Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Suggestion: Buff the Party of Four

This is another angle to address what may be lacking in combat. Focused on what could be buffed in the game to compensate for only having a party of four instead of five to six. These thoughts all came from accepting that cantrips adding surfaces, advantage/disadvantage from height, etc. were all buffs intended to help the player. We haven't enjoyed them, we've provided the feedback. They all have the issue of pidgeon-holing the player to not be role playing out the class.

Now what can Larian do to make a party of four work? (assuming we will get some of our requested changes, but stay with a party of four)

I'm looking for ideas that will give the player options to play the game freely and will allow Larian to let their creativity flow on making the game fun.

Adjust the Table Array (Before racial bonuses come into effect)

Table arrays are interesting, the modifiers we choose make a major impact in combat at the start of the game.

• 
  The roll of 4d6 drop the lowest has the expected value of 12.24. Rolling six times we would get an aggregate 73 (73.44 rounddown). Giving each character an expected bonus of +6 to modifiers (12x6, Party of five +30).
  
  The DnD 5e table array only gives +5 (party of five +25). Point buy for Baldur's Gate 3 is derived from 5e's table array.
  Our current party of four is only managing with ~+20 which limits what the player can do. This is a problem, and it's especially a problem for players not familiar with DnD. New players could make a warlock with high intelligence instead of charisma and really have a bad time trying to get through the game.

Now what could we do to improve the player experience?

• 
  I’m going to suggest giving the player some of the power back that they would be getting if they had rolled for dice.
  Let the player have more points in point-buy so that characters can start with an aggregate +6 modifiers.
  This would bring the party of four modifier value up to 24, almost as impactful as a party of five that used point-buy.
  
  Recommended outcome of the table array/point buy, this has an aggregate value of 73 (the expected outcome of 4d6 drop the lowest x6).
  (16) (14) (13) (12) (10) (8)

Adjust Proficiency
With a party of six, one or two misses hurts a lot less than a party of four. And, the player still only gets four health pools to manage in each engagement.
I think we can all agree that something should be done to ensure that the player isn’t being punished for being limited to a party of four.

This is where proficiency comes in, it impacts all classes equally. And it's a nice organic way to improve the player's accuracy without adding new rules for advantage. As I've said many times before it's a lever in the game that can be a simple fix for a lot of problems. I would completely leave this up to Larian as to how much of a buff this should be. Giving the player +X to proficiency is an easy way to establish difficulties.

Conclusion

If we're going to be limited to a party of four, we should have a more robust party of four.

Combat in the game would be easier to balance as the party would get organic buffs. Proficiency and modifiers are native to the game. If the player combines the right race and class they could get one stat with +4. I don’t see this being an issue for a party of four. The player will still have the choice at ability score improvement to improve their saving throws, they won’t just be choosing feats. Yes, they could hit 20 soon but that happens in DnD campaigns where stats were rolled for.

Now the player can play the game and not have to worry about disadvantage and advantage all the time.

Lastly, I don't think the party of four needs a buff to health. The player currently gets a lot of options to revive/heal party members.

Please no.

Many folks have beat the game solo.
I've just finished a no long rest, no barrelmancy play through with a party of 2. (And then another no long rest no barrelmancy play through with 4 Wizards)

Players are plenty strong.
The last thing this game needs is a bigger party or more damage output.
It would make combat trivial.

I'm sure Larian will include a story mode for folks who don't want the combat to be challenging.

I absolutely want a party of six, and I'll direct all my scorn and contempt on anyone trying to make any stupid argument about how that's "unnecessary".
BUT
before anything else we need a revamped control system (see signature), because the current one already makes a PAIN to control four characters, imagine more.

The difficulty is the problem you're talking about.
And this problem is not related to the party size... the difficulty is a joke whatever you're playing with 4 or 1 character.

A 5 or 6 character party doesn't create new problems... I could even say that it solve a few issues even if obviously, the difficulty is still very badly balanced.

But I can't see how this suggestion could solve anything related to the difficulty issues.

I will accept all your scorn and contempt as not only is a party of 6 unnecessary it is also detrimental to the game, however that argument is for This thread

This topic is whether or not the party of 4 should be buffed.

As noted multiple difficulty options should give the original poster what they require.
I just hope in the higher difficulties enemies are smarter and don't just simply do more damage and have higher health.

Preposterous and completely baseless nonsense.

Also, this is THE main thread on the topic: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=742016#Post742016

Im affraid i dont quite understand what is going on around here ...

If this is your problem:
How can this be your solution?

I mean, instead of "kinda useless intellingence based warlock" you created "kinda useless everything else based Warlock" O_o
True, he would have slightly higher chance to sucess in everything you usualy dont use warlock for, but except that?

Oh, right, I sort of forgot to address the OP: arbitrarily buffing the party is nonsense as well.

Modifiers aren't just in the game for damage output though, they also impact social interactions. And combat is already trivial because of overpowered mechanics. I don't see how any of this could make combat more trivial.

This isn't about how challenging the game is, it's about how powerful the player feels (At levels 1-4). Or more specifically how much capacity the player has to adapt to changing circumstances. This is more focused on what player's will experience in their first playthrough. Not after learning about the game's encounters and strategizing around them. It is similar to game principles we see in something like Breath of the Wild and Dark Souls. "You don't know how many goblins will be behind the gate and you're more prepared for it."

