Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Confirmed: the level cap will be higher than 10

I beg to differ about lower levels being boring.

I'm currently playing a low-level campaign and only just reached level 3 last night when my halfling cleric killed a werewolf with an onion.

I don't quite understand the relevance of this example. It's intentional - and a great use of Leveling system. Nothing you mention here refers to balance. It would be, if for example, you were send to clear the area, and you could easily do it with mage, but not with warrior.

It's not uneven balance - it's game gating content and storytelling though use of high level enemies. That's good. Poor balance is bad.

We don't need to be able to beat every encounter in every moment of the game, with just perfect difficulty, with the exactly same resistance no matter what party we use. Poor balance is if certain encounters are unintentionally easy or difficult. Or if certain classes are simple overpowered or underpowered throughout the majority of the game. It is fine for them to both shine and underperform in various situations. That's balance as well.

I thought it was a good example. Not to speak for SorcererVictor but I took his point to be that a tunnel visioned pursuit of balance works against the rule of cool and specifically against the "god among ants" playstyle.

Some of us just like building overpowered characters. For me that's part of the game, figuring out the cracks in the foundation of the ruleset and widening them. It's just fun to build an overpowered character to walk through battles -- especially battles that you once had to run from.

Take the BG1 kobalds vs the POE1 Xaurip. In BG1 the kobalds were a real challenge at level 1 but by the end of the game you could eliminate a horde of kobalds in a few rounds. A fireball, few arrows you've defeated enemies you once ran away from. In PoE1 the xaurips on the beach were a real challenge and later when you meet the xaurips guarding the drake . . . they turn out to be even greater challenge. For lovers of balance that just good design -- both encounters had equivalent challenge ratings. But I felt robbed -- I never felt the satisfaction of feeling stronger because my toons had leveled up.

For apostles of balance, players should never be confronted with encounters that don't challenge them. The rule of cool says sometimes absurdly imbalanced encounters are fun.

I remember that fight, it was brutal. If it wasnt for our half orc barabarian soaking a ton of damage and our cleric keeping him alive, the whole party would have went down in its first ever fight

I haven’t played Descent Into Avernus, but is that fight mandatory? When I am DMing new players I always make sure to impress upon them that they don’t need to fight every encounter. They could run, surrender, use guile and deception, negotiation, or anything creative they think of to avoid tough fights.

Fair enough. But not everyone feels this way. Some of us, myself included, actually hate exactly this, and find this way of building your character and playing the game to be stupid and pointless. [Note: I'm NOT calling you stupid. I totally respect your right to your preference.] But having said that, I also do agree that there is such a thing as going too far in the pursuit of balance. I prefer games took a 'happy medium' approach on this issue.

No worries. This is a video game forum -- the battles are so heated because the stakes are so low and all that.


I also don't think my tastes are all that uncommon -- it's just that most people don't say it out loud. Get onto various BG2 playthroughs on youtube and you will find solo mages with all the kewl stuff (staff of the magi, the one ring, ring of wizardry, robe of vecna ) defeating this boss or another. Same goes for DOS2. One of the reasons I'm cautiously optimistic about Larian is that they seem to understand that the rule of cool is the most important rule of all.

Take 5th edition -- compare to 2nd ed magic item are really de-emphasized. But people still have loot lust -- take one of the 5th edition stars Arkhan the Cruel : https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Arkhan . Hand of Vecna, unholy axe, Wreath of the Prism, orb of dragonkind, unique armor. And he's the chosen of a powerful god. So in the edition that continually stresses that the focus is on the PC and not the loot we find out that one of the stars walks around like a Christmas tree adorned with the most powerful items in the game. God level play is fun.

And that's the way it's always been -- the people who preach balance create power players. Gary Gygax always stressed the need to strip players of powerful stuff (that's why rust monsters exist) and he told DMs to mock players who wanted to build for power. But when he released the stats of Mordenkainen it was clear that his character was yet another power play build. I mean he carried a key that could open *any* door for crissakes.




I think we're largely in agreement. Let players get powerful and then give them a real challenge. Let players have all the loot and have it taken away from them. Or ban certain classes from co op play. But let balance lovers and power players play the game they like.

