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This one is outdated but, keine angst, there will be more at launch you can choose from.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