Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Is there a chance party size will be increased or are we stuck with 4 ?

Not a fan of a simple 4 char team, any chance they will reconsider before release.

As far as the community knowledge...extremely few things are set in stone. But most probably you will have to hope for a modder to give that to you

I hope it stays at four!

There is a slim chance. In addition there has been no argument of real substance for not having a six man party.

Party of 4 is most likely set in stone, but at least the recent UI changes would make it significantly easier for modders to ignore that (since pulling up the inventory no longer shows the entire party's inventories at once).

Never been a fan of small parties in big CRPG either, but if after two years of people requesting it as an optional mode in EA (you know, that environment that SHOULD be ideal to try things not set in stone) nothing ever came, I think the chances are pretty slim.

It sucks, as 4-men parties are notoriously a thing for tossers who don't know better, but the good news is that it's relatively easy to mod it, if with a couple of caveats.



Also, we have a gigantic megathread (which is actually a Frankenstein merging of dozens of threads on the same topic) going on for the last two years here: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=822843#Post822843

I am trying different classes at the moment and will probably downgrade to a party of 3 this time, just for fun.


Here you go.

This one is outdated but, keine angst, there will be more at launch you can choose from.


I hope they give the modders early access to the full release version...they deserve it, and it will give them a chance to be up to date at the gate.

But to be honest. When you appreciate the Baldur's Gate series, you get one of its core elements par excellence, namely the possibility of a (custom) party size of 6. A party size of 4 = DOS & DOS ≠ Baldur's Gate. As simple as that.

larian has always been a multiplatform first company (this is based on my observation). all their games if possible will released to all platforms (which include handhelds, mobile, consoles). if i were larian why wouldn't i do the same? so as such.. to cater for multiplatform.. to appeal to "everyone" .. the casual gamers .. general audience.. this will required to the "minimum" party characters in an RPG. you can see certain devs like bioware can even go lower to 3.. the lower the number easier to cater for handhelds and controllers. so.. nope.. i dont think there be any chance at all with larian.

so even for the "toilet chain".. it will be the same across consoles and PCs. its the same for DOS, DOS2.. it will be the same. and the same turn-based even. it has make larian too "comfortable" in going out their "comfort" zone.

the current limit is already 9... i love how people think consul \ Mac will handle adding more

I think its fair to warn people, that while it seems that 6member mod (aka save alternation) ... is working well, it have few subtle bugs you can easily miss.

For example when you are using it, your 5th and 6th party members seems to be ignored by any in-game event that affects your party.
(Followers often dont offer you dialogue when reacting to your decisions ... sometimes i must try to give Lae'zel to 5th or 6th position and find Githyanki Patrol ... i wonder if she would recognize them or not.)

Not true. All "quest triggers" work regardless of the number or order of companions, for a start. And several party banters can involve up to several companions at once.

What happens on the other hand is that in SOME circumstances the game won't let every companion you are carrying react to what you are doing, but just pick one of them to comment on it (seemingly randomly).
To be clear this happens even with a party of 4; the party of 6 just makes it slightly more noticeable.

There are few other quirks that should be ironed out by modders if Larian won't do a thing about them (and I have no real reason to think they will).
- during dialogues companions tend to have a fixed, pre-established position in the background that DOESN'T account for additional characters, so they often overlap now.
- there are some occasional "bottlenecks" hardcoded into the game where you either ungroup the extra party members temporarily before doing something (i.e. taking the boat in the Underdark to reach Grymforge) or they get automatically "killed and glitched away".
- the DEFAULT formation for the party absolutely fucking blows, as it's this awkward, inconvenient widespread triangle, and I'm not sure if modders will be able to help in this sense (see the screenshot I posted above).

I would love to have one or two more companions in the party because the need to go to camp, talk to someone to tell them to piss off, talk to someone else and tell him to come with me was getting tiresome... but the set pieces are crowded as it is... and the game in its current form would be too easy with 6...
Not holding my breath for it.

Always funny to me people say 4 is fine for these RPG games that support 4 max....and he first mods that gets made are for a party of 5 or 6.
Like...its nearly a given that if you can control 5 or 6 already in a game NOBODY is going to ask to a MOD to lower that to 4 LOL.
If BG3 was announced two years ago with a party of 6, NOBODY would be complaining to lower that to 4.

Personally never liked 4 party strategic RPG games, never will. Annoying middle ground, you have to cut corners for everything.
Either ONE amazing character (Witcher, Fallout, Planescape, Disco Elysium etc...) or give us a full party 5,6+.
Now for BG3 I am SO hoping we can have more followers somehow to make a party of 4+ something that happens quite often within the story.

Well it happened to me when i stepped before that Tiefling girl who were about to shoot Sazza ... i had Gale with me and he didnt react.

If this is what you mean, then i stand corected.

