I don't feel you are being entirely fair to Larian here. We have been fighting bandits in the ruins, goblins outside the druid grove, several packs of goblins in the village, an owlbear, goblins near the goblin camp (I didn't kill the goblin leaders or free the druid - sorry tieflings your on your own), a swamp hag and her red caps, gnolls, a gith patrol, a pack of ogres, minotaurs, weird burrow monstes, hook horrors, duergar slavers, an angry magic mushroom... true we are only level 4, but I think we would be level 7 without the level cap. My point is that we have actually had quite an adventure and when I read my list of defeated enemies it seems to be steadily increasing in challenge. So to me it would seem fine that the story at this point rewarded us with something nice. Truly we are not killing quite as many low level monsters before progressing as we did in BG1, but that is because DnD has changed, evolved if you will, even if you think the old way was more enjoyable. I think bg3 would feel padded and take entirely too long to play if we had to kill 3-4 times as many enemies to level up and progress the story. Also another change they made in 5th Edition was that monsters on higher levels should not be as invincible as they were in the old days, and also monsters several levels below you should still be able to hurt you so it works both ways, makes the challenges a bit more fluid. In 3rd edition (which I think BG1 was) there was a span of maybe 2 levels above and below you could meet a monster. If you were 3 levels below it would simply just munch the party and 3 levels above it would be zero challenge. I´m glad they changed that.
