Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why are level 4 "red dragons" and "archdruids" even a thing?

Considering that level 10 was supposed to be the level cap of this game (and just recently they said it will probably go above that, but we don't know to what extent) I'd say that you just made his argument for him.
Facing adult red dragons is *exactly* supposed to be "end game" stuff.

Anyway, arguing about the specific level tier ideal for a single encounter is a bit beyond the point of this thread, so not sure why are we even moving in that direction now.

First of all, +1.
I completely agree that several existing creatures and their respective level make no sense whatsoever. Showing the levels is also dumb. Even the HP I think should not be visible, or the stats for that matter. At most hp and stats could be made known to the player after some sort of nature check or whatever appropriate skill. An example of this is finding the hag in the middle of the thiefling camp. "oh look, a brittle old lady that has 10 times the amount of hp of everyone else here...".

It's pretty clear at this point that Larian is just doing what they did in their previous games which is completely inadequate here. It's sad and it shows a lot.

No, no. level 18 is when you can cast spells while transformed by beer. Otherwise spot on.

You arnt supposed to click on them, you can only do it if you deliberately intend too, you are supposed to run in blindly like you don't know what's coming and let the in game cinematics play.

If you aren't intended to click on them, then why have the level info on there? Info that is shown, is shown so that it can be seen. Simple logic. If you aren't intended to know the level of a monster, don't put it there to be seen. We don't need to know the levels anyway, especially if the level is ridiculous like it is here.


Githyanki ride young red dragons, not adults, but it still seems very out of place to see low level dragons. They're supposed to be these epic monsters after all.

Because they have to be placed into the game to be in an in game cinematic,

You misunderstand. Why is the _level_shown, if it isn't intended to be seen? The monster being placed into the game is great, showing a way too low seeming lvl number for it isn't.

He'll just tell you again that it's your fault and you are "cheesing" the game if you are targeting a monster on screen. That appears in the game twice. At different levels every time.
So much cheese.

Basically we are goin to play r/Baldurgate3 and throw on the table any sort of stupid excuse, ranging from "it doesn't really matter" to "it's actually YOUR fault for looking" rather than admitting that MAYBE Larian didn't really think this through and they probably should address it for consistency.

I think it is fine - I often tweak monsters to fit the level of the party. Either to make a fun encounter or to fit the theme in the campaign.

Maybe not a dragon - but even then you can always throw an "injured" one for the party to fight. Because why not have a early party fight a creature that is in the game name.

Not every high CR enemy needs to be a BBEG for the party, sometimes you just want to give them a cool fight.

I don't think it is and I would despise my DM for condescendingly giving me a fight with a dragon at level 4 (or 6) just to make me feel good about myself, but then again giving the players a fight is not exactly the point of the thread.

The issue is the consistency of the presentation. Every time you have an adult red dragon in the game, it should be an adult red dragon, period. It shouldn't come in a dozen of scaled variants to fit whatever level the party is at a given moment.

And yes, crippling a monster to make it less challenging than it should be on the contrary can be a legitimate idea for an encounter, as long as the game acknowledges the difference explicitly and I don't have to make up a shitty fanfiction in my head to justify it.

I see someone has never played Forge of Fury

Why condescendingly - I do it to make a fun and interesting encounter. I'd suggest you try it some time - it really makes the game more fun and also helps avoid metagaming if you have players that are prone to doing that. Just last week I threw a modified Shambling Mound at a first level party which was a lot of fun for everyone involved.



I am not sure what you mean. If you are saying that every adult dragon should have the same stat block then I disagree - frankly it makes little sense considering dragons gain power throughout their lifetime. I'd rule that an adult dragon aged 101 is weaker than 800 year old.

I mean that unless you have an exceptional anomaly at hand, (which at that point should be clearly marked as one), a notable outlier (i.e. a magically mutated troll, way bigger and stronger than normal for plot reasons), creatures of the same type should have the same range of threat and be consistent across the game.
And there's a name for considerably older adult dragons, anyway, which is ancient dragons.

The idea that you can cross the same type of creature all across a campaign, all the way from level 2 to 20, and it keeps appearing buffed to match your party is garbage in terms of immersion and mechanics.
Conversely, even without meaningful stat changes, the idea that every time you move in a new area all creatures and critters are labeled with the level of that area (something that DOS 1 and 2 did in spades, with even rabbit and mice ranking level 17 outside of Arx) is also garbage.
"Bu-but level 17 rabbits and mice still had very few HP and died with a single hit". Precisely, which makes the fact that they had level tag even more pointless. A shitty, immersion-breaking, "gamey" expedient to railroad the player and break the illusion of being in the middle of a true adventure, rather than in a crappy level-gated MMO starting area.