It's what I jokingly call "imprinting bias" or "Polaroid bias".
These people more often than not will defend anything to protect the status quo and take the side of the developer regardless if it's a thing they actually prefer or not. Often even using puzzling arguments like "It's not going to change anyway so it's fine" (as if the point was making a prediction rather than expressing a properly motivated preference).

In most cases if Larian would come out tomorrow saying "Yeah, we decided that a 4-men party blows unwashed ass because it doesn't give you many chances to interact with more companions" you'd have the same people jumping on the cart and switching their tune to "I'm glad they changed it, I prefer to control a larger party as well".

It's also worth stressing that no high ceiling for party members has EVER stopped anyone who wanted to play with less of them or even solo. Not even in the past Baldu'rs Gate titles, for a start.

Personally, I prefer a party of 5.

A larger party, i.e. 6+ members, is a bit cumbersome for me to maneuver, while the 4-man party is too limiting. We'll have to wait and see what the modders can cook up, if Larian doesn't change it (and I doubt they will).

That is what really grinds my gears, the fact that so many just repeat the same debunked arguments in favour of a party size of four, would immediatly change their tune if Larian implemented a party size of six. It's almost as if they have a physical need to be on the perceived side of the developers.

Yup. And to be clear, party size is just one example among many.
If tomorrow Larian would come up with, say, a revamped reaction system, at least half of the same people claiming today that "It's fine as it is" would puff their chests and proudly say "See? i always trusted Larian to do the right thing, you guys were worrying for nothing".

Or maybe they just have a different opinion?

They could, but when you tell them that larian has changed their minds about something.Then you will more often than not find that the average player also has changed his/her mind.

The main reason I prefer 4, is the fact that I would prefer to play as many characters as I would in tabletop: One.

I doubt many would agree with me, but I'd actually prefer a cRPG with one controllable protagonist per player (multiplayer) and rest being fully AI controlled NPCs. I don't play four characters at the same in D&D, let alone six. So realistically I'm indifferent past that initial preference 😂 It'd actually also increase my interest in companions as companions, because anything I personally control, I consider to be *my* character, not a companion. So by having control over multiple characters, it actually lowers the value I put in them as companions.

I'm weird.

As I said a few times already, I would like to have a party of 6. It gives more flexibility.

The game does allow you to play with a one man party. It might even be a fun run, but we who want to play with a larger party must use mods that doesn't work as well. You've got an interesting take composer, but I disagree with you. Maybe an optional game mode where the AI controls your companions would be to your liking, however I doubt it would ever be used by a significant number of players.

This makes perfect sense to me, and also is why I greatly prefer real time or RTwP over TB. Much more fluid having a party that is capable of doing their own thing and they feel less like board game pieces and more like actual companions. I can actually rp my character then and not babysit. In games I have played with 6 companions, I find myself micromanaging only one or two after the initial combat setup because 6 becomes really tedious. I could use less companions but always feel obligated to bring a full party for the story.

Curious, have you tried to play this game solo yet? I did a few updates ago and had a lot of fun. Going to try again with Grymforge, never did that part solo.

I would be happy if the people who want it get an option to play with more but not at the expense of fixing other thing first. This is not intended to be an offensive statement, we all have different priorities for things to be fixed/changed.

I haven't nor do I think I ever would. I prefer the concept of a party, particularly in a D&D setting. I just also prefer games where I follow one lead, a main character. A tangent is this is precisely why I couldn't get into Watch Dogs: Legion, because of its concept that you can recruit and play as anyone. It completely removed any chance for me to get invested and interested in who I'm playing. But D&D must have a party, it's half the point of D&D. But if I am the entire party, there is no party, only me, no matter if there's four or six of me. 😂

I mean, the first mod for Bethesda games tends to be murder children and nudity, so why don't we include that in the base game?

I'm being hyperbolic, but I don't consider this a good faith argument. I think 4 man parties are a perfectly sensible number considering the pace of a turn-based game.

Yours?
It doesn't sound like one, admittedly.


EDIT- And I'm not sure what do you even mean with "sensible". No one was questioning if the game can or can't work with a party of 4, 3 or even 1.
The argument was (predominantly) that it would be better with a larger one, for one million reasons we already argued to death and back one million times:

- more chances to have companions interact with each other and with the player
- more access to their quests and story tidbits.
- more flexibility in party composition where even not optimal, prioritary or minimaxed characters would be welcomed. Or partially redundant ones.
- more chances to make more use of loot of different types in general.
- more tactical options and less reliance on RNG to pass successfully critical situations.

etc, etc, etc.

I like controlling party members in combat for turn-based games and just the main character for RTwP or action games. In either case I love having companions, though! Any number of companions is fine with me.

My counterpoint to these arguments is that less is more.

With 6 characters you can cover all bases, use all gear, easily optimize your tactics, see through most companions stories to completion, etc.

