I just bought MM8 from GOG - any advice?

[Troller]

I lost my physical copy of MM8 years ago
But now I bought it from GOG – So what do you recommend? Are there any must have mods or anything that could improve my experience?
I plan to play through without a dragon companion as that ruined my last play thru by making it to easy.
Oh yeah nostalgia trip coming

/Troller

[lightbringer23]

Well, I'm planning to use Echo's mod for MM8 for my next play through. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't speak to any bugs it may or may not have. It looks quite promising though.
https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/16079

Other than that, just peruse the forums and see what you can find. If you want to just tweak some of the details about how some classes and skills work, try using MM7 view. Grayface has info on that on the forums too.
https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/10423

The big well known overhaul mods are for MM6 (Chaos Conspiracy) and MM7 (Rev4 Mod plus Maestro's).

[Bandobras Took]

If you're worried about making MM8 too easy, I also recommend not using Cauri Blackthorne. Getting a L50 Dark Elf as early as that makes many portions of the game trivial.

[lightbringer23]

Agreed. I avoid all of the lvl 50 NPCs. In fact, you might try Grayface's mod to let you create a full, 5-man team at character creation.

[Avonu]

If you're worried about making MM8 too easy, I also recommend not using Cauri Blackthorne. Getting a L50 Dark Elf as early as that makes many portions of the game trivial.

Personally I don't hire any L50 characters (unless their are quest related) and avoid hiring dragons with exception of Durath the Eternal from Regna (when your party suppose to be above 50th level). It's much enjoyable to play with "starting" party (meaning different class characters which start with low levels), than having 4 dragons or 50th level ones in party.