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[ed boy]

Hi all, this is let's play of the full Baldur's Gate saga with as many mods as I can fit in.

Spoiler: About this LP (click to show/hide)

Like may others, I played a lot of Baldur's Gate in the early 2000s, coming up to twenty years ago. In the time since then, we've seen a lot of changes - enhanced editions, a new interlude section in SOD, and two decades of an active modding community.

This LP is an attempt to catch up on all the new content that has been released in the last twenty years. I have installed as many mods as I can, and will try to experience as much content as possible from the game and the mods. If there is a conflict between content and options, I will first prioritize new EE content, then mod content, then base game content.

Since there is a party limit of 5 companions, this introduces a very large gap in what I will be able to cover in this LP, as a large amount of the available mod content is based around companions. I will instead have just the new EE NPCs as my party, with a flexible slot in the SOA portion of the game to explore each of the Bioware NPC quests.

Spoiler: Keeping things balanced (click to show/hide)

Modders are known for many things, and game balance is not one of them. The most common complaints are that mods provide very easy access to items or abilities that are too powerful to be balanced with content in the rest of the game.

In order to combat this, I will do the following:

• If a mod provides me with an item that is more powerful than anything the game would offer me, I will not use it (though will probably keep hold of it in a bag of holding in case it comes up in later mod content
• If a mod provides me with an item that is more powerful than what I currently have access to, but will be on par with equipment later in the game, I will hold onto it, but not use it until I find an item I consider equivalent power, at which point I will have the option of swapping out the items.
• If the mod provides a non-item reward that I consider too powerful, I will finish with the mod's content, finish the LP part, then rewind to a save after an earlier part

Although the mods may be balanced in a vacuum, they do add a lot of content, and the quantity of content will provide more experience and gold than would normally be expected at various stages of the game. For this reason, I will be playing with a 50% experience multiplier. I will not attempt to balance the gold, however, as balancing gold will be more difficult, and gold is not a constraint for very long in these games anyway.

Spoiler: Format of the LP (click to show/hide)

I will be uploading screenshots of this game in imgur, with each part of the LP being its own album. I anticipate each part of the LP to be approximately one map's worth of content, though some busy maps (like cities) may have multiple parts. A single play session may cover multiple maps, and therefore generate multiple parts at once.

I will attempt to clear each map in a single visit, and will be visiting the maps in approximately what I consider to be ascending order of difficulty. My estimate of difficulty is very much based on what I remember of this game from my youth, and many of these mods will add new difficult encounters to areas that I remember as easy. I will therefore be taking the following approach to encounters:

• My first pass of each map will be casual, using only super long term buffs (such as stoneskin)
• If I run into an encounter that is too difficult casually, I will try it with slightly more prep (make sure I am rested up, maybe use some medium duration buffs)
• If the encounter is still to difficult, try it with lots of prep (fully pre-buffing, tailoring prepared spells)
• If that still won't do it, declare this encounter (and probably the whole map) to be too difficult for now, and come back later

The party I plan on running will have quite a high power ceiling (and for some members, a high power floor as well). I will be modifying the new EE NPCs to facilitate this, most notably with Rasaad. I consider the Rasaad-related content that I want to cover in this LP to be the conversations and quests related to him, and not the experience of playing with a monk. I played with monks quite a bit in my youth, and I consider them to be a fairly boring class in practice, so I will be modifying Rasaad to be a bard (blade kit). I will try to not use the full power ceiling of the party unless necessary.

[ed boy]

Part 000 - Installation and setup: https://imgur.com/a/UYPBnK1
Part 001 - Character creation: https://imgur.com/a/bmIuxoc

[ed boy]

Part 002 - Candlekeep: https://imgur.com/a/gfE2xFt
Part 003 - Lion's Way: https://imgur.com/a/eJAy3c7
Part 004 - Friendly Arm Inn (Part 1): https://imgur.com/a/uXWPWl8

[ed boy]

A lot of parts to cover in this session:

Part 005 - Coran and Friendly Arm Inn part 2: https://imgur.com/a/smBlYn8
Part 006 - The Coast Way: https://imgur.com/a/XBeAZuX
Part 007 - Beregost (West and North): https://imgur.com/a/UqVwprh
Part 008 - Trade Way (North): https://imgur.com/a/WFUR0j1
Part 009 - Trade Way (South): https://imgur.com/a/drzVFNZ
Part 010 - Nashkel: https://imgur.com/a/j0TFwYJ
Part 011 - Nashkel Mines Exterior: https://imgur.com/a/R8Zyaet
Part 012 - Beregost East and South: https://imgur.com/a/YIkSPQj