Having only 4 makes choosing your party have much more tangible implications and makes many choices more meaningful. If you can't fill every conceivable party role or have every spell you might need, tactics matter a lot more than if you had the expansive breadth of options you get with 6 PCs worth of tools.

No, it's not unless the "more" is bad in quality and goes to affect the good parts in some ways. Which additional characters wouldn't do.

Oh no, the horror.

That aside, the claim is questionable on a good day, in a game where the number of basic classes and races would still double the number of party slots we are talking about.
Which means a lot of "bases not covered" and "things not seen" regardless.


Buzzwords. You aren't making any point, you are just saying things and pretending they are accepted as reasonable.



Ok, not even remotely true, but let's pretend you'd have a point here...
Who's stopping you from doing it, again? Why aren't you sticking to less characters, even with a larger number of party slots as a theoretical limit?

Okay, dude. You are a bit too butthurt to have an actual debate with, so I'mma step out here. I can tell when I'm wasting time.

See ya, mate.

You can do this with your 4 character party. But let others the bigger party for more variety / opportunities / fun. I can easily reverse your reasoning. Precisely because there are several characters with different classes etc., one can give foes the "coup de grace" in several ways. With more Characters you can have more "backgrounds" for more background goals. If implemented well into the game, you will addionally have to make tough decisions. For example the fisherman at ravaged beach. If you have a folk hero & a criminal then you have to choose what to do. This could be nice for a further alignment / reputation system and maybe combined with some deity buffs or similary stuff (e. g. unique abilities for classes or from artifacts / weapons like in Tyranny).

I am fine with a party of 4 origin charecters, but I am hoping to be able to hire on a merc and have them in the “5th” slot with out substituting one of the 4 origin slots. Even better give five slots to mix and match as I see fit.

Got one PC that will kill any origin charecters that attempt to attack them without due provocation (looking at you pale skin toothy elf and yellow toad girl). If the others have scenes where they attack you without provocation - they also die. He’s not a very charismatic barbarian, so if anyone wakes him with intent to harm, they die…

Plus I would like to have my Barbarian rock band

The problem with party member quests will exist in any game where party members > party slots. Going from 4 to 6 mitigates that a bit, but it does not solve the underlying problem, which is that most games require you to have a party member in the party in order to do their quest.

This is really an arbitrary restriction and it seems like it would be fairly easy to lift. Just make up some handwaving BS about how only 4 people can fight at a time, but they are all with you. This isn't really any sillier than leaving multiple people in the camp. Realistically, if you have 9 powerful allies you would have them with you all the time, not just twiddling their thumbs in a camp.

All of these restrictions are arbitrary. Just balance encounters around N party members, and then lift the restrictions on requiring particular party members to be one of the N to complete their quest.

Larian is not increasing to 6. These arguments are moot & pointless on either side.

I'll repeat my thoughts since I haven't yet commented on this specific 4-vs-6 thread. We should have the option to use a 6-person party. Specifically,

- The default should be 4, and in the game settings there should be a checkbox "Enable 6-person party?" Personally I'd prefer 4 characters as it is less to micromanage, and if by default there was clear UI indicative of a 6-person party (e.g., empty portrait slots), I'd feel obligated to fill them and play with 6. Putting this option in game settings makes it seem like an *optional* way of playing instead of the *intended* way.

- The game doesn't need to be changed otherwise (aside from making sure the game *functions* for 6 players). Larian could just add that checkbox and 6-person functionality and change none of the encounters. If done this way, the checkbox should also say "Warning. BG3 is intended and balanced for a party of 4. Your experience with a 6-person-party may vary." Players could then play on higher levels of difficulty and/or install mods if they wanted a more challenging game.

- The easiest way to balance the game for a variable party size is using split exp. Each character in a 6-person-party gets less exp than a character in a 4 (or 3, or 1) person party. With some slight & relatively easy tweaks to this exp gain formula, the game would be balanced for all different party sizes, 1 to 6. I'd suggest that only the characters currently in your party gain exp, and party members left in camp are auto-leveled to always be no more than 1 level behind Tav.

You are all but guaranteed to get a mod for it, but native support is highly improbable.

It's almost like the argument wasn't about making predictions. Which is something that was already pointed.

Why is it funny? I think the party size is fine, and if I were a modder, I wouldn't make a mod that raises that, and as a player, I won't download a mod that raises it. You think you need 5 or 6, and if you were a modder, you'd make that mod, and as a player, you'd use it. Different players/modders, with different preferences, will make, and use, different mods. Nothing funny about it at all, it's the way the modding game has worked since there was a modding game.

In regard to not creating a mod that reduces it, it already exists: Players that play any of these games solo. I have something like 20 complete runs of BG 1 and 2, combined, with solo characters. Why would I need to request, or build a mod to do something that I can already do in the existing framework of the game?

And how is that better in any way, shape or form? You do know that not all of us have an unlimited schedule to endlessly replay these games. Also you don't have to create characters that fill every role you know.

