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

Throwing my hat in the ring with two points that have long been important to me.

First of all, regardless of what that party size is, my choices of who to bring to any given part of the game, is going to be almost entirely if not literally entirely based on story reasoning. This is true of any game with choice of companions but especially true of highly story driven rpgs like this.

I'm not going to bring the wizard and fighter to fight the boss for the well designed loudout for the difficult fight, I'm going to bring Gale and Lae'zel to fight the boss because they both have some sort of personal history with them.
It never mattered what class my Shepherd was in Mass Effect, what the enemy type was going to be, or what combinations used the "detonation" mechanic. I brought Garrus on Garrus missions and Tali on Tali missions.

This has a serious significance on party size for a reason I feel is obvious. Fighting some boss it might be very important to bring a well designed party into the fight, with someone to tank, heal, deal with any "trash mobs" around, and someone to burn though that bosses health bar. Roles which would demand taking certain npcs. And I waltz into that boss fight with a team of 4 squishy casters, or 4 magic-lacking melee people, because that's what the story demanded. I fight this boss, or encounter, or whatever is going on on, effectively hindered because I'm playing the story and the party size wasn't big enough to maintain efficiency while doing so.


The 2nd poing is that while I understand the mechanical and balancing choice of a party size cap in a given game, it always feels stupid regardless.
Not because I think the balance choice itself is bad, but because of in-universe (story/cannonical) context.

In Mass Effect I had this team of highly capable soldiers, and I would go on a blatantly non-stealth mission, and only bring two of them. A few mission in the trilogy were "stealthy infiltration"-y but most of the time there was no good justification for not bringing the whole team.

Here in BG3 the same thing that happened to me in DoS 2 keeps happening. I meet some npc, who has a great reason to work with both me and the rest of my party, says "yea I'll join you, but only if there's no more than this many people around" and my immersion is immedieatly completely broken.

I mean seriously, I find this collection of people who all have tadpoles in their brains, and none of them are willing to do the only intelligent thing of working together as one big group until the problem is solved.
"So we both have worms in our head trying to turn us into monsters, as do all these other people, but instead of working with you or trying to solve this problem myself I'm just gonna go stand next to your campfire like a useless fool, because I can't count to 5."

I fully understand that a dev has to pick a party size to balance combat around, but for the story and these npc's to make any sense at all, shouldn't that party size be the number of companions available?

"Hey Gith lady, I know you said your people straight up have an established cure to this ailment we share, and you know of someone who can help us reach your people, making you obviously my best hope of getting through this alive, but I'm already a fighter and I'd rather bring a guy who tried to bite me in my sleep because he's a rogue, so go wait by the fire being useless."

I totally agree with it. For me more companions means more fun, more interactions and the ability to try out more classes and specs without constantly switching.

Unless it's been changed recently, I think Larian has said that our choice of party members will be locked after Act 1. Presumably, the companions you don't choose will go their separate ways from camp to find a solution to the tadpole, and you'll carry your chosen 3 companions through the rest of the game.

This is similar to how DOS2 worked, so not surprising, but I know some people won't like it. I don't mind it myself, because it means I can form a closer bond with the chosen adventuring party. It also gives me a reason to play through a second or third time with different companions.


If it's true that the party will be locked after Act 1, then we won't be seeing that kind of dialog after that point. There won't be any other companion choices after that.

I hate the idea of having to choose 3 companions and loose the rest, I want to have choices. What kind of mechanism is that? I mean, I'm ok with loosing one or maybe two companions due to story or approval reasons (I think by the end of the game, Astarion will hate most of my characters, might as well sell him to Cazador and make some profit)., that happened in the old games too, but not all of the not active party members.

I don’t like it either.

But it might be that the ones you don’t choose become your adversaries. Now that would be nice. I wouldn’t mind justifying killing some of my companions other than just being a murder hobo. I could see Asterion and Gale choosing to keep the tadpole to enrich their power.

Or for evil characters, the lost companions will want to stop the evil character from gaining godlike power.

Yeah this feature alone is a dealbreaker for me with this game. If it remains in the final game, I would play the game only if there is a mod available that completely trashes this utterly ridiculous and unjustifiable feature.

I'm sure there will be a mod after release, just like for DOS:2. This is the one thing that I didn't like about the starting party members. They are essentially all evil (except Gale, but even he has some certain "tendencies" due t his condition). Normally the first playthrough on an RPG game, I play a paladin, or something similar. Tanking, healing, pretty much survival until I get the hang of the game and it's mechanics. Imagine a paladin with this group of companions... TPK the first night at camp. :P

Anyway. I hope that they expand the number of companions so that you could have a "good" party. With current companions, that doesn't seem likely.

