Best Mods Baldur's Gate 2
The best mods for Baldur's Gate 2 are ToBEx BG2, BG2 Fixpack, Ascension BG2, Tactics Mod BG2 and SCS BG2. However, in terms of ambition and originality, BG2 mods are nowhere near on par with Dark Side of the Sword Coast for the original Baldur's Gate 1, which is the best Infinity Engine mod ever made.
BG2 Mods are listed in their install order. It takes several hours to install the mods. The installation is now stable after ironing out the kinks. I installed BG2 from CDs bought when the game came out. Modded to the max, the game runs flawlessly on my current gen hardware/OS. There is no slowdown whatsoever on my Windows 8.1, 10 and 11 PCs.
Bigger Fonts: Can be installed at any time.
BG2 Mod Installation Order
- ToBEx BG2 v25
- BG2 Improved GUI v5.3
- Ascension BG2 v1.4.24
- BG2 Fixpack v13
- Item Revisions 3.0.17
- Spell Revisions v4
- IWDification v5
- Tactics Mod v25
- SCS BG2 v34.3
- Tweaks Anthology v15
- aTweaks BG2 v4.53
- Ding0's Tweak Pack v23
Rogue Rebalancing
Rogue Rebalancing (v4.80): Proper dual-wielding implementation for Thieves and Bards, Thief kit revisions, Thief High Level Ability revisions, Proper racial adjustments for thieving skills, Bard kit revisions, Bard High Level Ability revisions, Proper spell progression for Bards, Additional equipment for Thieves and Bards, Upgradeable Equipment, Revised Thievery -> Use PnP thievery potions and prevent their effects from stacking, Chosen of Cyric encounter, Shadow Thief Improvements, BG2-style icons for RR content.
Tactics Mod BG2
Tactics Mod BG2 (v25).
Sword Coast Stratagems
SCS BG2 v30: Initialise mod (all other components require this), Allow Spellstrike to take down a Protection from Magic scroll, More consistent Breach spell (always affects liches and rakshasas; doesn't penetrate Spell Turning) (Somewhat bugged), Antimagic attacks penetrate improved invisibility, Iron Skins behaves like Stoneskin (can be brought down by Breach), Modify the Harm spell so it does damage rather than reducing target to 1 hp -> Enemy and player Harm spells both do 150 hp of damage, Cosmetic change: stop Stoneskins from changing the caster's colour, Make spell sequencers, spell triggers, and contingencies learnable by all mages, Add an extra copy of some hard-to-find spell scrolls, True Sight/True Seeing spells protect from magical blindness, Faster Bears, Grant large, flying, non-solid or similar creatures protection from Web and Entangle, Improved shapeshifting, Make Freedom scrolls available earlier, Retrieve Dropped Items from Hell, Ease-of-use party AI, Remove the blur graphic effect from the Cloak of Displacement, Remove animation from the Cloak of Mirroring (leave it for other spells and effects that use the same graphic), Initialise AI components (required for all tactical and AI components), Smarter general AI, Better calls for help, Add high-level abilities (HLAs) to spellcasters -> Only selected spellcasters in Throne of Bhaal and Shadows of Amn get HLAs, Smarter Mages -> Mages cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting, Smarter Priests -> Priests cast some short-duration spells instantly at start of combat, to simulate pre-battle casting, Potions for NPCs -> All of the potions dropped by slain enemies are recoverable, Improved Spiders, Improved golems, Improved fiends -> Fiends have normal hit points, Smarter genies -> Genies have normal hit points, Smarter celestials -> Celestials have normal hit points, Smarter dragons -> Dragons have normal hit points, Smarter beholders -> Don't give beholder rays any chance of burning through spell protections; beholder antimagic removes defences and prevents casting but does not block harmful spells (original game behaviour), Smarter mind flayers -> Illithids have enhanced damage resistance; Illithids can see through invisibility (matches Tactics mod), Smarter githyanki, Improved Vampires, Smarter Throne of Bhaal final villain, Smarter Illasera, Smarter Gromnir, Smarter Yaga-Shura, Smarter Abazigal, Give Ascension versions of Irenicus and Sendai SCS scripts and abilities, Give Ascension demons SCS scripts and abilities, Make the starting dungeon slightly harder, Improved Shade Lord, Spellcasting Demiliches, More resilient trolls, Increase difficulty of level-dependent monster groupings -> Significantly increased difficulty, Improved Random Encounters, Improved de'Arnise Keep ("Tactics Remix") -> Enhanced spirit trolls (as in Tactics), Improved Unseeing Eye, Improved Bodhi (Tactics Remix) -> "Toned-down" version of the original Tactics Improved Bodhi, with SCSII scripting, Improved battle with Irenicus in Spellhold, Improved Sahuagin, Slightly Improved Drow -> Upgrade Ust Natha's defences, Slightly Improved Watcher's Keep, Improved Fire Giant temple, Enhanced Sendai's Enclave, Improved Abazigal's Lair, Improved Minor Encounters.
