I will say that I think leaving behind our party after act one would have resulted in a worse game experience. The companions are essentially the backbone of the game. Taking them away would result in a far less interesting experience, if you ask me.
To be fair, that's mostly an issue due to the complete non-characterization of Tav/DUrge (Which has been brought up in another, dedicated thread)
Companions are the only ones with an actual story in the game, hence the need to have them around to create somewhat of an interesting narrative.
Add in the whole shallowness of individual companions and you end up with requiring a larger retinue to keep things interesting (Since outside of their few interactions in personal quests, there's not much to each character... Even if this is still much more than exists for Tav...)
Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
Plus from a mechanical standpoint, you'd end up with people leaving behind certain characters and just never experiencing them because there's no room for them in a party. I like Wyll, but I know that if we would be limited to only three other party members, I'd never take him past act one because I'd never be able to justify having him in my party over anyone else. The same probably would go with Gale, since I like to play spellcasters so having him would be redundant, especially since Shadowheart would be a definite keeper in the party for healing. I'd probably HAVE to take Astarion because having no rogue at all for the game would be a rough prospect.
Ehh... That's a personal thing honestly and only somewhat exacerbated by their natural classes.
As far as their classes go, there's always the DOS2 approach where when you recruit them they offer a selection of roles. Given each character does have multiple classes that can fit them (Even more so if you simply incorporate their personal traits into additional skills. Like Karlach having a rage-esk ability from using Soul Coins, Wyll having some pact powers, Halsin/Jahera having some Druid spells etc)
Besides that, the whole point of DnD is that you don't explicitly NEED a certain party set up. Especially in 5e.
You don't NEED a Fighter to be on the frontlines. You don't NEED a Rogue (As disarming traps and lockpicking is not exclusive to Rogue in this edition). You can have as many spell casters as you wish in a party (You can have a full party of spell casters. Either as all true casters or you can have hybrids like EK/Abjurer as tanky melee fighters). You don't NEED a healer (And actually, not healing is objectively better than having a healer as preventative measures are stronger and scale better than healing)
Originally Posted by Gray Ghost
I also don't think it would have improved reactivity within the group because they'd still need to write more or less the same amount of dialogue for everyone.
It depends.
It's not necessarily true that a limited retinue would create more reactivity sure.
But with a smaller group, it's possible that more depth would need to be added to ensure a similar amount of engagement over the game as the more numerous but shallow companions.
For example, with 6-9 companions, you have 6-9 companion stories to engage with throughout the game. With only 3 companions, you only have 3 companion stories to engage with throughout the game. So in order to retain interactivity those 3 companions need 2-3 times as much content to compare with the larger party.
Of course, nothing stops them from having the large retinue AND having more depth to each character (As it would require the same development time either way). They're just more incentivized with the limited party to ensure a compelling experience while with the larger party they can cut corners and get away with relying on quantity for engagement.
