Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Modding Adjustable Party Limit mod Formations? Random feedback

I really enjoy the Adjustable Party Limit mod for the gameflow and the pacing thus far. The action economy in-combat and overall economy (in GP) for the distribution of kit, how it gently pushes the Long rest (mainly due to the companions dismiss back down to 4 to sleep thing) That's stuff is all cool, but there are a couple things that still feel a bit off. I think the playscale with 6 works pretty well in Act I, for casually marching from encounter to encounter with less chance of TPK early on. I've been playing in Honour Mode with this mod and I think the number of wipes are honestly about the same at the start, with a similar chance of encounters going south if things roll poorly. The reason is because when I have say 2 more characters in the turn order sequence, I find myself much more likely to take risks or go into the encounter without prebuffs, or to push the long rest and things of that sort. With fewer characters in the party, micromanaging each turn becomes a necessity, whereas with 6 I think I just naturally tend to fly by the seat of my pants a bit more. Also there are the little things like equipping the active party with decent gear, or raising the squishy characters from the dead, those extra sinks on party resources. It's not major but it's something.

The mod mentions a custom version of Tactician to increase the challenge of the campaign still under development, but I think that approach might be somewhat perilous. Of course I would probably download such a Mod to check it out, but there are just so many different potential ways of going about that and I'm not sure which, if any, I would really go for. Like I can imagine a Mod that say adds a bunch of monsters, or does more HP bloat on existing monsters, or gives enemies extra abilities or consumables. All that stuff is pretty major for encounter re-design campaign wide though, so it seems daunting. Like I don't know, are we going to be fighting a third Owlbear or something? hehe Hard shot calls to make there doubtless and just seems like the sort of thing that might take a year or more to sort out, even just dropping x2 for the monsters, like doppelgangers everywhere lol.

Some sort of split XP scheme, or XP scaling to account for the larger party would be cool. Increased costs for resurrection and camp supplies so it scales a bit heftier at the start, though both of those can be overcome eventually. Whatever solutions for difficulty or challenge, there are some other things more nuts and bolts that would be fun to play around with. I honestly think it works pretty well right now, honour mode is fun. I almost got dropped TPK'ed by the Flind and then later the Bulette, just from overconfidence and charging forward, which I feel like the mod subtly encourages. Just by virtue of the most excellent banter and interjections which are running near continuously, especially early on. It just feels more like a party with more companions in tow.

Other thoughts though... Is there any way to create some other party formations besides the wedge?

The wedge right now is very wide. A square formation at 2x2 would be optimal, or a narrow Acute angled wedge if for some reason the selected character always has to be in font walking point. Mainly something more compact. This one on the left would go such a long way... it really would be cool to see all the Classics, but I'd settle for that one hehe



Also can anything be done about the friendly body blocks or maybe some way to disable the intra-party jostling and running around during exploration whenever a new character is selected? Currently there is always at least one companion with that reverse polarity magnet thing going on, where they want to shoot off away from the others.

I think the cool goal would be a formation that works well specifically for things like elevators or gondolas or ladders, which are a chore sometimes with this wide wedge. Using ungroup or entering turn based mode just to issue simple movement orders can be tedious, and even then, in order to quickly interact with whatever environmental feature before the characters run off again can be a challenge, it's basically real time creeping into the otherwise TB structure. Situations like this basically... where Lae'zel is darting off the platform at the last second.


The charm of watching characters jostle around for position wears thin pretty quickly for me. I gather that it's meant to make everyone feel more naturalistic or as if they have a mind of their own, but when it starts to be cumbersome for just navigating around sorta spoils it. It can be tricky with 4 characters + Summons already, so going up to 5 or 6 in the party can be annoying if fighting the environmental features. It's still worth the trade of in my view, because playing with a party of 6 is so much more satisfying generally, but it would be nice to see the party movement stuff improved. An alternative approach might be a toggle, where characters are either "At Attention" or "At Ease" - so one in tight formation, perhaps with idles that match that theme, like brandishing weapons or just generally giving the appearance of being at the ready - the other a looser formation, where characters amble about doing their thing own, using the current idles.

Any kind of snap formation that locks the order here into party position say 1-6 ideally for a BG game, based on the leadership order - the sequence of the portraits in the chain from top to bottom. Each position might have a standard color for the mini map. If we could change the shape of the character planchettes to more easily see which direction they are facing or to distinguish them with a color or number designation to tell who is who at a glance from that view. If we had at least one very tight formation that would be very helpful, especially for buffs that need to be caste on touch like Longstrider. A way to quickly set the follow distances on these things with a longer lead before the rest of the group follows (Scouting formation basically). Right now the selected character is always walking point, so the formation reforms around whoever is selected. It we be cool if we could hold formation, so that that didn't happen and instead everyone just freezes until a new movement order is issued. Individual characters will change their orientation at random whenever they reposition. They appear looking off in the opposite direction and such. It we cool if we could make them all face the same direction at once. Face Towards the Camera/Selected Character or the reverse Face Away. Then the party formation itself could be used to help determine orientation on the mini map, rather than just the individual character planchettes for that. Might be cool

Also for this Mod it would be very helpful to have the ability to "Dismiss All" companions at once.

For example, when we tell an individual companion to take a hike, there might also be an option "Lead everyone back to camp. I'll join you there soon."



Recruiting the characters back into the fold the next morning ensures that we're still checking in with our companions, but without the ritual tedium at the end of the day. This would be convenient for the Long Rest, reducing the number of clicks before we go to bed. I imagine once the player gets used to dismissing companions in order to Long Rest that this would be largely similar, just faster. There is already a double confirmation to dismiss the companions, so perhaps it could just get added to that as the last option?