Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why such a low level cap?

Hello!

Just a general question, and I apologize if it has been asked and answered before, but why is the level cap so low?

From what I understand, a single playthrough will take 75 hours, if not much more. And the team has reached over 400 people, and the game has 6 years of development, so it seems like they would have had time, had it been a priority. But aside from cool spells, many DND classes best capstone abilities are unlocked at level 20. It's also when you get into those later levels, that you can start getting extremely creative in the challenges that are thrown at players, because they have so many more tools to deal with any given encounter.

I understand wanting to create a complex branching world, full of possibilities, and the amount of effort that that would take. But, I still struggle to understand how, in 6 years of development, they weren't able to get to a level cap of 20. And, if I'm honest, given some of the recent announcements, I was even more confused; instead of a story that lasts until level 20, they made sure to include branching plots that leads to bestiality, and a psychopathic murderer origin? Couldn't they have trimmed some of these rather obscure, potentially controversial, and probably very niche, branches of gameplay, to get to level 20?

Or, a potentially more likely answer is that all of that is already figured out, and they are saving further levels for future DLC - essentially locking some of the most fun parts of DND behind another paywall?

So, anyway, is there an official reason why a story that takes players to level 20 wasn't pursued?

A 5e crpg would be incredibly hard to balance at high levels. It's well known that the 5e CR system breaks down at levels greater than ~10 (or even 7 imo). Casters get incredibly powerful spells that can decimate groups of enemies and instantly end combats. Additionally, saving throw bonuses don't scale well with level. E.g., a fighter's Int and Wis saves will be +0 to +2 at levels 12+ against enemy spellcaster DCs of 18-22, meaning they'll almost always fail. This turns high level 5e into an extreme game of rocket tag.

Additionally, the party balance would become wack. While casters grow exponentially in power, martials notably do not and begin to contribute much less than casters to combat, exploration, and social encounters. This feature would not be great for a multiplayer-focused game such as BG3.

A live DM can fine tune encounters to match a specific party composition and tactical competency to keep things roughly balanced, but this doesn't really work in a video game. High level encounters would either completely stomp parties or be easy to the point of trivialness.

Larian hasn't historically done DLC for their games, so I doubt they're doing it here. Idk if they've stated an official reason for why they specifically chose 10 at first and then 12, but imo it's a good balance point between character growth in power and preserving any semblance of balance.

The vast majority of Dungeons and Dragons 5e games end around level 10, so this is actually the norm for tabletop. It can take months and months, even years of real-world time to reach that level bracket.

It's also when spells start becoming outrageously powerful. It's difficult to add a spell-like Shapechange to a virtual game, as it is a spell that lets you turn yourself into almost anything, including high-level monsters like dragons. How would you balance a wizard being able to turn the entire party into elephants and then stampeding over their foes? Or create their own pocket dimension? Or Heck, being able to summon a literal mansion wherever they want?

Adding Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth level spells would almost definitely be more complicated and expensive than adding in the branching plots you think are useless.

Sad Pathfinder 2nd edition launched later, when game development was already in progress. Would be so much better basis for game. Not mentioning action-points-based mechanics, which which Larian much more familiar.

I will admit, for me a lot of the fun class/prestige class features come at lvs 13-20

I do believe will get there , but from an expansion. Both neverwinter games had expansions. I don't see why this will be different, and I'm ok with that. Hell Hordes of the Underdark is one of my all time favorite stories/quests

Just for context, Bg1 only let you get to level 8-10 depending on class.

Has the OP played the game in early access?

Setting aside the question of what the ideal level cap ought to be, are you aware of all of the seemingly “simple” issues that were never resolved during early access?

2nd level spells like Darkness have been in early access since the beginning and never been fully implemented correctly. I don’t know if Fog Cloud was ever well implemented. Stealth is still broken. The AI still struggles to deal with enemies that are out of sight. Complaining about not having level 20, when there are still major issues affecting play at lower levels seems weird to me.

I think most people who have played early access will just be grateful if Larian manages do a good job of implementing all spells and abilities up to whatever level cap they set (and ensure that the NPC AI is capable of coping in a decent manner).

I don't think the plan/goal was to get to the highest tier of play. Not only do spellsand some abilities get extremely hard to implement in game (i.e. wish or similacrum), but one you reach that tier players should be dealing with cosmic level challenges, nothing that would be condensed to a specific city.

Also if they have balanced the experience correctly, it could definitely make sense that it takes that long to get to lvl 12. In my IRL campaign we just reached level 9 after about a year of weekly sessions averaging about 3hrs.

Appreciate the thoughtful responses, and they all make some sense. For those who mentioned the time it takes to get to lvl 20 irl, or the norm of ending around lvl 10-12 for tabletop - well that's exactly why I want it to get to level 20 in the game. It's a lot easier for me to spend 125 hours in a game playing solo, then spending 100's of hours trying to coordinate schedules with my real life friends for a game of DND that makes it to 20. Oh well...

I did play the game in early access - I put in about 60 hours since they first launched it, though I will admit I haven't touched it since the early days. And some of the bugs would need to be ironed out, for sure, if they still haven't fixed them...

