Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why not raise the lv cap to at least 13?

lolololololollolololol

Well, this one is still to be proven false. At the very least, it's burning up a lot of resourced for a feature which means little to nothing to me in a computer RPG.

Because you are new to the game and because from lv 1 to 2 is a much more power gain than from lv 21 to 22.

The first time of everything is more enjoyable. Your first date is far more impactful than your 666th date.



If autoattacking and spending 80 hours killing bandits and kobolds is good gameplay, then yes. And lv 13 is not high level. Most people divide low level from 1 to 7, mid level from 8 to 14 and high level from 15 to 20.

Baldur's Gate 1 is most of the time low level and the final chapters mid level *
Baldur's Gate 2 is most of the time mid level and the final chapters, high level **
ToB is high level to epic level.

But is hard to say "is low level" or "mid level", because a Thief can reach level 23 on BG2:SoA without ToB expansion while a Sorcerer can only reach lv 17. And it makes sense, thieving arts seems far simpler than arcane spells, so should take far more to fully master the arcane arts. While with the ToB XP cap, a sorcerer can only reach lv 31, a Thief can reach lv 40.

But epic levels aren't that impactful. I mean, the difference between lv 1 to 10 and 10 to 20 is astronomical compared to 21 to 30... Unless we are talking about Netheril : Empire of Magic where Archwizards have floating cities where they rule and in order to do that you need to go epic. A lv 40 arcanist managed to steal the power of a deity. His name? Karsus. The strongest wizard of all time. See at 3:30 on the video bellow. He managed to do something comparable to Ao





A lot of RPG games had coop and worked well.

Many people tends to hate MP on RPG games because they think that it would make the game into another generic wow clone mmo. When in reality, the first graphic mmo, Neverwinter Nights from 1991 was extremely similar to Gold Box games, Dark Sun Online : Crimson Lands was extremely similar to Dark Sun "Offline". even Ultima Online was almost a copy of Ultima Offline.

Every mmo being a gear farming cooldown based wow clone is a modern plague, but this doesn't means that is the unique way to make a MP game.

>coop ruins your game has yet to disproven
ok.
I guess baldurs gate 1 and 2 were shit then.
Congratulations.
>means next to nothing
to you.
speak for yourself.

>Autoattacking
Thats the fault of 5e for beeing a shit system.
Good systems dont have autoattacking.
Also, on high level, youll have just the same ammount of auto attacking from the majority of your characters.

Thankfully, Larian is alleviating those problems by things like making shove or disengage a bonus aciton. Giving you more options.
this is not a "high or low" level rpoblem, its a problem about 5e beeing a system designed for the lowest common denominator and almost exclusiveley around dice rolls
for fucks sake that game doenst even have rules for flanking.

And yes the impact of level 10 to 13 might not be as impactfull between level 1 and 10, but thats also probably why that level range was chosen.



I fail to see whats the problem with the level range.
Theres no benefit to having more levels.

WHeres the difference between 100 hours from level 1 to 10 or 100 hours from 10 to 20?
Is the game less fun because your numbers are lower?

What i think this is about is wizard wank.
Its about those spell slots, because thats the actual difference between level 10 and level 20. The further you get, the more all powerfull casters get.

No, is not because the numbers are lower. Is because the adventures that a mid level party can face are far more interesting than a low level party.

On every low level D&D game/module, you don't fight dragons for eg. Nor Lirches, Rakshasas, nor can survive on elemental planes, it limits where your party can be and what they can face. The tactics that a party can use on combat among a lot of other things are also very limited on low level gameplay. High level gameplay in other hands, depends a lot on the DM.



But in one point you are right. Lv cap = 10 is not the worst thing that Larian could make.

I honestly would rather NOT HAVING arcane casters than having a ultra nerfed version of arcane spells like for eg, nwn2.

But using your own argument is silly, is no different than saying "a guy with a katana has no chance vs a guy with anti materiel rifle, stealth field, power armor and explosive .50 bmg rounds on fallout new vegas, so lets remove all firearms stronger than the .357 magnum revolver, in order to balance the gameplay, lets also remove deathclaws and other creatures" which is only less awful than the awful firearms on hellgate: london.

