Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Are Three Levels Enough for Any CRPG or RPG?

Are three or four levels enough for any CRPG or RPG? Why so many levels? After all, the fewer levels the easier and better, right?

I have read that the BG3 Early Access is going to have a four level limit (or cap). And, the final release version may have a 10 level
limit. However, why so many levels? You only need three levels. You have the beginning level, intermediate level, and advanced
level. A few levels is much easier to program for and develop in a CRPG. Why not program into those three levels all the
spells, feats, and bonuses?

You are not the first one who is hating this low level epic campaign which starts with mindflayer spelljammer ship fighting hordes of enemies... I had made a thread about that http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=672140&page=1

However, this focus on low level stuff is more like a WoTC thing than a Larian's fault. The notion that everyone is ludicrous weak and over 99% of the world population can't even kill a house cat using a spear is being enforced by WoTC since the late stages of 3e. Back on 2e times, the page 96 of Domains of Dread mentions that Strahd is a 16th level necromancer but before the fall of grave, he was a quoting the book "In life, he was merely a 5th level mage" and the book mentions that 5th mage is something of "mediocre skill" many times, the book itself downplay mages bellow lv 10 many times. Other books for the realms of dread also recommend starting at lv 8.

And if you look to the highest magical campaign ever, on Netheril : Empire of mage, most NPC's are about lv 15~25. Karsus himself, the strongest one is a lv 41 magic user(arcanist pre fall /wizard post fall)

Paladins, one of the most popular 2e classes only started to be able to cast spells at lv 9.

I guess the OP has never played D&D. The game is based on the 5th edition rules of a pen and paper roleplaying game. And to each level, there are associated spells, skills and perks which are unlocked as you level up. There is no way this game can be tweaked down to 3 levels.

The entire BG1 capped at level 7.
We are talking about an early portion of the game used just for test/reiteration purposes here.

Also, I'm fairly sure that they recently claimed they aren't that confident about the entire game capping at level 10 anymore.

There's also a sense of progression. Many people enjoy seeing their character grow and get stronger, so more incremental steps aids that too. You could naturally argue that there's no point in the end, but if you really wanna get philosophical, there's a whole life discussion about that. In the end of the day, we enjoy what we enjoy. The sense of moving forward is a very human need to tickle.

If there's one thing I always liked about the D&D ruleset and a lot of old school systems is precisely that every single level up (especially at first) is a big deal, rather than a recurring and almost-trivial ramp up in numbers.

The biggest appeal for me, personally, is that having about 10 levels to progress through might address the biggest frustration I had with RPGs for last couple years - content greatly varying in difficulty as devs aren’t able to predict what level player can be when tackling said content.

This issue manifest in two ways: either content is balanced around “crit” path. So players can finish the game with very little or no side content. That results in most of the game being too easy for completionists as they will quickly over level bailable content: PoE1&2 Witcher3.

Or they demand from players to do most of the content to survive, and if the game is open-ended they also demand from players to figure out a valid progression path (D:OS1&2, Kingmaker).

Both issues arise from a wide power level through which players will progress through.

BG1&2 however, offered a wide freedom of exploration without hampering players enjoyment via impossible to beat encounters. One could stumble on those, but one would really need out of their way, or game would give an option to disengage and return later. And while I agree that I found BG2 level cap far more enjoyable, It is not unreasonable of Larian to start from figuring early levels first. Hopefully they will do a great job, and they will be able to tackle later levels in some form in a following project.

so you dont know how DnD plays and make assumptions about it based on other RPGs.
thats on you mate.

Perhaps, I know a little about D&D and AD&D.Here is some historical information that covers levels.

Source: Role-Playing Games, Maximum levels in AD&D 2nd Edition
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/36798/maximum-levels-in-add-2nd-edition

D&D 5E, which Baldur's Gate 3 is based off of, has four tiers of challenge and adventures.

Tier: Levels 1-4. These are the challenges for adventurers just starting and learning what it means to be an adventurer, get a feeling for their abilities and learning what they can and cannot do. Threats in tier 1 tend to be small problems on the outskirts of a kingdom. Problems facing rural towns. Goblin raids. Gnoll attacks. Kobolds. Bandits.

Nothing too serious, but still deadly for beginners or those barely trained.

Tier 2: Levels 5-10. These adventurers are more seasoned. The fighters in this tier will gain the ability to attack multiple times in a turn, spellcasters gain access to third-level spells, and are well on their way to becoming local heroes.

Tier 2 threats and challenges are things that threaten cities and small kingdoms/city-states.

Tier 3: Levels 11-16.

The adventurers are heroes of kingdoms and countries. They are widely considered the best of the best. The threats and challenges in this tier are threats to entire continents.

Tier 4: Levels 17-20.

