Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Party Size Variation

I would love the option of increasing the size of the party to five or six characters.
Why has that not ever been an option.
Having Gale, Wyll and Shadowheart with two fighters up front looks great to me.

It’s most likely about balance, and how having a larger party would make the game even easier. I wouldn’t want to have more companions to mess up that balance. However, I would like to have more for content, it gets old having to switch them out all the time.

The mod that allow you to increase the party size, PARTY LIMIT BEGONE, has been out for months and it's extremely reliable.

And yes, the game becomes convincingly BETTER and more enjoyable with it, if you accept that this also knocks the difficulty down a notch, too.

The only remaining issue is that the game does not offer any option to modify the party formation and the default one is pretty fucking awful.

Since writing this, I saw that mod. Not sure I want to get into using mods again. It was a real pain back in the Skyrim days.

I prefer 3 strong parties. But on Honour Mode I felt I had to add another body, too easy to die otherwise.
I don't swap Companions, but recruit those I want and kill or chase off the undesirables (yes, looking at you, Astarion).

One thing about our many companions is it has let me play the Warlock to see what it is like. I/m really not sure hoe BG3 does magic though. Both Wyll's Eldritch Blast and Gales spell and even Shadowheart's spells completely miss so frequently I question how the game calculates magic.
Of course the rate of misses in melee drives me crazy anyway. And I do not have the Karmic dice on.

Simply solution would have party size limit as part of the difficulty settings.

This touches on something I've always wanted in games. On top of difficulty with number of mobs and power/intelligence of the enemy why not allow people to determine difficulty based on their power setup.
* Partly Limit
* experience multiplier (lets level go above 12)
* Starting Stats in Character Creation - 8 in everything harder difficulty score and 30 in everything lower difficulty score.
* Buffs/proficiency etc. - Want to start with no proficiency or all? Want to start with few feats at the start or none

You could do this on so many fields allowing for a difficulty sores that players could change as they saw fit. Can you imagine trying to pet it with a 2 party limit and starting with 8 to all states. Just putting this stuff on a slider would open up so many replays of the game from the crazy challenge to the god speed run.

I'm having some serious doubts about the programming of the game, how it calculates hits and missed.
The party misses so often you'd think they were just out of basic training, but I watched the enemy do 2 critical hits in a row. Took my main character to 0 HP right now.
I've noticed the enemy rolls a lot better than the party, consistently, and I've played with the karmic dice setting both ways.
And I can't figure out how it calculates magic spells. The mage and the cleric miss so much, i tend to make them use a bow.

I haven’t had any of these problems. Your builds are solid?

I'm not sure what you mean by "solid".
I have sent every one to Withers in camp, have prime spec maxed (16 at lvl 3), and everyone has at least 14 Dex.
I don't know how the game calculates spells, as Shadowheart almost always misses with her little Sacred Flame.
What is the game's methodology on that, do you know?

Well increasing the Size of the Party its not that Great actually..
That game its already super easy with 4 companions..
The few times yu get a 5 man Party in some quests in the game become a Cake Walk even in the Hardest dificult..

I already Talked a Lot.. But there Mistake was Gave players so Many companions..
If they wish for yu to Only have 4 man Party there was no Need for a Camp when yu can Bring 7,8 companions..
Its Useless and super Ugly when yu dont Bring all of then in a Run Super Mistake from Larian and Create this Kind of Conversation too..

BTW dont Beleave in me ?
Just Try the Mod to play with a Bigger Party and yu will see how easy it will go.

Yu Just Have to Get in a Party in this Game a Spellcaster, Melee (dont need a Tank for this Game.)
The rest Fill with what yu Need.
In my Runs i Always go with Some Lock/Melee becouse its Broken.
Some Spellcaster and Ranged dudes.
Like Laezel i always Make Fighter/Hunter, Shadow i keep her as she is becouse i know how to make a Cleric super strong and Astarion i go with Thief/Sorcerer or Thief/Mage
With this Party i have evrything i ever Need from the Game..
Evrybody can Cast Ranged stuff and evrybody can Pummel down in melee if i Need.