And as i've said many times. The unique way to not ruin arcane casters is by making martial classes more supernatural and a barbarians with warcries acting like spell like abilities, auras and other things can be cool and interesting. But people who wanna to solve everything with fast swinging blades, from a guy in plate armor, to insect swarms and iron golems would hate it(just look to arcanum. A lot of people hate ore golems which damages weapons if you had the dumb idea of using a sword against him BUT melee builds using technology or magic are quite powerful)

And note that BG1/BG2/BG3 are party based games, so chances are that you will have one caster in your party.

>the adventures a mid level party faces are more interresting
are they now?
thas up to you. the majority of play sessions in dnd 5e according to official sources go from level 1 to 7.

I perosnally enjoy starting out small and dealing with local problems and stumbling into a big sotry.
id say anything beyond level 13-14 is not interresting to me anymore because of how intangible it tends to get. Or how convoluted the story has to be for you to still give a shit about the average joe when you start to get so removed from him.
The elemental plains are a personal bugbear of mine, they are boring as fuck and they have no depth to them.
No story ive ever seen made me get excited about going into one of them.
Id rather do spelljammer while were at that.

I want that 1 to 10 expirience to be meaningfull and long.
and THEN i can enjoy the 10 to 20 expirience more.

I gotcha when you say mid level, i enjoy the level 5 to 10 dungoen crawling, when you start encountering the iconic DnD monsters but they are still highly lethal threats. In my opinion level 5 to 10-12 is when dnd is at its best.

but ultimatley this too is a matter of taste.

>Tactics are limited in a low level gameplay
this is where we gonna disagree on a fundamental level.
Tactics a high level party can employ arent tactics at all, they throw stuff at problems to make the problems disappear.
Tactics are somethign that only low to mid level parties actually utilize.
5e of course is a terrible system that requires House Rules and a good DM to allow any form of "Tactics" at all, because any tactical gameplay will be dependant heavily on Roleplaying and Mother may i.
But thats again a flaw of the system.

To me, tactics are good when preparing for a fight, positioning, flanking, choosing the locaiton of the encounter, using terrain and carefully restriting your ressources to not overocmit.
Tactics stop mattering when everyone can fly, cast fireball multiple times a day, see invisible enemies, conjure insane ammounts of damage, instantly disable traps and flat out ignore the terrain.

>caster wank

and again you misrepresent my point.
You act as if i want casters to be shit.

What i want is casters to not be so damn un fun.
And thats what they are.
Casters make problems go away instead of solving them. Casters do not provide good gameplay, they provide easy soltions.
Thats what i hate them.

I want casters to focus on cool shit like rituals, summoning monsters, controlling the battlefield, supporting and so on.
Stuff most games that arent dnd figured out.

What i dont want casters to do is trivialize other classes by spells like knock, or hell, cantrips like mend. I dont want casters to stop time willy nilly or teleport ot places they havent been to before.
And if they do so, they should be restricted to subclasses.
Ive made this poitn many times before and you keep ignoring it.

And yes, i want martials to have more options.
Note how i am at no point neither with martials nor wizards tallking about the POWER as in CADENCE of what they can do. Im talking about the UTILITY and the AMMOUNT OF OPTIONS they get.

And what i want is simple:

Casters to have LESS options
martials to have MORE options

Specifically i want them to meet in the middle of where they are right now. Every class should have TONS OF OPTIONS but only within their designated ROLE.
A Caster should never take the Role of a Rogue.
A Fighter should never takte the Role of a Wizard.

Its that simple. Stop misrepresenting my argument.

Sordak, i agree with many points of you. But for eg, most adventures of 5e being low level, i said about it on first page. About 5e being trash, i partially agree. 5e is like the "skyrim" of TTRPG's.

As for more specialized casters, look to warlock on 5e. Their spell selection is extremely limited and their patron can only teach few thematic fitting spells. You can easily do a similar homebrew rule and force wizards to take a "theme" and only learns spells consistent with that theme.

