Mods appropriate for the first playthrough (and their compatibility)

[Fgh]

After finishing a college course on Deadfire mechanics, I picked some mods that seem to improve gameplay experience without changing it too much. Could someone who has more experience with this game tell me if I am ok to go, or are some of them just not recommended for new players, conflict each other, are outdated or buggy, better alternatives exist, etc.

I am assuming there are no problems with these, but just in case: Enhanced User Interface, Character Creation More Colors, Enhanced companions portraits, Everyone's Two Cents, More Custom AI Conditions, Godlike rebalance from PoE2 Deadfire Tweaks.

 

Community Patch - looks really good. The modder poster on Nexus that they are planning an update soon, is there any more information about that on this forum? I am afraid that I start the playthrough and then a week later the update will drop and my ocd will compel me to restart the game.

Rymrgand's Complete Food Challenge (Prepared Meals Rule for Rymrgand's Challenge) - the only challenge I plan to play with is Rymrgand, seems like fun addition. Is it something I could reasonably handle, or would it require knowledge from previous playthroughts to complete?

Deadly Deadfire 4 - Difficulty Mod - if the progression is anything like PoE1 I would like to use Reduced XP. Not sure about other features, particularly the +2 boss level scaling, I am afraid of making the game impossible to beat without cheesing. I want to play on PotD difficulty, and aim for 100% completion.

 

And these are mods I saw recommended in a thread here, but myself am sceptical about:

Deadfire Combat Tweaks - no idea how these upset the game balance.

TT2 Unique Items Enchanced, Spoils of Caed Nua - according to mod description these items can be just bought from merchants. Is this something immersion breaking, are they overpowered for the level I could get them at, do they make other items obsolete? Or do merchant already sell item of comparable quality, and this just diversifies their wares?

FG Soulbound Upgrade - similar concern as previous item mods, is it OP or will it make other weapons in the game obsolete?

 

Also if you know any other mods you think I should use, please recommend. Thanks!

[Elric Galad]

Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community

I can recommand my own mod  that goes better with Community Patch (has been tested with it) than deadire tweaks and that has been discussed a lot on this forum.
It essentially avoid trap builds that would be annoying for 1st playthrough and suppress Gamebreaking builds that you aren't likely to abuse on 1st run anyway.

[Desmodeus]

Out of all Deadfire Tweaks I would probably just used 1 module - Unlock Subclass one. For that sweet Rymrgand priest subclass. Almost everything else is either very subjective changes or very questionable in term of balance(as it look like it is mostly power fantasy focused mod). Balance polishing mod is indeed better choice for balancing tweaks. Speaking of self-promotion, @Elric Galad is there a chance to see your mod on Steam Workshop?

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, Desmodeus said:

Speaking of self-promotion, @Elric Galad is there a chance to see your mod on Steam Workshop?

Never say never. But I have just become father of a second daughter, so my free time has never been so scarce and I have to manage priorities. For the future of the Mod, I have a couple of bugs to address and small changes that are my priority. I don't even know when I will be able to update the mod. Just be sure I will "eventually" do it.

And the Steam Forum crowd didn't seem interested by the mod at all (promoting the mod on reddit was more successul)...

Edited February 4, 2021 by Elric Galad

[dukeisaac]

The Enhanced User Interface mod is a must for me : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1510650230

Also a big fan of the Community Patch and the Deafire Balance Polishing Mod.

Finally, i use the 25 % less xp mod, makes for a more interesting playthrough with the DLCs.

 

[Desmodeus]

As for Spoils of Caed Nua I wouldn't call items op, however getting Shod-in faith for free at start remove a lot of early game frustration ecpecially on higher difficulties

[house2fly]

The TT2 mod adds items to a tavern, they do kind of stick out. They're powerful items but they cost a lot to balance it out.

FG Soulbound Upgrade is a great mod; in the main game soulbound weapons can be upgraded to Superb quality, and FG makes them go up to Legendary. You can upgrade regular uniques to Legendary, and the soulbounds in the DLC go up to Legendary as well, so really it just brings them up to speed. I never play without it.