Hello there!

I've had my eye on Baldur's Gate 2 since I was a kid, but I never really had the chance to buy it. At the moment, I'm glad that GOG has released it, but I'm still contemplating whether or not I should buy it. I've been reading a lot about BG2 and it seems that mods are an integral part of the BG experience. Personally, I'm the kind of player who prefers to play a game without any mods whatsoever. That said, is it worth it to buy BG2 without using ANY mod (especially with my widescreen monitor)?

Much thanks!

Yup, definitely. But why would you want to?

The best BG experience is to play modded BG1 and BG2 on order. I'd definitely recommend playing BG1 with Tutu for the increased walking speed and improved pathfinding alone. BG2 has aged better so it's not as dependable on mods. if you want the vanilla BG2 experience, get at least the fixpack for the bug fixes. BG2 is not especially buggy so you can do without, but I'd still recommend it.

I also don't usually mod games, but I wouldn't play the BG games without mods anymore now that I've tried them.

Yes. I avoid mods also for single player games, but the BG2 fixpack is definitely recommended , and the widescreen/resolution mod helps also.

Yeah, think of it like this - a lot of this stuff isn't actually mods in the normal sense, but bug fixes and optimizations. It won't change the game so much as make it more stable and convenient.

Baldur's Gate 2 is DEFINITELY worth playing without mods; this is not like Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, where the mods practically complete an unfinished game. The game is completely excellent on its own.
BUT
There's no reason not to use the patches and bugfixes that the community created - they make an excellent game even better.

Here's a recommendation: if you have both Baldur's Gates from GOG (meaning both games and both expansions) try playing using the BiG World Setup. It connects all the games into one big game, and you can disable all the content mods in the installer and just leave the recommended patches. So not much pain, but quite a lot of gain.

Baldur's gate did not need any mods to become the best RPG ever, so no worries.
Definitely play the first time without mods.

However you should install the BG2 fixpack and the wide screen mod, which will not affect the balance, but just fix some technical issues.

Several guides exists on gog, if you want to consider adding more mods, but keep that for your next games. You will probably play this games several times in the coming years.

Straight answer? Not only is BG2 worth playing without mods, I would recommend any first playthrough to be played without mods. As much as they may add to the experience, mods do alter the experience, and you would be deprieving yourself if you immediately mod the game without seeing what the vanilla game is like.

Plus, it allows you to appreciate the changes when you do mod the game, and it will give you another reason to play through with more content (not that you would need a reason to play through again, and there is more than enough content for multiple playthroughs, but more is never bad).

The game was released without mods, it was reviewed without mods, bought without mods and it was played without mods.
Only a very small minority of the BG2 players used mods, most of them for having a different experience on their next run or to change the game according to their personal preferences.

I played without mods and didn't miss them.