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

"Why such a low level cap?"

The inherent assumption in the question is that level 12 is a "low" level.
Based upon many tables, campaign modules etc I don't think 12 is low.
And allows many options, spells, feats, multiclassing.
Level 20 (or even just higher than 10) was never promised or suggested initially.

Based upon story, design, content, encounters, balance....whatever... Larian came to level 12.
Certainly leaves room for DLC..but lets get the actual game in our hands first! Cant wait.

I'm curious about the level cap only in the sense that this is going to be a big game... will getting to just level 12 take enough time, or will we be stuck at 12 for like, half of act 3? That's really my only concern and it's a very mild one.

I think it has to do with the math of level progression + how D&D defines tiers of play.

Math: I just looked at my EA save games and here's my levels by the hour.

0:00, level 1
0:40, level 2
2:30, level 3
8:00, level 4
16:00, level 5

Now this is a big if, but we assume 1.0 follows EA progression, and it's around 8 hours a level, it continues such:

24, L6
32, L7
40, L8
48, L9
56, L10
64, L11
72, L12

And they say the game can be finished within 75 hours if you beeline. That means just the last few hours of the game are max level.

There is some nuance to the xp system, some level-ups are slower than others (4 to 5, 10 to 11) and completionist play means spending extra time in Acts 1&2 where you're getting small xp awards relative to your level. So a completionist could actually take 100 odd hours to get to level 12.

D&D tiers of play states Tier 3 (levels 11-16) is saving the kingdom, i.e. the city-state of Baldur's Gate. Tier 4 is saving the world, which requires a drastically redrawn made and even more powerful antagonists.

Most likely Larian want do Baldurs Gate 4 or Bladurs Gate 3 Big story DLC (They spent 6 years on this game/engine. Surely they want to make use of it for more content. Maybe set in Waterdeep or new sword coast locale or heck even Thay or some new setting with new characters). To make a massive Level 1 - Level 16-20 game that spans travel to Waterdeep, Baldurs Gate, Underdark, Thay etc.

Larian kept patching Divinity Original Sin 2 for quite time after it came out on PC on 14 September 2017 and the last "Patch" was nearly 3 years later. Pretty impressive post game support (2 years post release had monthly updates), as Larian was putting game on Switch, PS4, Xbox Series S/X etc.

So its possible Larian try something new and Sven does a big story DLC if enough people ask for it (If BG3 sells well enough like Starfield, then its no brainer to copy Bethseda and release story DLC to keep the artists/programmers/writers all working) for a Level 18-20 cap.

So id expect them to decide on what do 2 years after BG3. Although this time it may go quicker since no Covid is around (Sven confirmed Covid delayed their game by a lot during the recent panel from Hell. So we could have had BG3 in late Q4 2022 or Q2 2023 if Covid never happened. I would not be surprised if Covid ate 6 months - 12 months for their development time due to all the lockdowns, wearing masks, employees or family getting sick etc.

I do expect DLC to come around for a couple of reasons.The first is that there's really a lot of places they could do it. New classes, subclasses, races, companions, expanded story, side-stories, even the "laziest" option of just including a new subclass for every class would be hugely popular and it would be hard NOT to have ideas. The second and in my opinion greater reason I expect DLC is that whatever my issues with this game, Larian really seems to have had a blast making it, like kingsims just said. So I'm sure after they've taken a well-deserved break to rest after all of this, they'd actually WANT to keep working on it and adding more.

They did say at minimum it was going to be 10 like RagnarokCzD said. Tried skimming again and can't find it, someone said Solasta did 12 also when it first came out. This would make sense since at 13 seventh level spells start, not including this would give more content for dlc's and such (if they do dlc's). On the other hand this saves time also, since it would be new set of spells for all classes that would be included for that.

Also you have to remember there was problems in the beginning because of covid.

Actually, BG3 runs on a revamped version of the Original Sin 2 engine, so I imagine that the development of the engine wasn't such a big investment. Also Swen explicitely stated that they have no plan for future DLC.

@snowram thanks, I thought they said no dlc previously.

This is what they said two and a half years ago.

Now that the game is more or less finished, they will patch a bit and take some well deserved holidays.

But after managing to create and perfect the whole system (3D engine, D&D rules, massive character creation system, maps tools...) they will probably want to get some more from BG licence. They have an army of creative writers, tons of already created available material in the D&D universe, every expert in each domain of the game under the hand... yes they will surely create DLC. We have no idea if a BG4 would be created one day, and if it would be Larian again (and if Larian would want to start again a 6+ year stressful adventure of developping a new epic game like this)

There are still 8 levels available, so there is room for new content, and they have all the talents already in place to do it. The collector edition did not sell so much, and they had to increase so much the teams and hire so many experts, and they share profits with WotC... They will probably need to produce DLC to make it a success for them financially also

1. Game is too short (Yes, they talk about length and options are lot, but it looks like Larian expects people only to see a fraction of it each playthrough).
2. High level D&D sucks.

