Darkest Dungeon is hard, and that's a good thing! Really. Challenging games are always the most rewarding, and Darkest Dungeon is certainly both. But let's be real here; sometimes I just want to come home, sit in front of the computer, and casually run through a dungeon without having to worry about my heroes randomly contracting syphilis.
Luckily for us, that's what mods are for. Here's a list of the 10 best mods to help you make Darkest Dungeon a bit more like a casual dungeon crawler and less like a steady stream of demoralizing beat-downs.
Strong Start
It makes sense to start with the Strong Start mod by Steam user Seraph. Intended for use with a new save game, this mod lets your two starting heroes begin the game with no negative quirks, three positive quirks, and a skeleton key. Your hamlet will also have a few more resources from the beginning, giving you a nice leg up on the difficulty curve.
Get Strong Start via the Steam Community
[Image courtesy of Steam Community]
Level Restrictions Removal
Dungeons in Darkest Dungeon are restricted by character level in order to prevent higher-level heroes from running through the same low-level dungeons over and over again. The purpose of this is obviously to make grinding for XP and items a lot more difficult -- but perhaps too difficult. Level Restrictions Removal by Maester Silvio seeks to rectify this by removing the level restrictions from dungeons, enabling you to grind to your heart's content.
Get Level Restrictions Removal via the Steam Community
[Image courtesy of Steam Community]
No Random Negative Quirks
Challenging games should also be rewarding -- so it definitely feels like a kick to the shin whenever you make a flawless run through a dungeon only for one of your heroes to be randomly granted Satanaphobia at the end of the level. But the No Random Negative Quirks mod by Bad Maw prevents heroes from randomly acquiring negative quirks upon returning to the hamlet.
No Random Diseases
Don't you just hate spontaneously obtaining syphilis? Well sometimes that just randomly happens when you finish a level in Darkest Dungeon. ColourlessAmiba's No Random Diseases mod squashes this little lottery of misery by removing any chance of heroes randomly obtaining diseases upon returning to the hamlet.
Now if only they could make this mod for college IRL...
No Monster Crits
I understand that critical hits are just a part of video games and are important for adding a level of unpredictability to a game -- but that doesn't mean I won't hurl obscenities at my monitor whenever they happen. No Monster Crits by CrazyMLC saves us all an eventual headache by stripping monsters of their ability to land critical hits. Some might even argue that this makes the game better by keeping success tied to player skill rather than RNG.
Vampiress_Spine_Mod
Steam user scorpiovaeden created this mod to make the deadly Vampiress an available class in Darkest Dungeon. In addition to looking just plain awesome, the Vampiress is a genuine wrecking ball (barring any updates to the mod). With solid HP, great speed, massive AoE potential, and self-healing, the Vampiress easily out-performs most of the base game's classes, so having one on your side can be a real boost to your chances of victory.
Get Vampiress_Spine_Mod via the Steam Community
[Image courtesy of the Steam Community]
Commissar - Class Mod
Another great class mod is the Commissar - Class Mod by ActionJack (no relation to the author of this article, I swear). Though not as obviously overpowered as the Vampiress, the Commissar is still a great addition any team thanks to its highly supportive skill set. The Commissar is capable of buffing allies and shifting their positions, putting you in a prime position to wreak havoc on foes. It's both a fun and awesome class.
Get Commissar - Class Mod via the Steam Community
[Image courtesy of the Steam Community]
Anti-Grind & Larger Roster
This mod is actually a combination of two mods by Spyboy, both intended to ease the pain of losing a powerful hero. Anti-grind Stage Coach accomplishes this by raising the likelihood of finding higher level heroes later in the game, thereby reducing the amount of time spent grinding new recruits after one of your better heroes inevitably dies. Larger Roster, meanwhile, simply lets you hold on to more heroes at one time. Combined, these two mods can make the game much more user-friendly, particularly in the later game when losing a powerful hero can really screw you over.
Get Anti-grind & Larger Roster via the Steam Community
[Image courtesy of the Steam Community]
Stacking Inventory
Another mod by Maester Silvio, the relatively simple Stacking Inventory mod makes firewood, dog treats, quest items, and a few other items stackable in your inventory. This clears up clutter and makes item management generally more convenient, so it's definitely recommended. It also doesn't affect the game's overall difficulty a tremendous amount, so it's still a good mod even if you're concerned about spoiling the challenge of the game.
Crimson Curse Buff
As anyone who's played Darkest Dungeon's The Crimson Court DLC will tell you, acquiring the Crimson Curse status effect is just painful. Moon slime's Crimson Curse Buff mod seeks to alleviate that a bit by removing effects like the max HP penalty and Blight weakness from some of the stages of the curse.
What's nice about this mod is that, unlike many others, it doesn't remove the Crimson Curse from the game entirely -- so you still get to enjoy some of the added challenge of The Crimson Court without being broken by it.
Difficulty is often what makes victory worth attaining, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with trying to tone it down a bit for fun. If you feel like you could use a little boost in Darkest Dungeon, give any or all of these mods a try. Or if you need a little extra help without modding, check out any of our other Darkest Dungeon guides here on GameSkinny for tips on how to survive these punishing dungeons.
So now that you can swing the odds in your favor with mods, are you feeling a bit more courageous? What other kinds of mods would you like to see made for Darkest Dungeon? Or do you prefer keep the difficulty of the original game intact? Let us know down below.
Published: Jun 29, 2017 10:22 pm