Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 4 Character Party Limit Too Small?

But the request for a bigger party size has hardly anything to do with difficult management, so this is a spurious argument.

And even the common rebuke "You can more or less get on with any party composition" is super-weak, because the point isn't "getting on". It's covering a vast range of options.

I WANT a larger and more diversified party not because I need it, but because I enjoy several aspects of it:
- benefitting from a large variety of different loot (rather than spending half playthrough going through "Oh, here's another mace/heavy armor/pole weapon/spell/magic-item-with-a-weirdly-specific-bonus that I will never have any use for").
- Enjoying the freedom to include hybrid/suboptimal classes without having to kick out a proper "mainstay" from the party for the sake of experimentation
- Accessing and going through MORE companions quests at any given time.
- being more reliant on broad planning than on lucking out the RNG on every micro-managed action.
- Feeling more comfortable in "rolling with the punches" with the occasional failures, rather than being compelled to reload as soon as things go south.

Etc, etc.

Of course, once again none of these arguments is NEW, because as usual they are answers to the same old tired objections people already did in the past.

I would also add 'greater opportunity for more party banter' to the above list.

The Pathfinder companions in WotR having actual full blown conversations with each other and with NPCs instead of only taking when they are attempting to influence your choices is a freaking work of art.

^This.

And BG2 also had lots of party banter and 6 character parties. I'm still all for turn-based and all that, but I want 6-character parties.

Probably being necrotic, but someone mentioned the BG1&2 was six characters and I'd forgotten that. It probably helps explain why four wasn't enough in my mind. That, and, perhaps, my own D&D experiences from 30-40 years ago where six people plus a DM gave me the most fun. It is probably safe to write this now, but perhaps the most frustrating thing for an original BG player was having to shoehorn two lovable characters from them into a party of four. I mean, who do people leave out? What are they missing out on if they don't?

I think this is part of the replay value of BG3. You actually see a lot of new scenes when you choose other characters.

It might be part of the explanation why the number of players is still unusually high.

I did try the mod to increase party size, to run with six characters a while and get a feel for it. Besides the mod working in a kinda awkward roundabout way (you get "spells" that add or remove party slots) it simply felt a bit unnatural once I was playing six characters. Probably because I've already spent so many hours playing the game with four characters.

Anyway, what Tuco said above in May '22 (giggle) strikes true - with a party of six there is more room to experiment with less optimal classes and to push through a streak of bad RNG, without the entire encounter resulting in a wipe. With less characters you will often dance on a tightrope on higher difficulties, a single resisted spell or broken concentration can often mean disaster. I am still in awe of how quickly a fight can go from me feeling comfortably in control to a TPK, just from some nasty RNG. Just yesterday my run ended at the undead encounter in the Mountain Pass - a string of crit misses, failed saving throws, then the shepherds' turns. It was all over in a couple of rounds. (That encounter is horrible)

This is also my experience. With 6, you can afford to "miss" an action, so you can take a little bit more risk to make the encounter more amusing. Case in kind for me is vicious mockery. I love that spell, but it's not very effective, especially when you go to higher levels. So in a party of 4 I almost never used it. Yet in a party of 6 I can use it often, just for the "acoustic" effect and bringing joy to the game.

I never tried to extend the party size limit, but I was switching through group members like a fiend! I would have loved a dialogue option for dismissal, like "Go back to camp, and tell [companion] to meet me at [fast-travel point]." Instead it was drama, tantrums and heartbreak every time.

This is relatively new, but if you go to camp and ask someone to join you, you can tell them who to replace. No drama

Thanks! Yes, that did catch up with me when I was in Act 3.