Leveling Up is a core part of any RPG, but the Baldur’s Gate 3 level cap might confuse players who don’t have any experience with Dungeons & Dragons. Baldur’s Gate is a very faithful D&D adaptation, and Baldur’s Gate 3 uses an interpretation of the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. As such, the level scale is taken straight from D&D, and players with no tabletop experience will be surprised by how low it caps out. Unlike games like Fallout and The Witcher which have level caps of 50 and up, the maximum level in D&D 5th Edition is 20, and Baldur’s Gate 3 currently has a much lower maximum than that.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Level Cap
The maximum level in Baldur’s Gate 3 is 4. It is currently in early access, so the maximum level is expected to increase as the game receives additional content updates.
Only the first act of the game is available right now, but you’ll likely reach level 4 before coming anywhere close to the end of the current early access content. The maximum level in the final game will be higher, although the final level cap is still undecided. In a Reddit AMA from March, Larian stated that they intend to set the maximum level at 10 in the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3, but they later went on to clarify in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun that they have not fully decided on the maximum level for the full game.
The 5th Edition ruleset that the game is based on caps players at level 20, but it’s unlikely that Baldur’s Gate 3 will let players get close to that. Dungeons and Dragons adventures using this ruleset rarely run the full level gamut of 1-20, and it’s difficult to create meaningful content that appropriately scales in power with the player as they reach double-digit levels. Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, lead systems designer Nick Pechenin explained “it’s a massive, massive amount of things to come up with and the higher you go in levels, the harder it gets.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available now on PC and Google Stadia. The game is currently available in early access with a full release planned after at least one year in early access development.