I don't see even the tiniest bit of a downside to any of this. All of this sounds like it would make for a great game.

I wouldn't mind the four person adventure party as much if there were actually more party member options. The smaller party size IMO already provides pressure with class selection since there's little wiggle room in regards to offerings if you want to have your class archetypes covered-arcane caster/divine caster/rogue/martial fighter.. There's no backup wizard/sorcerer to replace Gale if you don't want him in your party/he leaves. No backup divine caster to replace Shadowheart.

Plus, there's the whole 'your party is fixed after Act' I thing to worry about. In other games like NWN or BG I+II I'd frequently bench a character after adventuring with them a while and doing their character quests. Being locked in after the first act does not, IMO lead to a gameplay environment where I see myself experimenting with party composition much over the course of the game.

Feels like getting squeezed from two ends tbh. Not enough party member variety in regards to certain archetypes stifling options for divine/arcane spellcasters (could really use another cleric/wizard or druid/sorcerer companion...or even a class like the bard or paladin) and too small a party size to really make me feel comfortable straying outside the core archetype classes. As -is Wyll basically almost always sits on the bench for me since I have a fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric competing with him for three slots.

A good summary of the issue, I'd say.

I also think the small amount of companions is a much bigger problem than 4 vs. 6 party members. I would very much prefer twice the potential companions with half the content. It also adds a great deal of replayability when you can have different party compositions. It feels like in BG3 I will always be stuck with the same companions even after we get 3 more. You should have a choice for an Arcane spellcaster, a Cleric or a Rogue. Having to take Gale and Shadowheart on every single playthrough likely means there will be no new playthrough.

They should have a bigger focus on Tav as the protagonist, and less focus on companions. It's like they want to do an interactive movie with their selected cast rather than a game. Writing every companion to be a potential protagonist is a huge waste of time, and because it severely limits the number of companions it kills off choice and replayability in a game. I've grown really tired of the companions in just EA, too. Will be a struggle to give them another chance at full release.

The origins system is starting to feel like something of an albatross around the neck of Larian in regards to this. Unlike DOS2, we have a lot more races and classes to consider, and a fixed class system. DOS2 was designed with the idea of being able to 'respec' essentially on the fly, classes being essentially meaningless from what I recall in terms of dialogue content, and combined with the smaller pool of playable races led itself for a much better match with their 'Origins' companions with a limited cast of party members.

D&D though, I think there's much more of an expectation that classes and races be represented as companions and that players will want to make their own avatar. We're getting something like four less companions (almost half of which are humans) than BG II, with several classes and races not being represented at all and no duplicates. There is the danger of the increased number of origins characters competing for resources that otherwise might go to more companions or refining the roleplay experience for 'Tav'. DOS2 was somewhat infamous for having a charname that was basically an undefined afterthought that was upstaged by each of their companions, who each had their own epic 'main character' backstory. in BG III each companion similarly has their own big 'main character' background/plot while Tav just makes do without. Sure, you might be looking at a slightly different experience as a drow, but that's about it. Why would I ever play a Warlock Tav, for example, if Wyll is right there and has this big plot involving his patron being kidnapped by the cultists and his history with the goblins of Act I interwoven with the main plot, and Warlock-Tav has none of that? etc.

IMO the game needed about half as many origins characters (if at all) and a bigger focus on Tav and non-origins companions.

It's a combination of BOTH, plus the impending threat of wiping out all the non-grouped companions after Act 1 (if they intend to stick with that idea after two years of extremely negative feedback about it).

That's an issue that was already pointed several times across the months in the countless threads about the topic (and consequently in the Mega-thread, too): the "Few slots mean very diverse playthrough" is more often than not a complete myth.
Most players will always consider some particularly key role too crucial to give up on them, which in practical terms narrows down the "room for variety of party composition" even more.

And before someone jumps the gun, this doesn't mean you COULD NOT play in their absence. You can pretty much go through the game however you want, even solo. Just that many will not want to.

Also consider the fact that Larian might very well be doing the equivalent of holding a gun to the head of your companions and forcing you to choose your three favorites at the end of Act I.

Consider that Larian put a fan favorite ranger who's widely beloved and who appears on a huge amount of 5e marketing material as an origin party member. A lot of players will feel unfairly pressured to take him even if they don't necessarily want him because they don't want to be responsible for his demise. So for a lot of people who don't want to kill him, it'll feel more like 'pick two, cause we know you'll be taking the ranger'. Limited options, ticking Act I clock, pick your favorite three.....It's rough, tbh.

Pick 1 because the story also kinda heavily suggests you take Shadowheart, or kill her for the artifact.
Edit: I mean, you CAN just kill her, and she'll probably die anyway if you don't so... I guess pick 1.5.

I can't wait for people to get a mod that allows more companions and then to complain about the game being too easy.

Someone has clearly not been paying attentiont to this thread. Or any of the countless other treads on this topic.

