Highlights
- Baldur's Gate 3 embraces the modding community with open arms, providing mod-friendly advice and support for players.
- Some of the best mods for Baldur's Gate 3 include 5e Spells, Rogues Extra, Backgrounds Enhanced, Fast XP, Enhanced Gear Progression, Customizer's Compendium, Native Camera Tweaks, Tav's Hair Salon, Party Limit Begone, and Improved UI.
- These mods offer expanded spells, additional options for rogues, enhanced customization, faster leveling, improved gear progression, advanced character creation options, camera tweaks, more hairstyle choices, increased party size, and UI improvements.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a choice-heavy game in a big, open world. Following in the footsteps of classics like Dragon Age: Origins and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the developers of Baldur's Gate 3 knew they needed to be open to the rich and active modding community these games tend to attract.
As a result, they've been vocal about modded save files for Baldur's Gate 3 - even releasing mod-friendly advice for launch day. To help you get going on the wild and wonderful adventure that is Baldur's Gate 3 Mods, here are ten of the best and where you can download them.
Updated by Abigail Angell on August 21, 2023: As is the nature of mods, some of the entries on this list were no longer being maintained by the modder. To make sure all the mods on this list work with the current version of the game, those have been replaced.
10 5e Spells
While Baldur's Gate 3 has done something really wonderful in terms of its story and world, many missed out on their favorite spells such as Lightning Lure, Vicious Mockery, Raise Dead, Charm Monster, and Tasha's Caustic Brew. Luckily, modders like Celes came to the rescue with the mod 5e Spells.
This mod almost doubles the number of spells currently in the game with additions from cantrips all the way up to level nine. While spells above level six will only be accessible if you're using other mods that change the level cap, it's still great fun even if it is the only mod you have installed.
9 Rogues Extra
Created by the same person who brought us Casters Extra, Rogues Extra adds a variety of new options for Rogue players in Baldur's Gate 3. Subclasses included in the mod are Soul Knife, Phantom, Mastermind, Scout, and Swashbuckler. It also adds several cantrips and progressions missing in the base game for our sneaky friends.
In a similar vein to Casters Extra, you can expect the mod to update slightly behind the base game. However, the mod page is always prompt and clear about whether the mod is updated. This earns a lot of respect, as these updates take additional time to do and prevent players from accidentally bricking their game.
8 Backgrounds Enhanced
For players that need a little more customization when making their character, Backgrounds Enhanced is a must-have mod. This mod gives each background in the game an additional proficiency - making you able to experience more of what the game has to offer without compromising on flavor.
For instance, the Folk Hero gains the Athletics proficiency - something that fits them well enough you might not question it unless you knew it was a mod. As another example, the Sage gains proficiency in Investigation - a no-brainer for a background that proclaims to be about finding and collecting knowledge.
7 Fast XP
The Fast XP mod is one that repeat players may increasingly turn to. Its purpose is to speed up the early game level progression, helping you get to your power break points and multiclass levels faster. While it could be argued that this heavily reduces the difficulty of the game, most players don't seem to find the experience unpleasant.
Mechanically, the mod causes you to earn twice the normal amount of Experience Points until you hit level six, at which point Experience Gain continues at the Vanilla rate. Choosing level 6 as the fall-off point is quite smart, as this is when most builds such as the Shadow Monk or the Barbarian come online.
6 Enhanced Gear Progression
One point of the gain that many players are unsatisfied with is the gear - you seem to either find magical items or mundane gear from level one all the way until the end of the game. This means that you could very well find yourself without a decent upgrade for most of the later stages of the campaign.
Enter Enhanced Gear Progression, which changes the way that loot is generated at traders, inside containers, and at character creation to give you a real feeling of progression throughout the game. Additionally, it adds full plate and splint in all of its forms as well as lootable copies of Gale's Robes and Daisy's Dress.
5 Customizer's Compendium
While most people seemed to be pleased with the Full Release Character creator, you can never make everyone happy. If you were hoping for Sims 4-level customization and were disappointed, try the Customizer's Compendium Mod by AlanaSP. Not only will this mod help you make the exact character you want, but it's also updated at incredible speeds.
Customizer's Compendium includes many more options for faces, ears, horns, and hairstyles. It also massively increases the color palettes for eyes, skin, and hair to almost ridiculous levels. Unlike many aesthetic-type mods, it doesn't favor femme-presenting characters over other body types, so everyone will find new options to choose from.
4 Native Camera Tweaks
The camera in Baldur's Gate 3 is something fans are torn about. On one hand, it clearly functions as intended for a combat tactics game. However, it doesn't really allow you to take in the wonderful world the developers of the game have painstakingly rendered. Native Camera Tweaks by Ersh fixes that.
Some of the features provided by the mod are a toggled free-roam camera, overriding zoom limits, and separate camera modes for Exploration and Combat. Not only that, but the mod also has support for local split screen, something that many fans of the game were disappointed with in the game's Full Release.
3 Tav's Hair Salon
Despite the importance of a character's hair to give them personality and charm, many games don't get the hair options right in their character creator. In terms of industry standards, Larian actually did pretty good at this. However, there's always room for more options in character creation, and Tav's Hair Salon provides.
This mod contains about 30 new hairstyles, although primarily for the skinny female body type seen in the taller races (Tieflings, Humans, and Elves). Races such as Githyanki have a few hairstyles, and the options for masculine characters are limited. If you decide to give this mod a whirl, keep in mind that Customizer's Compendium is required for it to work.
2 Party Limit Begone
One of the best parts about Baldur's Gate 3 is its charming companions. Each has its own banter, cutscenes, and opinions for you to discover as you play through the game. However, you need to choose only a couple of your favorites because your party size is limited to four.
If you don't want to choose (or want to be able to take companions while playing multiplayer) then Party Limit Begone is a must-have installation. This is likely to mess up the balance of the game due to inflating your action economy, but if you are one of the players who are enjoying Baldur's Gate 3 for the story, not the challenge, then this is no obstacle.
1 Improved UI
Improved UI is first on the list due to its bedrock mod status. The creator claims that the mods' primary goal is to clean up the UI and support other mods. It does both of these jobs very well. Arguably, however, the best feature of the mod is the ability to customize the Origin Characters to your heart's desire.
In terms of UI cleanup, this mod hides unnecessary buttons such as the Trade icon during dialogue with non-vendor NPCs as well as removes the popup that occurs when mods are being used in the game. For modders, Improved UI removes the scroll limit in character creator for faces, hair, and color palettes.