Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General It's not lvls 13 to 20

I'd imagine level 17/20 Wiz multiclassed would significantly has better spells than capped level 12 wizard.

Level design, encounter design, etcetra etcetra.

Judging from a ending cut scene I saw, levels 13-20 could be done easily.

We would not have our tadpole powers if they made an 'official' ending. Then we would all go to Avernus to rescue Karlach and Wyll to permanently solve her heart problem. There would be enough content in Avernus to make our characters feel weak.

I think you might be drinking the bath water and missing the baby.

I said one thing:

1. the reason the levels don't go higher has nothing to do with the power level of higher levels, despite the fact that so many folks (no one mentioned *you*), including Sven, have suggested otherwise.

Again, I don't care what the cap is. But I find the approved narrative on this to be tiresome and insufferable.

*

As for the other editions being sooooo different...

On a comparable note, being level 20 in NWN2 isn't all that different from being level 20 in 5e.

Well THAT I agree with. It's clearly doable, but it's just not reasonable to expect a development studio to do that all at once. I think if they fix the game up, restore cut content and it sells like crazy then we have a real chance at seeing that.

Personally i think a level Cap of 15 would not hurt and there are enough XP to get there

BG2 DLC TOB reached level 31-40.
NWN1 with DLC HOTU permitted epic level until 40.
NWN2 with DLC MOTB had got also EPIC LEVEL until 30.

So where's the problem for an expansion until level 20th for BG3?

I don't think there is a principal issue with extending the level cap, but at the same time I do believe more than level 12 is too much for a single campaign.

BG 1 took you to about level 7, BG 2 took you to about level 15-20 depending on class, and only ToB took you to 30.
For even older players, it took four games to reach those levels (looking at the Pool of Radiance to Pool of Darkness sequence.

The issue with doing it in a single campaign and so fast is that you basically upgrade gear all the time, which sounds fun but makes special loot less special.

Level 12 is fine. Level 14 would be fine with a medium-sized DLC. Level 20 would be good if there was a sequel you could import your character to, but that is not planned.

As for this part:


This makes the higher level worse, not better. Those extra illithid power act as a multiplier on your level. If a normal party of level 16 characters is hard to balance, then giving them extra powers on top only makes things even worse. As does the homebrew of Larian - a Sorcerer casting a level 9, 8 and 7 spell in a single round is frankly insane.

This, but focusing more on the frequency of leveling up. If the game's length was doubled or we only controlled a single character, then sure we could expect to go to level 20. But as currently is, especially given that we have to level up 4-10 characters each time, leveling up almost twice as often would be way too frequent.

It wouldn't give players time to get used to their abilities, spells known, and strategies of what worked and didn't before they'd gain an entirely new set of spells. Plus, the enemies would also be increasing in power/complexity at this pace, so players wouldn't ever get used to typical enemy strengths/abilities/tactics.

Toward the end of Owlcat's games I began to dread leveling up (sometimes even not doing it) because it happened too frequently, I had to level up too many allies, and each level up (due to Pathfinder's extensive feat system) would add significant new choices & abilities. It began to feel more like a chore than an exciting event.

Yes, this is definitely a Monty Haul campaign, I do wish they just used items from the DMG and dropped all the artifacts, would have been more balanced. Also the tadpole powers are like adding Psionics from AD&D which unbalanced any character that got them back then.

I can wait until I meet someone joining a tabletop game I am in who only been exposed to BG3 and we have to keep telling them "No, it does not work that way in 5E raw."

I stopped worrying about all the house rules and just go with it but do wish we had a closer to 5E rules game.

You get 3 methods to recharge your level 6 slot,
You can cast Twinned Chain Lightning 2 turns in a row, and use lower level spell slots to recharge your sorcery points.

But oh no, somehow having more spells slots or higher spells would be broken!

