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

There is no reason not to have a 6 man party. If you want less then play with less Charakters or even solo. Adjust difficulty down and everything is fine.

But ruining fun of people who are used to 6 man party’s in dnd games just because it’s divinity3 styled is nonsense

Just want to voice my support for a 6-man party.

+1

+1

6 man parties are always my preference.

Especially with companions with fixed classes I want some flexibility.

People complaining that we don't have enough to do during our turn with only 1 action/turn should try the game with more companions

I think gather your party of just 4 party members is just too lame.

I play BG type RPGs for the story more than extreme difficulty. I'd rather have 6 party members with me bantering and reacting to situations. If you want to feel amazing because you beat the game solo on "raped in the ass there's no way you could beat this with 20 party members" difficulty then hurray for you, go ahead and do it. How does the option of having a larger party for those who want it affect you?

For those people who are so concerned about the difficulty and brag about being able to solo the game: If the party size becomes 6, I would assume the game would be balanced around this. This means that solo playthroughs would be even more challenging (you are at 1/6th of the strength is is balanced with, rather than just 1/4th). So for you people, this would be a win as you get an extra layer of difficulty and challenge. It is maybe worth thinking about rather than worry about how strangers on the internet play their game and on what difficulty, I think.

I prefer 6 characters in a party too, for several reasons. First, it would make the battles go faster ultimately, due to having more actions. Some fights right now are such a drag and slog already. There would be more agency in a fight and you get more chances to do -something- rather than watch the AI move and think. This is a thing mentioned before by many others too, as an argument against how combat would get even slower.

It also allows for more fun party compositions, with trying less than optimal builds or subclasses that are just fun to play, while not being mechanically that strong. With a larger party size you can experiment more with this without ending with a suboptimal party (this includes going full custom party, with these compositions). Having played the old BG games as well as IWD many times, this is how I keep it interesting and fresh, with strange combinations or to use some underrated/underused kits or classes. If you use the companions, it also allows to use companions you would not use otherwise, be it due to them not fitting party composition, or not liking them as much as ones you always use. Or because you do not use them because the AI beelines for them all the time)

I personally like a slow progression throughout a story, which is not neccesarily based around just exp (at least in BG3, opposed to the older infinity engine games. You get a fixed exp per character where in the old games the exp was divided across the party, so slower levelling). In BG3 the progression is there through gear as well, you have more characters who you need to divde your gear for. It means you cannot just load all your gear unto 1 character and the more people you havce, the slower the gear progresses. This likely also means you have less money and need to think more about your purchases, be it potions, gear or whatever, which makes money and the economy slightly more relevant. Or, if you find a cool magic item you would have to think about who to give it too rather than just giving it to your one fighter, or your one mage (Also, it means more of the magic loot gets used, rather than have so much of it be reduced to vendor-trash or Gale Snacks)
This in effect does affect the difficulty, though not by neccesarily making it easier as you have a group of average/moderatly equiped characters rather than 1 character who has all the good gear loaded unto him/her. Your larger party consists ultimately of more vulnerable characters, which (assuming proper encounter balancing) balances somewhat out with the increased action economy. Also, there will be difficulty sliders (At least that is what I thought) so you can adjust either way.

And having a party of 6 does nothing to prevent me to solo the game either, a person can like both. Sometimes they want a challenge and that accomplishment of a solo run, sometimes they want to just chill and have a party of adventurers with some fun classes that may not be fully combat optimized. No playstyle is right or wrong and they can co-exist.

Of course if you have the game mechanic, encounter knowledge, and you can metagame and minmax to the degree required to solo it, it would be easier with 4 or 6 members, what's the argument?

That is should be balanced around that ability to metagame every encounter??

Some people like a larger party for story reasons or gameplay-fun reasons (ie. they enjoy managing more people and having access to more abilities to combine in interesting ways), rather than for balance reasons.

Though it obviously introduces balance concerns.

I would think a D&D game would have at least 5 party members. Well, if Larian doesn’t add them, I am sure a mod will.

The standard 5E party encounter 'challenge rating' assumes 4 characters - but there are rules to scale encounters. I'm happy with 4 (played through with two different party combos, both worked fine) , but if they went with 5 that would be cool too (we play with 5 chars in my table top group, because there are 5 of us..if there were six, we'd play with 6). But they need to make a decision and the balance the game around the ''recommended party size".

Dont mind me just adding my +1

+0.5

I think 5 might be the right number, given the turn-based combat system. Fighter-type, arcane caster, divine caster, rogue + flavour (bard, another spellcaster or anyone else).

I still don't get why it has to be just one and only one number. Why not have it be that 4 is the default party size around which the game is built, and then let us - the players - decide whether it should be 5 or 6 or obviously something less than 4, that is best for us? I am yet to read a rational argument for why this would be bad for the game.

+1 not going to get into the weeds of game balance v party size, but i agree with kanisatha that players should be able to decide how many party members they want to bring. but since the current build of the game only allows a total of four member slots, those players whom would prefer an increased party size beyond four currently have no larian ingame mechanics (that im aware of) that would allow for increased party size, and tbh based on my experience participating in the ea i dont have really have high expectations for larian to budge on this game design which is frustrating.

obligatory - in the og bg games you had 6 party slots and could use those slots as the player prefers, either solo, or anywhere between 2-6 party size - wouldve hoped this continued in bg3

as an aside kanisatha - have you gotten a chance to play the ea yet?

As a matter of principle for me, I do not ever buy/play an EA game. So I have been reading very carefully both the Larian updates as well as the threads in this forum to get a sense of what I like or dislike about the game.

Mod edit: Thread merged, original title; "Party Size Question"


I've noticed random rumblings here and on the subreddit about the possibility of them increasing party size. This may be just my imagination. I'd always prefer to have a party of 6 over a party of 4 myself, especially in a turn based game. It's certainly not a deal breaker, but it might help to give us more to do on the player side in the larger battles (instead of waiting for 7 goblin turns in between each PC turn). Anyone else? Thoughts?

+1 please come lend your support to the 28 page mega thread discussion about party size. the og bg games allowed you to travel with up to a 6person party.

You're not alone.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=679595&page=1

I already tried the game with a party of 5 and 6 and it's way more fun.
More things to do during combats, more action point/round, faster combats more synergies between characters, more interactions, more variety,...

The only con- is that the game is even more easy but with a better balance and less OP mechanics, it could be amazing.

OK, how? The only mod I see on Nexus requires save file editing... yuck.