It will be possible.

You can always raise the difficulty.

It is all about having a great personal experience and supporting others in finding what works best for them.

I'm not so sure, because what we have works well for me, but my experience is invalid, because someone else would rather have more. I mean, I run the Unlimited Companion Framework mod in FO4, and my party size is 3. Before I found that, I ran a mod that let me take Dogmeat, along with another companion. Using the former mod, I could run with all of the vanilla comps at the same time, and yet I don't. Want to guess why? Pathing issues. With just one companion, and no mods, I have been pushed off of buildings or other ledges by a comp that wants to be hogged up on me, and yet, when I enter an elevator, they're in some other building, having tea with a super mutant, apparently, because they're nowhere to be seen.

There's a post in this thread where the poster found it funny that nobody has requested less comps? How am I supposed to assess "what works best for them" when they apparently don't understand that you don't have to recruit, or can even kill some of the comps, if not all, I honestly haven't tried yet? Although, after release, I'm sure at some point I will... How many comps are we going to need in order to fulfill "every class and race"? How many of each are in just the PHB, let alone official resources outside of the PHB? But that argument's been made in this thread. So, commenting on the inevitable "it's too easy" threads, which already exist, isn't unreasonable, it's going to happen, whether the party size is increased or not, and suggesting that they simply use less party members will be met with something along the lines of "but I'm playing the game the way it's designed/the way I want, so they have to "fix" it" posts. I've seen it before. Players that go to the extreme to trivialize the content, and then complain that the content is trivial... How do we "support what works best for them"?

The modding community will make it possible. This one may work with patch 8...if you read the notes...they are working on it (talking about a work around).

Mod

This is like the proverbial "bird in the hand".

Those that don't want big parties are good and those that do are also good.

Exactly right, as I pointed out in this post.

Lets say they do ...
So what? O_o

Well, for starters, I'll get to point and laugh. If it follows the same pattern as what happened in DDO, I'll also get banned from the forums, because you're not allowed to point and laugh at people that get what they wanted, and then aren't happy with it.

DDO forums: We need a higher difficulty than Elite.
Me: OK, but once they introduce it, they shouldn't spend any more dev time on it because "it's too hard".
DDO Devs: Release Reaper mode, after two years of debate on the forums.
DDO forums: But this is "stupid hard" and needs to be nerfed.
Me: Points and laughs, because I predicted this very scenario.
DDO forums: REPORT POST "he hurt my feelings"
DDO community manager: Permanent ban for melting snowflakes.

That's one scenario that could play out. Then we could get "but it's too easy" Tuesday, well, maybe Wednesday, because Taco Tuesday? We had that on the old BSN, with "Not the Warden Wednesday", where every week there'd be a new thread about how (insert whichever Dragon Age game here) was going to suck because it wasn't going to be the Warden, and a list of 1,000 reasons it needed to be, despite DA 2 running concurrent with Dragon Age Origins at the start, which would mean that the Warden would have to be both fighting the Blight in Ferelden, and going to Kirkwall, at the same time.

I don't see the problem.

Me neither ...
I believe that every player should get option to ruin his own game ... especialy with things he asked for himself. :P

And if some people who would like to laugh at them will get banned in th proces ... well, that is price im willing to pay. :P

Looks like a win win scenario to me.

It gets old, fast. That's why I have flurries of activity around major updates, and then disappear. I understand the "but if I'm not harping on it every day they'll forget about me" thing, but given the way feedback is handled both in game and here, I don't see it as likely, and I sure don't see the need for a new thread every week about the same thing. "If it bothers you, don't reply" will come next, I'm sure, and I've read a lot more threads on these forums than I've replied to, and I have to wonder, would that axiom apply if I were to start a new thread every week insisting that the party size be kept to four, or would I get a lot of disparaging remarks about my character? I know where my money is going on any bets on that scenario, along with the added bonus of I won't be doing that anyway. Someone asked what would be the worst that happened, and I outlined a couple of things that have happened. I'm cool if ya'll are fine with reading the same spiel week in and week out, I'd prefer not to.

It'll be nice, once the game launches, to read about interesting things that happened in game instead of "but someone somewhere will be abusing this mechanic, and so it needs to be removed" or "but my party isn't big enough". The "trust in 5e" movement is going to be kind of funny soon too, when WotC releases 6e, because apparently, they don't trust it either? Yes, I know, that's a way for them to make more money on the IP, so they've got to release new stuff. It's just going to be funny to see "Trust in 5e" avatars once 6e hits the shelves.

"No"

"Yes"

"No"

"Yes"

"grrr!!"

"Grrr!!!"