Its like a Party when evrybody can do evrything..
My Hexa can Cast spell and be the Frontman.
Laezel i Use her Bow that scales with STR super Broken.. if things get super Bad i Push her in the Front with Misty step or Jump.
Shadow the Same as Laezel use her spells if i Need Pull her to the Front..
And Astarion i always Sneak around trowing spell or Bow from the Shadow super strong.
(just dont Forget to Get the Thunder Touch Cantrip that Thing its super Broken crits a Lot with High intell and Stun too.. for you tu Sneak around)

There are so many other ways they could tweak the difficulty scale, that I'm still baffled they chose to key it off the 4 person comp like this.

Like seriously Jaheira alone can summon 5 minions all by herself... The greater Elemental/Myrmidon who can Elemental Warp every turn. A pair of minor elementals. A Woodland being who can summon her own Wood Woad. Or with Shadowheart summoning Skeletons and Planar beings, elementals like the above from scrolls etc.

A party of 4 then becomes a party of 12 that way, so of course its going to skew wildly.

But then you don't get to equip and kit out all those summons or tool around with all the various sinks that apply to normal PCs, you know like equipment and healing and whatnot. They don't chime in with little quips or running commentaries.

I just don't see how it's all that different than having a party comp of 5 or 6 PCs, just with a cap on the summons or overall group size.

I think players will find the game somewhat frustrating in these giant cascading battles where the Party has 4 turns vs so many enemies at once. BG3 is frequently throwing temp Allies at us in fights where we don't really need them, to compensate for enemy turn order.
Also in a situation where we can game the iniative so readily, like if we had a party of 5 or 6, trying to juice initiative wouldn't be as relevant.

It's easier to balance encounters around 3 or 4 I'm sure, but that doesn't mean that's necessarily the best thing for a party based game with "Baldur's Gate" in the name. Managing the companions in the active party and kit'ing them out is part of the charm.

I want 6! I've had the same line for a couple years now hehe

Oh also, if you're struggling to hit with spells it probably means something else is going down. Could be the lighting or elevation, having stuff apply advantage/disadvantage, being outside normal range or in melee range without realizing it, that sort of thing. Cantrips like Firebolt and Sacred Flame scale differently than levelled spells. Spells that always hit like Magic Missile or Cloud of Daggers have that baked in. It's not just your own spellcasting modifier but the opponents saves against it, their resistances etc.

But again when you only have a few turns per round to the enemy's dozens, there is less time to experiment around and players are encouraged to burst with their burstiest spells to open, every time. So maybe a CC spell or something else works better in some specific fight, but as players we get habituated to using certain rotations and certain spells because they seem to be more reliable. It's harder to see why they suddenly start missing all the time in some enounters vs others. This could be fun, or just frustrating depending on how familiar one is going into it, but it's always going to be more forgiving with a larger party.

If they started with a Party 6, then we can go down to 5 or 4 or 3 as we increase the difficulty scale, but without having already primed our Exploration and Balanced players to key everything off the 4 person party comp.

I think it should have been 6 all along, I was surprised they went with 4 in the end. I was so convinced they'd do 6 for the Full release to great joy, but no dice on that one hehe. Alas. It's much harder for a mod to pull this off I'm sure, even if there are surely players who would get down. The fact that it requires modding will deter many people from ever trying it out. Also the current default formation for grouped exploration is pretty whack, but we don't have anything for that. The same issue would arise with a bunch of summons, who also lack formations beyond the big spawled out triangle.

But then I think we went over all this in over-exacting detail for like hundreds of pages back and forth in the mega-thread. They never tried it, or allowed us to test the concept in EA, so we can only speculate now. I still think 6 is optimal for a BG game.

Ps. I remain hopefull. Unlike just about every other Studio right now, at least Larian didn't get forced to shitcan like half their workforce just to save a buck for shareholders. So much talent floating around right now in free agency! It'd be cool if Larian was like the one company out there still hiring.

When everyone else is tightening their belts, Larian should go the other route and give us all the Girdles! Just to make a point! 6 belt for the win! Hehe

Btw i Forgot to tell yu..
But the Missing stuff in Shadow its related to her Intel..
That works for Evry spellcaster in the Game..
Try to at least get 10 intell so it dont get Negative in Rolls and yu will miss Less..

