This was definitely a game design choice and issue for me in DOS (1), but I didn’t feel the same about BG3, it seemed pretty well paced to me

There isn’t any obvious way to either see where your low-ass level gang can quest next

I do this by walking to the edge of my explored area, looking for red circles around whomever is there, and checking their level. (If it’s higher than mine, or there are many more of them than my party, I consider carefully before Jenkinsing into battle.) I also look for fresh corpses around them, and listen to whatever they’re saying before I approach. My party members have even been known to interrupt me with a warning if I start leading them into likely doom. Cut scenes do the same. With all that information being telegraphed, it seems obvious enough to me.

early encounters in the wrong neighbourhood will kill you dead anyway so there’s still railroading going on.

If you stick with the game long enough to learn the mechanics and available tools, I think you’ll find that planning and tactics can find victory in most encounters even if you’re under-leveled. This is not railroading. It’s giving players the agency to take on harder challenges if we want to. And we can win them.

A nice side effect: replay value. As we develop our skills, we can still find challenge by making more bold choices next time.

no zone where you can keep grinding to build a few levels before moving on like in a Final Fantasy or something.

I don’t see this as a fault. D&D and Final Fantasy might overlap a little by sharing a genre, but they are very different kinds of game with very different approaches to combat. I find this one more interesting.

• you can go anywhere with your “low-ass level gang” without a warning because it doesn’t matter, within the same act you’re more or less on a similar encounter difficulty (even considering bosses).
• given point one, why should there be grind? Every encounter has its purpose and the game is carefully scaled so at no point you should feel overwhelmed by difficulty (as long as you somewhat prepare for encounters)
• as someone else said, the game is beatable on lvl 1, according to the official stats some even managed to do that in honor mode
• if you really have that much of an issue with leveling and combat difficulty you could play on a lower difficulty, install an exp multiplier mod or install a mod that adds more encounters so you can “grind” (note that the latter two methods will make you hit a ceiling at lvl 12, so act 1 and 2 might be slightly easier but act 3 will be pretty much normal)

So any kind of certain content being too difficult for your level is railroading to you? Now that’s a hot take if I’ve ever heard one.

Also, you can beat the game at Level 1.

Um, what? 😅😶