Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why do we start out at level 1? [SPOILERS]

This isn't your typical "I start out as a farmer and take up adventuring as a profession after the dragon ate my flock" sort of story. All of the pre-rolled characters have a decent backstory that seems to indicate that they've been doing this a while. You can't tell me that in the 200 years since Astarion was turned into a vampire that he didn't pick up more than the basics of picking locks. Even worse is the thought that Gale was wandering the planes but still can't cast more than a couple of level 1 spells.

Maybe start out at level 5 or something like that. Makes it a bit more plausible unless later on all the characters say that the tadpole must have chewed on the part of the brain that contains all their previous experience.

I'm enjoying the various backstories the characters have and their different personalities, it's just this part of the equation is leaving me scratch my head.

Starting as a lv 1 char on candlekeep is ok

Starting as a lv 1 char in a middle of a epic fight between mindflayers and his spelljammer ship vs a draconic army = not ok

Hey, I say that if an Archdruid can be level 4, a level 1 can wander the planes.



Not to derail the tread but I'd also take the chance to point to Larian that:

1- Not every NPC we meet has to be necessarily in our level range, especially if the plot suggests he/she should be a power house by our standards.
It's nice that you leave us the option to attack and kill anyone in the game, but being free to try doesn't mean we should be able to do it.
2- ..And as we are on topic, I don't think we really need to SEE the level of every NPC stated under his name to begin with.

If you've played PnP you know people usually have a bio of

I am Ket'Narath. I was spun out of the Chaotic energies of the Abyss born whole. Within the first 10 minutes I had already drank my first belly full of blood as I laid the shattered body of a Glabrezu at the feet of Baphomet himself. I was blessed that day with what some may call a curse. In the heat of battle I can no longer tell friend from foe, all life is to be taken in His glory. I have helped topple kings, I have trophy hunted those favored by Llolth, the Bitch Queen, to paint their tunnels with a warning that He is coming, and I am his HERALD.



5 minutes later:

Does a 12 hit?

- Yep, roll for damage

uhm 5 damage.

- The skeleton is looking rough! A few more of those and hes probably going to shatter? He rolled a 16 whats your AC?

15

- You take 8 points of damage.

FUCK IM DOWN GUYS HELP HELP HELP

The companions have backstories, but I wouldn't call them "epic adventures." It's more like they screwed up their lives in various ways and got some powers on the side, but haven't done anything with it to make a mark in the world.

This is their first real adventure in D&D terms. The adventuring is what drives the leveling. I don't have a problem with it personally, but then I've played so many games like this that I don't mind hand-waving some of the setups. I'd rather be adventuring with this group than with a farm boy.

Well, Gale was such a prodigy he had sex with Mystra, the goddess of magic and after she ignored him he found a Netherese artifact left over from Karsus' Folly, the only 12th level spell ever cast where Karsus took over her body, the weave undid itself, she committed suicide, and a new goddess was born to take over and repair it. Gale then had this shadow weave chaotic magic from the time of days of the most powerful spells cast and items created and it somehow consumed him when he opened it and now has to feed it powerful artifacts or he thinks that his explosion would wipe out the largest city on the Sword Cost, Waterdeep.

@orbax
If a player presented me that backstory as a GM for a lvl 1 I'd just snicker and tell him to be serious. This is fairly normal and common place for PnP. As far as your second post that is some really nice head canon you have going there.

Game shouldn't start at lvl 1, shouldn't be limited to lvl 10. Balancing high levels in turn based will be a nightmare when they announce BG4.

Gale tells it all to you

As far as I remember he tells you some things that maybe allude to him having a connection to Mystra and being a powerful wizard but doesn't explain too much about how he cocked up and his whole affair with Mystra is all inside his head. It would be a lot worse if he did spell all that out for you.

I got him to flat out say all of that haha

Wyll mentions that the parasite has curbed his power (implying it's curbed all the companions' power) in a banter with another character (I forget who).

He also mentions there was a time he could take on a (powerful) xxx monster, but now he'd be knocked into another country by (much weaker) yyy monster.

Yeah it's mentioned that the tadpole injection gave everyone a factory reset.

Gale used to be an archmage. Asterion is 200+ years old. Wyll was decent at something, and so on.

The same reason why you have barrels, throwables and ranged enemies spamming them everywhere. They forgot to add bombs and wings to the minotaurs

As soon as JD says something nice about this game, Larian will have created something so perfect it will be considered a divine artifact and the second coming of Christ will be nigh.

You're kidding? That's the #1 feature that made ppl buy this EA.

I think starting out at level 1 would be alright if not for the fact that the game spans only ten levels. BG3 has a level cap of 10 which seems really dull. That shit was alright back in BG1 where the whole concept of a game like that was an all-new thing, but in this day and age, having the (supposedly) definitive 5e video game end at level 10 is disappointing.

Im not ready >.< So many loves half loved, so many inventions half invented. Why, working on this blasted time machine set me back 10 years alone!

Its an odd decision, Id love to hear their thoughts on it. WotC did a survey and pulled data from D&D beyond and stuff and the average player gets to level 6 before making a new one.its like less than 20% of players get beyond level 9. Might be even less than that. Long campaigns are hard to do. I mean *buffs knuckles* I am DMing 3 10+ campaigns spanning years but whatever. NORMAL people dont get to do it often. Getting to 15+ is the frigging DREAM. To have a game that is flat out saying its a solo D&D game, huzzahs for all of the people who cant get group together, and not let you get big is such a bizarre choice to say "this is not only the best way to do it, its the right way to do it."

They seem to backed off on level 10 being the limit. It looks like they'll go a little higher, though we don't know how much.

But I can understand capping at Level 10 in this game, then to 20 in the next game. There's only 20 levels to the game, so it makes sense to spread it out (somewhat) equally.

Normal people don't even play D&D according to casuals. Defeats the point of trying to make a D&D for the normies in the first place but OH WOTC can't say you haven't tried your best dumbing it down till the point of making a soulless, generic and bland experience that everyone can enjoy.