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

Agreed.

Personaly i hope for none. :-/

There is nothing worse in my experience than companion who joins your party at last moment (even worse is if game FORCES you to take new guy -_- ) and replace someone you allready know, know how to play, and you developed some relationship with. :-/

We should get all companions right from the start, the sooner the better ...

It doesn’t really make any difference when it comes to this topic in particular.
They may be the current five, they could be fifteen.
A small party with little variety of classes, builds and characters across a long-ass CRPG spawning dozens of hours would suck regardless.

Oh gosh! I HOPE they give us lots more companions. I thought you wanted that too.

Ugh! Heck no. Don't lock us in to the same dang 5 companions for the whole game.

I want:

Karlach
Halsin
Maybe even Vengeance and/or the other 3 Masks
Minthara for the evil path
Mercenaries - Custom characters I can bring in later or right from the start
Maybe even Jaheira and/or Minsc

Additional companion options provide more variety and options so that if I am liking a present party member less and less, I can NOT continue with them.

How nice would it be for some players to kill Astarion but meet a Rogue or hire a Custom Rogue at the Grove. Some people, like my wife, hate Lae'zel and Shadowheart. It'd be nice to have some other cleric and fighter options.

And Karlach is my MOST coveted hopeful companion option right now. I REALLY want them to add her as a potential.

But, you know, I'd like to be able to recruit even a few odd ones, like Bernard, the automaton. Once you convince him you're Lenore, you can convince him to be in your party.

Or what about Thrinn if you take the Absolute path... or Nere, though I can't stand him personally?

Yeah, no. How many companions we have to choose from has a considerable bearing on party size. If anything, the more options, which I want, the more a party of 6 is important so you aren't SUPER limited on who you can have with you.

I do ...
But i want them to be spreaded around Act 1 ... prefferable would be exclusively!

But yes, i certainly want that too ...
I want AT LEAST single Origin character per class ... i mean i would probably not play them, certainly not all of them even tho i may try some ... but still want option to pick to my party whatever the hells i want ... not just what im offered.
And it aply to Early Acess aswell ... maybe even more than full release ... i just want to test and see synergy between Barbarian, Sorcerer, Druid and Ranger ... the only way to get that right now is to make custom party. Wich completely differs your experience.

Also in my honest opinion the absolute basic should be two (one good and one evil) per class ... or at least some replacement if the character leave you (i mean right now the only way to have Warlock in your party is to play good guy ... ugh) ... OR and that would be also quite nice, some dialogue options that would keep the character in your group, even if your basic Aligments are incompatible ... i would sign my soul to Swen ... i mean Devil ... for some really good Coruption (ok, or redemption) arcs for companions. :3

I would certainly not mind mercenaries in Act 1 allready ...
For example that Zentharim guy, you can make a deal with when you save his ass from Gnols ... and a little later from his previous boss ... that seem like perfect candidate for being Sword (or dagger & bow?) for hire ...
Or Aradin (and basicaly everyone from his group) ...
There should be possible to persuate Nettie to go with you search for Halsin ...
I would not even mind if some of Tieflings would be hireable. :3 Especialy Lakrissa.
(Just for the context ... the joke is that "krysa" in my language means "rat" )

In context to previous quotes:
How horrible it would be if those players would either had to play Rogue themselves, or wait for it til Act 3? :-/

That is what im against, especialy if that would be some kind of companion that you HAVE TO take with you (seen that before in some games) ... this model "Hi, im nobody you know, but now you believe me that im important for the story, so even tho you allready have your own party from thrusted, sometimes even loved, equipped and in all other ways prepared adventurers ... pick one to kick out and take me instead! I can promise i shall judge every decision you make from now on." -_-

Yeah, that i would like too ...
Bernard would be indeed great companion, and he dont even need to talk, since his programing dont gave him own will. Perfect!

Especialy the Absolute path seems to be in critical need for own set of companions, since except Astarion nobody seems to be willing to walk it.

