Combat extender mod alternatives

[Tresh]

I've been playing the game with a friend and since we are on our second playthrough, nearing our third now, we've modded the game quite heavily with modded classes, raised level cap to lvl 20 and partylimits begone so that we have 2 companions each instead of one companion each.
Since we still want a challenge, we are using the combat extender mod to increase the difficulty, and for acts 1 and 2, it has been working like a charm.

Now that we're in act 3, however, fights go one of two ways:
They are either way too easy, with us breezing through the fight and being barely touchable, like fighting auntie Ethel, who barely even got a turn in, or they are so difficult and overtuned that the only way for us to survive is to use mind sanctuary in a globe of invincibility and pull all the enemies into one spot using a black hole, before spamming aoe attacks and aoe crowd control. And no, barrelmancy does not work anymore, we've tried.
While that tactic works, I do miss the close calls we had in act 1 and 2 thanks to combat extender and would love to be able to recapture that all the way to act 3 in what will be our third and probably final playthrough, if possible, so if anyone knows another rebalancing mod that does the job better than combat extender, I am all ears. Or, well, eyes, ig.

TLDR: Combat extender doesn't do a great job balancing fights in act 3, making them either too easy or too hard, and I'm looking for any alternatives to balance the game for modded classes, level cap and party size.

[You Touched My Tralala]

have you used loot randomizer + item balancer mod? one which randomizes loot and also places them according to their rarity? I found that it helps to keep that feeling that you constantly need to tune your builds on the go because you don't have some OP builds at disposal anymore as their key items won't be in their usual places anymore

I understand that I don't exactly answer your question, but it's all input I can give

[Tresh]

Originally posted by You Touched My Tralala:

have you used loot randomizer + item balancer mod? one which randomizes loot and also places them according to their rarity? I found that it helps to keep that feeling that you constantly need to tune your builds on the go because you don't have some OP builds at disposal anymore as their key items won't be in their usual places anymore

I understand that I don't exactly answer your question, but it's all input I can give

It might not fundamentally fix the issue we've run into, but it does sound like it might make the game more interesting nontheless, thanks for the tip!

[God Queen 158]

Some difficulty mods that I plan to use on my tactician run: Stronger Bosses & Enemies, LOOT Scarcity, Exhaustion Mod, Configurable Enemies with Ready Configuration mod.

You will have to test and tweak the configuration for Configurable Enemies. If that's too much of a time investment, there are some Tactician+ mods out there that may be ready out the box.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by God Queen 158:

Some difficulty mods that I plan to use on my tactician run: Stronger Bosses & Enemies, LOOT Scarcity, Exhaustion Mod, Configurable Enemies with Ready Configuration mod.

You will have to test and tweak the configuration for Configurable Enemies. If that's too much of a time investment, there are some Tactician+ mods out there that may be ready out the box.

I'll check those out, thank you for the suggestions.

[guard65]

I looked up Combat Extender out of curiosity and it is pretty weak and as it states uses base tag throw in features to try to flesh out the enemies. Way to low tech and in effective for my tastes.

I actually start my game at level 5 but use the mod Combat Randomizer. Even in the beginning of the game at level 5 my party will wipe on even your basic fights. Enemies can be no joke with this mod. I start at level five and tuned the enemies to hard for that level. They only get harder from that point out.

As the mod states Random, some fights you can wipe in the first couple rounds, however if when you reload after a fight it will be completely different / random everything.