As for power creep/imbalances; that's a good point, but not an insurmountable problem. Neverwinter Nights would simply restrict what you could shape change into, for example. Spells like demiplane either wouldn't exist in the game, or would be predefined to a few selections, like shapechange. Melee characters can be bumped up using class restricted magic items to grant extra attacks, or what have you. Solasta made it work, more or less, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous had some pretty ridiculously high powered abilities. However, to your point - you have to adjust the difficulty to fit your build for both of those games. I get that not everyone would enjoy that level of crunch.

And, balance really only matters in a multiplayer setting, more so with competitive. With single player, I don't really care if I develop amazing abilities and builds that let me wreck my enemies... that's kind of half the fun. And, that seems to be inherently the problem with many games recently. Trying to shoehorn in multiplayer features, in what is essentially, for me, a single player experience. Ah well...

Feels like a missed opportunity, but I can understand it.

Three letters. D-L-C...

I mean, maybe, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. The difference is that Larian is making BG3, and they've historically not put out extra DLC content. They *might* do a sequel full game, but even that is unlikely for the reasons mentioned above. Much more likely is they go back to Divinity, some new game, or create another D&D game that starts you back at lowish level.

One the one hand, yes the action system and balance of PF2e would be better for Larian. There's even natural in-game ways to get extra and reduce your opponent's actions, something Larian has homebrewed into BG3. On the other hand, PF2e has MUCH tighter math than 5e, and Larian's desire to homebrew things would seriously mess with that.

Larian also almost certainly wouldn't have chosen that system. They likely went for D&D5e/BG3 because of the brand-name recognition, which pathfinder certainly doesn't have. And if they somehow had chosen a pathfinder game, the revenue and thus budget and thus scope would have likely been much smaller...

Solasta was also capped at lvl 12 until the most recent dlc. So it's possible BG3 will also got that route.

I will say, as someone who finished Solastas recent dlc this past week, that the climax of palace of ice seemed noticeably less challenging than the base campaign for me.

I never played TT, just reading 5e rules. But I try to imagine how difficult it could be at high levels. Healing vs. DMG I see as a big problem. If I have to face three or more Fighters (just one of them: Attack + 2x Extra Attack + Action Surge + shit initiative for my party + as you described a one shot enemy mage) how do I prevent or even "heal" so much incoming dmg? By only a party of four I have to revive (one full action) and cast one heal (one full action) and maybe have the opportunity to drink a Healing Potion (one bonus action)... I managed to get my downed party member back on the feet but he is low life, one extra attack kills him again or one AOE Damage hit him and my other party member with used the Help Action are down together... My party is stuck to survive and hardly can fight back and that grows worse if one is downed or death then my party falls like domino stones...

Surely there will be stronger Healing Potions etc. pp., but as I said, I'm afraid the incoming damage is too blatant, so that the own reaction time to react to it appropriately is too limited. Larian should take this into account for higher levels.

As mentioned, it would take a lot of homebrewing to keep 2/3rds of the classes in the same ballpark as the casters in 5e. Throne of Bhaal pulled that off by giving everyone access to insane powers that were equivalent to high level magic. That game was very focused on combat though, so most powers ended up being some combo of more damage, more targets, bigger buffs, or longer lasting crowd control.

You can check it out here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=237917858

I'm not sure how Solosta is built, but I've played all of the other games that get brought up in convos here in the forums (PoE, DAO, WotR, etc.) and none of them have reactive environments, complex animations, or physics sims beyond some basic sparkles, ragdolling, and explosive chunks.

In most of those engines, turning your party into flying t-rexes with dragon breath attacks wouldn't be that taxing on your hardware. BG3 is going all out though, and part of the cost of higher fidelity plus insane levels of detail and interactivity means putting in limits so that you don't blow up peoples PCs or PS5s. Technology is a limiting factor here in a way that it isn't for past games in the genre.

Doesn't have to be Baldur's Gate title to be successful. Look at Owlcat studio and their two games. Although shame they also never switched to second edition, and preferred switching IP entirely.

PF2e actually easier to understand and reverse engineer, if you dive deep into. So homebrewing, might not be super easy, but certainly possible. And unlike with 5e, you actually can preserve the balance, instead of broken even further already quite "shoddy" system.

Both owlcat games a buggy and underbaked though. Particularly wotr

Wrath of the Righteous is an incredible game and as far as I'm concerned it is leagues ahead of Baldur's Gate 3 by most metrics. I'm hoping Owlcat moved to warhammer because they wanted to work on something new and not just tie themselves to being the "Pathfinder studio," both of which seem like very reasonable things to do and that down the line they'll tackle PF2.

Also I do not want Larian's hands anywhere near anything Pathfinder. If Owlcat don't want to do anything with the 2e system then give it to someone else who will sctuslly respect it and not twist mechanics for immature "cool factor," ignore and disregard lore or publicly laugh at and mock the races they don't find interesting.

Patfinder games are a good example how you can go nuts with high levels and still make it fun and somewhat balanced.

Tell that to the gold dragon mythic path lol

Officialy, the original plan was level 10 as a cap ...
Then they find out that 10 is not enough, so they needed to raise it "a little" ...

Thats all what was said, anything beyond that is just speculations.