A thousand mod ideas for BG(2)EE

I have a zillion ideas for mods, so I have decided to try to do my first mod. I've read several times that the first step is to choose the mod you want to create. I've also read that it's best to start with something as simple as possible. I'm not sure of what's simple and what's complicated, so I have written a list with my ideas to get some feedback. Have a look and tell me what seems easiest. Of course, I realize that this list is overkill, but hey, I've written it already and it looks nice, so here it goes. The links point to threads or comments with more information on the idea:

IMPROVED COMBAT LOG

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• Extra information in the combat log:
  • A character uses a wand or some other magical item.
  • Successful attack roll, but no damage. Explain why there was no damage. Examples: Stoneskin, Ironskin.
  • When a creature makes a save or has magical resistance, say against what they made the save or had the resistance (when there are several casters casting spells it can be very difficult to tell).
  • An enemy casts a spell or uses an ability but the feedback says nothing about it.
  • Dispel spells: Say what has been dispelled. If nothing was dispelled, say “Remove (or dispel) magic didn’t affect <creature_name>”.
  • Item drained: Say what item was drained.
  • Results of spells, scrolls, etc., when they are missing:
    • Save vs. spell.
    • Magic resistance.
    • Maze.
  • Something important is missing altogether. For example: A character becomes unconscious, but the combat log says nothing about what caused it.
• Improved feedback options:
  • Improve the description of each feedback option.
  • Divide the option “Actions” in two more specific options: Target Selection and Other actions. Target selection is the part of the feedback that says “X attacks Y”. Other actions is all the other feedback currently included in the Actions option. This allows to remove all the “X attacks Y” messages, which typically are not very useful, and still leave more useful feedback, like which spells are being cast.
• Jimfix reloaded. Jimfix is a great little mod that (among other things) improves significantly the combat log. Unfortunately, Jim has been offline for almost a year and his mod is no longer supported. I’d like to replicate the notifications part of Jimfix, i. e., the part that displays extra notifications in the combat log. This would allow me to add some customization and fix some minor issues. One such customization would be to display expiration notifications only when in combat.
• Increase the amount of text allowed in the combat log. Currently the amount of text allowed is so limited that the text for some long fights doesn’t fit.

IMPROVED AUTO PAUSES

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• New auto pause options:
  • Item used. This includes wands, scrolls, potions, abilities of items, etc.
  • Skill used (e. g., disarm trap, pick lock, pick pocket, steath).
  • Weapon ineffective.
  • Character state change (e. g. poisoned, level drained).
  • Disrupted spellcasting.
• Character hit auto pause: Pause only when a character is hit, not when a summoned creature is hit.
• Fix End of round auto pause.
• Fix Enemy sighted auto pause. In some cases it doesn’t go off:
  • BG2: Chapter 6: Fight after returning the eggs to Adalon.

BUG FIXES

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Bugs would be the cases in which the behaviour of the game contradicts what the documentation says. Whether the bug is in the behaviour of the game or in the documentation is often unclear, though.

• Spells.
  • Zone of sweet air.
  • Time stop.
  • Grease.
• Party formations: When you have summons in your party, the formations become very weird, with the party members in their correct formation, but the summons forming a mile away.
• Chance to learn a spell of kitted bards, wild mages, and dual classed characters. Also discussed here
• Pathfinding. Problems that need fixing:
  • Characters refuse to move.
  • Characters moving in the wrong direction.
  • Characters push and move other characters.
  • Faster characters (hasted) cannot overtake slower characters.
• Inconsistencies with character immunities: Characters immune to a certain type of damage behave like they received damage when they are attacked with that type of damage. For instance, a character immune to fire is attacked with a fire ball. He doesn’t receive damage, but he still complains (in audio and in the feedback panel), is held for a fraction of a second, the game displays a damage animation, and it is paused automatically if the appropriate option is selected.
• Spell disruption: Many times dealing damage to a caster doesn’t disrupt his casting. Other times the casting is disrupted even though the caster is immune to the damage.
• Drink potion button: When you click “Use item” in the quick access bar and then right click one of the abilities of the items equipped to see its description, the panel with the description has two buttons: Done and Drink potion. Drink potion doesn’t belong there.
• Combat log mismatched text: In long fights, the first lines displayed at the beginning of the combat log are often wrong.
• Any of the other bugs reported in Redmine.

IMPROVED DOCUMENTATION

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• Spell descriptions:
  • Blur.
  • Chant.
  • Tenser’s transformation: It disables spells.
  • Emotion: Hopelessness: It makes its victims sleep.
  • Spell Immunity: Abjuration doesn’t protect against many abjuration spells.
  • Remove incorrect ranges (which are most of them).
  • Remove wordiness:
    • "The target of this spell must make a saving throw vs. spell or come under its effects".
    • “This effect lasts for the duration of the spell or until dispelled”.
  • Add the information about spell interactions provided in this table
  • Enchanted weapon: For ranged weapons, the enchantment is bestowed on the weapon's ammunition.
  • Protection from evil, 10’ radius. Correct the radius.
  • Protection from fire: Remove the part about magic fire (it’s incorrect and there is no magic fire in the game).
• Items descriptions:
  • Protection from Magic scroll: List forms of magic that can go through it. It’s not invisible.
  • Periapt of proof against poison: Doesn’t protect against poison
  • Cloak of the stars: The darts only last for 24 hours.
• Ability descriptions:
  • Thieving abilities: Add the information in 75133/thieving-abilities-explained.
  • Set snare. Add info on the risk that the thief hurts himself.
  • All this extra info will be available in:
  • The level up screen.
  • The description of the set snare ability that pops up when right clicking.
  • A tooltip displayed when hovering the mouse over the ability name in the record screen.
• Add info from the thread on typos and text errors.

