Character buffs from level progression, even in a diminished capacity such as no more feats, skills or massively increasing level thresholds after lvl 12, at least rewards players for completing the quests. Unfortunately I cant use a calculator to get more health or do more damage.
I mean... Are you even actually progressing with those restrictions in place?
All leveling up gives is a singular die of health based on class (From d6 to d10) plus Con modifier.
That's it.
No damage increase, no extra skills. Just like 8-13 health (Maybe you get a bit more if you're a Barb with 20 Con... For a whole 15 health!)
Power from leveling in DnD comes from getting feats, proficiency bonuses and class features. If you don't get them (Either they're not implemented or leveling is so diminished you don't get enough to reach the thresholds) then your power doesn't change.
With that restraint, it'd be nice if enemies had a modifier based on your level at the start of the encounter after level 12. Unless you think that'd get too complicated?
I've still got a lot to learn with the 5e's system so I didnt realize the disparity between wizard and monk in this case. The level 20 for both players and monsters would be ideal but I understand that wouldve taken a lot more work and they already spent 6 years on it. Maybe they just figured mods could be made after the fact to address this.
Well, Larian themselves were set on making the cap level 12. They simply didn't want to have to deal with higher level class features (Though they did bring some classes level 14 features down to level 11 so they can be used. Such as Draconic Sorcerer's flight). They then balanced their campaign around this.
Modders have addressed this though. Not so much the mod.io ones which simply raise the cap but don't do much in regards to experience or class features. But some of the ones on Nexus fully intergrate level 20, including rebalancing experience gains across the campaign (Though I think they still cap out around the same time mid-Act 3 but I can't say for sure as I haven't really used such mods much) as well as adding support for enemies to also utilize later level features (As well as scaling appropriately)
To me, its not so much as 'making numbers go up' as it is, getting more stats (even if diminished) to improve for future encounters.
Which is an interesting thought process, when also wanting enemies to scale up too.
It's actually one of the comical fallacies in regards to dynamic level scaling in video games. The whole idea of "I want to level up to get stronger" but also "I want enemies to level up with me" which leads to the situation where... You're not actually moving anywhere. Your numbers increase in size, but your relative power remains static.
I've also noted it in non-dynamic level games such as MMO's. I start off as a no name pleb doing 1 damage to a boar's 10 health (So it takes me 10 hits to kill it) and end up as a super strong world saving hero doing 100,000 damage to a 1,000,000 health Hellboar (So it still takes me 10 hits to kill it)
Which is the situation that lead me to seriously questioning the whole "Leveling" mechanic in games. With the conclusion that in many cases, leveling is just pointless. Since any increase in power is mitigated by enemies getting equally more powerful.
So I tend to have a more critical eye about what exactly a character's progression actually is (Even more so with my history in JRPG's... Especially the Disgaea series where a maxxed character is one that has reached level 9999 and then reset back to 1 at least 100 times in order to inherit bonus base stats - The process of doing that with 12+ characters in 7+ titles in the series really makes you aware of just how meaningless an individual level can be...)
For example, in Cyberpunk 2077, enemies scale with you as you level (With certain level breakpoints where all items upgrade to the next level, which often provides a spike in enemy difficulty as their weapons upgrade while you need to wait to loot a new one or get resources to upgrade your existing stuff). However, you do become more powerful over time thanks to an increase in Cyberware Capacity allowing you to equip more stuff. Thus, it's not really the levels that are providing you with power, it's just the cyberware capacity. So theoretically, all levels could be removed from the game and you simply gain cyberware capacity (Plus perk points) when you get enough experience and the game would perform identically as that's the only form of actual power scaling of the character.
As a result, I don't have any major hang ups about gaining experience or levels.
In fact, I have qualms about both.
- Levels for the sake of levels is redundant and pointless. If enemies are simply going to get equally more powerful, then there is no point to such things. Progression should be tied to meaningful power increases, not just "Here's more stats so you can remain equally as strong as the new stronger enemies you face"
- Experience systems are kind of trash, especially for RPG's. This is something that is addressed in a lot of Table Top game groups, where they eschew getting experience for individual actions and instead the entire party levels up as they reach milestones in their campaign. This means that the players aren't having to micromanage where to get experience (And who to give it to) or feeling forced to do every little side quest just to get that experience, they just play the game how they want and get progression in line with the campaign.
The way experience is handled also leads to more issues with "Level caps". Since a developer has to either balance around completionists who do every little quest and every single skill check so experience requirements are put high (Meaning that role-players will be underleveled). Or they balance around role-players who only do things that make sense for their character to do (Meaning that completionists will be overleveled). Meanwhile, main story progression would always be the same regardless of player.
In addition to railroading player choices. Take for example the Abandoned Village in Act 1. You can either do a dialogue check with the Goblins to pass through safely or you can kill them all. Both reward the same experience (Ignoring the ability to pass the dialogue check and then ALSO murder them). But what if someone just sneaks past them? No experience. Goes an alternate route to not encounter them? No experience. Causes other NPC's to engage with them (Such as summoning Lump and co)? No experience.
Of course, the premise would rely on having some factor other than experience to motivate players to do side quests (Though this is nothing new. Games have done things like use currency, items, faction reputation and even special character boosts as alternate incentives for side quests for yonks)
