Modding has been a way for Baldur’s Gate 3 players to tweak their campaigns to their liking for as long as the game has been released. With the addition of the mod manager, it’s easier than ever to see which add-ons the community loves the most.
If the upcoming Baldur’s Gate 4 ends up looking anything like BG3, we can see what players would appreciate the most by some of the most commonly downloaded mods. Here are a few examples of mods that don’t change the game to the point of cheating, and have features that could easily be implemented in BG4.
10
Bag Of Holding
“I Wish I Had A Bag Of Holding…”
User SydMeier created a mod that adds a traditional bag of holding to BG3, but XiphiasRex and morganaevelyn also have their own “Rat of Holding” mod.
The Bag of Holding is an iconic DnD item, and it would make for a perfect late-game reward. This would essentially be extra storage, and the new studio could nerf or buff it however they see fit if they find it to be too overpowered or ineffective.
Players could use the item to craft up some hilarious battle tactics, and it would add a whole new layer to barrelmancy. It would also be a generally useful item for looting after a large battle if you want to keep all your wares on one character and don’t want to make multiple trips to a vendor.
9
Weightless Gold/Consumables
Some Players Don’t Want To Deal With Encumbrance
Several mods in BG3′s manager modify weight capacity, or the weight of certain items.
Weightless gold or consumables would probably serve best as a toggleable feature, or perhaps as something limited to easy/explorer mode. Keeping the weight of these items would be true to the rules of DnD, but a lot of tables already ignore item weight as a house rule.
If you’re just a casual player and don’t want the game to be too much of a challenge, this could be a handy option to make encumbrance a little less common. Most consumable items aren’t particularly heavy, so this probably wouldn’t be a very noticeable change in Baldur’s Gate 4.
8
Camp Event Notifications
Never Miss An Important Cutscene
If BG4 has a similar system to the camp events in Baldur’s Gate 3, it may benefit the story to have an icon to notify players when they’ll trigger a cutscene upon long resting. This is a feature you can implement with a mod made by macrochiroptera.
Notifications like this could help prevent camp scenes from piling up and make them more spread out across a playthrough. It would also be useful to have the indicator in harder gamemodes where getting enough resources to do a long rest will likely be a bit trickier.
This would help players ration supplies for when they’re most important. User fleanesko has a similar mod that notifies players when new dialogue is available, which could also be convenient to replicate in BG4.
7
Use A D20 For Initiative
BG4 Could Be Even More Authentic To DnD
One difference between BG3 and DnD is that initiative works slightly differently. Unlike its tabletop inspiration, which uses a D20, the dice used for initiative is a D4 – you can change this with a mod made by Ponsinoumi.
The next studio that picks up the Baldur’s Gate series could always go back to this without the experience feeling all that different. It would be interesting to see how combat and initiative bonuses would change to fit this new format.
6
Choose Your Starting Armor
Look Your Best From The Start Of A Campaign
Though it doesn’t hinder gameplay a huge amount, it can be rather frustrating to spend hours creating your Tav, just to be paired with armor that doesn’t suit them all. A mod by PhalarAluve allows players to choose from different starting armors, which makes customization all the more satisfying.​​​​​​​
Even if BG4 didn’t have different armor models for each class, it would still be great if it allowed players to at least change the color of their armor. You can always dye clothing later on, but it’s a bit difficult in the early game to find the perfect shades.
5
Progressive Weapons
Find Equipment That Levels Up With You
Something that you won’t find in vanilla BG3 but is pretty popular among modders is progressive weapons. With some imagination, it shouldn’t be too hard to put together a few items that become stronger with time – maybe built for specific classes.
These weapons would probably have to be scarce to encourage players to continue to seek out more equipment, but shouldn’t be overpowered if they’re correctly balanced.
4
Frequent Autosaves
Never Lose Your Progress
There’s nothing worse than running into significant trouble, just for you to realize that you have no recent saves. Whether you fudged an important roll or bit off more than you can chew in a fight, it’s all too common for players to accidentally make an irreversible mistake and have to choose between sticking with it or losing hours of their campaign.
Mod.io user EmPex created an add-on that immediately saves after battle, which can be a great backup if you’re among the players who forget to save regularly. If you’re a bit more paranoid, a mod by DriftingSands saves the game every 10 minutes.
Having a similar feature in BG4 where the game often auto-saves could save some players a lot of strife. Like the weightless consumables, this would likely work best as a toggleable option, so players don’t clog up their files if they’re confident that they won’t need to reload.
3
Camp Activities
Add More Life To The Campsite
Having some basic animations for companions interacting in camp could make the area feel a lot more alive. The camp in BG3 can feel a bit static with everyone standing in one place, especially if you’ve rented a room in the Elfsong Tavern. BG4′s developers should really take note of the small changes made in GabeCamomescro’s camp activities mod.
Outside Wyll and Karlach and perhaps Lae’zel and Shadowheart, players see little of the dynamics between characters when they’re not in the party, so BG4′s future companions would benefit from having small interactions like this to flesh them out a bit more.
2
Paladin Deities
Stay True To DnD’s Paladins
Deities for paladins seem to have been something originally planned in BG3, but for some reason, they were eventually cut. Players can still run into paladins of Tyr, which makes the fact that this feature is missing from the game a little strange.
You can still access the deity-specific paladin dialogue tags by multi-classing into cleric, but paladin characters should be able to follow a certain god or goddess without the class dip when following traditional DnD guidelines.
Not all paladins follow gods, so there could also be an option for players to opt out of having a deity. Deities could even be opened up for all classes, as you don’t necessarily have to be a cleric or paladin to be a devotee of a god, but this could make respeccing very convoluted.
Baladeur’s “Paladins have gods” mod has over half a million downloads, though another mod by termin8torr opens up deity selection for everyone.
1
Separate Bangs From The Main Hair In Customization
Bring Personalization To The Next Level
If anything’s obvious about the BG3 fanbase, it’s that they love customizing their characters. Baldur’s Gate‘s next studio could take this to the next level by allowing players more creative freedom with hairstyles.
User Padme4000 created a mod that allows players to place the bangs of certain hairstyles onto others, which is an absolute game-changer for making unique characters. Mixing and matching these assets together creates hundreds of new hairstyle combinations. Baldur’s Gate 3 fans would be more than grateful if this were a feature of the base game in BG4.
Baldur’s Gate 3
- Released
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August 3, 2023
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Larian Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Larian Studios
- Engine
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Divinity 4.0
- Multiplayer
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Online Co-Op, Local Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
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Full cross-platform play.