And i saw a adaptation to D&D even for low magical settings where magic is extremely dangerous. I don't remember the link but if i find, i will post. In nutshell, many spells like create food and water, teleport, knock, stop time, wish(...) are removed and there are only 2 classes with access to spells. Warlocks and Clerics. Clerics needs to follow a strict dogma and perform good actions to level up( in addition to the experience) and warlocks, they bargain with outsider creatures for eldritch knowledge(they don't borrow or draw their power like a cleric) and to create a lv 1 warlock or get a level on warlock by multiclassing, or leve up as a warlock, you need to do a ritual, and do a persuasion check and after the ritual, you get exhaustion "levels" and roll a bargain table. The creature can take parts of your soul, reducing permanently your WIS and CON score, gold, giving weakness to a element, a curse, request a quest or nothing and often will require a "tribute" that can be slaves, animals, gold, etc; Eldritch Blast is invisible to non supernatural beings(except higher level martial classes) and you don't have spell slots, instead, you need to roll to cast a spell and the DC becomes exponentially harder as the spell level advance and damaging spells blow up in your own hand if you fail on casting the spell. Summons can become hostile and so on.

That magical system is great? For a Conan themed game, yes. For a high magical game which starts with mindflayers spelljammer ship fighting dragon riders. no...

As for elemental planes, i could't disagree more. One of the most amazing moments that i had was when my party was on city of embers trying to bargain to get access to certain archives to solve a huge problem.

"5e of course is a terrible system that requires House Rules and a good DM to allow any form of "Tactics" at all"

wtf? 5e is a great system that puts the focus of the game on actual gameplay, combat, role-playing, etc, over number crunching and mathing. I realize the everyone on forums like this love to shit on Critical Role because its popular, but CR is a PRIME example of how great 5e is. 5e doesn't allow for tactics? patently false. And as far as house rules...people made house rules for every earlier edition of D&D as well, so saying you use house rules for 5e as well is a moot point.

>5e puts the focus on the game on actual gameplay
yes because dnd is only 3.5 and 5e. Theres no other editions.
And 3.5 still had more gameplay than 5e does.
3.5 has 5 feet step, 3.5 has flanking rules, 3.5 has combat maneuvers, 3.5 has charging. Granted none of these things work very well, but at least they are there. All of those are absent in 5e.

Positioning in 5e is completley pointless outside of AoE and opportunity attacks. you cannot gang up on an enemy without wasting a feat for the privilege of doing so, neither can you charge.

The edition that actually focuses on gameplay is the fourth one and people hated it for that reason.
ADnD and older editions also focused on the gameplay but did so remarkably better than 5e.

>patently false
how about you step out of your bubble and try some other system to see if what you are saying is actually correct.

I played 3.5e for years, 5e is better in every way

yeah exactly, you played 3.5 and now assume that every other ttrpg is also about math management.
5e did away with the needless bulk of 3.5

but it also did away with mechanics that worked for no reason other than accesibility. Gimping a bunch of classes in the process.
Theres no reason for Charge or flanking not beeing there.

Tell me about the tactics you can do in 5e in low levels.
And i mean tactics, not strategy. Im not talking stuff like dig pits and set up traps before an encounter

No, i don't assume every other ttrpg is just math management like 3.5 was.



It also fixed some important things, like casters getting cantrips that have unlimited uses. There is also official optional rulesets for things like flanking.


There are plenty of tactics you can use. You can grapple, fall prone to impose disadvantage on ranged enemies, take different actions like disengage/dodge/dash, use a help action, ready an action, use area of effect spells/effects, use the optional flanking ruleset, who knows how many skill tactics you can use like intimidate, persuade, etc etc etc (innumerable possibilities), tons of tactics with feats. I mean the list goes on and on, it's up to the imagination of the player to utilize good tactics but there are PLENTY of tools there for that in 5e.

I know people get very defensive when anybody says something about D&D5e but I played several PNP game systems so I can compare.
D&D puts his focus on roleplaying, indeed, but I think it`s often criticized for his lack of actual options in combat in comparison with other similar game systems. People get really emotional so I will try to put bare facts here.



Ok. No. I think the only reason you said that it´s because you do not know better game systems.

First of all, Persuade, intimidate, etc have roleplaying effects in combat determined by the DM in PNP games like Pathfinder as in 5e ( I mean they are RPG games too) but ALSO have mechanics that you can actually use in combat, like demoralize, feint, coerce, fascinate, etc.

I am going to use the typical warrior/fighter/etc types for simplification and because that role is in all the fantasy games. I will also put a few examples of basic classes and subclasses, and before anyone reply that "yeah, but that particular subclass or obscure recently UA subclass or multiclass character can do XYZ and can use some spells!" but I can assure you that for every 1 example you give me for 5e I can give you 10 examples of subclasses and multiclass characters in the other game systems that do many things too and can also use a lot of spells and unlimited cantrips.

