Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback How to extend leveling beyond 12 without breaking the game

I understand the reason for stopping leveling beyond 12 because the new spells become so absurd it would make it almost impossible to implement without completely changing the game. Or breaking it.

But what about allowing leveling up to 16 but any level beyond 12 requires a multiclass. For example you could be paladin 12 and sorcerer 4 for example.

This would allow for meaningful power increases without the need for new spells that can't be handled by the engine.

Please Larian can we get another act as DLC, just allow us to level up a secondary class!

What do you think? Wouldn't this solve the problem with capping everything at 12?

You defeat an entire team of gods in the the game, who are you going to battle in the DLC?

There's a mod for extending levels.

If "becoming too powerful" was a genuine concern for the designers, we wouldn't have an entire skilltree of "Mindflayer power-ups" and a whole collection of house rules and/or incorrect implementations making our characters far more powerful that they are supposed to be at level 12.

This, honestly. I don't buy the idea that the level 12 cap is because things "just get too powerful" at higher levels. They effectively make you as powerful as characters 3-4 levels above 12 anyway, by endgame, with absurd items, additional powers, and unbalanced rule interpretations.

There IS the problem that spells at higher levels tend to be more broad in their interpretation and may be harder to faithfully implement....except for the fact that they're clearly okay with a "video game" implementation of spells that work. It's not like they implemented all spells from levels 1-6, or that the ones they did implement were done with total flexibility and faithfulness to their tabletop versions. "Wish" could easily be implemented: Give a handful of one-time options for some neat permanent boons (you can even implement the 'might cause you to not be able to cast wish ever again' rule), and then also have its standard use (any other spell, up to 8th level, in the game from any spell list, upcast to 8th level.)

+1

Thief gives another bonus action, haste gives another action that can be used for anything, . . . the list is endless.

I am no DnD expert, but tell me, how does leveling past lvl 14 break the game because of too powerful spells? You go to lvl 30 in Nwn 2 and somehow Obsidian managed to not break the game so why cant Larian avoid breaking the game at lvl 14?

As others have pointed out, items already break the power curve at the end. My character build sucked because I had no idea how they changed multiclassing and level ups in 5e. My character could still straight run down everything with the items I stole from Raphael.

And then there are the Illithid powers.

Just seems like a lame excuse at this point.

It's not unfounded. It's long been considered the case that, in tabletop, DnD starts to fall apart at higher levels (in pretty much any edition really) in particular because of what spellcasters can do. This is because tabletop is so much more flexible and allows for so much creativity. In tabletop, Wish, working entirely as written and even arguably as intended, can essentially make you an immortal with a badass interdimensional palace and infinite money. And this is just the most notorious example. So if they were going for an entirely faithful implementation of high-level spells, it honestly could be a problem.

The thing is, this is a computer game, not tabletop, and the spells are always going to be more limited than what they are in tabletop. I mean, just look at what they did with divine intervention. They would obviously not be doing completely faithful implementations of the tabletop spells that allow for all the flexibility of a TT game.

The problem more than that is that their *current, own homebrew rules* get in the way of challenge. I mean, I am going to be blunt. Unless they radically nerf some of the tadpole powers and items you get at the end of the game, I have a hard time seeing how they can make combat for additional levels challenging in a way that does not rely on gimmicks.

Well, I played the entire first playthrough because they talked so much about choice and consequence. Turns out I resisted for nothing, but, if they add in some actual consequence etc loosing your sense of self, you have to do checks to resist eating brains and so on. Then this can at least be mediated somehow.

Regarding your Wish example, there is a really easy fix for this. Just.. dont include Wish? It is not like they have implemented EVERY feat, class and spell from DnD lvl 1-12 anyway.

"gimmick" is Larian's middle name.

They can totally include Wish. Other games have included Wish. As I said, Wish, in 5e, has a very powerful "standard" use but one that would not necessarily completely break a computer game: Use it to cast any spell up to 8th level, from any spell list (so for example, a wizard could use it to cast a cleric spell), upcasted to 8th level. That would be plenty powerful. "Wish" also has, in tabletop, basically a non-standard "creative" power that is basically "Wish for anything, and DMs use your judgement." THAT couldn't be implemented. But you could totally give a list of very powerful, one-time options that you could "wish" for (think of what they do with divine intervention). The "creative" use of wish is also balanced by the fact that every time you use it, you have a 1 in 3 chance of never being able to cast wish again.

Ah so I was right all along then? So it is completely doable to implement lvl 14. Ah lets get to it then.

I saw a thread about cut content, and to be honest I want it all as well. But I see no point in adding it if we are going to run around stuck at lvl 12 for 40 hours. I already ran around lvl 12 for 90% of act 3, feels .. flat..