What Fan Made Patches and Mods should i install before playing (also while i'm at it, the bonus downloads that come with getting it on GOG, do i need to unzip them from their file and move them to the actual file first?)

Not sure if it's a good idea to play it with mods and stuff, especially if it's your first playthrough.
Bonus content comes archived (.zip) so yes, you'll need to unzip those.

alright shall heed your advice, thank you.

Most of the fan content in the Neverwinter Nights series are actually self-contained stand-alone adventures. It's great stuff, but it doesn't directly interact with the official campaigns.

I would advise against things that change the core game too much (such as re-working the combat and what not) but I'd say there's no reason not to "pretty" it up some...

With that said here are some decent mods
http://neverwinter.nexusmods.com/mods/94//? - if you want portraits

http://neverwinter.nexusmods.com/mods/81//? - makes your UI panels a lot better

http://neverwinter.nexusmods.com/mods/212/? - makes various faces of NPC's a lot better