How do you create mods for BG3?

[Belial]

I want to edit some of the exising mods numbers and have a very limited modding experience in another game in the past, I cant find any guides or suggestions on where to start and which software to use.

Can anyone help with that?

[TaKo]

here's a collection of resources and tutorials: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/132

[Belial]

oh wow thanks mate

[Doc56767]

Question about this. I am trying to make an extended wild magic table. Does this help with that? It seems to be mostly cosmetic face and hair and stuff

[Belial]

Origineel geplaatst door Doc56767:

Question about this. I am trying to make an extended wild magic table. Does this help with that? It seems to be mostly cosmetic face and hair and stuff

You need a few tools to get started, "Modders Multi-tool" and "LSLib toolkit", the first allows you to search game files for stuff you want to edit, the latter allow you to pak and unpak varios files the game uses and convert them (its also useful exploring how other people made their mods). In general its pretty simple.

[t_hark]

Origineel geplaatst door Belial:

Origineel geplaatst door Doc56767:

Question about this. I am trying to make an extended wild magic table. Does this help with that? It seems to be mostly cosmetic face and hair and stuff

You need a few tools to get started, "Modders Multi-tool" and "LSLib toolkit", the first allows you to search game files for stuff you want to edit, the latter allow you to pak and unpak varios files the game uses and convert them (its also useful exploring how other people made their mods). In general its pretty simple.

Would these tools also work for creating your own items? I’m not looking to add unique art assets or anything, merely add my own stats to existing gear.

[Lotsatot]

Origineel geplaatst door t_hark:

Origineel geplaatst door Belial:

You need a few tools to get started, "Modders Multi-tool" and "LSLib toolkit", the first allows you to search game files for stuff you want to edit, the latter allow you to pak and unpak varios files the game uses and convert them (its also useful exploring how other people made their mods). In general its pretty simple.

Would these tools also work for creating your own items? I’m not looking to add unique art assets or anything, merely add my own stats to existing gear.

Did you ever find an answer to your question? I too am interested in just learning how to adjust the stats of an item.

[SpaceWombat]

Download the multi-tool app someone mentioned above. Then go to the help tab in it. It'll provide links to all of the most informative modding resources to get you going.

[Lotsatot]

Origineel geplaatst door SpaceWombat:

Download the multi-tool app someone mentioned above. Then go to the help tab in it. It'll provide links to all of the most informative modding resources to get you going.

Great. Thanks!

[JennyTheGhoul]

Origineel geplaatst door Doc56767:

Question about this. I am trying to make an extended wild magic table. Does this help with that? It seems to be mostly cosmetic face and hair and stuff

There's one on Nexus mods, you might look for it and take a peek at how they did it.

For those who want to get into modding, I also suggest joining the BG/Larian discord. There's a modding channel. I don't have a link, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

[dolby]

Origineel geplaatst door JennyTheGhoul:

I also suggest joining the BG/Larian discord. There's a modding channel. I don't have a link, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

https://discord.com/channels/98922182746329088/767804218819477515

and on modify my advice would be ask there and best thing to get you started is to find a mod that does something similar to what you want and unpack it with https://github.com/ShinyHobo/BG3-Modders-Multitool

and see how they did it, that should get your started...

edit: friendly warning make sure you have coffee cos it's gonna be long nights... Once you start modding you gonna want to change gazzilion things. For me it started with one modification now i have 100+ lol so mod at your own risk.

[guard65]

Baseline moding is very simple. I also recommend using notepad++ when doing this.
Download the extractor tool from; https://github.com/Norbyte/lslib/releases
Current versi6on is Release v1.15.6

For this example copy the file Shared.PAK out of the BG3\Data folder to your My Documents folder.
Now using the extract tool you just downloaded run ConverterApp.exe and select the [PAK / LSV] Tab.
In the Input line select the Shared.PAK file you put in your My Documents Folder.
In the Output file path select your My Documents folder as well.
This will create two folders, one Public and one Mods folder.
For this leason you will only need items in the public folder.
In that folder navigate down to the [Public\Shared\Stats\Generated] and you will find a file called Equipment.txt
Note the folder structure it is under. Recreate that folder structure in you game folder; BG3\data folder.
Like this: BG3\data\Public\Shared\Stats\Generated. The folder will not exist so you will need to make them.
Next copy only the Equipment.txt file over to that location.
This file will now override the same file from the Shared.Pak file.
You can now edit that file and add or remove starting equipment.

What to add. Well everything you are looking for is in the Public\Shared\Stats\Generated\Data folder from the extracted files.
You will find Weapons.txt, Armor.txt, and other Items in that folder.
Just use the entry name as like the example below, under the class starting gear you want to change, then save the Equipment.txt file.

You have now performed your file BG3 game mod.