I just like to follow the story, that's why I'm here, not for meltdowns for not being able to pass because it's just SLOW, not HARD, just SLOW. You can kill the entire goblin camp with a lvl 1 warrior if played correctly, is the game mechanics what bring you to play it? nope, it's its world, what you can discover and do in it, if i have to bring a priest who's a trickery domain, a ranger, a mage and a thief, who the f*** is gonna be using heavy armors? they're gonna be totally wasted on the fact that i don't have nobody to really usem them with and thus eventually discarding 100 items because there's no use for them in this playthrough.

I just want the game to be release and hopefully we'll get the 12ppl mod so we can take all of the classes and races in one playthrough, i'm gonna be telling you specifically the ending of it when i play through it with my 12man party.

That's because there isn't one.

Some people just love to unleash their verbal beatdowns on strawmen who can't exactly fight back.

So, do you honestly think that the people that want to use a mod to allow more companions are also going to say "man, this is really too easy with more companions, you need to make the game balanced around a mod that I downloaded"?

Tuco's right, there is some serious strawmanning going on here.

TBH everyone who downloads a max party size mod is willingly doing it knowing that the combat isn't exactly going to be a priority for that playthrough. They're doing it for the roleplay/story, or knowing that they will only have the time to play through the game once before moving on, so they want to see as much of the game as they can during that one single playthrough. If proper reactions aren't making it in and Larian does the DOS2 thing with your party again, I'm 100% going to end up in the latter category.

And in this day and age where high quality games are coming out all the time, developers REALLY need to stop creating 80+ hour games with fake 'replay value'. The only game in recent memory I'd argue that had any reason to embrace the replay value concept was Pathfinder WotR, because each mythic path actually dramatically altered the course of the whole playthrough. More importantly, it revolved completely around PLAYER CHOICE, not some bullshit like killing off everyone that wasn't in your party after an arbitrary point like DOS2 did.

Yeah, I'm definitely not on board with arbitrarily wiping any members of the party you don't have with you. Imagine my surprise, going into DOS 2 blind, when that happened, after I broke my back getting all of the comps personal stuff done before we got on the ship. I was not a happy camper.

Yeah the killing off party members (or make them otherwise unavailable, since I suspect, in BG3 case, they will join the Absolute or betray you to other parties - Raphael, Cazador, Gith) is one reason, I want as many companions as possible in teh active group. I want to see more storylines, but I also have favorites (currently only one - Shadowheart, but I have high hopes for Karlach and Helia and then there would still be room to take one of the not so much liked companions with me).

I hate the fact that Larian has not removed their quote that we have to choose our companions after act 1 from their FAQ. Especially now that the BG3 Magic the gathering cards have been revealed.

I don't think DOS2 doing that even added anything to the game in the long term besides an excuse to replay it. The whole 'dead party members come back to fight you for one battle' at the end of act 3 just came off as comedic more than anything else, because they got killed off so early that during my first playthrough, I had already forgotten what the deal with them was.

If anything, it basically kneecapped the last quarter of the game, given that all of the major antagonists during the last arc of the game were closely tied to specific party members.

I am lucky I completed DOS2 even once...I had to force feed myself at the end to fulfill that competitionist itch.
DOS 1 is still in my library...started it twice...finished it 0 times.

I did have lots of fun...until I didn't.

And, as 6e (or whatever it is called) releases in 2024, and BG3 releases "sometime" in 2023, there may even be the prospect of BG3 being out of date at release

At the very least, the fully finished/updated and bug-fixed version of BG3 is likely to be after the next D&D comes out.

Here's a thought to horrify some people. What if the WotC/Larian collaboration with BG3 informs the rules changes for the new version? Surfaces and barrels galore, mega-push capability, pro-active reactions, bonus actions for everyone! All the fun of the fair!

OK, I'll shut the door on my way out.....

I’ll admit I’m in the prefer 6 group, but other than nostalgia for the BG series, do I need more than 4?

5e supplied so much crossover that I don’t quite need the quantity of characters to cover the skills like you needed in 2e.

To boot, Larian have already said we can get mercenaries or tag along a later on that temporarily bolster the group size.

So do we want 6 for nostalgia, for the party interaction maybe?

I’m also actually not against losing characters, because frankly the concept of people waiting at a camp location until you the protagonist come back pretty offensive. It’s lazy in this day and age and makes zero sense.

At least Dragon Age inquisition had a castle and other tasks that had to be done, so you got the concept of splitting up but keeping choice.

I am very fine with 4, Pathfinder games have 6 and it is sometimes a chore to go through so many turns. The worst part has to be the buffing ritual you have to do at the start of each fights.
It would be a bit awkward for multiplayer as well, I feel like 4 players max is the optimal number for an all-players party.

Well, thank god then this isn't Pathfinder, both for how the buff work (Concentration being a thing) and for encounter design.

Not to mention I would HATE to play Wrath of the Righteous or Kingmaker with a party of 4 too, if I have to be perfectly honest, so we have a strong disagreement from the the very initial premise, here.