Well, be a mage in gothic 1/2 is far harder than be a melee class and guess what. It makes perfectly sense. A warrior can max out his physical strength and master his fighting style on about lv 15. Meanwile, a mage needs to find someone able and willing to teach him, Corristo, only accepts you on chapter 2 after you clean a mine of minecrawlers which is pretty hard if you are saving LP to be a mage, after it, you need to spend LP to learn magical circles and mana and only learning the basic circles costs more LP than maximizing a physical attribute and on gothic 2 is even harder since you also needs to learn runemaking and find the ingredients. You can't buy most runes.

And guess what. It makes perfectly sense. There are only one circle 6 guy in the entire G1 game, Xardas. All powerful magicians are really old, so taking far more time to become a might mage makes perfectly sense. Gothic is not high magic as D&D for eg and the game mechanics and narrative are in line.

And returning 2.0 made even harder. Now instead of a "generic" mage, you have the circle of fire, water, darkness and the gurus. Each one with a very limited spell selection. If you are a water magician, you will gonna have a really hard time against ice golems for eg and the ice dragons which is the strongest one on valley of mines. Dark magicians suffers a lot vs undead and demons and so on.



Yep. Some people fail to realize that RPG's aren't "RTS" games. They should be more like fictional living breathing worlds.

When balance makes the game MORE fun, immersive and cool, is welcomed.
When balance makes the game LESS fun, immersive and cool, is not welcomed.

Yes in a single-player game, you will not find a more vocal defender than me of the right of players to play their game however they want. Nothing steams me more than when someone tries to tell me how I should play my game, for example that my "save-scumming" or my "over-use of resting" or my wish to save anywhere anytime, etc., should be banned in the game. So if power-gamers like you want to power-game, that's fine with me. The problem on the "balance" issue specifically is that it isn't just the player that gains the freedom to play as they please. Too often the game devs themselves use/abuse power-builds to throw ridiculous opponents at the player, and this I don't care for one bit. And BG2 is a great, perhaps even a classic, example of this, where almost every single battle (especially in ToB) has one or more hyper-powerful wizards. Since when did Elminster-equivalent wizards become so commonplace? That's just ridiculous. And then what's even worse for me is that while wizards are ridiculously unbalanced (often even in an unfair way) towards being hyper-powerful, fighters are unbalanced in the opposite way towards being ridiculously under-powered and useless. So the game is engaging in favoriticism towards players who love wizards/spellcasting while screwing over players who love fighters/melee combat. How is that "fun" for me?

I feel this is a bit different subject though, not related to balance. It's having a wide enough enemy roster to fill all the player levels with unique opponents. PoEs reuses Xaurips and such multiple times because they lack monsters to pit players against. I think that is a problem, but not necessary related to PoEs "balance obsessions". If for example, in BG we would keep fighting goblins in stead of hobgoblins that would be bad - unchallenging and boring. PoE chooses to reuse Xaurip assets and create "different Xaurips". Its unfortunate, but something I am willing to forgive. I was however suggesting myslelf if PoEs would be better if there were less gain in power - that oddly came from my suggestion that PoE is not being balanced enough with too much powercreep if one is a completionist. And yes, a big advantage of having enemy types stay constant in power, is that they become a clear indication of how far players have progressed. That effect is greatly dimished if, like you said, same enemies grow with us.


I mean it depends, if that encounter was meant to be challenging - what's the story of this encounter. In the same vain the game should present it's content with a coherent way - it's fine to run into too hard encounters, but if it's becomes too frequent and without perceivable logic behind it or is not properly communicated (cough Kingmaker cough) it becomes unengaging as well.

In the end it comes down to creating enjoyable content and story, and if player's possible power level can vary too greatly (and not due to roleplaying nor story reasons) then that becomes a problem.

Tome of battle give a lot of cool stuff to fighter.

And is not just fighters vs wizards. Fighters are a boring class. Clerics are good. Druids are good. Psions are good(...) having no supernatural power in a high fantasy setting is a huge drawback. Like indigenous people of Americas when they faced the "conquistador" with cavalry and firearms.

What is the best solution?

A ) Make every class(druids, clerics, paladins, mages, wizards, psions, etc) like the most boring class with the less amount of options AKA everyone equally boring to play
B ) Give more cool stuff for fighters.

