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

That is certainly not the only problem ...
There are different rules, some classes was changed, something that is missing in BG3 is in tabletop and vice versa ...

@Demoulious

That was my point. The game is balanced for party of 4 ONLY because it isn't using proper stats and rules. It's all based on homebrew and gimmicks.

But the COULD make it based on actual D&D 5e and party of 6 and the encounters would not really need to be changed. Then people would actually get a 5e experience. That's my point.

So, players who want party of 4? Change nothing. Everything as is.

Players who want D&D 5e as it should be? Bump party size to allow custom 4 characters with the ability to have total party size 6.

Then 3 homebrew nerfed imps are fine for party of 4, and 3 actual D&D 5e imps are fine for 4 customs and Lae'zel.

3 homebrew intellect devourers are fine for party of 4, but 3 actual intellect devourers with 5e stats and rules would be doable with party of 4 customs and Shadowheart.

Homebrew spider Matriarch lair is tough for party of 4, but still doable with actual 5e phase spiders and party of 6.

My point is that some think they'd have to redo encounters altogether to make party of 6 work. They'd have to add more monsters and jazz. Nope. Just do actual D&D rules and stats. Then party of 6 would be challenging and just what many of us are looking for.

Such a long thread, I even don't know wether I posted sometimes or not.

For me it's easy, I like 4 person parties and I hope it stays as it is. I don't care at all for tabletop here because there usually a char is played by a person, but in the video game you have to play all the party members. I find it utterly annoying to do so in Pathfinder turn based for example. As BG 3 (thankfully) is turn-based-only, a party bigger that 4 is a nightmare for me. Ok, I'm exaggerating. It wouldn't be as bad as in Pathfinder with it's stupid 3.5e or so rules, but bad enough.

Okay, so play your game with 4. I'm not trying to stop you from doing that. So why are you trying to stop me from playing with 6?

+1

O_o

o_O

What happened with "options bad" ?

This is different. Lol. Just give players - all players - the ability to have a party of 6. If they don't want to adventure with 6, they can just take 4 with them. No options needed in the options screen. You can literally take as many or as few as you'd like. Just because they give you a max of 6, it doesn't mean you have to take 6 with you.

But, what if they balance for 6 and it's too hard for party of 4?

Difficulty settings. They said we'd get them eventually. If party of 4 is too hard, decrease difficulty a notch or 2.

Again, game is balanced currently for 4, for the most part. So make EA a difficulty setting. Then add a Core 5e setting, which would be harder. Allow for party of 6, and balance 5e difficulty for party of 6. Those who want 5e AND party of 4, be ready for a challenge.

But, again, if they did XP split right, it'd work out anyway because party of 4 would go up levels faster than party of 6.

The only differences i see is that this is aproximately ten times as much work ... and (wich will probably be the most important) something you want.

The only work is work they have to do anyway if they are going to keep their promises for:

1. Difficulty settings
2. Benchmark D&D game

What a coincidence ...
Same it was with weapon sheets ... no additional work ... odd it was not good enough for you there.

Whatever. Like I said. If you get what you want. Great.

Isn't that what I said on that thread too? Why you bringing that up here too?

That is not a good argument. Very few players will want to automutiltate. If the max is six, people will play with six and assume the game is meant to be played with six.


In all likelyhood, difficulty related to the number of characters in a party is not just a matter of setting attack and defense values. One of the nice things about a limitation in party composition is that you will have to make do with what you have. Sometimes you will step into a trap because you did not bring a thief, or you will have trouble healing because you left the cleric at home. So you will encounter more situations where creative thinking is in order. In that way, the number of party slots also influences difficulty.

In another way the limitation could benefit gameplay too: With a maximum of four classes in your party you are more likely to have to rotate people, depending on an estimate of the situation ahead. That, in turn, means more variety in character interactions.

Having to change knives seems more fun than carrying a swiss army knive all the time, so to speak.

For the record, I am fine with four characters, if that is how Larian wishes to design its game.

1. Options are always good (and inclusive, if that sincerely matters to people).
2. The perceived added costs of options are hugely exaggerated by opponents.
3. In the specific case of allowing people the OPTION of playing BG3 with a party of 6, the added costs are very small.

