I'm very thorough and spent a good 270 hours on my first run of the game. I didn't finish. I was max level for over 100 hours. That is absurd. I had over 100K XP after hitting the level cap and finally reached the point where zero character progression was just stealing the fun away.
I get that higher level spells are hard. I get that most people don't even hit level 12, but the people that do should not be punished because of the people who do not. If the content is there, we should get credit for it. 30, 40, 50K+ XP with no leveling is simply un-enjoyable. If you can't do higher level spells then allow multi-classing to 20 with no spell slots over level 6 like the popular mod has. Or just add spells and feats that are already in the game with no spells over level 6 being allowed. Something. It might not be perfect, but it is practical. If people choose to over-level content then they should be able to if said content is there. You said you wanted to make it as much like D&D as possible. Well imagine players going on a campaign and earning 35K XP. Then telling them "OK, add 35 thousand XP to your sheets. Great job. You're still level 12 though. Sorry, but progression after that is tricky and I don't feel like dealing with it so for the next 75 hours you aren't going to progress. Kinda like how you didn't progress over the last 25. Cool? Great." Every player at that table would quit. Well, perhaps not everyone, but there would be a ton of compromise offers and a lot of complaining. And then the campaign would fall apart, if it didn't on that first night they got their rewards and were told they meant nothing.
And no, installing the mod is not a solution because it disables all of the achievements. It's also a pain in the ass for a lot of us who aren't used to using mods in modern games. Putting things in the wrong folder, making a folder and putting it in the wrong place, then having to find it again to delete it bc now the game doesn't work etc etc.. Leaving the dev console in and just letting people take the cap off themselves would have been the optimal solution, along with an adjusted spell/feat/skill/hp table that capped spells at level 6 if higher level ones could not be implemented properly in a reasonable amount of time. I agree, levels 1-12 are the most fun, but again, the content is there to go well beyond that. If people choose to do it they really, really should get credit for it.
