Baldur’s Gate 3: How a Sequel Could Turn Feats into a Late Game Gold Mine

Highlights

• Having a level cap of 12 in Baldur’s Gate 3 causes issues with player progression and enemy balance, leading to a lack of motivation to complete side quests.
• Introducing a feat system in a future sequel can reward accumulated XP with legendary feats, avoiding needlessly complicated spells and balancing issues.
• Legendary spells and feats, like Power Word: Kill and Divine Intervention, can turn the tide of battles and make characters feel more powerful when used tactfully in playthroughs.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has a level cap of 12, which becomes problematic when many players hit it well before the halfway point of Act 3. Larian had good reasons for introducing the level cap, which included spells that would break the game being introduced at higher levels. Another issue is balancing enemy encounters with a party of a level higher than level 12. However, this also brings in other problems, such as removing character improvements to work towards and thus motivation to complete side quests beyond exploration and story purposes.

A way to solve this in a future sequel to Baldur’s Gate 3 would be to introduce a feat system, where accumulated XP could be rewarded with legendary feats, much like how legendary boons are granted at high levels in Dungeons and Dragons. This would solve the problem of introducing needlessly complicated spells for every battle and would avoid the need to balance enemy encounters.

Legendary Spells in Baldur’s Gate 3

Feats are usually granted every four levels in Baldur’s Gate 3, but Dungeons and Dragons has a number of exceptions that could be brought over to Baldur’s Gate 3‘s sequel. There are a number of one-time-use feats and spells that could be used for this purpose, including some that are already utilized in Baldur’s Gate 3. One of these is Power Word: Kill, which is granted to the Dark Urge who has embraced Bhaal as his Chosen, or a Cleric’s Divine Intervention, both of which can only be used once per playthrough but are incredibly powerful.

Being able to only use them once per playthrough means that they need to be used tactfully and with care, but if they’re used at the right moment, they can turn the tide of a battle. This is especially important for something like Honor Mode, and especially late in the game when the player has reached their character’s level cap.

How Baldur’s Gate 3’s Sequel Could Improve Leveling

A Baldur’s Gate 3 sequel could exploit this in several ways by using it to expand the list of spells or feats players could possibly obtain based on class, so that gameplay could become more tactical at later levels, but also so that there is something to work towards to gather more XP once the level cap is reached. Now that the new Player’s Handbook is due to be released soon, with changes to all the classes, and ONE DnD soon to be released as well, there are bound to be legendary spells, feats, and actions for each class that the developer of Baldur’s Gate 3‘s sequel can choose from to give as options for higher level characters.

These legendary actions could be used once per playthrough, and could either give one effect like Power Word: Kill, or a selection of effects to choose from with Divine Intervention. This would make a character feel more powerful and versatile, and make completing quests and exploration feel more rewarding than reaching the level cap and continuing the game for tens of hours with no more character progress, even if there is loot to be found.

Perhaps once characters gather enough XP, they could get a selection of feats or spells to choose from depending on their class. This would also encourage replayability for Baldur’s Gate 3‘s sequel, and make the game more tactical, as players try out different feats and spells for different builds.