All characters in all those games could use magic items they have or pick potions, fire flasks, and stuff from the inventory so that they would not be included in the comparisons.

So, we´re in combat, It´s your turn and your warrior can act. Let´s see what can I do and what tactical moves I have:

• 5E
  I´m a Fighter so I´m going to move and ATTACK. I´m level 11 so I´m going to ATTACK Twice or thrice. Maybe have a subclass or feature that allows me to add more damage to my ATTACK, like arcane archer that allows me to add elemental damage to my ATTACK or some special feats that I have to learn like charge that allows me to ATTACK from afar.
  Maybe I´m a barbarian or a paladin so I can use my class features like rage or smite evil that basically allows me to add more damage to my ATTACKS.
  I could also be a ranger, so I can mark my target and adding 1d6 damage to my ATTACK. Maybe I´m a hunter so I can ATTACK several targets too if I picked that feature.
  There are some combat maneuvers I can use instead of your ATTACK. Well, two combat maneouvers : Grappling an enemy, holding it in place, and SHOVE the enemy ¡5 entire feet! or knocking him into the ground.
  And then you can wait to swing the enemy with a AoO if it´s dumb enough to try to move nearby or maybe protect an ally of an attack with your shield IF you picked that specific feature and none of the other ones (because for some reason you could only have one combat style ever unless you multiclass) and have a shield.

• Pathfinder 2e
  
  I´m a warrior so I could move and ATTACK too, but since I´m trained in martial arts and knowledgeable in tactics and warfare, maybe I can do something else too:
  
  This enemy seems too good at dodging, so maybe I could use a FEINT to caught him unaware and lower his defenses against the next strikes for this round or several rounds if I critically suceed.
  
  I´m pretty intimidating so maybe I can use a fierce battlecry that demoralize de opponents, lowering his skills and saves so my fellow casters could take them out easily.
  
  I will try to move to position myself on the battlefield so I and my allies will flank the enemy, giving us combat bonuses against him (Unlike PF1&2 5e flanking is optional and many GMs do not use it because they feel that the bonuses it gives are "gamebreaking").
  
  I could also try to Grapple or TRIP the enemy, pushing him or knocking him down to get some combat bonuses against prone enemies(But unlike 5e, the enemy need to use an entire action to get up, in 5e they only lose half his movement, so it could get up, attack and move half his movement in its turn so it´s merely situational).
  
  My adversary is a skilled swordsman with a deadly weapon, so I´m going to try to DISARM it, knocking his weapon to the ground. Then I´m going to SHOVE him 5ft in the same turn. Unlike 5e you could automatically move to occupy the space after shoving an enemy, so I will move and place my foot over the weapon so it cannot even recover it while I´m here.
  An enemy is attacking my ally, so I will try a reposition maneuver, forcing him to swap positions with me and putting myself between it and my squishy party member.
  
  I´m the first line of defense, so after the ATTACK I am going to raise my shield and brace myself to BLOCK one strike against me in the enemy´s turn.
  
  I´m a ranger, so I will use my hunter´s prey to mark the enemy and unleash a volley of ATTACKS against him or making extra damage. But since I´m a veteran skirmisher I have some options too.
  My scout skills will allow me to give an initiative advantage to my all allies due to my heightened senses. I could study the enemy to assess his vulnerabilities and allow us to hit it where it hurts.
  I could make a PINNING shot, pinning the enemy in place.
  After that, I will order my faithful beast companion to bite the enemies down (In 5e you forfeit your attack action to allow your animal companion to attack, in PF2e both you and your companion can attack in the same turn. Your companion also level-up with you, increasing size, stats, etc) and will use our teamwork strikes to give debuffs to the enemies we attack.
  If I´m particularly bloodlust I will mount my faithful companion and we will both charge into melee to overrun the enemies with combined strikes.
  I could craft and use traps in the battlefield, giving unaware enemies some nasty surprises.
  
  Then I will be ready to use AoO to enemies that move nearby, or protect an adjacent ally with my shield, clock with my shield, dodge and retaliate, or if I´m a champion use my reactions to protect and use divine punishment in the enemies that attack my allies. If I´m a ranger I could make AoO with my ranged weapons too.

