Level difference

[Совекальщик]

Hello everybody!
I play on a balanced difficulty and from the beginning i always face a battles with an enemies 2-3 levels above me.
For example. I have a party of Laizel and Shadowheart and currently all the chars are level 3. I siege the druids place and afterwards Mintara attacks me at night . How am i supposed to defeat her if she is level 6 and has like 7 lvl 3 goblins which take me 1-2 shots each? Buying the fourth gang member from the Dead guy in the camp doesnt change much.
I understand that the thing is that a leak the experience, but i dont get where can I find quests with a lower-grade enemies. For example, there is a place where a gaityanki leader on a red dragon orders his guard to kill my squad. And... it is 4 lvl6 chars againts my 3 lvl3 chars.
And furthermore. Even if there are quests around which i have to complete before going 100% on main storyline it looks more like a grindwall for me. I dont believe that such a high-rated game has a grindwalls. And roleplay is kinda broken if there are, because the main quest is super-urgent and i suppose I cant spend my time helping bypassers.
So looks like I am missing something terribly.
Please, give me advice what to change.

[Cat]

If you follow the goblin questline (which I guess in your case you skipped instead) you'd have a smooth curve of level 2-4 enemies to "grind" on. Then you'd be able to explore the areas surrounding that (the blighted village is a good central point to explore from) to get even more encounters in that range to get exp from. You can easily reach level 4 just exploring the area around the grove and the blighted village, if you do more exploring then leaving act 1 at level 6 or 7 is easily a thing.

[Enigmatory]

You probably rush in too much. You could easy get level 5 before any serrious conflict get in your way. Me personally slaugthered all 3 goblin leaders in thier haven. I don't know if long rest numbers are matters(never spammed long rest). But that's one of options.
Clear all quests in druid camp. Kill owlbear. Kill spider queen destroy necromancy book. Kill gnolls. Visit burning inn etc. There are plenty of experience everywhere.

[Совекальщик]

Thank you for your answers guys! I will try to change my playstyle accordingly to your tips.

[dot]

Just as others already posted, I also think that the game has an "urgency story issue".

My experience was a little different but same issue.
Understood premise, eldritch horrors has inseminated me and need an abortion asap before I recreate alien in matter of days supposedly. My avatar is Gale, but since resting seems to be a nono in this time, he will not be using much magic. The green nonose chick of the ship seems the most knowledgeable and says that her buddies do abortion every day, so that`s the where I aim.
Along the way many tell me that they may help, but quickly seem like they just want something from me and then more than probably screw me over. I avoid playing along keep pushing on, trying to avoid fights either but rethoric or a quick escape and stealth. No time to rest and heal wounds after all, resources must not be wasted and time is the most valuable one.
Enough to say that I arrived to what it seemed the end of the chapter, after having to reload several times in the last bit to pass an ability check, because as those alternatives realities showed me, no way jose my lv 3 boys were gonna beat those lv 4-5-6. When I clicked on the path to the next area a prompt appeared telling me I am leaving this area to never comeback and that I was dangerously under leveled for the next area.
Lucky it seems my character was able to influence the CHIM as showed in this last bit, and will relive and explore the rest of the area.
And so I did, the first thing was camping for more than a week straight, to see what was gonna happen with the alien baby. Apart from some symptoms that could have been associated to the alien baby, a food poisoning, a flu, or some hag or goblin voodoo magic... nothing, just a lot of camping, eating, snoo snoo with green domie mommy and other reality show drama.

So yeah, wherever I go, I am the Nerevarine, that`s my only roleplay possible if not the one of a dead man.

[Совекальщик]

dot thanks for sharing your experience. Guess we overthink the urgency :)

[Совекальщик]

Hey guys. Tried playing for the new char. Got to the druids' place, spoke to all the people. Not so many quests were given - convoy the refuges, find the druid, save the little girl, help the rapira-guy with his demon-hunt. Decided to go to kill the demon and was humiliated by the gnolls on the road. Gnolls-archers make like 3 strikes per turn which means death to my chars.
So i still dont get it.

[ACS36]

Enemy level has nothing to do with what difficulty you play on.

All that happens is the enemies get a slightly better chance to hit you and you're slightly more likely to miss.

Now, the AI is supposed to be smarter and target weaker foes on tactician as well, but it doesn't really do this. I've seen it spread it's damage across my party and often attack the worst target possible.

There is very little difference between tactician and the other difficulties right now.

[Gilmund]

Originally posted by Совекальщик:

Hey guys. Tried playing for the new char. Got to the druids' place, spoke to all the people. Not so many quests were given - convoy the refuges, find the druid, save the little girl, help the rapira-guy with his demon-hunt. Decided to go to kill the demon and was humiliated by the gnolls on the road. Gnolls-archers make like 3 strikes per turn which means death to my chars.
So i still dont get it.

There is some big place underground to play with in Act 1... :)
I did a part underground before going back on the surface.

[DearSaintMary]

I've stumbled upon level difference too. Met Githyanki patrol of level 6 when I was only 3. The most notable issue was that they could do two kicks in one turn, I wasn't. So I just ommited them for a time being.
But overall it's possible to avoid encounters with enemies 2-3 levels higher than yours, just don't go to goblins layer and gith patrol before you are at least level 4.

Also I overuse Astariaon's benefits of striking first and striking being hidden. One hit is -20 hp minimum. So having at least one strong character that can kill someone from the first strike helps a lot.