I think it's great that you like to challenge yourself in games and I'm sure you would still find other ways to challenge yourself. A little off-topic but still cool.

A lot of folks are asking the game to be more like 5e and we have to consider what that will actually do to the game. This thread was started with those thoughts, what if we get raw 5e but we're stuck with a party of four?
Campaigns frequently skip levels 1-4 in 5e because there are players who don't find it enjoyable. Also DMs will consider if a small party might be underpowered and some take liberties with adjusting the table array. Like a good DM I would like to make the game enjoyable for all players. Larian can't just appease the fans looking for more difficulty. Just as in real life where players may not find levels 1-4 enjoyable, we have folks coming into the forums to vent that they don't find combat enjoyable for (x,y,z). Larian added in their homebrew because they felt the combat wasn't enjoyable. (Granted we also don't know if there ever was a proper reaction system).

Yeah, and this could be part of story mode, normal, or easy. Larian is no stranger to multiple difficulties. Just because you're waiting for more challenging difficulties doesn't mean that we can't consider what the player would experience on their first playthrough. I actually thought it would be cool to have separate table arrays, it's a nice simple way to set up scaling difficulty.

How can this impact the game? Well it's to give Larian more breathing room with what to do for combat at levels 1-4. (Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 let players roll for stats to have breathing room).
For example this could be groundwork for having randomized encounters so that over multiple playthroughs combat stays fresh.

I was making the assumption Larian is committed to improving control of the parties movement. If we get a party of six we absolutely don't need to consider adjusting the table array. Personally I would love to play the game with a party of 5-6 and proper reactions, readied actions.

Agreed, I believe part of the issue is that Larian has given themselves very little breathing room with designing encounters. (A party of four and a standard 5e table array.)

The players will also have the option to use three other party members who would also be benefiting from this. That's why, the party works together in DnD. And it's about how the player feels about it, this wasn't intended to fail-proof creating a character. If you playtest DnD you'll see those small changes in modifiers really add up.

Modifiers most certainly are not arbitrary. If modifiers were arbitrary players would always take feats at each ability score improvement.

I've seen time and time again that you're passionate about character pathing. But ignoring that not everyone enjoys playing DnD 5e at levels 1-4 is nonsense.

The combat isn't challenging as is. That's the real issue.

How can you play with 4 wizards ? There is Gale and yourself. Where do the the other 2 come from ?
And how do these wizards recover spells and survive without long rests. I assume you start from level 1, right ?

I think just adding 2 more party members would be a buff enough. Numbers wise, other than enemy stats sometimes, things are pretty close to dnd 5e I think? But by adding 2 party members players will have more tools meaning that things wont have to have flat amount buffs. Also I don't think it'd be detrimental because the ideal parties are 3-6, 6 is on the higher end but in dnd that is the classic party size and in past games that was your max party size.

It's not even a matter of power, frankly. Six party members would make party composition better simply because they offer way more possible combinations, more room for non-essential roles and give you chances to put to use a way broader variety of interesting loot.

I'd be fine even with making fights twice as hard, for all I care about that. That's a completely separate issue, anyway.

Two more party members is a bigger buff, two additional turns in each round of combat is huge. Each character can also share aggro for the team, etc.

In all honesty, a party of six would give Larian even more leeway to make combat more varied, challenging, etc.

While this is a game with a party, my focus is the character that I made. The more other characters I have control over, the less I feel like I have a solid point of view. I kind of wish that you could have other party members follow you around and could give them rough instructions, but that you would have no direct control over what they do. You can tell Astarion to go scout, but he's going to do it his way, whatever that is in the situation. If you ask Lae'zel to scout, she's going to do something totally different. In battle, you can shout out rough strategies, e.g. "Focus on this goblin." or "Protect this party member.", but that doesn't give you direct control over your companions. The only character I want full control over is the one I create at the beginning of the game.

I don't actually expect something like this to be implemented, but that's the version of this game that I'd like to play. Having even more characters to manage is a step in the opposite direction.

I think you have to start a multiplayer game, then open 3 more instances of it on your computer to make the rest of the custom party, then save the game and relaunch with only the first character's profile. Haven't tried it so I could be wrong.
Wizards get cantrips which are cast at will. There are also plenty of scrolls to use. A long rest would not be needed with careful gameplay, just save all your spell slots and scrolls for the "oh crap" moments. If you prefer not to be careful, anyone can use cleric spell scrolls and food and potions are plentiful for healing.

You start a multiplayer game and then start 3 more instances of the game on your computer and join the multiplayer game.
Have each instance create a Wizard and then launch the game. Once the game has started save the game and then quit out of the other 3 instances. You now have a game with four custom Wizards.

Yes I start from level 1.
With no long rests the Wizards don't ever recover spells. (With the exception of one use of Arcane Recovery per character)
You use spells sparingly relying mostly on cantrips and scrolls.

It was challenging but I really enjoyed having to think through each battle.
The downside is when I play normal play-throughs long rests feel like cheating

I don't want two more character slots because I'm struggling to beat the game.

I want two more character slots because I want to listen to their banter and opinions.