This is another angle to address what may be lacking in combat. Focused on what could be buffed in the game to compensate for only having a party of four instead of five to six. These thoughts all came from accepting that cantrips adding surfaces, advantage/disadvantage from height, etc. were all buffs intended to help the player. We haven't enjoyed them, we've provided the feedback. They all have the issue of pidgeon-holing the player to not be role playing out the class.

Now what can Larian do to make a party of four work? (assuming we will get some of our requested changes, but stay with a party of four)

I'm looking for ideas that will give the player options to play the game freely and will allow Larian to let their creativity flow on making the game fun.

Adjust the Table Array (Before racial bonuses come into effect)

Table arrays are interesting, the modifiers we choose make a major impact in combat at the start of the game.

  • The roll of 4d6 drop the lowest has the expected value of 12.24. Rolling six times we would get an aggregate 73 (73.44 rounddown). Giving each character an expected bonus of +6 to modifiers (12x6, Party of five +30).

    The DnD 5e table array only gives +5 (party of five +25). Point buy for Baldur's Gate 3 is derived from 5e's table array.
    Our current party of four is only managing with ~+20 which limits what the player can do. This is a problem, and it's especially a problem for players not familiar with DnD. New players could make a warlock with high intelligence instead of charisma and really have a bad time trying to get through the game.

Now what could we do to improve the player experience?

  • I’m going to suggest giving the player some of the power back that they would be getting if they had rolled for dice.
    Let the player have more points in point-buy so that characters can start with an aggregate +6 modifiers.
    This would bring the party of four modifier value up to 24, almost as impactful as a party of five that used point-buy.

    Recommended outcome of the table array/point buy, this has an aggregate value of 73 (the expected outcome of 4d6 drop the lowest x6).
    (16) (14) (13) (12) (10) (8)


Adjust Proficiency
With a party of six, one or two misses hurts a lot less than a party of four. And, the player still only gets four health pools to manage in each engagement.
I think we can all agree that something should be done to ensure that the player isn’t being punished for being limited to a party of four.

This is where proficiency comes in, it impacts all classes equally. And it's a nice organic way to improve the player's accuracy without adding new rules for advantage. As I've said many times before it's a lever in the game that can be a simple fix for a lot of problems. I would completely leave this up to Larian as to how much of a buff this should be. Giving the player +X to proficiency is an easy way to establish difficulties.

Conclusion

If we're going to be limited to a party of four, we should have a more robust party of four.

Combat in the game would be easier to balance as the party would get organic buffs. Proficiency and modifiers are native to the game. If the player combines the right race and class they could get one stat with +4. I don’t see this being an issue for a party of four. The player will still have the choice at ability score improvement to improve their saving throws, they won’t just be choosing feats. Yes, they could hit 20 soon but that happens in DnD campaigns where stats were rolled for.

Now the player can play the game and not have to worry about disadvantage and advantage all the time.

Lastly, I don't think the party of four needs a buff to health. The player currently gets a lot of options to revive/heal party members.