Baldur’s Gate 3 mod lets you party up with Lord of the Rings characters

Baldur’s Gate 3 surely has a fandom overlap with one of the biggest fantasy franchises of all time. One modder has given us the goods by adding the Fellowship from Lord of the Rings as companions.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the many surprise hits in a 2023 packed with unforgettable games. After a record-breaking launch, it’s still keeping players invested months after release.

As if the base game’s fantastic recreation of the Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition ruleset wasn’t enough already, a dedicated modding community is extending the possibilities of Baldur’s Gate 3. 50+ new races and debatably important fixes to Half-Orc genital options were a start but this one might be our favorite.

Nexus Mods user nexus1118 has combined a few existing mods to add all nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring as potential party members. It’s a crossover that seemed inevitable, we’re just surprised it took this long.

nexus1118 used a combination of the Party Limit Begone mod, which allows you to increase your max party size to 16, and another that allows you to alter the appearance of Baldur’s Gate 3’s companions.

It was a labor of love too. nexus1118 detailed the process in the mod’s description. “I had to boot 8 copies of the game window in potato mode while logged out of Steam to get the first 8,” they explained. “Then swapped to single player and recruited Gale and changed his appearance to be close to Gandalf.”

The mod converts the existing companions of Baldur’s Gate 3 companions like Lae’zel and Shadowheart into a close approximation of a Fellowship member. “The classes and appearances are as close as I could get to the movie with BG3’s limited vanilla character creator,” nexus1118 qualified.

The mod will allow you to experience the adventure of Baldur’s Gate 3 beginning just before the fight that introduces Wyll. The difficulty is set to Tactician by default to account for the increased party size.

The link to the mod is here, so crank up Concerning Hobbits or the Riders of Rohan if you’re feeling especially epic, and set forth. Just be sure to check nexus1118’s notes on potential bugs.

Having a larger party size can mess with some in-game events thanks to some hard coding for four party members. Luckily nexus1118 has provided warnings for when to dismiss your extras.