[ed boy]

Part 013 - The Red Canyons: https://imgur.com/a/9PUwnyk
Part 014 - High Hedge: https://imgur.com/a/4oAi6fs

[ed boy]

Part 015 - Beregost Temple: https://imgur.com/a/9wysXu0
Part 016 - Larswood: https://imgur.com/a/EXuxzuo

[ed boy]

Got a full saturday's worth of playing in, so we have lots of updates:

Part 017 - Lower Chionthar: https://imgur.com/a/ExKVTrW
Part 018 - Rocky Coast: https://imgur.com/a/nJbNHGt
Part 019 - Seawatcher: https://imgur.com/a/KyU0Q99
Part 020 - Ancient Ruins: https://imgur.com/a/qf606tK
Part 021 - Nashkel Carnival: https://imgur.com/a/NxMbx4r
Part 022 - Valley of the Tombs: https://imgur.com/a/UVs7ndu
Part 023 - Adoy's Enclave: https://imgur.com/a/g8mAhyO
Part 024 - Gibberling Mountains: https://imgur.com/a/rUGgE7w
Part 025 - Lonely Peaks: https://imgur.com/a/kcqxR8V
Part 026 - Cloakwood Lodge: https://imgur.com/a/nu4PMO8
Part 027 - Cloakwood Falls: https://imgur.com/a/4AQ0xkF
Part 028 - Cloakwood Grove: https://imgur.com/a/oamLbWN

[ed boy]

Part 029 - Cloakwood Crossings: https://imgur.com/a/OMbhJlt
Part 030 - Nashkel Mines (Level 1): https://imgur.com/a/98Ipdg0
Part 031 - Nashkel Mines (Level 2): https://imgur.com/a/aJNlDNK
Part 032 - Nashkel Mines (Level 3): https://imgur.com/a/IOqwRgV
Part 033 - Nashkel Mines (Level 4), Start of Chapter 3: https://imgur.com/a/4T0ytqx

[ed boy]

Part 034 - Fire Leaf Forest: https://imgur.com/a/sUFXfem
Part 035 - Dryad Falls: https://imgur.com/a/Cl8PXPH
Part 036 - Gnoll Stronghold: https://imgur.com/a/OQKU96a
Part 037 - Bear River: https://imgur.com/a/6fVSPP4
Part 038 - Xvart Village: https://imgur.com/a/IlvEIDT
Part 039 - Beregost follow up: https://imgur.com/a/53nyCwJ
Part 040 - Peldvale: https://imgur.com/a/FI1cTnH
Part 041 - Bandit Camp: https://imgur.com/a/9hk7IMe

[notquitethere]

This is a fascinating project. Almost tempting me to give BG1 another go (I got bogged down in one playthrough and never finished it). What's the most enriching mod for a replay, would you say?

[ed boy]

This is a fascinating project. Almost tempting me to give BG1 another go (I got bogged down in one playthrough and never finished it). What's the most enriching mod for a replay, would you say?

Technically, the tweak mods that add ease of use components (such as ammo stacking) would meet that definition, but it feels like a bit of a cop out to say those.

The ones that I personally find the best are the item randomizer and SCS. Without item randomizer, it's hard to stop yourself thinking "There's a good weapon at location X, I will grab it as soon as possible and use it for the rest of the game". SCS adds challenge, most notably with casters prebuffing, but there is quite a bit of variety between which specific prebuffs are used so they don't feel too samey (though I'm somewhat worried that may change in the SOA portion of the game).

If you've only got one unfinished playthrough under your belt, then I would recommend the NPC mods (as vanilla BG1 NPCs are quite boring when they're in the party). There are a bunch of mods that either add content to the vanillla NPCs or add NPCs with more content to the game.

BG2 has a lot more mods available, and for the BG2 portion of the game I am very much a fan of the colours of infinity mods (they are completely standalone, with the only point where one of the mods influences the other being a single unimportant line of dialogue in "I Shall Never Forget" changing if you have played "Tales of the deep gardens").

If you found your playthrough of BG1 bogging you down, feel free to abandon it and go for BG2. BG1 replicates low level DnD, and BG2 replicates high level DnD, and they are very different play experiences, no matter what edition you're playing, and one if one of them doesn't float your boat then don't let that be a blocker to enjoying the other one.