• TDE
  
  I´m a warrior or an amazon, so I will move and ATTACK. but I´m also trained in combat so I will study the battlefield and will try to pick the perfect strategy.
  I will use my offensive stances to smash the enemies or my defensive stances or bladewall if I´m surrounded. Maybe rage if i have the feature.
  My fencing moves depend on the weapons I´m wielding and my training, but I will just list what can I do to the enemies.
  Using my brute force I could knock down the enemies, dealing a Mighty blow, trip them, make a wrath strike so strong that the enemy is pushed.
  I could use feints to confuse the enemies and lower his defenses against my strikes
  If I´m surrounded I´ll just make a roundhouse blow, sweeping my blade against all the enemies around me.
  I could use my finesse to make several strikes in a row or using mortal blows or lunge towards the enemies to deal bleeding wounds, knowing that four wounds in a living enemy will kill it.
  I could use a precise shot or throw to improve my aiming and pierce their defenses, or unleash a rain of iron or arrows to the enemies.
  Then I will get ready for the enemy´s retaliation using master parry, windmill, etc.

And before you say anything I know I D&D5e you can roleplay that you can intimidate the enemies, make a bungee jump attack with a vine too but I will have to give you some news: Games like PF, TDE, Vampire, etc are ROLEPLAYING games, so you can actually say that you kick a table against the enemy, kick a table to cover behind, throw an arrow to the candlelamp so it can fall over the enemies, surprise the enemies to bang one heard against each other... like in any RPG game ever existing. If you are playing Vampire, TDE, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Just ask your GM and possibly he´s going to laugh and say "You can certainly try". You do not really need to "roll a d20 for a creativity check and you can do something".
But in other games, you can roleplay your actions in combat and ALSO you get to make all those combat moves above. Those are legal moves, so the DM cannot refuse unless he has some reason, if you try to roleplay the DM could just say "no, you cannot do that".

I really cannot fathom why people just assume 5e is the first TRPG game ever made that allows roleplaying. It was always there: it's in the name. Even in 3.5.

If it never happened to you, you just were very unlucky with your GM and party members, because nothing in the rules of games like Vampire, TDE, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, etc forbids that.
And I can assure you that many 5e games played online, mostly text-based discord games are just number-crunching combat and skill checks, with the Avrae bot making all the combat rolls. If you take a look at the campaign log it´s like an excel spreadsheet. So the problem is not necessarily in the game system.

If you really want real story-focused, heavy-roleplaying games, with less dice-throwing you could try Anima, World of Darkness games (Vampire, Werewolf, channeling,...), Call of Cthulhu, etc.

My personal opinion is that creators of 5e tried to reach a middle ground between all of those games, which uses simplified rules to get a mix of dice-rolling, role-playing, and exploring. You can make good adventures with that but that puts a lot of work into the DMs and sometimes that simplicity is counterproductive in long campaigns if you are doing the same combo +30h because it´s all your character do. You know the saying: "Jack of all trades, master of none".

No-one said you cannot have fun playing 5e, it´s just a mechanics/rules comparison between game systems. I mean, people play extensively mobile games like Fate or Candy crush and they are fun, but no one can deny the mechanics are also very simple and requires fewer tactics than other videogames.




Uh, Nobody said anything about Critical role in this thread. Moreso, only a few posts talk about them in this forum in months, and many of them are your posts or posts quoting you. (just make a search with the words "Critical Role" in it)
http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php
It would be great if you do not bring grudges from other forums to this thread.

I´m more an Acquisitions Incorporated guy if I want to see some streaming but the things I watched of Matt Mercer show he is a very knowledgeable DM. That said, D&D5e is more than streamers and YouTubers.

well, thanks for summing that up, i wouldve been too lazy to do that

"Ok. No. I think the only reason you said that it´s because you do not know better."

You're an idiot. You intentionally leave 5e as a short little paragraph and then add a lot of fluff to the others. Whatever man, you do you.

You know you´re doing it right when all the arguments against your own are insults on a personal level.

I just summarized the "combat" chapters in the core manuals of those three PNP games and explain what the terms mean. All tactic options are in the manual. Anyone could check and tell. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Be polite. If you have nothing constructive to say then please don't.

Honestly you lost the argument when you said dropping prone was a tacitcal choice.

Dropping prone absolutely is a tactical choice.

Pretty much the only tactical choice you have besides attacking and attacking after attacking with your attacks for warriors... so give him this one, Sordak. He needs a win.