This is some real interesting Roleplaying!

[Death Knight]

I usually like it when games have a way of making it fair to play the game at any rate you can. One of my favorite ways of playing games is when you take a character that is not normally as strong as the others, and you allow said character the ability to gain experience much faster than normally possible. It usually makes the character 'outclass' his allies if in a party based game. So for example, my 2nd play through of Avernum EFTP had my main fighter 2 lvls higher than the rest of my 3 person party. Daxen was his name and he not only had 2 lvls more health but also 2 stat boosts to boot. The reason this is possible is through exp. bonuses and taking a smaller than 4 man party.

 

This works in Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition as well. I had a swashbuckler (which is a thief class) which normally rises in lvls faster than usual fighters. Although my party member (dorn), a half orc blackguard was strong, at end game, I tested to see who would win in a fight and due to the extra health and more lvls (plus more lvls equal more damage bonus for swash), my character won. This is ridiculously powerful as not only did dorn wield a magical two-handed sword, but also my character only wielded a magical poisonous dagger.

 

Planescape torment is even crazier. With added wisdom bonuses, my thief who was teamed up with morte, had gotten to lvl 25 while morte was only 22. Just pure awesome! I found that those 3 extra lvls were 3 stat points and very needed. I had about equal power as my Baldurs Gate 2 character had, and they were an undead hunter (paladin class!)

 

Fallout I didn't try as swift learner sounds good but really isn't. If you look at the exp you gain, you don't gain extra exp from kills but moreso just from skills which is very lame in my opinion. Still worth try as it might be fun.

 

Icewind Dale doesn't really have a lvl cap so in reality it can be very lethal to try what I did in Bg and PS:T.

 

'Outclassing" is by far one of my favorite ways of making a character in a roleplaying game. I am hoping that jeff will keep those 2 experience traits in Avernum as I am looking forward to making a 2 man party in the future to see just how many lvls I can gain over my other party members.

 

If anyone knows of any other rpgs that have this, I'd like to know as its fun.

[Merteuil]

Well I'm writing this before fully thinking it through so we'll see how that goes.

 

I can't think of anything that immediately comes to mind but I do know KoToR, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect are all to a large degree spiritual successors of Baldur's Gate. The great irony being Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is nothing like it's namesake. Any who in those games I can't think of a way to exactly level in the way you mention, it may be possible to only go out and adventure with one character (or a diminished amount) and I never noticed, this I imagine would achieve exactly what you want.

 

Kingdoms of Amalur is Bioware's great big failure and doesn't meet any of the condition you mentioned, but it's freaking fantastic. Play it.

 

Now Legend of Grimrock just came to mind, you may or may not find something you're looking for there, I never experimented with those sorts of things.

 

The XCOM games are pretty perfect for this and will be very similar to Fallout in game play.

 

The Might and Magic series might also be a decent candidate I'm a fan of the sixth and seventh game. The first five being too antiquated and the 8th and on just being plain bad.

 

The more I think about it the more I think Might and Magic is the way to go. If I remember correctly you can use less characters than he suggested 4, or at least kill the bejeezuz out of anyone you didn't want to use, and I vaguely recall some sort of perks that increased leveling speed for some sort of strength loss. Maybe it was one of the really high-end black potions which all had a negative and positive effect.

[Alorael at Large]

Kingdoms of Amalur isn't a Bioware game.

 

—Alorael, who interrupts with this one tiny piece of information. Other than that all he can say is that balancing restriction in one area with growth in another is tricky business. And Baldur's Gate and Planescape give you questionable comparisons, as the protagonist is likely to have more optimal stat allocation and in the latter case simply more stats and other benefits.

[Merteuil]

My research yielded no connections between the two so I concede. The similarities are striking though. Namely in the skills, abilities and equipment/inventory.

[Lilith]

kingdoms of amalur is currently the intellectual property of the US state of Rhode Island

 

i'm not even joking, the company that made it was funded by a really, really ill-advised state government loan program and the state foreclosed on it when the studio went under

[Ohsky]

In Avernum 2 there is a remarkable disparity between the level of my characters just because of the experience penalties granted by race and traits. The difference could reach over 3 or more levels.

[Prince of Kitties]

ToME 2, Yeek Paladin. That is all.

[Death Knight]

Other games would be off the top of my head-Arcanum (solo or party), Wizardry 6-8 with different class exp requirements (although Ive only read up on it-will get 6-8 on gog), TOME (cormac human-outlvls enemies), Divine Divinity (same as tome except a trait). You could even have Eschalon on there as you basically can ignore the main quest, level up 5 lvls higher than the normal endgame lvl and destroy the entire lot of them.

 

Edit-I couldn't have been more wrong. I just read up on Wizardry 6-8 and the game makers are insane. It seems that the time it takes to finish one of those games is anywhere between 180-250 hours as said on howlongtobeat. The time it seems is taken account of by your experience points it takes to get a lvl. 3 million exp points for some characters 1 lvl. That is insane and checks all of wizardry off my list. The makers must be insane to think that someone has that much time. 40-60 hours is enough already, jeez.

[Lauren CW]

In FO1, just leave the deathclaw queen alive and farm them for XP. For money, get your barter skill up decently high and trade the gun runners.

In FO2, fight stuff around San Fran, and you'll be overlevelled and have more than enough money to buy literally anything you ever need in about 2 hours.