As people pointed out, calling level 7-9 spells too powerful while handing us all these illithid powers must be a joke.

thats kind of the point, in 3.5 for a game this long with this scope, to go to lvl20 would be weird. The same is true in 5e.
How long is the story of BG3, a few weeks? months at most. Possibly it's only days! Drizzt, the greatest hero of the realms, is level 19 after acouple centuries! of adventures bigger than BG3, you don't win in BG3 because you are the most powerful heroes in existence who have ever lived, the world trembles at your mention and the gods fear you, you win because you gather allies and have O's magic protecting you.
Level 12, fits the pacing of the game, it fits the length of the game, it's be too high level for D&D but works in a video game, and is the level the whole game is made. for 20th level which as you say7, it's still 20th level 5e didn't change that, having characters go to it IN THIS STORY, in this game? wouldn't work.
You'd need to double the amount of acts, the scope, the scale and the stakes.
Is anyone going to pretend they got to 12th level half way through the game and spent the rest fiddling their thumbs against enemies more powerful than they could handle? 12th is good for this game and is what this game is built for.
MAYBE 20 level cap for the next adventure Tav & the crew gets up to DLC set after the events where they, idk steal a mindflayer ship and get lost in the planes? Go up against Withers because they finally worked out who he is? but not this game.

We aint godkilling super veteran heroes who rule nations in our off days and have had more adventures we can count, we're plucky underdogs with a secret weapon and an impossible mission, that for most will require the ultimate sacrifice to pull off!
!2 is already kind of high for that, but it works because the game is built for it.

+1

That'd be a good side plot for BG4 for sure but it'd be a left turn for BG3, the whole game, defeat absolute, must defeat absolute, act 4, ok that's done new adventure ?
also new adventure based wholly around two characters the game doesn't let you have if you choose the wrong side of the act 1 big 'your choices matter' choice?

I have to agree with the OP there though. With the way how the companions are done (Mystra's lover, a chosen of Shah, a personal elite fighter of an Archdevil, 200+ years old vampire etc.), really powerful individuals who then using a "wave hand" magic trick to be toned down to level 1, it's hard to accept that it would be weird to go above level 12. That just feels like an excuse. What we do in the game - - saying that this has to be restricted to level 12 also doesn't really make sense. Why not 14? for example they already gave some classes their 14 level powers earlier anyway. Why not everyone? If it's about power level, why come up with several systems on top of what's already in 5e (Ilithid powers, extra elemental damage, everyone can use scrolls, easy access to potions, a lot of extra abilities via gearing etc., you could easily restrict those).

I can understand explanations, like they felt it's hard to implement higher level spells, or that they felt this is best for the flow of the game. At some point they might just want to make a cut to limit ability bloat etc. Or that progression would feel too fast overall with many more levels from a gaming experience POV. But seen from a story point of view? Sounds more like an excuse. Length of campaigns and power levels are arbitrary. Just because the official material says Drizzt, Elminster etc. are level so and so, doesn't mean in your game the power progression can't be faster. And again concerning BG 3, for most pnp campaigns it's too fast anyway. You just level up, there are no great intervals in BG 3 to train, meet a a teacher or anything like that. The whole story pushes you to always be fast, because something bad will happen. It's probably max 3 weeks or so. I don't think a few levels on top would make any difference in terms of believability there. And again for me personally because of the backgrounds of the origin character, all super special and powerful, except that they aren't for some reason, I can't take that part seriously anyway. Almost none of these characters are underdogs storywise. The starting point could easily be level 12 for any of them.

Like the OP, I'm fine with 12, although I'd prefer 14 now, so that all classes can get their 14 level abilities, not just some. But the story argument also feels forced to me.

Just FYI, there are mods that allow going up to Level 20 (exceeding level 12)

See https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/377.

I had activated it but had not even complete Act 1 (Messing with modding). Thus not sure how powerful the level 7 to 9 spells are.

However, there is no "Wish" spell as believe almost impossible to implement

"isn't all that different from being level 20" is doing e heavy lifting here.

I left you to your mourning.

The base game most likely never change. Perhaps new expansion/adventure pack in the future will incorporate new spells but who knows.

Wish is easy to implement. It would just take time and desire to do so.

Levels 13+ is very doable. IF larian made a bg4, they should be capable of doing it properly. If they wanted to.

Everyone always using the wish spell as the excuse why those spells are too powerful, the only game that had those spells was BG2.

Plenty of other DnD games have gone up to level 20+ and level 9 spells, and simply not used wish. Easy solution.

wish and divine intervention are the same problem, the game handles divine intervention

There's no heavy lifting involved.

Regarding the mourning stuff, I'm not sure if there's a language barrier at play, but there's no mourning. This is commentary on reasoning, or lack thereof. You seem to be having a back and forth conversation with an imaginary position.