Is Lae'zel evil? She's an arrogant githyanki racial supremacist, but I'm not sure she's evil. She usually responds positively to "good" player actions as long as they don't imply weakness. That's her thing; she's basically a Darwinian. She disapproves of trying to save the Tieflings in the Druid grove because she thinks the weak should perish if they can't defend themselves. It's consistent with her martial philosophy. I'm not sure that's actually evil. It's like saying the Spartans in the ancient world were evil.


Somewhere I think a Larian dev has said they wanted a mostly Evil companion set at first, to try pushing the player into exploring more than the usual Good type of party. Not sure that's working out, but we should see at least a few more Good-aligned companions in Act 1 eventually.

She’s probably evil. She only acts nice right now because she needs the character to find a cure. Otherwise she’d be like the other githyanki who basically consider all other races as lesser and will execute them on the spot if they resist their authority in any way. She is Lawful Evil but just being pragmatic for now.

Yes, she is evil. Those are all evil traits.

Githyanki: I'm one of the old-time 1970-1980s pen and paper D&D players, and Githyanki are a Lawful Evil race.

That said, with the current companions available it is very difficult to create a viable 4-person party. You are stuck with certain choices--you pretty much HAVE to bring the vampire rogue, unless you roll a rogue, and you HAVE to bring the sassy cleric (unless you roll...) and same for the Gith fighter. A 5 person party would give you a lot more choices as to what you wish to bring. Larian added Druids, which required a lot of game rework, but didn't necessarily solve the "4 person party" conundrum. A Paladin class might have, thus eliminating the need for the Warrior and/or the Cleric.

How about next patch you do a bunch of game rework and re-balance the encounters for a 5 person party?

She fits that for sure, but it's odd that she responds positively so often to "good" player choices, as long as it's not in the narrow realm of strong vs. weak. This is where the traditional DnD good-evil alignment breaks down, I think. I don't see Spartans as evil, and that's basically what she is.


Well, at least the current game design removes the need for one leg of the classic Holy Trinity, a healer class. There are enough potions and the food mechanic that a healer isn't needed in the party. That allows some flexibility in whether to take Shadowheart or not as an off-tank and healer.


Unlikely, I think. I'm sure it's been said before, but the combat encounters just aren't designed for it. Not just the need to boost the enemy with more numbers or strength to avoid making it too easy with a larger party. It's the design of the areas where major combats take place. There just isn't enough room. The entire game world in Act 1 is designed to fit an adventure party of 4 and enough enemies to make it challenging. Modders can increase the number in the party, but they can't increase the size of the maps to allow the room for a larger party and more enemies.

This probably won't be the most popular opinion here, but I prefer a four-person party over six. This is mostly because I don't want to manage that many characters - both from a mechanical perspective (dealing with gear and inventory, picking spells, etc.) and from a story perspective. I want to focus on a characters. In my ideal world, I wouldn't actually have direct control over the companions - I could interact with them and form a plan together, but how they execute that plan (and whether they even stick to the plan) would be entirely up to them and their personality. I like playing from the perspective of my character - not an entire party.

In addition, I rather enjoy having a party that isn't well-rounded. If the tools we have available are restricted, we have to get more creative in the ways that we solve problems - this is a good thing (assuming the game is structured in a way that is sufficiently flexible). If I can have access to everything in one party, that removes some of the more interesting choices I have to make. I'm all for burning bridges and jettisoning companions after act 1 - this dramatically improves replayability.

I mean. I don't like assigning DnD alignments like Good and Evil to real world people but if Spartan society had been an FR culture it would totally have been an Evil society.

More creative in a system that limit your creativity a lot*

My biggest fear is that we couldn't really have choices in the final game...

With such a limited numbers of companions (let's say 8 as assumed by dataminer), whatever the party size the replayability will nearly stick to "good playthrough"/"evil playthrough" while your main character is probably going to have a class companions do not have instead of something you really like.

Want a pure evil playtrough ? Don't play a rogue or a fighter because you'll have one as companion.

With 6 (or maybe 5) characters in your party you don't really care if you have 2 rogues.