NWN 2 had a tavern that we used as a base, and I see no reason that the same can't be done here. The selected party clears the way, and the rest follow later. Whether it's a tavern, or some other base doesn't really matter, but having that base, which is already implied via the current camp, makes perfect sense. In fact, once we're "out of the weeds", the base camp could switch to the current base, whatever it may be. With the added benefit of there are no wasted story beats. All of the party members are there, and can do their stories, depending, of course, on whether or not some beats interfere with others. Maybe doing X's story means that an NPC needed for Y's is either dead, or won't deal with the party any more.

5 atleast mainly for party interaction.

I do not believe that mercenaries were mentioned as a party booster, I think they were mentioned in the context of being able to replace companions with custom character options after already being into the game as opposed to needing to make them when you start the game. I could very well be off on this though.


Personally I want 6 for a number of reasons most of which have been mentioned. I've seen people say that a larger party would mean less interest in additional playthroughs, but I think the opposite. I'm not really a fan of most of the current companions. I'd consider an extra run or 2 maybe though if I could run a team I want and have 1-2 others tag along with out taking up primary party spots.

I plan on heavily modding the game after release and the modders have had time with the toolkit to put out finished products. That is certainly going to include mods for increasing the game's difficulty. Quite frankly the current version of the game, even without resorting to "Larian cheese" tactics, is fairly easy with the 4 player party we have. I'd be looking for increased difficulty options/mods regardless of a party cap increase.

That, my friend, is what you call fanboyism

I'd be pissed if they changed it to 6 tbh.

It wouldn’t affect you in the slightest, though, given that no one would force you to play with 6 characters, so being pissed about it borders into lunacy.

You'd be pissed if some optional feature (that you don't have to use) gets implemented? Okay...

Why though? You could still play with a group of 4 people.

Unless, of course, they'd rebalance every encounter for a party of 6 rather than 4. But as long as it would be an optional feature I see no issue with it.

That's the thing, they'd obviously need to balance it for one party size or another. And even if 4 remained viable I don't like the idea of how big the encounters would need to get to square off against 6 PCs.

I usually play with a party of 3-5 in single player. I don't think party size is as important as other gameplay issues in BG3. I.e. as long as Long Rest is spammable, magic items are MMO-like and combat is a basically brainless shove fest, I don't think it matters whether I have 4 or 5 or 6 PC's in the party.

Thats the thing ... they dont.
And as far as i know litteraly nobody on this forum ever asked for that ... on the contrary, people keep asking for adjusting party size WITHOUT any futher adjustments.

I wouldn't mind the option being in assuming the default design is for 4. Seems like something we'll get as a day 1 mod but Larian could just as well include it themselves.

Exactly this!

Exactly this!

So long as they handle difficulty levels well, then I don't see how it would matter too much. If it's too easy at 6, then bump the difficulty up; if it's too difficult at 4, then bump the difficulty down.

Exactly

Where's the cut off point?

Should they make the game for ten? If you only want to play six, you don't have to play all ten.

Maybe they should make the game for twenty?

Thirty?

There is no such point ...
Just few dozen (maybe even hunderts) suggestions, demands, and requests for 6 ...
And basicaly none for anything else, if you dont count sarcastic coments.

Wow, quite the strawman you've constructed there.

Could you give me a couple of examples of people asking for more than 6 members in a party?

Also, I wonder if you could enlighten us as to why most people seem to mention 6 as the number they like. Do you suppose it's just a random number that people selected?

What strawman are you talking about? I'm not sure we agree on the definition of that word.

It's a legitimate question. Where is the cut off? People keep using this argument to shut down folks who prefer parties of four. At what point does that argument no longer apply?


I just did. So I'm an example. I'd like to run thirty characters through the game so I can play a small mercenary company who got picked up by the mind flayers. Or maybe a group of missionaries. I haven't decided yet.


I suspect *most* people want four, which is why four is what's provided.

Those who aren't satisfied with four are the ones you're talking about. Even though plenty of them are saying five instead of six.

Anyway. You ask why they keep mentioning six? I can't read minds, of course, but my guess is that it initially got mentioned because previous games had parties of six and some folks around here have a sort of boomer nostalgia thing going on, where they're married to years gone by.

Others probably latched on when they heard six and used the number themselves. If the number had been seven or eight, they probably would've been saying seven or eight.

edit: off topic/ no point

I don't think you're weird. If anything the trajectory of D&D and Fantasy RPGs seems to have moved pretty clearly in that direction going on 2 decades now, with only a couple brief and clearly nostalgia driven titles going for the full party control vibe.

For my part, the defining characteristic of Baldur's Gate was the idea that the player was running an entire party, and not just their own character. The impression I always had was that this experience was not at all like the Table Top, or perhaps it was, sort of, but where the player is more of a pseudo DM/PC hybrid, as opposed to just a normal pnp PC. This worked in part, and especially as the game got going, because the campaign was about the rebirth of a dead god, and so a godmode of this kind was sort of fitting. Also I think BG3 has the perfect set up to rationalize something similar.

