You have to keep in mind that BG1 and 2 were based on ADnD, and BG3 is based on 5e.
Heck I have had lvl 3 players take on Young Dragons, so it's not unheard of in 5e to fight "big and interesting things"
To put that into context, a Young Black Dragon is Challenge Rating 7, the same Challenge Rating as a Mind Flayer is in 5e. A minotaur is just CR3, Ogres are CR2.
(Challenge Rating is a little weird, but in general a 4 person party should have no problem at all facing one monster of the same CR as their party level)
It's mostly within current Dungeons and Dragons level of opponents to be honest. The Mind Flayers seems to be the "big bad" in this game, so they are introduced early. Most of the other creatures shows up in logical locations with logical companions.
The reason you met so many Tieflings is actually explained, and ties into an event in the Sword Coast known as the Decent into Avernus, where a whole city got pulled into hell. Because of that Tieflings, which aren't an uncommon race by the way, got thrown out of the city, and are exiles. (Hence why all the exiles are Tieflings)
So to me, it's very in line with what I'd expect from DnD 5e to be honest.
Agreed.
What alot of non hard core D&D'ers or even casual players who have played all 3 or just this one, don't realize and still some hard cores fail to realize is the vast difference 5e is compared to the ones before it. A massive amount of changes have been implemented, races are different, the cr of all monsters have been reworked. Since BG3 is using 5e it will never be like BG 1 & 2 everythings just to different. Sure it's still D&D but 5e is watered down, super thinned out to make it easier for new players to jump on board. Also 3, and 3.5 were made for world spanning, long running campaigns. 5e isn't really it's made for super short campaigns, do to everyone is busier then they used to be.
