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

Are you doing a party of 4 custom characters?

I can get it to work with anything less than party of 4 custom characters. I think it's registering party of 4 custom characters as full party so when I meet SH, it's already considered full party.

I've also successfully modded save files other than the first. All you need to do is ask 1 character to go to camp, the ask everyone to join.

I absolutely love party of 6. I'm still not sure they'd need to do much to make battles harder except maybe implement 5e stats. The battles wouldn't be much harder, but they'd wear down a party of 6 faster than current homebrew stats.

Again, that's excluding bosses like Spider Matriarch. Seriously. Slight combat stat tweaks and party of 6 would reign supreme in this game.

Granted, stealth and surprise attack would still make these fights booty easy, but that's how it is now with party of 4. I can wipe most enemies with stealth and surprise and party of 4. So, can't base it on that. Almost every fight is super easy if I know what's coming and I position myself right using stealth and surprise.

You are right ...
I have read coments there and they say that 3 is top this mod allows you.

I started with this mod, and ignored the recommendation of using it on the first autosave. I did it on a pre-existing save more than have way through Act 1. The game did crash a couple times, it doesn't like your first boat ride (my 5th party member had issues -- so I kicked them out of the party before the boat and added them back in after), and it always complains when it loads about the save being corrupt or tampered with and highly recommends you don't continue with it, but other than that it has been working great. I've only been running with 5 (my main and the 4 companions I ran across) so it might be different with 6.

The inventory and character panels scroll left/right even though there is plenty of screen space, but a minor inconvenience that will hopefully get fixed down the road. I play on a 5120x1440 ultra-wide screen, so the UI only using the center 50% of my screen isn't great.

Windmill fight against Fezzerk was SO much better with party of 6. Typically, this fight is hard for party of 4 unless you kill Fezzerk right away. So, I assumed I didn't know that, and I worked on fighting like I did the first time I every played it. I focused on taking out the mages and the baby gobbos while Lae'zel focused on the worgs with Tav (used default Tav Cleric of Selune).

SUCH a good fight with party of 6. I can't even begin to tell you. Wouldn't need to tweak this fight at all. Not even a little. It was faster and I still took a bit of a beating. Not super bad, mind you, but it was enough that now I need to long rest. Now, if the first fight you have at the grove gate were that good or better, then I'd feel more like I really saved the grove.

So, to be clear, the last time I long rested was at the grove. Took out the owlbear, goblins and ogres in Blighted Village, but nothing north of the bugbear sleeping. Also took out the skeletons in the necromancer's lair. Didn't do the spider lair yet.

So, relatively good amount of fighting before I'm feeling the need to long rest. Now that's an adventure! Not that party of 4 getting my butt kicked unless I stealth everything gameplay. I feel like I made some real progress and such in a single day, and if I was playing smarter and a bit more skilled at these kinds of games, I'd be able to get even farther in a single day. That's what I'm talking about.

Skeleton fight in the necro's lair, though, still needs serious tweaking. They need to unleash all 8 skeletons for that fight to be enjoyable. Ogres also need AI fixes. One just stood by and watched as we killed the rest. Still, though the ogre fight was MUCH easier, they still got in a good couple of whacks on my people and it required a short rest after.

And it was awesome when I picked up the necromancy of thay and had the characters interacting, all saying their bit. Very nice.

Anyway, I'm telling you, this is the way the game was meant to really be played. I don't know if I can ever go back. I may have to break my own rules continually and mod it forever if Larian doesn't make this truly apart of the game options.

I really still hope they do, though. My absolute ideal is to play with party of 4 custom and 2 origin characters at all times. That, I think, would be lots of fun. 4 Player multiplayer with 2 origins to do story content to enjoy the full experience with others.

Love the 6-man party mod, and will never go back. One thing I have noticed: if you have a 6-man party (1 custom, 5 original) during some of the initial Grove encounters (Goblin Prisoner, La'zael's Interrogation, etc.) sometimes the game will glitch on the after-conversations and require a reload. Other than that, some of the tougher fights are made easier, and I love it. I may even look into the max level mod.

Unfortunately, my family and work responsibilities simply won't allow me to participate in a multi-player game - my schedule is just too bonkers.

That being said, regardless of the fact that I already purchased the game, unless I can play with a party of six - whether implemented by Larian or via a mod, I won't be playing. I'm lucky to get one play-through of a game - multiple play throughs are impossible - if I can't maximize the content available in that run, I'll invest my free time elsewhere, and sadly miss the Forgotten Realms.

I felt that way after play-testing the game and feel even more strongly about it after reading the experience of those using the mod. It has become a red line for me at this point.

All I have to say right now is that fighting the phase spiders with 6 was SO much fun. I didn't use the Larian gimmicks to beat her. I just wandered into her lair like I did on my first playthrough.

Party of 6 at level 4, it was fun, challenging, and not frustrating. I won, but it was still rough. I even long rested before entering the well. Did both fights without long resting again, but I had to short rest after the first fight. I even summoned an imp for Wyll and cat for Gale. First fight, several were close to being dropped. My Tav was healing hard. Second fight, she actually hatched ALL her eggs and Gale had like 4 HP at one point. Wyll had 6. Tav, Shadow, and Gale all expended all their spell slots but 1. Gale had enough to feather fall the party into the Underdark. Long rest definitely required after that.

