods. There are a number of standard NPCs and party configurations I haven't tried yet.

I'm not interested in mods that make things harder for the sake of challenge (so no Tactics).

I am definitely interested in new quests and improved inter-party dialogue, banters and also mods that resolve loose ends, etc in the vanilla game.

Finally, I know in the sticky mods thread there is a link to Shadow Keeper, but is that currently up to date? If someone could post a link to where they obtained Shadow Keeper I would be very grateful.

I'm not very computer literate (it took me over 2 hours to successfully install BG1, ToSC, SoA & ToB with just the 2 mods mentioned above), so if any of the mods are buggy, or difficult to install please give me a health warning!

Thanks in advance,
Shi An De

[url="http://www.mud-master.com/shadowkeeper/index.html"]Power Word: Shadowkeeper[/url].
G3 Tweakpack - skip the multi-romance tweaks is all.
I don't have it, but Unfinished Business (available for BG1 and 2) is apparently the best tying-up-loose-ends mod out there. It's an ongoing work so I'm gonna leave it a few years for when I have my next BG craving.
Another good BG1 mod is the BG1 NPC Project - it fleshes out a lot of the NPCs and adds heaps more banter.
Dungeon-Be-Gone is a nice one that allows you to skip the opening dungeon if you don't feel like traipsing through it over and over again.
Level 1 NPCs kicks ass, it allows you to choose what class/kit you want your Bioware NPCs to be and to assign their proficiency points as you see fit. I had Khalid as a henpecked berserker in BG1(Tutu), Minsc as a Barbarian, Imoen starting out as a Swashbuckler (you'll need to use the CLUAconsole or Shadowkeeper to set her XP to the right level to dual her at her usual level and then to up it to the right mage level, but you'll get to assign all her proficiencies), Mazzy as an actual Paladin, etc etc.
Quite a few NPC mods add extra quests etc, I only have Saerileth, Kivan and Xan. I recommend Xan, especially as a Wild Mage. Haven't tried Kivan yet, but I gather it provides a few more links between BG1 and 2 and fleshes out the story a bit more - be aware both Xan and Kivan are quite elf-centric, so if you don't like the fair folk they might tick you off. Saerileth is...interesting, but too uncompromising and game-dominating for my tastes.

All of these are pretty straightforward and have self-install programs (Weidu), though I'm not sure how many of them work with Trilogy as opposed to Tutu. All you need to do is follow the readme, and if that doesn't work ask any questions that remain here (try a forum seach first).

Thanks Ode. I don't mind doing a fresh install, so I suppose I should also have asked whether BGTutu is necessary for BG2, or if it is just a BG1 mod?

Tutu is just a BG1 Mod, which allows you to use the BG2 engine to play BG1. AFAIK the only real differences between Trilogy and Tutu are that Tutu keeps the two games separate (so knowledge of prior events sometimes won't carry over in Tutu, like if you flooded the mines or not - it just assumes you did) and that Tutu is compatible with more mods - hence why more people use it over Trilogy.