Level scaling in Baldur's Gate 2

[ZFR]

So... turns out that 20 years later you can still learn something new about a game that you thought you played forwards, backwards and upside down and know all its secrets.

I just learned that some encounters in BG2 have level scaling. Depending on the character level, the encounters would have more enemies.

Does anyone have more details on this? What encounters have it? Note that I'm referring to the base game, not the Extended Edition.

[Azred]

Some of the fights are run by script and can indeed create more foes if the party's level is over a certain amount. This got wildly expanded by the EE version (which I helped beta, along with IWDEE).

In the original, vanilla, pre-ToB game the "drain wizard spell" opcode could accept negative numbers, allowing you to recharge magic items.

[ZFR]

Thanks, Azred.

[Azred]

I do not know which fights scale based on party level; I would have to browse through all the .bcs files to figure that out. I know for a fact that most encounters in Watcher's Keep are scaled. If I recall, for some reason certain fights are additive--if party xp above a certan number then add this extra enemy--while others are subtractive--if party xp is below a certain number then remove an enemy. I can only presume that those were two different teams handling things, but it is odd.

[ZFR]

Originally Posted by Azred I do not know which fights scale based on party level; I would have to browse through all the .bcs files to figure that out.

Nah, I just wanted a rough outline with maybe an example or two.

A guy on the GOG forums actually did give an example: "For example, an undead spawn point will spawn 1 Skeleton Warrior and 2 Shadows if main character has less than 400k XP, but it will spawn 1 Lich, 2 Greater Mummies, and 2 Skeleton Warriors if main character has at least 2mil XP." And Illasera in ToB has fewer goons depending on your level.