Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Party Size Discussion

There are roughly 3,500 mods on the workshop for Divinity Original Sin 2.

and almost none of them content mods.
Most of the good ones are class mods.

a lot of them are outright cheats or mods that make the game easier.

the best mods are encounter rebalancing mods and that, but they are the minortiy.
Actual conten tmods in the vein of NEverwinter nights? havent seen any.

I'm not personally a fan of many of the mods on there, but comparing it to NWN is a bit unfair, especially given how long NWN had to grow and its toolset.

For the purpose of this thread, though, mods did happen for larger parties, including a file change to support more people online.

Why did BG1 chose to have 6 chars?
Since then lots of people think every RPG must have a party of 6. ( see this thread ).

As far as I know, PnP DnD has been designed for 4 players plus 1 DM.

I have played several computer RPGs with different party sizes. I liked most of them and some were bad, but the party size was never the main factor why I liked or disliked a game.
The main problem with party size were games with way more party members than active party members and the ones who are not in the party do not gain exp. This means grinding for dungeons were you need several different active groups or when you need a specific char for one area or quest. I never finished Final Fantasy 6 because I hated grinding when some late game dungeons require several active parties at once.

The widespread connection between people wasn't quite as developed as it is now. People talked, but 6 player parties for D&D groups with friends were pretty common, and I think the group that Minsc spawned out of was the primary inspiration for the party size in BG1-2, but don't quote me. I could be misremembering. There's a video on it somewhere, might try to find it tomorrow.

Its not necessarily true that Baldurs Gate set some kind of standard for the genre when it comes to party size but you make a good point about PnP becoming to bloated with too many players. And since a key feature (I think it is) of BG3 is the coop mode adding 2 extra players it might not work that well. In a single player game you are the star and every other character is essentially disposable and party siize wouldnt matter except for balancing issues.

I'm curious to see statistics from the D:OS games of exactly how many people play coop or single player, or both.

Not really unfair; with the NWN games, people were actively creating content well ahead of the game releases because there was a lot of community engagement by the developers. Obviously the quality and usability of a toolset, post-release, also affects how many people can indulge their creativity, but you have to spark some interest early.

Maybe nobody cares as much any more, or perhaps the creative community prefer Bethesda style RPGs to D&D?

You bring up some good points; but NWN was also marketed as a game where you could create your own adventures. It was a selling point of the game. Though DOS2 modding was huge, I'm not of the opinion that mod support was one of its biggest features. I think it just extended the game's staying power.

So to some degree, I think the answer is that the creative community prefers the other styles of game. But more because they're more accessible, rather than what type of RPG the base game is.

Agreed, NWN being marketed as an adventure-building platform is why the developers were more engaged with the mod community. Larian are not really producing their games with adventure-building in mind, so even with tools available, the engagement isn't particularly strong.

As games/engines become ever more complex, I think you need a much stronger emphasis on mod-building credentials to get much traction. Even Bioware no longer have that focus, hence the rather limited mod availability with DragonAge after switching engine, which is a shame.

While I could anticipate they might go the way that they have said, I'm really disappointed with that decision. They could at least make it an option. He obviously knows there are lots of people that want a 6 person party or he'd not have hesitated so much with his answer. He knew a lot of people would be disappointed when they heard that. Leaving it up to the modders just plain sucks imo. First off you have to wait, and that is assuming someone will even do a good one, and further that it will function well. Having an option when you start would be SO much nicer.

There is a lot to look forward to with this game still, it will be a fun RPG I'm sure, but, I'm still not sure it's really going to feel like BG to me where as with 6 characters I'm not sure how it couldn't so long as I accept the different engine.

I'm real butthurt and triggerd. My glasses flew clean off my face. I'm gonna go cry now. Swen why... Please add the option...

