Baldur's Gate 3 Mods Add AI-Controlled Companions

Summary

Baldur's Gate 3 has seen the introduction of AI-controlled companions through newly debuted mods, adding to the extensive collection of mods available for the game.
These mods enhance the combat experience by allowing players to use AI-controlled party members, automating combat encounters and speeding up gameplay.
The mods re-purpose the game's existing AI system and offer the ability to delegate combat tasks to AI-controlled companions, making the game more accessible for newcomers.

Some newly debuted Baldur's Gate 3 mods independently introduced AI-controlled companions to Larian Studios' hit RPG. Their arrivals are just the latest in a long array of high-quality Baldur's Gate 3 mods that have been surfacing online since the game's early August launch.

As is the case with many popular PC titles, the immense success of Baldur's Gate 3 quickly garnered the modding community's attention. The RPG hence already boasts hundreds of mods, the most popular of which have been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times less than two weeks into the game's release.

Some of the latest additions to that growing list of customizations seek to enhance the combat in Baldur's Gate 3 by allowing players to use AI-controlled companions. The first take on that idea came in the form of the AI Friends mod created by modders MalachXaviel and Nox Phantom, who implemented the concept by the way of a simple Friends spell; casting the incantation once enables AI-controlled party members, while doing so again disables the feature.

Baldur's Gate 3 Party AI Mods

AI Friends (works for companions)
AI Control Party While In Combat (also works for the main character)

Inspired by that idea, modder oilnarak01 subsequently came up with their own AI Control Party While In Combat mod, which adopts the spell toggling mechanism of AI Friends while also extending its effect to the entire party, protagonist included. This particular creation thus essentially allows players to fully automate combat encounters in the game. So, a party consisting of a pre-built Origin character and three of the strongest companions in Baldur's Gate 3 could now wreak a lot of havoc all on its own.

Both of the recently released mods re-purpose the game's existing AI system in order to allow for AI-controllable characters. They also support single-target activations, providing players with the ability to maintain control over select party members while automating the actions of others. Using them to sporadically delegate combat tasks could hence speed up Baldur's Gate 3 encounters without feeling like cheating, as the AI-controlled companions won't be any smarter than their class equivalents that the player encounters on the battlefield.

AI allies could also make the game more accessible for newcomers to the Dungeons and Dragons games, as some might find that watching them showcase their abilities in battle is a faster way to grasp the basics of their classes than learning through experimentation. Finally, players who are simply looking to power through the game's story could pair either of these AI additions with the Baldur's Gate 3 mod that raises the max party size to 16 in order to steamroll every enemy group in the game with virtually no effort.