Thankfully nobody ever suggested anything like that. Well, some probably did, actually. And I do remember that Mage: The Ascension sounded interesting, for a White Wolf game. But that's certainly not the case in D&D. You have built up an encounter where a 10th level character faces 12 creatures that have a 1/4 Challenge Rating. It is absurd to blame the system because you've designed an unchallenging encounter that is, by the metric of that very system you're criticising, unchallenging.



I suspect you've been playing the game wrong. I've been killing "nigh-omnipotent demigods" for three Editions now, and this despite never setting out with the intent to kill anyone.



Neither of those encounters were particularly memorable to me. I've said below that Baldur's Gate is a very easy game, and that's without making six min/maxed characters as you do. Those few times I've been seriously screwed in the game are:

The encounter with that mage on the steps of the Friendly Arm Inn, and that just boils down to the fact that his high-level Magic Missile will pretty much always instantly kill any level 1 character, so it comes down to whether I can interrupt his Mirror Image spell, kill all his Mirror Images before he casts the Magic Missile, or hit him with a Sleep/Charm spell.

The Vampire attack early in Shadows of Amn, and that's not so much that the encounter is difficult, but rather that I had wasted so much time travelling around Athkatla that when they attacked, I had only one weapon capable of hurting them, and using magic on them would only cause Cowled Wizards to pop up and join the Vampires.

Actually, Greywolf murdered me a ton the first time I played, too.