Was it easier? Yes. Was it SO much more fun and less painful and frustrating with multiple attempts made just to beat it save scumming to win? Absolutely more fun. I feel like my characters are heroes instead of me being a save scum to win loser or I have to REALLY know the game to get through it.

So, you know what? The game can actually keep its mutant homebrew Misty Step Spitting Spiders. With a party of 6, it works really well. Would regular phase spiders be better? Eh. Maybe. Until I test it now with a party of 6, who can say for sure? All I know is, the spider lair was HUGELY better with 6.

So, Patch 7, give us party of 6 option and proper stats to test it out. Then we can say for sure one way or the other. 😁

My ONLY problem with a larger party size (and I am sure it is only me and no one else) is feeling like I have to play zoomed out more and constantly in "tactical mode", being ready for anything. Smaller parties make it easier for me to play more zoomed in and have a (slightly) more immersive play.

Other than that I totally get what people are saying about 6 member party sizes. Especially at lower levels and especially for spell casters at lower levels. I appreciate the plethora of scrolls, but would it be better if they weren't so necessary?

Again, just me and YMMV.

Joe

I use zoomed in almost constantly. It really isn't much different between 4 and 6 in this regard. They still need to fix the janky pathing whether 4 or 6. Regardless, characters get in the way.

Woof peoples and happy new year.

Been a while since I visited the forums.
I have tried using(again) the party size extender 'mod'.

Since patch 6, at least, I can't seem to get it to work. I know it worked on previous patches(4 maybe?). But for
the life of me it just WONT work anymore. I don't mean that when I try load the game after modding the save file
it gets the corrupted error like others do. I can't even load ANY save game in the editor. I get the following error
message:

[img]http://ibb.co/nkwdmGM[/img]

I have tried mentioning this in the comment section on the Nexus but had no replies in months.
Has anyone else encountered this error?
If so if you managed to remedy this, how did you 'fix' it?

Love and sausages xx

Had more glitches and crashes related to the mod. I almost lost all the saves and had to reinstall the game.

Mods SUCK Larian. Please don't make me do this in the future. I'm about ready to quit playing now. That's how frustrated I am with this.

On a positive note, the spectator and bulette fights were fun with 6.

How do you like this idea ... turn off the group limit

I met Shadowheart, she joined me.
I met Astarion, he joined me.
I met Gale, he joined me.
I met Lae'zel, she joined me.
I met Wyll, he joined me.

AND 10 MORE

Thats basicaly what we want ...

So far, the "mod" is working fine for me. I have to use the original auto-save at the end of every session, dismiss all companions at camp before a long rest, fast travel back to camp to reacquire them after long rest, and only load the original auto-save if I have more than a 4 person party at the time; but whatever ...

Main Character: Criminal, Custom Drow, Divine Soul Sorcerer.
Custom Companion: Outlander, Custom Lineage (Human), Hunter STRanger.
Custom Companion: Folk Hero, Wood Elf, Land Druid (Artic).
Origin Companions: Shadowheart, Lae'zel (Battlemaster), and Wyll.

Wow. I don't need to do all that. Once I modded a save, I play the game, save like normal, dismiss no one, and I'm fine... Except for the above mentioned game crashes. Lol.

I've made it work on original save as well as ones I had way into the game. The only one it won't work with is my party of 4 custom characters.

Either way, it's a pain. It would be 1,000 times better to NOT have to mod.

If I was only playing 1 main character, I could do it that way too. But I'm playing 3 MCs and 3 companions. The trouble is that 2 of my chosen companions are the last 2 I can recruit. So I swap out Gale for Lae'zel, and Astarion for Wyll. It wouldn't let me swap companions with a different save. And I plan on dumping Lae'zel before I go into the Underdark.

Also on the mod's comment page, they tell you only to edit the 1st auto-save of a playthrough, that it doesn't work with other saves most of the time. I definitely wish a 5 or 6 member party was an option. Who knows, maybe for full release?

Edited to add: So I tried to rest with all 6 party members, the game got stuck. I couldn't complete the rest and I couldn't leave camp either.

Did the duergar fight with party of 6. One note:. Let the undead live on once Gehk dies. Then the fight would be evenly matched. I focused on Gehk and virtually ignored the undead - except SH did turn undead once. Fight was fun regardless, but undead not dying would make it better. Had Glut with me too, so having him also doesn't change things much.

Downvote ...
Sory but i dont like the idea at all.

Focusing on necromamcer is regular amd kinda logic strategy you dont even need to metagame necesarily.
It should not be removed just bcs its effective. :-/

My point is that the undead make the fight more even for party of 6.

So, if you don't remove the undead by killing Gehk, the fight is more challenging.

But, like I said, either way, it was fun with party of 6.

Sure ... that is why kill necromancer makes that tactic so effective ...
Its like killing healer instead of bashing tank that is healed and hope for crit.