Very good to know, but how does one access this variable to change its value? Is that a complicated process, especially in the context of people like me who are not at all versed in coding?

It's a matter of going to a website, download the tool. Load a save file into the tool, scroll for the value, and change it. There are step by step instructions.

BUT your game will know you've done it and tell you that you're using a modded save, and if your computer is like mine it might crash your game more frequently.

Others didn't seem to have crashing problems, though.

Some random thoughts on things I've seen posted here lately.

I'm not sure if we will have them for Act 1, but Larian did confirm they are going to have some kind of "hired mercenary" system for basic class access without forcing players to use the Origin companions.

I "believe" last we heard was 8 Origin companions for release. The remaining 3 possibly already known, I won't say here. While I personally am not a fan of the Origin companions idea overall, I would like to see at least 1 per class if they are going that route though. Hired mercenary's may be able to be custom built for max potential but lack the side quests and extras that fully developed companions come with(Origin or not). I'm generally always for more options.

On "repeatability"... I'm sure someone can call up the exact statistics and prove me right/wrong whatever, but I believe I can safely say most people don't even completely finish a single play through of most their games. 4 or 6 players per group at 8 Origins means you need 2 runs at least regardless to see everything.

As to the OP 4 v 6 debate. I believe some of the complaints elsewhere about classes being more diluted and generalized, ie everybody has bonus action stealth/can use scrolls/etc are directly related to the decision to go with a 4 player party coupled with not wanting to "force" multiplayer players into a "last guy to join has to play the healer" type situation. A party of 6 means you don't NEED to min/max quite so much and can afford to try adding characters who maybe wouldn't be quite so optimal.

both pathfinder kingmaker and wrath of the righteous allows us to play with all companions in 1 single playthrough. it's player choice who they want to bring them along and never lock them out so that you have to play 2nd playthrough. i like that idea. i concur. a party of 6 provide players more flexibility in how we want to play the game. we can even pick support classes as main hero if we so choose and not forced into having a min/max party. having more options means game will be more fun.

thing is i kinda feel larian design always wanted to give players some artificial difficulty and challenge by restricting players with 4 characters and then proceed with bombarding players with outnumbered foes. and the only method to play it is that players have to resort to terrain/height/shove/barrel exploits to win battles. i say larian should forget their old formula. pathfinder has difficulty without having to resorts to exploits. the way to bypass pathfinder difficulty is to learn the rules and mechanic.

Aha! So it is your save file that gets changed, not the game files directly. And I suppose that carries over into additional future saves you create?

For each save, you have to do it again.

Seriously?! So you have to keep reusing the same save again and again, which also means quicksaves and autosaves won't work.

Means we can't save to another save games? If that's the case is possible to make duplicates of the same save files? That tedium is really discouraging. Larian give us 6 party character already!.

My bad. No. I miscommunicated. Once you tweak the first save, all saves and quicksaves within that particular playthrough of saves will be fine.

I meant it does not carry over to other playthroughs. Every time you create a new character, you have to do it again.

Sure it does ...
Once you altern the value, it stay alterned for future saves, for that particular party until you create new one ...

If you start new game tho, the notification window telling you have alterned game files may occur again, but your party limit will be set to 4 until you change it again.

ahh i see. then that isn't so bad. but still official support from larian having the options for 6 party characters will be neat. imagine future patches or expansion break the mod and it no longer works. with 6 party characters i like to see balance made on the encounters as well.

Exactly

Oh thank God! Thanks for the clarification.

But like @Archaven said ....

I kinda know how to fix your error Tuco, because i never use singleplayer mode so i can't meet that condition until now.
To make that mod work you must use Multiplayer mode even when play alone, here is proof:


So either MULTIPLAYER or no MOD, it's your call. And yeah i know my English suck, i am an asian

As I said in a previous reply, I actually got it working just fine simply updating the tools used to edit the savefile.