@Frumpkis, I agree with you about the specific word "evil" in relation to the real world. But @Dexai is correct that we should look at this from the pov of the labels used in the FR setting and lore. And in that (FR setting) context for me, the bottom line is that regardless of whatever label you assign to the current five companions, three of them are automatically out for me based on my FR-context wish to play exclusively good-aligned characters and where my party members should also be mostly good-aligned (though maybe one neutral member would be okay). But absolutely no evil-aligned, so Lae'zel, Astarion, and SH are automatically out (and may even get killed off by me). Furthermore, I also will only be playing this game with a mod that increases party size to six, because for me that also is "standard" for a BG game. And lastly, I refuse to use generic "mercenaries" in a game like this.

So you add up all of the above and what I need is a minimum of FIVE good-aligned companions (or at least 3 good-aligned and 2 neutral-aligned) for this game to be playable for me.

ive seen comments like this a lot too - but i really dont see how this tracks. How would having 'access to everything in one party' also 'remove some of the more interesting choices'? the player still decides what choices they are making - i dont see how an increased party size would restrict a players decision making or limit their options. if anything, you would have more tools in your bag to tackle different encounters and scenarios. (id even argue youd have more tools so the player wouldnt need to rely or fallback on more of the 'cheese' or exploit like tactics currently in bg3's ea build, but thats an aside)

even moreso (although tbh idk about getting my hopes up for this), if larian plans on having additional origin/npc/merc companions, ideally varied by class/race/alignment-personality/etc., then even with a party size of 6, the player will still run into scenarios where they will need to make 'more interesting choices' regarding which party members among a large cast they will be taking on the day's adventure.

+1 on getting more info regarding the act/companion locks post act 1 tho, altho i think we are on opposite sides of the fence here too - idk if 'burning bridges and jettisoning companions' post act 1 dramatically improves replayability, but i do think this approach is directly tied to the ea's current limited party size and cast of companions. of course this will depend on larians implementation for the game both mechanically and narratively, but locking the player out of content post act1 of X number of acts (og bg had 7 chapters - altho likely wishful thinking for bg3) currently feels arbitrary and like handcuffing the player's experience.

I agree. Well except for not controlling my party members, personally I like that. All we can do now is just wait and see what Larian decides. There are both sides of the argument in regards to party size, some seem to like it as it is, some seem to want more. I think MAYBE Larian might do 5, but considering their history of 4 party members, I think more than likely it will stay at 4. But only time will tell.

Having interesting choices and having the most options aren't the same thing. Interesting choices often spring from having restrictions placed on you and then having to figure out how to work within those restrictions. Having the ability to control those restrictions (by selecting your few companions from a pool) improves replayability. One of the best feelings I have when playing D&D is finding ways to solve problems when I don't have the right tools for the job.

For example: If you are trying to get into a secret guild hall, there may be many ways to approach that task. An obvious solution is to have your party face try to convince or bribe your way in. If you don't have a good face, you need to come up with other options. Maybe you can find a way to eavesdrop on the door to hear the secret password. Or you can kidnap a member and try to take their place. Or you can spend some time looking around (maybe checking maps) to try to find a secret entrance. Or you can just use force and try to bust down the door. If you always have a smooth-talking bard because the game doesn't make you narrow your party down, you might never learn about those other options.

If you always have a full skillset available, there is a tendency to fall into the habit of doing whatever seems the most obvious, which is probably the same thing over and over again and tends not to be as fun. I generally don't choose my companions based on their skillsets - I pick them based on which characters are interesting enough to want to keep around. If I end up with all rogues, that's fine - I can find a way to work with that and it has the side benefit of letting me dig deep into the rogue class and seeing how they can specialize in different ways. Some things will be easy. Some things will be hard. I'm sure I'll fail a lot. As long as they make failure interesting (instead of just a punishment), that's fine.

Restrictions make games interesting.

ya i still dont agree with your logic or rationale here fam but enjoyed the life sharing

1) as a player, you dont need to choose to use the smooth-talking bard for every encounter - you can use the strengths of your other companions for any of the variety of scenarios you detailed above. in fact, if im restricted to four party members then i for sure will not learn about those other options or varied strategies bc the game is arbitrarily limiting my adventure party to four ppl already. (disregarding multiple playthrus - which is a different discussion)

2) respectfully, not really sure how to even respond to the second comment particularly given the current development status of bg3's ea build. idk, id say that if we had the full skillset, which can be interpreted as having the traditional 6person BG party size, or more class/race options, or a closer adherence to 5e balancing then maybe larian's ea build would be more fun? there at least would be less need for the larian cheese/exploits currently in ea and swen may actually show content during his panel playthroughs that dont consist of 'gaming' boss encounters

if you like the restrictions that a four person party currently imposes, have at it, you can still run with just four if the party size gets bumped to six, but atleast the rest of us wouldnt need to be subject to the same 'interesting' restrictions