USER INTERFACE

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• Better enemy identification: Fighting a group of enemies with generic names can be very confusing. For example, you fight a party of drow that includes five generic drow. The game simply identifies each of them with the word “drow”. One of them casts Mantle. The feedback screen just says “Drow: Casts Mantle”. It doesn’t tell you which of the five drow cast it. When you want to use Breach to remove the mantle, you don’t know which of the five drow you need to target.
  Solution: Give a number to each drow: Drow 1, drow 2, drow 3, drow 4, drow 5. When one of them casts Mantle, the feedback says “Drow 4: Casts Mantle”. The tooltip that identifies each drow also includes this number.
• Improved level up screen: Add the current score of thieving abilities, i. e., the score including bonuses from items, potions, etc.
• Improved record screen:
  • Display actual ACs in the Inventory and Record Screen.
  • Correct wrong info: Ability bonuses.
  • Add missing effects: Invisibility.
  • Remove Magic Fire and Magic Cold resistances (they don’t exist in the game).
  • Replace “Backstab damage” with “Backstab damage multiplier”.
• Add missing effects in character buttons: Invisibility.
• Level up screen: Allow to see the level up results after fiddling with the proficiencies.
• Aiming helper:
  • When a ranged spell or ability is selected, it highlights all the locations (i. e., the area) at which it can be cast from the current location of the character. This allows to know whether the character needs to move to cast the spell. Useful in multiple situations, specially when you want to cast a spell at a point located at the other side of an open door.
  • Improved area of effect indicator: Displays the actual area of effect of a spell, I. e., it removes from the indicator the areas which are not in a straight line from the point at which the spell is cast. It also displays the area of effect for spells centered on the caster, like Chant or Protection from Evil.
• Improved labels: Separate the labels of creatures (displayed when pressing tab) to prevent them from hiding each other.
• Improved combat log UI: Dock the combat log to one corner and make its width adjustable. Modern screens are wide and not very tall, as opposed to the almost square screens that existed when the game was created. That means that a combat log that displays about a dozen lines of text covers half of the screen. Most of that screen space is wasted because the lines of the combat log are typically very short, so about three quarters of the combat log space are typically empty. Docking it to one of the corners would make much better use of the screen space.
• Summons and enemies panel buttons.
  • Similar to the characters buttons in the right column. Located below and/or besides the character buttons.
  • Clicking the button of a summon selects the summon.
  • Clicking the button of an enemy centers the camera on the location of the enemy.
  • The buttons display icons with info about the buffs and debuffs that affect each of them, just like the character buttons.
• Buff manager: Panel that allows to select a sequence of buffings to be cast before a big fight. Features:
  • The user selects all the spells, potions, and items to be used in the buffing.
  • The mod automatically selects the order in which the buffings will be performed. It sorts the buffs by order of decreasing duration, to make the buffs last for as long as possible during the fight.
  • The mod automatically sorts the buffs to avoid conflicts among them, like trying to cast a buff on a character that is invisible.
  • Once all the buffs have been selected, the mod makes all the spell casting, potion drinking, etc., without user interaction.
• Improved spell selector: Depending on their duration, spells are best suited for different moments of the game. Long duration spells are best cast as soon as the party awakes from their rest or after travelling. Medium duration spells tend to be more helpful when entering potentially dangerous areas. Short duration spells are best cast during or just before combat. This mod uses background colour coding to distinguish between spells of different durations (expressed in game time, not real time):
  • Green: More than one hour.
  • Orange: Between two turns and one hour.
  • Red: Less than two turns.
  • No colour: Instant effect.

OTHER

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• Remove the pointless gas animation of spore colonies.
• Improved Melf’s Minute Meteors: MMM are a great weapon, but they can be very dangerous. If an enemy attacks the mage in melee, the mage cannot drop the MMM, so he suffers the big penalty for using a ranged weapon in melee combat. This mod simply allows the mage to drop the MMM, which enables him to select a melee weapon and eliminate the penalty.
• Improved contingencies and sequencers. Contingencies and sequencers fail when their target is out of range of their spells. For example, a chain contingency that casts Mordenkainen Sword fails if its target is the nearest enemy. This mod prevents the user from putting in a sequencer or contingency spells that are guaranteed to fail due to their range limitations.
• Party AI off affects summons. The AI of summoned creatures is not very good. Examples:
  • A demon casts Fire Storm on my party. I move my summoned creatures away from the fire damage. However, as soon as they become idle, the AI kicks in and they attack the demon, thus returning to the Fire Storm area and killing themselves with the fire damage.
  • An enemy charms my summoned elemental. In order to avoid killing it, I neutralize him for the duration of the charm with a wand of paralyzation. However, my other summons keep attacking it, and the only way to stop them is to move them far away from the elemental.
  • The easiest way to fix this would be to turn off the AI of summons. A possible way of doing so would be to turn off their AI when you turn off the AI for the whole party.
• Allow summons to move between areas. It doesn’t make much sense that a summoned kobold cannot follow you into or out of a house.
• SCS tweak: Add an option to the ease of use script that allows for mage/thiefs, like Imoen and Jan. On top of their magic scripting, they can also search for traps or hide in the shadows automatically.
• Joining the nine areas of Baldur’s Gate into one.
• Allow targetting of enemies who have their red circle behind a door.
• GUI for Weidu. Includes:
  • An update feature that updates all the components of a mod to the newest version with one click.
  • An uninstall feature that uninstalls all the components of a mod with one click.
  • A reinstall feature that reinstalls all the components of a mod with one click.

Obviously some of the mods in this list are very complicated, but I thought I’d just have the whole list here for reference anyway. So what would be the easiest thing to do in this list?

Note: Years ago I studied engineering and worked as a programmer, that should help with the modding.