I'm the same way. I lose motivation. It feels odd because this isn't really something that would happen at the table, or at least not outside of lvl 20 campaigns. The DM awards xp at their discretion granted, but its unlikely they'd stop awarding it altogether in the middle of a session right hehe. Like they'd come up with something to keep you engaged at that point, and probably it would involve experience points.
In the old games we had the exact same issue with the experience cap going back to BG1. The difference was that there, you had 25 possible companions, so when Charname hit the cap you could still progress by leveling other companions. Here there are only 12 companions, 4 are gated by early plot decisions, and they all join up at the same lvl as Tav or higher. Sticking it out for the story makes less sense on a re-run, even if the endings change. I mean there's a payoff, sure, but not quite the same as XP.
Another option might be something like "Epic Party" where even if the PC is at the XP cap, then the party as a group begins to level somehow along different lines. No idea what that would look like, but keeping the scoreboard up at least, even if its sorta meaningless. The promise of a sequel where that extra XP carries over would be pretty major, cause that's a carrot right?
Ps. If the cap is 12 this should mean 119,999 xp instead of 100,000. Basically stopping 1 experience point before lvl 13 at 120,000 xp, rather than 1 xp after lvl 12 at 100,001, if that makes sense. That 20,000 xp buffer isn't huge, but its probably enough to finish out the campaign in a satisfying way during the anticlimax for a CRPG of this sort. Kinda would need to have done that sooner though. Cause raising the XP cap by 19,999 in order to avoid adding a level, not something you can do after the fact as readily. Though they might try. If they make a sequel or expansion they should maybe consider that. Some room to groove there, ya know!
Last edited by Black_Elk; 28/08/23 10:19 AM.
