Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Modding How to keep BG3 balanced with Level 20 Expansion Mod?

Hey everyone,

I’m finally planning to start my first full playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3, but the level 12 cap has always been a bit of a turn-off for me. I’d like to use the Expansion Mod, which raises the cap to 20, but you end up somewhere around 17 by the end of the game if you keep the default leveling curve.

In addition, I plan to add 5E Spells and at least the Combat Extender 5e Config (without the stat boosts for 5E Spells), so that enemies can also use the new spells. I’m also considering Extra Encounters and Minibosses, which should provide a decent XP bump.

That said, my main concern is balance. I don’t want to become ridiculously overpowered by Act 3, but I also don’t want every enemy to have inflated HP that makes fights drag forever. Do you think tweaking the Combat Extender settings would be enough to restore difficulty, or would something like Player Level Scaling work better?

If anyone has experience running a similar setup, I’d love to hear how you kept combat challenging and fun, but not overbearingly difficult for a first time playthrough for someone that has a decent background in games like BG1 or the Pathfinder Series. I’m also totally open to curated mod lists that aims to deliver an experience like what I described above.

I had a look at Difficulty, Quality, Immersion and Cahoot's Absolute Laboratory Config. Both sound very and I don't want to be forced to do a pure min-max, only Meta builds with best in slot gear completionist run, but rather enjoy the game on my own pace without looking ever decision up.

Thanks a ton for any tips or experiences you can share!

By default, the game already makes you ridiculously overpowered by Act 3.

Heck, if you're even slightly aware of how to build D&D characters, you become ridiculously overpowered in Act 1.

This is all without level 20.

As far as making things more challenging... There are various Tactician Plus, Tactician Enhanced and Nightmare Difficulty mods that provide customizable scaling to enemies (Health, damage, actions, AC, saves etc)

At the very least, you'll want some health increases (No, you don't have to worry about everything becoming health sponges. Even with 200% increased health things will still fall over in 1-2 turns)

Also, I'd recommend using Honour Mode ruleset (If you don't want to be limited to 1 save slot, use Custom Difficulty to select Honour Mode scaling) as it makes bosses somewhat interesting.

I recommend: Scaling Difficulty

This one I didn't tried yet, but it sounds challenging: Grit and glory - Injuries Exhaustion and Madness - MCM

When you say "first full PT" does that mean, first time playing, or you have already done some parts of Act 1 and maybe Act 2 ?

If it's really the first run, I would wait with modding and try the game as it is. Act 1 is eminently replayable, so if it turns out to be too easy you can get some mods and restart. If you 've already tried some parts of the story with different classes and found it too easy, then forget what I said.