The game is definitely not short. If you stick strictly to the critical path to get to the end as soon as possible it will be around 80 hours. If you wat to do side quests and explore then it will be much much more. This can easily take 150+ hours per playthrough and it has insane replay value.

I don't think it's a sure thing, but a lot of what Isenthal said rings true otherwise. Development for the next game probably wouldn't take another 6 years mainly because the pandemic made everything take longer and get more difficult. Plus they already have the framework for the mechanics so they could get away with just refining a lot, plus they know how everything works and such, so making a direct sequel wouldn't necessrily be easy, but it's probably not going to be the same kind of hard that this first one was.

As far as DLC, they wouldn't even have to raise the level cap. Just adding more subclasses, maybe a new class or two, a new race or two, more spells, all of that would get a lot of people's attention immediately.

It seems quite standard.

If I recall correctly BG1 capped around level 8, Pillars of Eternity 1 around 12 (excluding the expansions)

I find this somewhat amusing as Owlcat has played hard and loose with Pathfinder rules even if they like to pretend otherwise. They use a completely custom CR system, for example, and if you but take five seconds to look a the ridiculous amount of work mods put in adding stuff any TT people would call basic, even mandatory, you'd see just how much work they DIDN'T put in.

Those implementations of core campaign mechanics are also always terrible, even if it's the whole point, like Kingmaker's, uh, kingdom-building system and are widely despised. That's without mentioning how buggy their games are.

I think Owlcat does okay with Pathfinder... frankly, I think their writing is master-tier, but that's about it; their games are mediocre. They do have fantastic companions and core storylines (some of the alt paths are lackluster), so far better than BG3 I do agree, but we haven't seen much of the main storyline and I'll reserve my judgement for the characters until I play through but I find them all already far more boring than how I felt about WoTR's companions right when they're introduced.

I'll concede that I don't know Pathfinder first edition at all so I can't genuinely speak to how accurately they conveyed it. I'm just going by what I've heard people say. Though I personally LOVED the kingdom-building mechanic in Kingmaker and the crusade mechanic in Wrath of the Righteous. I loved getting time to just focus on kingdom building or taking a break fromthe main game to go crusading with my armies, so I think it may be a matter of taste. Or maybe it just happens to hit my specific thing that I like in games.

I am also pretty positive (to say the least, I've spent a lot of hours on both games) about Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. True, a lot of the enemies have inflated stats and encounters are harder than Pen & Paper but then again... it is a PC game where character death just leads to a reload. And there are all kind of difficulty levels.

Personally, I also enjoyed the Kingmaker kingdom building and Crusade system mini game (a bit less than Kingmaker's actually). I come into RPG from a predominantly strategy games so that was a nice transition for me.

That being said, I think BG3 goes a lot deeper on a psychological level, so it is a different beast enitrely.

It is almost certainly to leave room for a sequel/expansion or separate story using the engine. Level 10 is the cutoff for 'tier 3' officially, but 12 is the last level before you hit the really insane spells and get the next proficiency bonus (from +4 to +5) so it is actually a good soft cutoff for low-medium tier vs high tier. That seems to be something that they had to work out with WoTC though, but I think the long development time table may have broken some of the tie in plans and given them some more breathing room.

Regardless, it is likely that there will be more content after this if it sells well enough. Whatever agreement they have with WoTC is going to dictate what comes next, so without seeing that contract, there isn't a lot of solid guesses we can make. At the end of the day, money makes the world go round, and WoTC has taken some hits lately, so any financial 'sure things' are going to make big daddy HASBRO push to recreate. Larian, as great as they are, have been close to shutting down after almost every one of their releases, so I'm betting they would be happy to make an expansion or sequel if the financials look good and they are allowed to.

There is a great History of Larian video out on youtube somewhere that is worth watching if you're interested in learning more about the company.

I would recommend a Solasta mod "The Island of Damnation". Takes you from level 1-20. Combat can be brutal even on normal diff. I found it really enjoyable tactically - fighting something lowly like goblins or bandits becomes tricky when there are 20 or more of them.

Imo leveling up too quickly would get annoying. It'd be ~fine if you were just taking care of one character, but in BG3 (single-player) you have to level up all of your companions too. This takes some time - going into each character's level up page, making any relevant choices, etc. Leveling up should be an impactful thing that happens after you've really earned it, not an everyday occurrence.

I want a bit of time to get settled and comfortable with my current options (spells, abilities, etc) before having to level up again. Specifically, spending significant time at a certain level will help you understand which spells/abilities you need to add to your repertoire, and which spells are no longer useful and should be replaced on level-up.

As long as we level up often enough that each level doesn't feel stale/get boring, that's fine with me. No need to level quickly just for leveling's sake.

That's my stance. I'm fine with level cap 12, I just don't want to be there for like, half of act three. I'd say being at level 12 for the last quarter to the last fifth of the game is about right. Long enough to enjoy the top level perks.