Change the party size to 3 people - Larian Studios forums

There is a "gold standard", the classic 4-person RPG party model. It was made by games such as Dragon Age and Original Sin, even in Neverwinter Nights they usually had a party with 4 companions (to get more you needed a special skill if I'm not mistaken)

I personally like 4 characters: the main character and three companions. But there are those who want to change this standard and set up an experiment on the players.

How about 3 party member? This will make our group more united, speed up the battles, and so on. Who has any thoughts on this? The player will not have the feeling that he is leading a small army. How it is done in Mass Effect!

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Are you trolling us? I'm for it. Go three! Like Harry Ron Hermione, gimli Aragon legolas, and the Powerpuff girls!

Oh yeah go Kotor

dnd is balanced around a party of 6 , because the game have 6 stats and its impossible to cover all the rolls with only 4 party members.

Originally Posted by Evil_it_Self

dnd is balanced around a party of 6 , because the game have 6 stats and its impossible to cover all the rolls with only 4 party members.

You can do two to the maximum, in the character creation editor. For a warrior - Strength and Endurance (although Laezel has them already high). To the Wizard - Intellect and Charisma. So this task can be solved with the help of three characters. Oh, and there is also an artifact in the game that makes a warrior's intelligence equal to 18

Just wanted to add the awesome animaniacs. Indispensable proof that three is best.

On a more serious note - the balance argument is kinda bs. Nwn had 2 party members as far as I remember and I don't see many people complaining about it. On the other hand it's nwn so...

Why stop at 3? Black Friday is coming up, lets go for 1! Like the Witcher!!!!

Then you don't need to worry about shitty companions because you wont have any!

you can always play with fewer characters if you want to unite more, speed up combat more and so on more. Maybe 2 teams of 3 united in one?

I generally like the idea though of argueing which number is the one true number

Originally Posted by Tuv

you can always play with fewer characters if you want to unite more, speed up combat more and so on more. Maybe 2 teams of 3 united in one?

I generally like the idea though of argueing which number is the one true number

I also have such an idea to remove the limit on the number of companions. It's realistic! The main character and his twelve friends. Then everyone will be happy.

You only need ONE group member.
Me - the fÂ°cking god of everything, lol.

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Or maybe two with extrem buffs like in DoS2.
Why not?

But five members would be very nice.

Me and scratch against the hordes of hell. That would be epic

Not sure if it's a troll or not, but assuming it is... It would be so easier for them to read and hear players if this forum wasn't drowned in this kind of topic

I wish I could slap you out of existence.

You can do it yourself. They don't need to change anything.

2/10 must troll harder.

Originally Posted by Tuco

I wish I could slap you out of existence.

I didn't say that the third character in the group should be the cleric of Loviavar from the goblin camp, why are you angry

There are peeps that did EA with 1....so it can be done.

Originally Posted by Thrandarian

There are peeps that did EA with 1....so it can be done.

Trust is a foolish thing. I like my party of one.

Agree, this must be trolling... Grant it, I think that at some point, varying the number of party members would be awesome, but there would need to be extra balancing involved. Such as increasing the number of monsters, or buffing them if you have over 4 party members. Then debuffing or decreasing the number of enemies if less than 4. DoS2 had 2 mods for this to balance the difficulty.

And just for the record, the 4 person party concept started with Final Fantasy, way back in 1987. :P

I like one better.

Most game have one, it really gives you the importance of teamwork as an emphasis. It also makes you so much more important.

You don't need to micromanage because it requires too much thinking, you just do your own thing. A single player game, since most of us have no friends right?
Isn't that why we want low numbers for party members.

Originally Posted by Vortex138

Agree, this must be trolling... Grant it, I think that at some point, varying the number of party members would be awesome, but there would need to be extra balancing involved. Such as increasing the number of monsters, or buffing them if you have over 4 party members. Then debuffing or decreasing the number of enemies if less than 4. DoS2 had 2 mods for this to balance the difficulty.

And just for the record, the 4 person party concept started with Final Fantasy, way back in 1987. :P

Minimal encounter balancing is necessary. Just divide encounter exp between characters who are actually present.
-Party of 2? The exp is only split two ways, meaning that each character levels up faster
-Part of 6? The exp is split 6 ways, meaning that each character levels up much more slowly.
The first 3-4 fights would be much easier/harder with a party of 6/2, but it would very soon auto-correct itself, at least to some degree. No need for any specific "lone wolf" mode.

To prevent companions left-at-camp from being underleveled to the point of uselessness, maybe auto-level them up to stay no more than 2 levels below the PC.

Originally Posted by OneManArmy

Originally Posted by Tuv

you can always play with fewer characters if you want to unite more, speed up combat more and so on more. Maybe 2 teams of 3 united in one?

I generally like the idea though of argueing which number is the one true number

I also have such an idea to remove the limit on the number of companions. It's realistic! The main character and his twelve friends. Then everyone will be happy.

Studies with anectdotal sample sizes show that balance is fine up until you reach 27 party members.

Also it appears that this configuration adds the left side of Baldur's Gate back into the game. Larian thought of everything

On a side note, this is actually not that cumbersome to control and having a train of so many goons works and looks great. wouldn't work this easily with a non-larian-chained approach.

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They do say two's company, three's a crowd. I'm scared of the growly yellow elf thing though, I need a handy Gale to take all the aggro.

I am hardcore I prefer 0 players.

I'd actually be fine with 3-person party. Fewer people to get in each other's way and have to individually jump with.

Originally Posted by Firesnakearies

I'd actually be fine with 3-person party. Fewer people to get in each other's way and have to individually jump with.

This says a lot about the state of the games pathing and character control.

Six characters in the party is preferred.

I'm actually fine with the 4 person party but I could go for a 3 person party under one particular circumstance--if the two party members you bring actively engage in conversation cutscenes. And I don't mean the odd comment here and there, I mean they give their input and even debate with the other party member/player/npc. Something like that would be easier to pull off with a smaller party than a large one and I will always--always--take dialogue immersion over anything combat mechanics related. As it stands, usually one companion makes a comment at random so you'll likely miss what other characters may have said.

So, OP, I don't think you're crazy or trolling.

This is actually a much harder sell than a 6 person party. D&D is based around 4 basic roles and has been for quite a while and lacking one of those roles can be problematic. 5e makes it possible to approach the basic roles in a couple of different ways, but it's harder to hit all of them in just 3 party members. I'd be fine with a party that size on tabletop, but it would make designing challenges for a CRPG a bit too erratic as it would be harder to predict what abilities a party wouldn't have. Also it would cut off access to storylines and thus XP.

There's very little in favor of reducing the party minimum.