For Shadow yu can do this with her Intel to at least 10 or gave her the head Set that make intel 17 she will stop to miss a lot.
This works for any spellcaster in the Game..
Always get Positive or at least 10 on Intel and Wis dosent matter wich caster yu play.
This will Make easy for Rolls becouse yu dont Get any Negative and Make yu Miss Less
But in High difficult yu will still miss sometimes becouse the RNG of this Game is Worse then any soulsborne bro..
The Game is always Trying to Take yu Down..
BTW want to Test How much the RNG of this Game is Rigged against yu ?!
Try to save Scum.. the game will slap yu in a Face..haha

Thorvic, I am testing your theory now. I gave Shadowcaster the Band of Intellect I got off the Ogre. I will see how it goes.
I have a combat strategy I used in Solasta and it seems to be working. Everybody has bows, except Gale, and I just shoot folks to death.
Seems to be working but it's early for now.













G

Some spells have attack rolls. Those spells use your spellcasting trait for a modifier. A wizard, for instance, uses Int. A sorcerer uses Cha, and a cleric uses Wis.

Of note: the cantrip that an elf or a half-elf get at character creation uses Int. So Shadowheart's firebolt uses her Int to calculate her chance to hit.

Other spells do not use an attack roll. Instead, they provide the target with a saving throw. Sacred Flame is such a spell. It does not roll to attack. Rather, the subject of the spell rolls a saving throw. The difficulty of the saving throw is determined by the spellcasting modifier of the caster. In the case of Shadowheart casting Sacred Flame, the difficulty level of the saving throw is being impacted by her Wis.

I believe the saving throw is calculated as follows:

8 + (proficiency bonus) + (spellcasting modifier) + (any potential equipment/consumable bonuses)

That creates a number that the target must roll to beat on a d20. The higher the number, the more difficult the save.

The spell itself will target a particular stat. The target uses that stat to roll a saving throw. They roll: d20 + (stat bonus) +(proficiency if applicable) + (any misc modifiers from conditions, etc.) Note: this is why there are a lot of effects in the game that do things like give disadvantage to--as an example--dexterity saving throws. You can potentially use those effects to bolster your chance of success with something like a Sacred Flame spell.

To tell you the truth, I've gotten away from the idea of a larger party. Shadowheart is a badass.
I re-speced her as a storm cleric, and she kicks ass.
I just did the one where we took on Raphael's old enemy, the demon guy, and she was the main reason we won that fight.
Her Glyph of Warding and Thunderwave is a killer.

The theory does not make sense. Shadowheart as Cleric takes the Wisdom stat for spell hit chances and damage. If she uses a crossbow, it's her Dexterity stat.

You also mentioned that you have low hit chances despite not using the Karmic Dice, which also is a flawed logic. It's the other way round. What the Karmic Dice achieves is a bit of a mystery, but I believe the theory that it at least partly increases the chance of high rolls. High rolls mean more hits because the AC of the armor is matched. Exactly the experience I had before I stopped using Karmic Dice a long time ago.
Probably it also diminishes chances for rows of bad and good throws. I think it diminishes at least bad rows (so if you roll a 1, with Karmic Dice it's less probable to roll a 1 again). Anyway, with Karmic Dice your hit chances are higher, as well as the hit chances of NPCs, but players can deal a lot better with the faster high damage gameplay. Put shortly, it's easier with Karmic Dice activated.

Well, I don't know the ins and outs of all that, but Shadow is wearing the Band of Intellect, she is a Storm Cleric, currently 6th lvl, and she is doing serious damage in every encounter.
Oh, I also changed Gale from Wizard to Storm Sorcerer, so now it's me, a Paladin, Lazel, and those two.

If you are curious about the ins an outs, the combat log is at the bottom right. If you click on the entries, you see the dice rolls made and which stats influence what. As geala explained, Int on Shart should only influence her racial cantrip, the rest of her spells are Wisdom based, Gale as a Sorc runs on Charisma.

I gave an entire breakdown of how it works above. If you still think wearing a "band of intellect" helps Shadowheart's cleric spells hit and do damage... there's really not much more to say.