Which is why the default max should remain 4, but there should be an option in game settings to allow up to 6(+?) with a warning that this is not the developer-intended experience.

This is particularly necessary for the case where Larian doesn't change any difficulty aspects of the game for increased party size (the nearly-trivial cost option). If players are by default allowed to use 6 PCs but not warned that the game is balanced around 4, then many players will find the game mind-numbingly easy and likely won't even think of using <6 PCs, let alone actually do it.

Exactly. ^_^

No. Sometimes it is good to have limited options and make the best of that. When done right, it can make for more interesting gameplay. It is the task of the game designer to make the player suffer before ultimate victory is achieved.

That is difficult to prove. I can imagine there is quite a bit of balancing involved in the capabilities of individual characters. With a party of four, each individual party member will probably need to have extra quality to compensate for the lack of quantity. Also, it is imaginable that set pieces of the story depend on the number of characters (e.g. being thrown in jail and having to break out one by one).

There are other considerations that I haven't seen anyone bring up yet as well, in regards to balancing a game around the option of having both a 4-man party, and a 6-man party. Just "Add more enemies" doesn't fly as well as it sounds, nor does adjust levels. Levels shouldn't really be a thing, and I generally vouch for just hiding that from the player completely. Monsters have challenge ratings in D&D, and that's a fixed rating unless homebrew is involved. That's a tool for DMs to balance encounters against party compositions. On top of that is action economy.

If you have an encounter balanced for 4 players, but want to make an alternative for 6 players, just adding two more enemies isn't a flat and evenly scaled balance. Particularly when you get to monsters with multiattack trait. Introducing two new enemies then technically means 4 more actions against the party. Whereas adding only 1 enemy in that case, slightly scews the action economy balance in favor of the player party.

TL;DR there's more manual labor balancing to be done when accounting for both options than "Just increase numbers". At least if a fun and well designed experience is desired.

So far the best suggestion I've seen is just what Fuji said, increase party size cap with warning of not being intended experience. Game will be significantly easier, inevitably so. But all that requires is a change in a handful of story goals (individual pieces of scripting that controls how parts of the game works), and... To really generalize and not write a wall of text, add two more triggers (indicators for the game to know where to place player characters in certain situations, such as dialogue, camp site for where they stand, sleep etc) and the new dialogue cinematic systems that presumably also has triggers to dictate where player 1-4 stands (hence if you mod now, sometimes two characters stand inside each other, because they both end up sharing the same trigger).

And honestly, party size discussion boils down to preference. D&D is perfectly fine with anywhere from 3-8 players. 4-6 is the sweet spot, and there's no right or wrong in that range. Though I generally don't recommend higher than 6, unless both the DM and the players are very experienced, both individually and together as a group.

Personally I think 4 is the better option for a video game. While unlikely applicable among ourselves here, one common criticism players have is that combat feels too long and a slog, that turns take too long. It was even worse in DOS2, hence both animation speed and turn change was significantly sped up and optimized in BG3. Yet it's still a common complaint among "casuals" for a lack of a better term. And if a party of 6 was an option, pretty much everyone would default to that and assume that's the right/best way to play, as mentioned by someone a few posts back. Purely pragmatically speaking, I highly suspect a higher party size would lower the overall general audience reception and positive feedback. Cooler for us more hardcore D&D players sure, but that's about it.

Some less significant cons as well is multiplayer, which already suffers with difficulty to fill a party of 4, and on a regular and consistent basis enough to see a full playthrough to its end, particularly in random groups. (Hence I never recommend it for Larian games, they're too long for most random groups to last, at least without character import/export).

Warning players that "changing these settings means you will not have the intended experience" sounds to me like the good way to manage developers' vision, difficulty and accessibility. I don't have the links in mind right now, but doesn't Celeste and other games praised for their approach to difficulty do that ?



Max Party Size could simply be a slider in the difficulty options. The game would just let you know that if you increase it, from its original value of 4, you are making the game easier.

It would then be up to the players to pick other difficulty options to counter-balance that (e.g. slide Enemy A.I. to "Smarter than default", or increase Enemy Numbers, or, if it comes to that, increase Enemy Stats).