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

Hmmm I partly take back my concession of "standing corrected".

Your BG3 wizard is much more powerful than a typical 4th level wizard would be. 5e raw if you misty stepped away, you wouldn't be able to also cast Magic Missile. So this method depends on whether Larian will leave in the ability to cast a non-cantrip spell and a bonus action spell in the same turn. If they don't, you're restricted to casting firebolt, which would do much less damage.
The magic missile amulet is also OP.

Pretty sure the ranger's summons are also fairly OP in BG3's current state.

Warlock...I'll give that to you. Although "breaking line of sight" sounds suspiciously like abusing the enemy AI :P

I've been thinking about this and chewing on it a bit, and....
Fights are going to get harder.

Action economy for 4 members is not going to keep up.

I mean, the minotaurs themselves, if you fight them legit... they wreck you.

But could a 6 man party take the minos?

It changes things, doesn't it? having those two extra rez bots?

Anyway. My final thought, after hitting 100 hours. 6 person is the way to go.

Maybe it will be added when more party members are available to choose from.

I also wish for a bigger party but... I know Larian won't ever make it possible

Who knows.

Not a deal breaker for me.

Jut feedback

Oh yeah, BG games used to have 6 members parties and it was nice.
But it's not BG anymore it's using it's name and it's skin but it's a doppelganger

The rangers summons seem OP first glance... they go well against gobs.
But in the underdark?
Not as much.

None of the fights require 6 characters, 4 is fine. The issue is that every fight catches most people off guard and un prepared. Once you know what's up you handle them all just fine with 4.

From my perspective, 4 would be an issue only if I liked more companions and couldn't take them with MC because of limited space. Fights are perfectly fine with the party of four.

The combat is boring, and having a bigger party will make it easier, and therefore quicker, to get through them. That's a huge plus.

That's sounds like a different problem altogether

Not really.
He's right... With more party members you deal more damages/turn so combats are faster and easier.
Combats would be way less boring with two more companions.

If.you want bigger encounter in a TB game, you have to play with more characters.
At the moment many combats are boring because it's too slow and because nothing happen except waiting.

And the difficulty of the game doesn't mean "more ennemies"... Solo bosses are usually harder than groups of trash mobs even if there are alone (because they have more HP, deal more damages, are harder to hit, have better spells or strategy,...)

Right. Combat will probably be over quicker. But I just don't buy the long combat = bad combat. If we were to consistently apply the "more = longer = worse" we should eliminate summons, familiars, undead, etc. because those are drags on combat completion.

Said it before and I'll say it again -- you use different, more diverse and more interesting strategies with larger parties. More party members = more fun.

I don't disagree with this even while still also holding to my point.

What I was ultimately getting at is that there's more than one reason why a bigger party is better.

Agreed. The reasons for a six member party are many.

(another topic but combat has gotten better since the correction of the cantrips. The DOS feeling is considerably lessened)

That is good news. Now they need to take a close look at environmental elemental interactions more broadly.

I play D&D and RPG Games for almost 30 years now and I absolutely agree with the first post: a party size of 6 players is almost a must-have for BG3.
And I would like to see it especially in the possibility to play a 6 person co-op game (and you can create 6 characters from scratch for your party).

Keep it up, we just tried BG3 in a 3player coop game this weekend, it's very very promising. Hoping to be able to invite our whole party when the game ships.

I'm undecided.

I like the number 4. And I think the game is clearly being balanced for 4 player party sizes, so that's a major point (and the whole "party formation" part of the game becomes obsolete in single player if they don't add more friendly characters with a 6 player party size). I think they could workaround the combat/gameplay advantages by maybe adding a modifier to groups larger than 4. Like -1 on all rolls for each party member above 4. Skill checks become tougher, magic missiles becomes trash tier in a 6-man.

Additionally, I don't really think 4 party members is all that restrictive. You can pretty much cover all skills and proficiencies with just 4 characters.

Lastly, we only have half of the classes so far. And with bard, druid and paladin all coming in the final release, I think there is going to be plenty of healing power, making the "healing slot" almost trivial... heck you could have 2 healers, maybe 3 healers... they're all gonna be able to fight anyways.

This is a role playing game.
Variety in parties is the point. Cover all skills and proficiency is not.

Geralt of Rivia ventured solo. The Warden/Hawke/The Inquistor were all a part of a four member party. The Arisen and his/her pawn could be accompanied by two hirelings.

Basically in other games, four member groups is what I am most familiar with, so I can't imagine what a party of six would be like. So to Larian as a new player of Baldur's Gate games on Stadia ...... I would certainly like to find out how a party of six felt?

+1

As I remember, gained experience points distributed among characters. So, playing solo or with 5 companion have different effects on the game. BG is a roleplaying game and not all characters are needed in fight IMO.