| That's a good question. Druids can reach 10th level with a 161,000 point experience cap, but the only 5th level spells they can cast are Animal Summoning 2 and Cure Critical Wounds. So the other 5th level spells can only be used if you play a Cleric with an experience cap remover.
My guess is that the other spells were developed in anticipation of BG2:SOA. From what I've read, BG1 was sort of like a trial run for the "real" game the designers wanted to develop (BG2, that is). Since those spells were available when BG1 was released, they were put in the game. Why not? When it was time to work on BG2, the game engine worked very well, and most of the new items and spells worked correctly on the first try. All of the testing they had done when they made BG1 paid off and made their job easier when they made BG2.
The only other explanation I can think of is that they knew that players would use experience cap removers, so they wanted to make worthwhile spells available to please the crowd. Or maybe the spells were added before the experience tables and experience cap were finalized. Who knows?  |