Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Does Leveling Seem Really Fast? *POSSIBLE SPOILERS

To me, leveling seemed really fast. Not sure if it's just me or what. But I made a second playthrough of BG3, and I was really surprised at how fast I hit the level cap. I didn't think that it happened MEGA fast my first playthrough, but I did feel like I got to level 3 quite a bit faster than I had expected. In my second playthrough, all I've done is (***SPOILERS***) kill the head druid so the tieflings could take over the grove, ran over to the goblin camp, recruited them, killed all the tieflings, and boom. Level 4. I've hardly done anything in the act yet, but I've already leveled up to the cap. There's still TONS left. When they remove the cap, I feel like by the end of act 1 I'll be level 6 or 7 if they removed the cap. I realize leveling gets a lot slower the higher level you are, but to me, it's kinda fun to be a low level noob. I haven't gone and checked to see if the same amount of experience is required for levels or if the amount of experience is given per goblin or whatever, but dang it really seems like it goes fast. I don't even remember doing anything when I was second level.

Just a thought that maybe they need to pull back the reins on leveling speed. I get that a lot of people don't like being a noob, but to me, it inspires strategy. When you have an impossible fight in DnD, there's always a way to win. The creativity of players always amazes me in tabletop DnD.

If the xp gains and amount of xp required per level is straight out of the DnD rulebook, I guess it's fine. To me it just seems a little fast.

yeah the first 3 levels go by really quick in D&D, then it gets progressively harder to level up after that. It's by design, do to first 3 levels your pretty much just getting the feel for everything. Also lets DM's and players help new players, by walking (at times) through their skills, abilities, and things. Which is why most DM's with experienced players start after level 3.

This is deliberate in 5th edition D&D. If look at a graph of the leveling rate from 1-20 it is really fast at levels 1-5 and levels 16-20, but slows from 6-15. Traditionally a lot of people have felt they have the most fun at levels 5 to 14 or so. As such the current leveling scheme stretches the time you are in those levels. Levels 1-4 are basically so fast that you could see them as the tutorial. For example, you're assumed to hit level 2 at the end of your first session assuming 4 hours.

I think there an issue with encounter size. If they were using the rules as written, tossing a dozen of anything at a party of 4 would probably end up in a total party kill so we are killing more mobs then a tabletop adventuring party would so leveling seems faster?

Guess now I have to do another playthrough and just keep track of everything I am killing and keep track of when I level.

Yeah some of the fights I've noticed would end up in tpk's if played straight up by rules listed in rulebook. The fact that your the same level as everything else alone would end up in alot of tpk's on tabletop. Though it could be a reason for all these other effects, the whole larger swarm of enemies, barrels, surface things as well. to try and level the playing field, while keeping enemies in larger numbers.

begs the question are the levels like CR rating, or they just standard game levels?

Probably closer to CR since monsters and NPCs don't usually use the same class/level structure as PCs.

Yeah some of the fights I've noticed would end up in tpk's if played straight up by rules listed in rulebook. The fact that your the same level as everything else alone would end up in alot of tpk's on tabletop. Though it could be a reason for all these other effects, the whole larger swarm of enemies, barrels, surface things as well. to try and level the playing field, while keeping enemies in larger numbers.

begs the question are the levels like CR rating, or they just standard game levels?[/quote]

Lets take the for example which is cr3. Having (not all the time) to fight 4 of them PLUS their additional jump skill that does dmg and brings up their avg dpr?

IF this was straight raw, you'd be dead.

I'm glad those levels came quickly, cause everything else you fight has multi attack and other terrible things. Those extra spell slots / hp comes in handy.

I'm almost a little concerned about what it means for the rest of the game. I feel like by the time we're past the beginning area we'll be like level 5 or 6, leaving no room for the rest of the adventure.

Leveling feels too fast to me. The first map is so loaded with stuff (combat). You get to level 4 so quickly just exploring one area you don't really even have time to get a feel of levels 1-3. I didn't even get to the underground areas yet.

