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The only mod that really deals with balancing is Epic Encounters (and its derivate XC_Encounters) but that is probably mostly a balancing for Tactician mods.
(Haven't tried them myself).
And XC_Bags has some minor balancing changes (that are hardly noticable though).
You'd have to define what you mean by 'game breaking' because even the vanilla game manages to break itself just by using the built-in facilities (under some rare circumstances, but it's possible).
It's also a matter of personal taste what you consider 'enhancing'.
Again, it's Epic Encounters (XC_Encounters) than has some Enhancements, new spells and new mechanics.
XC_Bags has many enhancements and some fixes to the vanilla game's game breakers and some new spells. Most of which are only brought back from Classic (like Tactical Retreat or Featherfall) or fill 'holes' (like the sixth Hydro Novice spell that does not exist in vanilla).
But all this has to be evaluated against your personal taste and some (or even most) things might be 'de-hancements' for you.
So go and read the mod descriptions and do not forget to read the external resources linked in the mods' descriptions.
(Especially read the external links of XC_Encounters because I've gotten really tired of having to explain over and over again why and how some things in XC_Encounters are different from how they are in XC_Bags ;-)
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- Epic Encounters and XC_Bags change or add a lot of things while all the other mods change mostly a single aspect of the.
- XC_Encounters is a merge of Epic Encounters with XC_Bags which has very few changes that are unique to it. (and it drops some of the base mods' properties)
- Respawning Enemies adds enemy respawn
- Unlimited Party allows a party of up to 12 party members
The two mods change or balance nothing else ... if I understood their description. ;-)
- Four Party Creation lets 4 coop players take real characters in character creation but totally drops companions (worth noting that this changes the 'game over' when all main characters die because there are only main characters)
- Rock, Paper, Scissors No More removes the RPS game in dialogs.
- The two pure Six Man Party mods change the maximum party size to 6 instead of 4. (Epic Encounters, XC_Encounters and XC_Bags also have 6 man party versions, XC_Bags' version is also here in the Workshop.)
- Dunamis and A Necromancer's Crusade are 'standalone mods' which have nothing to do with the main game expect spells and mechanics. Both are a lot smaller but create their own worlds, quests, combats, etc.
- the Tactical Arena is also a standalone mod which has nothing but combat - if I understood the description correctly
- I don't know what the Cow Simulator is, it must be some kind of 'running joke' that made its way over from Classic to the Enhanced Edition
There are some more in the Workshop, just look them up. The most prominent one currently seems to be the 'Minimal Project' which is no mod but a skeleton for modders to create a mod (I think that's by someone from Larian. Larian was never too fond of people creating main game changing mods in the first place. I think the skeleton is for standalone mods. I don't understand why stupid Steam keeps that one in rank 1 for months now.)
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More mods can be found at the Nexus.
Beside the ones that are also also in the Workshop, the only real mod at the Nexus (to my knowledge) is Better Logistics (which should actually also be here in the Workshop but the mod's author does not 'like' Steam).
All the others there are no mods but 'game changes', in some cases bug fixes or workarounds for game problems. (especially the ones from the author Abraxas)
Mods that are installed directly into the game directory are no 'real mods' because they change the game for *every* setup and cannot be controlled nor ever be disabled in the game's Mods menu, the only chance to get rid of them is by removing the mod files from the game directory.
(Note: this is also true for the so-called 'Steam Supplement' of Epic Encounters and XC_Encounters.)
The Nexus mods are mostly graphical changes, were mostly made for the Classic version and will or will not work with the Enhanced Edition.
The only exception on the Nexus (besides Better Logistics) for the Enhanced Edition is 'Scales', a mod (no 'real mod') that was explicitly made for the Enhanced Edition and was most likely the main inspiration for a lot of changes that were done in Epic Encounters.
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IMPORTANT:
- Every mod on the Workshop (that is really playable and not just a skeleton or a new landscape) plus Better Logistics require starting a new game with the mod enabled.
Using an existing savegame with a different or no mod setting with any of them will never work. The best you can get if you change mod settings for an existing savegame is that no crash occurs.
- No two real mods will work at the same time, even if the game's Mods menu allows checking more than one at a time. The game only loads one, most likely the first checked, if this order is changed and the continued with a savegame, a crash will most likely occur at some point.
These two things are restrictions of the game engine and no modder incompetence.