This is the realm of the gods. Adventurers in this tier are in battles with the divine and face threats that challenge entire planes of existence.

This is beyond retarded. A lv 20 guy is far bellow what even the weakest quasi deity can do. Even the average Demon Lord and average Dark Lord of a Realm of Dread would kill a lv 20 character easily. And the worst aspect. Threat only about sword coast. A lv 12 guy in lower dark or in nine hell is not a "heroes of the kingdom" tier.

In fact, Netheril had a lot of guys in "realms of Gods". Listing the first 5 NPC's on Netheril : Empire of Magic

• Nether(elder) -12th fighter - 8th priest
• Nether(younger) - 12th level ranger
• Terraseer - 35th level arcanist
• Congenio - 20th level arcanist
• Ioulaum - 41th level aracnist

The weakest Netherese archwizard bellow, there are dozens of archwizards on netheril. And was not uncommon for this archwizards to have epic level magic users under his tuition. Karsus and Ioulaum are lv 41 archwizards.


In fact, if you see a deity avatar, Bhaal avatar which is far weaker than the real Bhaal is a 32th level thief/27th level fighter.

WoTC only started to push the notion that the 99% of human population can't kill a house cat on late sages of 3.5e. And yes, a lv 0 commoner would lose to a house cat.



And BG2 starts at lv 7 and almost everyone prefers BG2.

>muh adnd
congratulations, you think wizards is gonna let em use that? alsonobody actually played ADnD that way.
I could go on about the level cap of BG1 again.

But the point is: you seem to equate having a level cap based on the ammont of contne ta game can realistically have to lazy design is ridiculous.
the game is not "dumbed down" because it has less levels.
DnD is a game with rules, theres a certain ammount of adventuring youre expected to do before you hit a certain level.
Ging thrugh the levels faster to pelase your personal numbes wank is rdiculous

Actually, I think Dragon_Master is quoting the PHB on that, almost word for word. So no, not retarded.

You're exagerating.

Even so, BG2 has a lot more going for it then just being a higher level campaign then BG1.

True. But not "almost everyone" likes high level campaign better than low/mid level campaigns. I for one would have a hard time deciding wich of the two I liked better. It's not a clear cut answer for me. Even so, I think I consider them a single game divided in two parts: if you play just one or the other, you're missing on a big chunk of the story.

Name some things that BG2 has that are , overall, done better than BG1. Pretty sure the majority of those things will be debatable.

Whether you like it or not, level 20 is the max level in D&D 5E and Baldur's Gate 3 is based off of D&D 5E rules.

Wizards of the Coast are the ones who made the changes over the two decades since AD&D 2E were out, and what Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were initially based off of. Wizards of the Coast are the ones who told Larian to base BG3 off of 5E rules, so the four tiers of challenge, the spell lists, the level cap max, the class features and sub-classes are all going to be based off of D&D 5E, not AD&D 2E.

Wrong. Everyone started at lv 10 in the last spelljammer twitch stream that I watched. I own many 2e books. Dark Sun setting recommends starting at lv 3. And most adventurers in realms of dread, including Vecna reborn recommends starting at lv 7.



And BG2 is the superior product.

The last 2 decent D&D video game products, NWN1/NWN2 had you at lv 3 after the tutorial and about lv 10 on chapter 1. According to a alpha player, you can become a lich on chapter 1 of PF:WoTR. I don't know if is alpha only to test the lich features or your PC will gonna become a lich fast in final game too(I wish that becoming a lich is hard and reserved to end game, but becoming a lich will be a part of the game and is something that I don't see in a CRPG for 2 decades. The last good RPG which allowed that wasb Might & Magic 8 - Day of the destroyer. A pretty unbalanced (and good) game. Lich gran mastery over dark magic draining live from the entire screen and nuking the elemental planes, dragons with ludicrous d10/skill level unlimited power, trolls with so much regeneration that they can regen more health than a army of Efreets can damage him, vampire mistform making him near immune to everything, there are so many cheese in that game. I wish that this time, enemies will have counters to this cheese tactics.




Wrong. However, a higher level cap means that you can explore stronger enemies, stronger spells, stronger magical weapons(...)




Is because is 5e.

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Yep. And most 5e campaigns are kobold slaying on sword coast.

WoTC is to blame, not Larian. WoTC started with this(retarded) notion that 99% of the world population can't kill a insect swarm and a hunter that can hunt a bear with a javelin is a "hero of a small kingdom"

This is why I love Paizo. Paizo is not forcing OwlCat to make their game in PF2e. Quite the contrary, they allowd then to improve over mythic path rules and put amazing mythic paths. IDK if you can become a demon lord but a lich, you can.

BG1 was based on AD&D 2ed and went nowhere near the level cap of 20 for any classes. Even BG2 didn't went to the cap for some classes.

That's purely an opinion