This is a tutorial on how to get multiple mods to work with the Main Campaign
Disclaimer:
This is for mods that modify existing items/characters only: We don't know enough yet to know whether other things can be modded safely into the campaign)
There are several mods that modify existing items located within the Main campaign. They do so by over-writing an item's 'RootTemplate', which describes everything that the item is capable of doing. For the sake of this tutorial, I will refer to these as RootTemplate mods.
As it is right now (v 1.0.57), only one RootTemplate mod can affect the Main Campaign. If you tried to use both of my mods, the
Infinite Use Skillbooks mod and the
Unbreakable Lockpicks one, then at least one of them would fail to work.
Moreover, the game is set up to only allow new mods to take effect on new-games; old saves are locked into the mods they start out with.
This tutorial describes how you can get around these restrictions, and use multiple RootTemplate mods together as well as show how they can be installed or uninstalled safely on any game-save.
First, to get multiple RootTemplate mods working together. This is fairly straightforward; all of the different RootTemplate files located within the mods just need to be located within a single mod/place.
I have uploaded an empty mod here:
Download Link Without any other changes, this mod does absolutely nothing different when activated.
However, if I put in the EnhancedSkillbooks.lsb from my Infinite Use Skillbooks mod and the Tools.lsb from my Unbreakable Lockpicks mod into the Divinity - Original Sin\Data\Public\Modified_Main_9b125d2b-c4a0-4107-bd38-d0d6bdbcbb4b\RootTemplates\ folder, then both of those will have an effect when a new game is made with the Modified Main mod enabled.
Say I start a new game with the Modified Main mod enabled and play through it for several hours. RootTemplates in the mod's RootTemplate folder can be safely added/removed so long as they only modify the properties of existing items. But what if I want to completely uninstall the mod and still have my save (which for this example is named 'ModdedGameSave') work?
To uninstall the mod, deactivate the mod from the Main menu and create a new game. It doesn't matter what the characters are, so long as the new game is unmodded. Once you're in the Cyseal map, go ahead and save the game (for this example, I'll name this one UnmoddedGameSave).
Now comes a bit of game-save manipulation. Go to Documents\Larian Studios\Divinity Original Sin\PlayerProfiles\Profile_Name\Savegames\ where you can see a list of all of your save files. Click the UnmoddedGameSave file. Inside that you will see a file named UnmoddedGameSave.lsb; this contains the meta-data about the game save, which includes which mods are present. Copy this file.
Head on over to the other game file (ModdedGameSave) where you want to uninstall the mod from. There you'll see a file named ModdedGameSave.lsb. Delete that file (or send it somewhere else if you want to back it up), and Paste the UnmoddedGameSave.lsb from earlier. Then you rename the file so that it matches what you just deleted, ModdedGameSave.lsb.
Once that is done, you can reload the game-save, which is now free from all mods.
The process of installing a RootTemplate mod into an existing un-modded game is essentially the reverse process. Just make a new game with the mods enabled, save it, and transfer over the MetaData file and delete the old one.
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Credit goes to Chriskang for figuring out how to get mods into or out of game-saves without starting the campaign over.