I would have to disagree, I think height advantage should work with ranged and spells. It is taking advantage of 3D space, rather than 2D tabletop. But, I don't think say you on a small ledge just behind someone, and it gives you a melee advantage. That just doesn't sound right. There should be a slight benefit for ranged classes considering how OP melee classes seem to be. I have played a warrior, rogue, hunter and now playing a warlock, and melee definately have an easier life and do more damage it seems.
The game's current balance is only skewed towards melee characters right now because the Great Weapon Master feat is already implemented, along with the existence of a highly unrealistic 'threatened' radius on top of the 'target too close' malus that limits how ranged characters play. Ranged do get great benefits from being on high ground, but your argument now makes me wonder if high ground advantage is basically meant to act as a counterpoint to backstab advantage and a reward for staying outside of the double threatened and target too close penalties.
I often argue that high ground advantage is the big contributing issue to the imbalance in encounter design, but maybe that argument should actually be reversed, with the thought that high ground advantage actually exists because of backstab advantage. They are both definitely intertwined, and you can't get rid of one without the other.
There is supposed to be another feat that acts as the ranged equal for Great Weapon Master, called Sharpshooter. It increases damage inflicted by +10 in exchange for lowering your attack accuracy by -5. (It also disables enemy AC bonuses from partial cover, but there is no cover system in BG3... Unless the devs go with our suggestion of changing high ground/low ground to a +2/-2 AC system to act as the replacement for the cover system.)
It is likely that as long as high ground advantage exists, Sharpshooter will not be implemented within BG3, because high ground advantage basically removes the penalty.
