Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Subclasses and Races versus Level Increase

One problem that i RARELY see anyone talking about 5e high level gameplay is the HP bloat.

What i mean by that? Look to 2e, most spells grow up at d6 damage per caster level while casters levels grow up d4 and the CON bonuses is far more limited. This until lv 9. After lv 10, you get almost no HP. Enemies has so little HP that even Deity's Avatar has about 200 hp. A lv 20 barbarian CAN have 250+ hp easily on 5e, which is enough to survive a small army of 40 crossbowmans with heavy crossbows firing at him at once if we assume average damage.. And most attacks scale way less with level, most weapons +3 aren't deadly as epic martial weapons and spells deals way less damage. That is the same problem of Oblivion. more you level up, more TEDIOUS with less stakes and less ways to challenge the player. On 2e, a lv 1 necromancer can OHK another lv 1 necromancer, a lv 10 necromancer can OHK another lv 10 necromancer and a lv 20 necromancer can OHK another lv 20 necromancer. On 5e, a lv 1 warlock has a small chance of OHKilling another lv 1 warlock, a lv 2 warlock can at best 2HK another lv 2 warlock and a lv 20 warlock can spend dozens of rounds to kill another lv 20 warlock.

Many DM's who started to DM on 5e now believe serious that you can't challenge the player on high level D&D.

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Comparing Strahd on 2e(lv 16 necromancer) with him at 5e(lv 9 caster)

Pick 2E Strahd on 2e , stats bellow. His stats can be found on the book Domains of The Dread. He had only 62 hit points.



And he could cast a lot of nasty spells. Contigency spells, Clone, Maze, Limited Wish(...), he required weapons of +2 to damage him and was a nasty enemy but din't took more than few rounds to fight Strahd. Now look to 5e Strahd stats. He no longer has any of his nasty spells. The unique nasty spell that he has is Cloudkill and cloudkill on 5e is a minor annoyance, while on 3.5e, can kill a high level barbarian in few rounds or severely destroys his CON, lowering his saves and hit points. On 5e, he is just a lv 9 magician capable of casting a single cloudkill per long rest.



However, he has more than twice his hit points. That means that a encounter with Strahd is no longer a deadly encounter that lasts few rounds with high stakes. Quite the contrary, is just a long fight with no lethality. A fireball from a lv 10 arcane caster could deal 6~60 damage on 3.5e, or 33 average damage. Each lv up is more d6 damage. While on 5e, a fireball only deals 8d6 damage or 28 damage.

That said >

• Average Fireball damage on 2e -> Takes 53% of a LV 16 STRAHD hp
• Average Fireball damage on 5e -> Takes 19% of LV 9 STRAHD hp.

My guess is that high level mobs in average takes dozens of more time to kill/die on 5e than on 2e. Considering that I an comparing a high level "boss" with a "mid level". In fact, Fireball caps at 10d6 on 3.5e, Cone of cold, 15d6. On 5e, the difference of fireball to cone of cold is miserable 2d8 damage.

Is similar to Oblivion that at higher levels, the damage numbers grows a little bigger while HP pools grows exponentially higher. A Strahd fight on 2e would be something tense where the party will try to flee, kill or die in few rounds. On 5e, would be a hours long slog.