[notquitethere]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to give it another shot sometime and when I do I'll definitely try the randomiser. That looks like it adds some nice variety.

[ed boy]

In this part, we start doing a quest mod - Secret of bone hill. Most of the mod has been done, the finale will be next part, though.

Part 042 - Restenford: https://imgur.com/a/Q4be2dD
Part 043 - Restenford South and Bald Hill: https://imgur.com/a/EFfluR3
Part 044 - Restenford North and Tri-Top: https://imgur.com/a/GefgffZ
Part 045 - Reddy Forest and Bone Hill: https://imgur.com/a/pfMmIU0
Part 046 - Restenford Castle and Temple

Since these parts are all about material from a single mod, and it's a fairly self-contained module, I'm going to give a bit of a review of it here. This is a review of what I have seen so far, but it feels like I am almost done with the mod. If the material I cover changes my opinion, I will post a retraction.

Spoiler: Secret of bone hill review (click to show/hide)

This mod is a lot larger than I anticipated - seven maps that appear on the overworld so far, plus one that does not and several indoor locations. The maps are a combination of new material that I have not seen before (such as Restenford town), reused maps from the vanilla game (such as Tri-top), and new maps that are constructed using art from the vanilla game (such a Restenford temple).

I totally understand that creating new art for a map is a big task, especially if it needs to match the art style of the maps already in the game. The new maps that I have seen are extremely impressive, and the maps that have been assembled using vanilla art have been done so very well. Unfortunately, the newest maps have the least content within them and the player does not spend much time in them, whereas the reused maps the player spends a lot of time in. It would be nice if it were the other way round. Also, the encounters in these large areas have a lot of repetition - on Bald hill, there were oven twenty encounters with a solitary orc archer, and in Reddy forest there were about eight encounters with squads of basic bandits. It would be much better if these repeated encounters were cut down, and the area map were shrunk,

I have read some of the readmes and discussions of this mod, and it looks like I missed out on some experience rewards - since I did most of the missions before going to the temple area, I could have instead gotten the quest to clear out the gnolls and gotten a reward for completing it. It would be nice if rewards like that were not missable.

There is some additional content that I have not been able to trigger - apparently Martin in the Reddy forest is meant to give me a mission, that I have not received. Also, the conversations with the NPCs implies that there should be another town south of the temple area, but I have not been able to get it to appear.

The mod does not have any new items unique to the mod, but it does make a lot of items available from BG1 and BG2. I do very much like that it takes items from BG2 that are overshadowed and makes them available in BG1 where they are of an appropriate power level.

In terms of challenge, it feels about right. It looks like the mod is meant to be done after Nashkel mines, and our party is probably a bit overleveled. It definitely feels like it is more challenging than Nashkel mines, and less challenging than Bandit camp.

Overall, I give it 4/5 - The content is good, but my only major complaint is that the content density and pacing is too spread out.

[ed boy]

Part 047 - Secret of Bone Hill finale: https://imgur.com/a/rJciHsK
Part 048 - Ulcaster: https://imgur.com/a/1FXqhxG
Part 049 - Gullykin: https://imgur.com/a/3qM8E77
Part 050 - Firewine Ruins: https://imgur.com/a/mmZDCL9
Part 051 - Firewine Bridge: https://imgur.com/a/CXElEAJ
Part 052 - Sharp Teeth Plain: https://imgur.com/a/h8RxXL6
Part 053 - Spider Forest: https://imgur.com/a/5cYqILP
Part 054 - Cloakwood Mines (Exterior): https://imgur.com/a/dMdNMXM
Part 055 - Cloakwood Mines (Level 1): https://imgur.com/a/4OGqMvW
Part 056 - Cloakwood Mines (Level 2): https://imgur.com/a/QHopo5k
Part 057 - Cloakwood Mines (Level 3): https://imgur.com/a/jlsq1vY
Part 058 - Cloakwood Mines (Level 4): https://imgur.com/a/jfrSKqk

[ed boy]

Part 059 - Wyrm's Crossing: https://imgur.com/a/wzEpSS0
Part 060 - BG City East: https://imgur.com/a/AQIp8O9
Part 061 - BG City Northeast: https://imgur.com/a/Re4Imh9
Part 062 - BG City Southeast: https://imgur.com/a/KKMsQxd
Part 063 - BG City South: https://imgur.com/a/DMJSq8V