The idea being that we're a actuallly a party of Illithid mind Worms in this game, and not really the PCs they're inhabiting, which are just like our hosts. So Tav is a worm. Lae'zel is a worm. Shadowheart is a worm... etc. We're all worms! A party of tadpoles, with a connected awareness, shared sense of collective experience, and POV. It actually works quite well I think, if they'd lean in. It's not that Tav was infected by the worm, but rather that Tav is the worm. I think they could run with that.

There are many reasons I want a party of 6, all covered in the mega thread many times. Not 4 or 5, or 2 or 3, or 10 or 20, or 1, but 6! I think it's unfair to characterize this as slippery slope situation, or a 'don't give an inch, or they'll take a mile!' sort of deal, as suggested in some counter arguments. This is clearly a popular or at least oft repeated request, compared to many others floating around. Though I'm sure it will be merged again like the others, there's a reason this thread re-materializes every couple months. Just to reiterate, I want 6 in the base game, and I want it work smoothly, not as a mod that potentially breaks other things along the way.

Boomer nostalgia LoL more like Xer Nostalgia (all 6 of us)… the good ol days when pixels ment something heh heh heh!

Exactly! So full disclosure, but depending on how you slice it, I'm either the youngest Gen-Xer or the oldest Millennial, and I think whoever made that call sort of fucked up the math a bit lol. Or maybe it's because the school year doesn't follow the calendar year? I'm 1981 class of 1999, which makes me the target for everything and precicely nothing I guess.

I certainly identify culturally with the older cohort most times, but the reality is that I'm right there on the line. Sure, generational divides are complete and total nonsense anyway, and I'm certainly not my parents. Not yet anyway - good grief! But yeah, I mean lets not conflate the BG era too hard with what came earlier. I'm old, but not that old! lol Or maybe I am. But also, too young - too young for Star Wars in it's unadulterated form and probably too young for D&D if I'm being honest, maybe a little too old for other later things as well, doubtless - but I will claim that BG1 computer game till the dying day. That one was mine. It hit at the exact right moment in time!!!

To the main subject though, I fully understand that the 6 person party controlled by a single player in a cRPG was largely a technical limitation/compromise at the time. Or also that anyone who really wanted the full PnP D&D experience with other people, wouldn't be truly satisfied with it. The tech barrier no longer exists in the same way, and we've seen what AI companions or henchmen look like in modern RPGs. It's cool, and it's a thing now, for sure, but also a rather different thing with a different spirit. You can't look at old BG and get a good sense of how to make a single player = single character D&D BG computer game hum, since that's not what it was. It was the god mode gold box version, single player with your own personal DM and a team of 6 heroes that gave you your D&D cookies, but in the form of icecream. Just a different deal. I also like the idea the Composer mentioned of just being a PC and nothing more in some games. It's also not what I want from a Baldur's Gate 3 game. Not that my tastes and preferences on this one are any more valid than someone else's, but since we're here to tell them what we actually want, that's what I want... 6.

I also don't know if my 'player/party is the worms!' idea from the previous page works for everyone, but it seems like it could do the trick in this context, similar to the godmode concept from the earlier BG and SSI entries. 6 is the sweet spot for me. Nail that and 4 will be great and I'll enjoy that too, but lowering the ceiling down to 4 and it just can't quite do what it needs to for my sensibility. Not just for the gameplay, but for the whole thrust of the thing. It's just too small.

I'd be fine with a party size of four if there were more companions in general. There is one divine caster (Shadowheart) and one arcane caster (Gale). With my PC, that leaves about one flexible spot open.

I think that’s a stretch if I’m honest.
It’s 4 because that’s a part size larian are used to and I believe because D&D tabletop sees 4 as about the right number.

Baldur’s Gate however has obviously always been a 6 party member affair. You can call it nostalgia if you want, but it is the number the franchise is built around and the number most on this forum would prefer to see.

Some like myself have mused that 5 might be a compromise number, but to say most want 4 is imho wrong. 4 is the number Larian started with for reasons mentioned above, not because the community wanted it.

You'll notice that I worded my post with phrases like: "I suspect..."

...as opposed to wording it like yours.

That said, clearly I disagree with you. You mention the old games having six characters. Yes, that's nostalgia.

As for what "most" people on the forum here want... I *suspect* you don't actually know what most people on the forum want. Even so, how many folks do you figure are on the forum? Now compare that number to how many people are actually playing, have played, or intend to play the game.

So.

1. You don't know what most of the people who visit the forum want. You are free to guess, of course, but you don't know.

-and-

2. The comments here are, by and large, coming from the exact same people over and over again. There are ***TONS*** of people who play this game who have never bothered visiting the latest thread about the party size... and for good reason: because they're probably super okay with four characters. Why would they go crawling around the internet to weigh in on the topic when they're perfectly fine with the way it currently works?