The XP gains from kills seemed really inconsistent though. Maybe the values aren't final yet.

I really hope they do the "lone wolf" concept by simply giving more XP when there's less people to share it.

Let's say we are at 100k XP total. 4 characters with 25k each would be level 7. 2 characters with 50k each would be level 9. A single character would have just made level 12. That sounds a bit strong but the exact numbers could be tweaked. Those couple extra levels for having less characters in the party are a lot more fun than giving them some random numerical buffs that override the rules.

This is, again, pretty standard design in 5e campaign supplements. There's often an optional starter adventure to get the characters from 1st to 3rd in a hurry (in Ghosts of Saltmarsh it was that bit with the haunted house...in Princes of the Apocalypse it was the corrupt town members sending them rumor chasing, Strahd had the Death House).

4th and 5th are also meant to pass pretty fast and then everything slows down a lot at 5th level onward with most of the campaigns ending somewhere between 10th and 15th level. (Curse of Strahd ends around 10th Level, Ghosts of Saltmarsh around 11th, and Princes around 15th)

This and the abundance of magical items (most of which are not worth using) are the two main points I listed in my suggested changes thread. Were it not for the XP Limit, you could get to level 5 solely in the content we've gotten so far. This is almost 1/2 of the levels we're probably going to get in the game. (level cap probs 11-12)
I think all they need to do is space the xp out more. Move level 3 to goblin camp area. make level 4 the final possible level in act 1, something like that. it shouldn't be too hard to change, and I really think they should. I mentioned the fact that classes progress through the levels differently, and jumping to level 5 so quickly removes a lot of levels were classes like War domain clerics, barbarians, etc shine brighter compared to other classes and the same thing goes for specific subclasses.

edit: or make level 3 the final level in act one and save the asi/feat for the start of act 2, that might be cooler.

So started another playthrough.

encounter 1 3 Imps, 30 exp.
2 2 Imps 50 exp total
3 6 Imps 240 exp total so go some experience for finishing the prolog, almost level 2 which seems OK.

Yeah, this matches the 5e design of 1st Level lasting only one session.

I thought it was paced pretty decently actually. The game really is boring at levels 1-2 so getting to 3 quicker and getting some features to play with seems like good design...

It doesn't seem fast to me. I've played 35 hours almost and I'm only level 3 still.

Okay, I have a bit of a problem with playing games slowly, exploring everywhere with ludicrous care, and re-loading to try different things. I also spent a long time in the character creator.

I think this should depend on the classes since spellcasters are the ones that get the world ending stuff on specific levels.

OK, 2 more encounters (2 ID & 1 ID) and adding Shadowheart and exp is 300 for level 1. That seems right, one adventure to get to 2nd level.

Leveling and the encounters we face feel crap. Honestly the under dark is a most dangerous and deadly place in the mortal planes and they send us there as level 3 down. Sry but this is crap. That would be area for level 5-8 at minimum. It cheapens the experience. Beholders and other monoesters that are at home down there feel like cheap knock offs not even worth the fuzz made around them. I think the priority's of encounters and places where chosen poorly.
Not to mention that the "stakes" of our adventure from Tee start are astronomical something you send half gods to deal with.

It feels wrong and bad.

So I did 7 encounters to go from level 2 to 3

prone mindflayer
meet Gail
goblin pack at the grove gate.
2 NPC with Brother & Tadpole
4 NPC outside ruins
5 entombed scribes
other 4 NPC inside ruins

Leveling needs to be fast, the first few levels suck in D&D. The time it takes to get from level 3 to 4 is fine, I cant really guage the time it takes to get to 5 because the meter stops even adding it up. Would be nice if the game loced you at level 4 but let you still add to the bar so I could guage it. I have zero problems with them tuning the game so that level 4 can be achieved after about 12-15 hours