LOL.. might want to check your monster manual. Red Dragons come in CR4 (medium) and 10 (larg) varieties. Meaning they are a speedbump encounter for a party of that level, and easily handled below that with some prep. D&D has always been like this. Check out the low HP on a 1st edition dragon then imagine it getting wailed on by a fighter for 3d6+strength+magic+specialization at 2+ attacks per round and tell me they are "end game". DragonS (plural) are mid to endgame.

I think he means that out of the chromatic dragon types, Reds are the highest CR of the 5. So, if youre looking at all ancients, the Reds are the harder ones.

That being said, its a pretty minor difference and not particularly worth noting as any young is killable by a level 4 party and the Gith don't fly adults. So its a reasonable dragon to have. Its just leveled to 4 and has weird stats, which is the more annoying issues. People tend to inflate the danger of ANY dragon. Theyre tough, and definitely a "fuck, I have to fight a dragon" moments, but by level 5 you can take one without worrying too much. 4 is pretty hard to do, but it is technically possible depending on the group.

I am pretty sure you would be ok fighting humanoid NPC both at level 2 and level 20. Why aren't you ok fighting monsters that scale.

Hell, we even have monster races in 5e - there can be a goblin/kobold/etc PC that is way beyond the level of any Monster Manual counterpart.

Why can't the same apply to monsters?

Because playable humanoid races are SUPPOSED to cover the entire range of power in the scale, from the common villager to the legendary hero or the ascending demigod, while monsters are supposed to have their own consistent level of threat and that consistency is important for the believability of the setting.

Also, there's a reason if the thread opens mentioning the bad examples of one... well ,no, actually TWO under-leveled archdruids: because consistence between what you tell to the player and what you put in front of them is important even for humanoids.
Don't bring the Big Bad and Dark Lord down to level 3 so my party can face him early in the story. Give me the brigand leader as a villain appropriate to my presumed level of competence and leave the Dark Lord for when I'll be badass enough.

...Which are all things we already discussed, by the way. But since the same objections keep being made I think it's my right to repeat myself to answer.

Who said that monsters are "supposed" to be consistent? Even the monster manual says that "you can do with these monsters what you will" - the stat blocks are clearly more of guidelines that set in stone truths.

I for one think not modifying monsters detracts from the believability - so the party's fighter can hit the gym hard enough that he can take on a Fire Giant one-on-one, but not a single Fire Giant can go above or below his stat block in the Monster Manual?

I'd be fine with same enemies of different power levels if there were visual differences between them.

An example that's been discussed is Young (CR 10), Adult (CR 17), and Ancient (CR 24) Red Dragons. In reality, these are all the same monsters: a Red Dragon. The only difference is age. I could easily see adding a couple more categories between those listed (Baby, Young, Mature, Adult, Elder, Ancient) for CRs 3, 6, 10, 14, 17, and 24.

Give a 10-year old Young Dragon (adjusted to be CR~6) less spikes, make it smaller, give it a less intense color of red along with its lowered stats.
Give an 70-year old Mature Dragon (CR 10, same stats as MHB's Young Dragon) bigger wings, sharper features, and change it's name to "Mature Young Dragon" or "Adolescent Dragon" or something like that.

For humans, it is much harder to make humans look different, especially since human power doesn't perfectly scale with age. A 30-year old human can easily be a Commoner or a Level 20 Barbarian. For humans, titles are much more important and I agree that we shouldn't find level 4 and 18 "Archdruids"

I'm saying it, OK?
Since at this point you clearly just want to be fastidious and petulant I'll feel in the right to be dismissive about it.

And I'm saying it because that consistency is important in making them believable. When my party will spot for the first time a couple of trolls, I want to know that these are real trolls, not their gimped parody. And every time I'll fight trolls after that, I want a finger on the pulse of what I can expect. Up until the point my men will walk through them as if they were barely a worry. Bbecause that's what makes them feel like part of the fictional world rather than some World of Warcraft autoscaled bullshit that keeps appearing from level 1 in the newbie area up to level 100 in the epic expansion.

And I don't want to fucking see a single level tag, because when I see "troll" or "Direwolf" or "Golem" I want to know what it means by first hand experience, not numbered tags.
That's how the old games always sold the illusion of playing a D&D campaign in a computer game, why this one should feel the need to be the one that changes things?


That's a different story. A visual difference, or a plot reason to be different than average, makes them effectively different monsters.
Which is acceptable... if done with moderation and not abused (i.e. there are only so many types of wolves of increasing difficulty you can digest before being fucking fed up with them).