(If any modder was competent and interested enough to change the .exe and .dlls in a way to make it work, they could probably also create their own games and sell them on Steam ;-)
- StatRebalance which adds a respeccing NPC, available in game a lot earlier than vanilla's respecc NPC ;-)
The Enhanced Edition came out towards the end of 2015 and it took about half a year for the game editor to be made public. In the meantime, making 'game change mods' was the only way to mod at all because the editor is required to create mods and most of all to compile story code to the required binary form.
This is also the reason why all of the 'game changes non-mods' work with existing savegames: they do not have compiled story code!
When a new game is created, the engine takes the compiled story code, prepares it for used and uses it. When the game is saved, the prepared story code is saved too and from this point on, the prepared code is no longer taken from the mod (or the main game which is also some kind of mod called 'Main').
So activating a mod which has it's own story code with a savegame does nothing because the engine still takes the story code from the save file and not from the mod. But some functionality does require this code.
While activating a mod afterwards usually is harmless for a vanilla savegame, exchanging mods and loading a savegame is not, it has a high potential for crashes, since you'd potentially take away objects the stored script code expects to be present. (One could discuss if a crash instead of catching an error is the correct way to handle such a situation, if it happens, it's not done by a mod but by the engine.)
This story code thing is the reason why for most (if not all) Workshop mods, starting a new game is required, while most Nexus-only 'mods' can be activated at any time. (With the exception of Better Logistics which is also a Wokrshop type mod *and* has story code changes.)
The story code engine - and the object script engine too - changed between Classic and the Enhanced Edition, so no mod with any code for the Classic version is compatible with the Enhanced Edition while Classic mods without any code, like the graphical mods, will usually work without problems.
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Most of the non-mods from the Nexus are harmless and can be used alongside real mods, but 'Scales' is an exception that will most likely not work together with the 'big mods' Epic Encounters, XC_Encounters and XC_Bags. (Although it was made for the Enhanced Edition.)
Also, some of Abraxas object scripts that try to fix various things are most likely not compatible with them.
The reason is, that both Scales and Abraxas game script fixes and workarounds change the same scripts that the big workshop mods change. The engine will only pick up one version, usually the directly installed one and not the one from the mod. Which means that things in the big mods that require changes in these scripts will not work.
I know for sure that some of Abraxas' scripts will break the 'Distract' scoundrel skill in XC_Bags.
I've been too lazy to look at the internal of Epic Encounters but my assumption is, that it has even more conflicting scripts.
And I'm sure that Scales would break all of the big 'real mods' ;-)
Abraxas has some additional files I think that make his own real mod (Better Logistics) work together with his fixes, but I don't know for sure, it would have to be looked up.
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Since I made XC_Bags, I know that Abraxas' Quiet Day on the Market and Samatarian 'mods' are compatible with it, but the latter is not really required in XC_Bags which goes a different way and introduces portable bed rolls instead. (Which annoy some people I'm sure since the bed rolls 'talk' ;-)
Also, Abraxas' Stand Still While I Attack fix is included in slightly modified form in XC_Bags.
It also has a lot of game tweaks as well as redesigned (and many completely new) abilities and skills as well as an overhaul of gear, what stats drops have, and how good drops are (they are much better).
This means it adds a lot of replay value even for someone who doesn't like the idea of doing tactician difficulty at all. With the skill, abilities and gear redesign, it totally changes good build concepts, opens up a ton of really interesting hybrid options, and makes replaying several times still quite interesting.
I'm a big fan of XC_encounters, personally, seeing as I really like the Epic Encounters mod but trying to live without XC_Bags after having used it is painful. XC_Encounters combines the two.
Not exactly combining (that's impossible due to some technical conflicts), it's more an Epic Encounters with some parts of XC_Bags integrated and a lot of it left out, plus some unique changes.
(Like the changed requirements for scroll crafting which can lead to headaches for the authors of the original mods in combination with mod users not reading all of the descriptions ;-)
Yah, I know some of the XC Bag recipes are missing as well as many of the tweaks and other game adjustments. I actually modified the XC_encounters mod a bit to add back in some of what I missed most from your mod. ^.^ The main thing in XC_bags for me though is the bags themselves and the crafting area (and storage) in Cyseal. I can't live without that part of it so it is nice that XC_encounters integrated that part.