Spoiler : The solution B involves changing an single class. Not all other classes.

And note : You can use magic on melee. Magus on pathfinder 1e, pact of the blade warlock on D&D 5e and a eldritch glaive focused warlock on 3.5e can be amazing on melee. Shapeshift druids too.

Yes, so option B would be best. But D&D refuses to do this (though I will grant that 5e does a better job of it than previous editions). By contrast, PoE does make the fighter pretty good, with lots of good, cool abilities. And as such, in PoE, playing a fighter is not only as fun as any spellcaster class but also a class that can rival a spellcaster class in how much damage it generates. And the credit for all this goes to balancing. So, to repeat, balancing does have value, so long as it is not taken to an extreme where all classes become either equally watered down or else blandly the same.

In second ed I would say that strongest classes are mage > fighter > thief > druid > cleric and in 3.5 it's Cleric > Fighter > Thief > Druid > Mage (4th ed doesn't exist)

In 1-2 a level 20 fighter with the 20th level right equipment rules the game. Hand of Vecna + Blackrazor + Sword of Kas (dual wielding) + Ring of regeneration + Full Plate +5 + Amulet of Magic Resistance will beat in any other build. The way to make an interesting fighter is to give them interesting equipment.

On 3.0 it was neigh impossible for a mage to complete a spell -- everyone got free attacks of opportunity so the mage really become a glorified gunslinger. You spend all of your experience points making wands while the rest of the party continues to level up. Fighters have whatever options their feats grant them -- a fighter with a trip attack and a positioning feat will defeat any mage.

On 5th the weapons master has more options a mid level than does a mage.

I think the PoE fighter is the 3.5 fighter with a soupcon of 4th edition.

But, yeah, having said that I would never chose play a single class fighter with mundane equipment in any edition. Boring. I don't know why anyone would chose to play a single class fighter in any ruleset.

Well said. Yes, the lack of variety can separated from balance but I'm so used to seeing them together than I think of them as traveling together.



Again, that's well argued but I still get stuck where the rubber meets the road -- I just have more fun playing unbalanced games. BG2 and DOS2 were just more fun than NWN2, IWD2 or PoE1 (combat only -- everything in PoE was great, except combat)

Well a single class fighter that is an arcane knight is fun class. At least I enjoy it.

Yeah, because arcane knights can cast spells he he
Try single-class champions, that all their abilities are passives...
I supposse some people would like to play using only the "I attack" button but I understand what @killerRabbit meant.

About playing unbalancing games.

That´s well and good in single-player games, because It does not matter how you want to play. Solo mage? Overpowered Kineticist? Useless halfling whip barbarian you have fun with? A party with 5 bards because you want it? Yeah, do it.

But since the game would have MP option the balance becomes more important. All players in the party should feel that they are doing something worthy whatever character they want to play. MP games with a party of ranged rangers with fighters or necros; or entire servers full of clerics and weapon masters builds and no high-level bards in sight does not attract players because those builds are so over others that if you try to play another class you are effectively hampering the other party members because they could not try greater challenges due to a weak link (Yeah, Dos2 and NWN, I´m looking at you).

In the end some classes or builds would be best in some roles or situacionally against some creatures or in a particular terrain, but at least it is expected that all of them would be competent and playable.

You are assuming that the Wizard is a evoker trying to "throw bigger numbers". That is NOT how a high INT wizard would act. He would first, cast mordekainen's disjunction. All OP gear from the fighter will become mundane. And you are comparing a fighter with the best gear vs a "mundane" lv 20 mage which is his journey to lv 20 probably crafted a lot of powerful magical items.

As for attacks of opportunity, the mage in question if he is smart, he will avoid being hit.




Every amazing RPG which I played is extremely unbalanced. I don't know a single RPG which is balanced and I loved.

I would, because melee combat is the most fun type of combat of all. And by contrast, casting some spell is what's truly boring. You're not really doing anything. Someone's written a "cool" spell for you, and all you're doing is pressing a button to "cast" it. BORING!!

And it is exactly the opposite for me. So should all RPGs be made just for your enjoyment, or just for my enjoyment?

To each their own. If given the choice between being the badass with the sword who charges the dragon or the coward with the wand who hangs back and launches lightning bolts at the dragon I’ll pick the latter every time. 😁