I'm playing through Baldurs Gate II again atm and just at the beginning where you lose Imoen from the party and you know what... IT SUCKS. Now I don't have a good rogue... And now if they don't put the option in (which wouldn't have to be super perfectly balanced I woudln't think, maybe you could just play around with the difficulty a bit) I'll have to wait indefinitely for a what could very well be a buggy mod (holy crap did we have some issues with DOSII mods even well after it had been out for a while) or might not ever even be created. I'm sure someone will TRY, but how long will it take and how functional will it be is entirely unknown and up in the air when it could be built right into the game and actually work...

They say 4, we want 6. How about a compromise of 5?

You do not really need a rogue in 5e to open locks, disable stuff and be proficient in sneaking, tho. Any class (even a fighter in medium armour could do that, or in heavy armour with only disadvantage in sneak too)

That´s the same for all the skills. Any character could be trained in any skill and be competent at it, due to your class, background or feat. 5e is very flexible in that regard.

Relax, guys. Sven just confirmed it can be modded to 6 characters. I guess the balancing will be shit but if you really want 6 chars, you can. No worries.

Beside the rules 5e actually there could be 4 player characters enough.

But ... let decide the players, I would like it with optional 6. Even without extra modding there were already old screenshots of a very old stage of baldurs gate 3 showing 5 player portraits. Hah!

And it would be more roleplay, more fun and more player friendly if the single- and multiplayer groups could decide for their own. And not tell the 5th or 6th friend to go!

While our party will consist of 4 people it seems there will be possibility for more units to temporary join our team. There are summons, pets, familiars but also temporary quest companions, if I understood Larian correctly. So it's possible we will have 5 or more characters in our party in certain situations.

Do you have a source about followers that may be companions ?
This could be great but don't really remember about it.

Anyway temporary followers is not really the same as companions.
As many players, I like management and a party of 6 instead of 4 is 150% more management

It could be great if the temporary companions you're talking abouté could become real "classical" companions (meaning : without the caracteristics of origin characters)

I think they talked about it very briefly in the first live stream of the game. I remember noticing that and discussing it with some folks either here or on Reddit, and people pointed out the mention of followers which would be temporary additions to the party.

Swen also talked about it on a recent interview on YouTube. That was when Swen also mentioned that the UI was designed to handle more party members, so the game could easily be modded to accommodate 6 characters.

If it's so easy, why don't they just do it? I ask this rhetorically. I suspect its not ultra difficult but of course would take some of their time and they don't want to spend any time on it apparently which I think is kind of a crock since so many players obviously want it. It seems like they just simply don't want to, and if they did it would be begrudgingly while giving us 6 char requesting folks some serious side eye. But you want input and here it is, we want six. It's the most requested thing for the game it seems like pretty much or at the very least one of! If it can be "easily" modded then why not just make it an option built into the game so that we know it will actually work.

And yeah the companions are temporary, kind of like summons, like the bear cub or whatever it was. Not a full character and probably either when it dies, it dies or it's just a fun addition to the party but not really anything super special.

We (my gf and I) played DOSII w/ the 6 story char plus 2 of our own creation for a total of 8 plus any temp followers, summons etc. They know how to make their engine handle more numbers without a problem. In this case they just simply don't want to, but I don't want to rely on an unstable mod again and trying to figure out how to remotely balance the game myself, which took playing through the whole game with the mods in play just to see how it balanced out anyway. They could do that and make a reasonably balanced experience for 6 as well as 4. And again the dialogue wasn't an issue in DOSII and I don't see why it would have to be in BG3 either. Each character had a set of interactions based on situations and others in the party etc. They could do the same thing.

So yeah, they know we want it, they just don't want to. But it's "easy"... And lots of people want it, but we have to rely on a modder to do the work for us and not the game developer. K...

Clearly they believe BG3 will be better with four characters. The game will be balancing around 4 player party. Giving official support for a bigger party also creates an expectation for it to be of high quality. When players mod 6 player parties it will break the balance. Some might not care about it, or might see it as a worthy traidoff, but that's not something a company would want to add as an officially sanctified version. They want you to play with a party with 4. And they said, that for those who don't want that, it should be easy to mod.