BG2 Tweak Pack
BG2 Tweak Pack (v16): Remove Helmet Animations, Change Imoen's Avatar to Mage, Change Viconia's Skin Color to Dark Blue, Weapon Animation Tweaks, Restore SoA Load Screen Logo (ToB Only), Disable Portrait Icons Added by Equipped Items, Commoners Use Drab Colors, Icon Improvements, Force All Dialogue to Pause Game, More Interjections, Alter HP Triggers for NPC Wounded Dialogues, Stores Sell Higher Stacks of Items, Shapeshifter Rebalancing, Multiple Strongholds (Baldurdash) -> Keep Class Restrictions, Bonus Merchants (Baldurdash), Two-Handed Bastard Swords, Two-Handed Katanas, Two-Handed Axes, Alter Weapon Proficiency System -> BG-Style Weapon Proficiencies, With Weapon Styles (the bigg) (Don't install this. It borks the PnP creature components of aTweaks), True Grandmastery (Baldurdash), Un-Nerfed THAC0 Table, Un-Nerfed Sorcerer Spell Progression Table, Alter Mage Spell Progression Table -> Un-Nerfed Table (Blucher), Alter Bard Spell Progression Table -> Un-Nerfed Table (Blucher), Alter Cleric Spell Progression Table -> Un-Nerfed Table (Blucher), Alter Druid Spell and Level Progression Tables -> Use Cleric Level Progression Changes With Un-Nerfed Druid Spell Table (Blucher), Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e), Remove Delay for Magical Traps (Ardanis/GeN1e), Remove Summoning Cap for Celestials (Ardanis/GeN1e), Higher HP on Level Up -> Maximum, Maximum HP for NPCs (the bigg) -> For All Creatures in Game, Identify All Items, Easy Spell Learning -> 100% Learn Spells, Make Bags of Holding Bottomless, Remove fatigue from restoration spells, Remove "You Must Gather Your Party..." Sound (Weimer), Unlimited Ammo Stacking, Unlimited Gem and Jewelry Stacking, Unlimited Potion Stacking, Unlimited Scroll Stacking, Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation, Turn Off The Hideous Cloak-of-Mirroring, Spell-Trap, and Physical Mirror Animations, No Drow Avatars On Party In Underdark, Rest Anywhere (Japheth), Sellable Items (Icelus), ToB-Style NPCs (Don't install this. It totally stuffs up Spellhold Imoen).
aTweaks BG2
aTweaks (v4.42): Prevent skeletal and incorporeal undead from being affected by Illithids' Devour Brain attack, Change Spiritual Hammer into a ranged force weapon, Allow Dispel/Remove Magic to take down Globes of Invulnerability, PnP Color Spray, PnP Dimension Door, Magical arrows and bolts deal bonus damage equal to their enchantment level, Allow Mages to scribe memorized spells onto scrolls -> Scrolls can be scribed everywhere, Restore innate disease immunity to Paladins, Rangers' Animal Empathy improves with experience, Additional racial traits for Dwarves, Additional racial traits for Gnomes, PnP Fiends -> Mod-added fiends are also affected, Further Revised Fiend Summoning, Fiendish gating, PnP Undead, PnP Mephits, PnP Fey creatures, Revised Call Woodland Beings spell, PnP Elementals, Increase the Hit Dice of Elemental Princes, Allow Breach to take down Stoneskin effects applied by items, Instant casting for warrior innates, Revised Bhaalpowers -> Enhance the Bhaalpowers and standardize their casting time, Regain Bhaalpowers in ToB, Make druidic shapeshifting uninterruptable, Make Death Ward protect against Vorpal Hits, Restore the Dispel Magic vulnerability to Nishruu and Hakeashars, Make alignment detection spells more accurate, Expanded saving throw bonus tables for Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings, Unbiased quest rewards, Use Icewind Dale's Dimension Door animation -> Slow animation speed (matches BG2), Change the appearance of Valygar's armor, Change the appearance of the Robe of Vecna, Distinctive creature coloring, Distinctive creature soundsets, Slightly expanded storage capacity for containers -> Use the recommended storage capacity value (999), BG2-style icons for aTweaks content.
Lilura1 note: This mod kicks ass, but avoid the Fiendish Gating component unless you're supremely confident. This may or may not be compatible with SCS 34.3.
Widescreen Mod BG2
Widescreen Mod (v3.07): For the original Infinity Engine. This can be helpful if your display hardware does not properly auto-scale fullscreen to 800*600. I play at 1024*768 max.
1280*720 is tolerable on 1080p displays, too.
Note that fog of war for IE games is fixed to 640*480, so playing at high resolutions offers no benefit. In fact, it's worse because the UI doesn't scale and the sprites and text are too small.
cf. Infinity Engine & Baldur's Gate Graphics for more information.
Widescreen mods are overrated for 2d games. It's hilarious to see people going to so much trouble to take their screencaps and make their videos, but it's like looking into a tunnel. DUMB.
Baldur's Gate 2 Graphics Mod
The best graphics mod for Baldur's Gate 2 is One Pixel Productions, which most notably improves paperdoll, icon, sprite and spell effect graphics.
One Pixel Productions (v4.1.0): Core paperdolls, Extended palette entries -> Full install (recommended), Avatar fixes, Female Dwarves -> Separate Avatars for Female Dwarves - Baldur's Gate II, Thieves Galore -> BGII - Unique Thief Avatars, Softer Spell Effects, Core content patches, Consistent spell and scroll icons, Spell tweaks, Restored flame sword animations, Legacy Shields, Additional Shield Animations (core), Wizards' Staves (core), Increased paperdoll object variety (core), Core updates and item patches, Improved projectile effects, Fixed animations for solars and elementals, Miscellaneous content fixes.
cRPG Blog note: Unfortunately, just like SCS, this mod has become a bloated monstrosity in dire need of a LITE version. There should be a simple option: "Make BG2 look as much like BG1 as possible, without all the bells and whistles of 1PP".
Generalized Biffing BG2
Generalized Biffing: Override not yet biffed: once biffed, subsequent edits can no longer be made. Why biff override? +framerate, -loadtimes. Even in 2023, this can make a difference.
Bigger Fonts BG2
Bigger Fonts: Can be installed at any time.
BG2 Improved GUI 5.3
Mute Tooltip Unfurling Sound
DIY. Record empty *.wav, name file to PAPER.WAV, and place in Override folder. You can use this method to mute or change any sound that annoys you.
- Fallen Deva BG2 in Tactics Chateau Irenicus.
- Slain dragons from SCS dragons ambush encounter
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