Example"
new equipment "EQP_CC_Fighter"
add initialweaponset "Melee"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "WPN_Greatsword"
add equipmentgroup
add equipment entry "WPN_HandCrossbow"

If you break it now wories, just delete the file or the whole public folder and it will no longer affect your game.

[guard65]

This is an old EA tutorial.
Currently you need to extract Shared.pak then Gustav.pak, then each of the patches in order to get the current build file profile.

[guard65]

Sample item I use on a mage is:

new entry "ARM_Stat1_Ring"
type "Armor"
using "ARM_Ring_E_Gold_A"
data "Boosts" "Ability(Intelligence,1);Tag('TADPOLE_POWERS_BLOCKED');UnlockSpell(Projectile_NecroBlast)"
data "PassivesOnEquip" "PotentSpellcasting2;UnarmoredDefense_Cunning"
data "Rarity" "Rare"
data "Unique" "1"

new entry "Projectile_NecroBlast"
type "SpellData"
data "SpellType" "Projectile"
data "Level" "0"
data "SpellSchool" "Necromancy"
data "TargetFloor" "-1"
data "TargetRadius" "18"
data "AmountOfTargets" "LevelMapValue(EldritchBlast)"
data "SpellRoll" "Attack(AttackType.RangedSpellAttack)"
data "SpellSuccess" "DealDamage(1d6,Necrotic,Magical);ApplyStatus(CHILL_TOUCH,100,1);ApplyStatus(RAY_OF_FROST,100,1)"
data "TargetConditions" "not Self() and not Dead()"
data "ProjectileCount" "1"
data "CastTargetHitDelay" "100"
data "Trajectories" "3eaf2c46-46a9-4b52-8e05-fae7dc4e548b"
data "Icon" "Spell_Evocation_EldritchBlast"
data "DisplayName" "h9dd6c9edgef86g4aacg8d3dg172606a7be3f;1"
data "Description" "hc3187c17gb565g4856gbd30ge3e2aa62b8f0;6"
data "DescriptionParams" "LevelMapValue(EldritchBlast)"
data "TooltipDamageList" "DealDamage(1d6,Necrotic)"
data "TooltipAttackSave" "RangedSpellAttack"
data "TooltipStatusApply" "ApplyStatus(CHILL_TOUCH,100,1);ApplyStatus(RAY_OF_FROST,100,1)"
data "PrepareSound" "Spell_Prepare_Damage_Necrotic_Gen_L1to3"
data "PrepareLoopSound" "Spell_Prepare_Damage_Necrotic_Gen_L1to3_Loop"
data "CastSound" "Spell_Cast_Damage_Necrotic_ChillTouch_L1to3"
data "CastTextEvent" "Cast"
data "CycleConditions" "Enemy() and not Dead()"
data "UseCosts" "ActionPoint:1"
data "SpellAnimation" "3ff87abf-1ea1-4c32-aadf-c822d74c7dc0,,;,,;2f893fad-98eb-47cf-a524-dd4efd42bc2a,,;ca3147a8-2cf6-45a8-ac9a-1ce0fc11305f,,;d8925ce4-d6d9-400c-92f5-ad772ef7f178,,;,,;eadedcce-d01b-4fbb-a1ae-d218f13aa5d6,,;,,;,,"
data "VerbalIntent" "Damage"
data "SpellStyleGroup" "Class"
data "SpellFlags" "HasVerbalComponent;HasSomaticComponent;IsSpell;HasHighGroundRangeExtension;RangeIgnoreVerticalThreshold;IsHarmful;AddFallDamageOnLand;DisplayDamageModifiers"
data "PrepareEffect" "ec80b3cd-29fd-40d2-a41a-b703db1b6f8e"
data "CastEffect" "d97c5b65-eccd-4b54-a665-64539e7924bf"
data "TargetEffect" "ef274710-5f43-4af5-ad69-fc87b41ccbb5"
data "HitAnimationType" "MagicalDamage_Internal"
data "DamageType" "Necrotic"

[id795078477]

I recommend to use the most powerful tool you could ever have as a modder: "I know what I approximately want, let me see if there's something similar or at least something that I think touches the game systems I want to mod, download it, unpack it, see how it works, learn from it, try to make what I want".

Of course that only works when the modding scene is more or less developed, the modder resources (and mods) are open-source and the game is mod-friendly. Which is all true for BG3. This "look how it's done and try to make it the same or similar way" will lead you to all the rabbit holes and get all the knowledge you need while keeping it grounded and constrained to the area you want so keeping the focus and progressing on the stuff you really need.

You have to have that engineering knack for it though - since a lot of it will be trial and error. If you're truly lucky, you get a spec here and there, sometimes even (semi)official docs. Treasure those and always read them. And if you're overwhelmingly lucky - there are discord servers with people willing to share their knowledge.

[guard65]

https://github.com where you will find developers and modders. We post our code so you can see what we did. Also most mods you can just extract the PAK file and see what they did to make their mod.