Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Is there a chance party size will be increased or are we stuck with 4 ?

Looks like a win win scenario to me.

It gets old, fast. That's why I have flurries of activity around major updates, and then disappear. I understand the "but if I'm not harping on it every day they'll forget about me" thing, but given the way feedback is handled both in game and here, I don't see it as likely, and I sure don't see the need for a new thread every week about the same thing. "If it bothers you, don't reply" will come next, I'm sure, and I've read a lot more threads on these forums than I've replied to, and I have to wonder, would that axiom apply if I were to start a new thread every week insisting that the party size be kept to four, or would I get a lot of disparaging remarks about my character? I know where my money is going on any bets on that scenario, along with the added bonus of I won't be doing that anyway. Someone asked what would be the worst that happened, and I outlined a couple of things that have happened. I'm cool if ya'll are fine with reading the same spiel week in and week out, I'd prefer not to.

It'll be nice, once the game launches, to read about interesting things that happened in game instead of "but someone somewhere will be abusing this mechanic, and so it needs to be removed" or "but my party isn't big enough". The "trust in 5e" movement is going to be kind of funny soon too, when WotC releases 6e, because apparently, they don't trust it either? Yes, I know, that's a way for them to make more money on the IP, so they've got to release new stuff. It's just going to be funny to see "Trust in 5e" avatars once 6e hits the shelves.

"No"

"Yes"

"No"

"Yes"

"grrr!!"

"Grrr!!!"

I just like to follow the story, that's why I'm here, not for meltdowns for not being able to pass because it's just SLOW, not HARD, just SLOW. You can kill the entire goblin camp with a lvl 1 warrior if played correctly, is the game mechanics what bring you to play it? nope, it's its world, what you can discover and do in it, if i have to bring a priest who's a trickery domain, a ranger, a mage and a thief, who the f*** is gonna be using heavy armors? they're gonna be totally wasted on the fact that i don't have nobody to really usem them with and thus eventually discarding 100 items because there's no use for them in this playthrough.

I just want the game to be release and hopefully we'll get the 12ppl mod so we can take all of the classes and races in one playthrough, i'm gonna be telling you specifically the ending of it when i play through it with my 12man party.

That's because there isn't one.

Some people just love to unleash their verbal beatdowns on strawmen who can't exactly fight back.

So, do you honestly think that the people that want to use a mod to allow more companions are also going to say "man, this is really too easy with more companions, you need to make the game balanced around a mod that I downloaded"?

Tuco's right, there is some serious strawmanning going on here.

TBH everyone who downloads a max party size mod is willingly doing it knowing that the combat isn't exactly going to be a priority for that playthrough. They're doing it for the roleplay/story, or knowing that they will only have the time to play through the game once before moving on, so they want to see as much of the game as they can during that one single playthrough. If proper reactions aren't making it in and Larian does the DOS2 thing with your party again, I'm 100% going to end up in the latter category.

And in this day and age where high quality games are coming out all the time, developers REALLY need to stop creating 80+ hour games with fake 'replay value'. The only game in recent memory I'd argue that had any reason to embrace the replay value concept was Pathfinder WotR, because each mythic path actually dramatically altered the course of the whole playthrough. More importantly, it revolved completely around PLAYER CHOICE, not some bullshit like killing off everyone that wasn't in your party after an arbitrary point like DOS2 did.

Yeah, I'm definitely not on board with arbitrarily wiping any members of the party you don't have with you. Imagine my surprise, going into DOS 2 blind, when that happened, after I broke my back getting all of the comps personal stuff done before we got on the ship. I was not a happy camper.

Yeah the killing off party members (or make them otherwise unavailable, since I suspect, in BG3 case, they will join the Absolute or betray you to other parties - Raphael, Cazador, Gith) is one reason, I want as many companions as possible in teh active group. I want to see more storylines, but I also have favorites (currently only one - Shadowheart, but I have high hopes for Karlach and Helia and then there would still be room to take one of the not so much liked companions with me).

I hate the fact that Larian has not removed their quote that we have to choose our companions after act 1 from their FAQ. Especially now that the BG3 Magic the gathering cards have been revealed.

I don't think DOS2 doing that even added anything to the game in the long term besides an excuse to replay it. The whole 'dead party members come back to fight you for one battle' at the end of act 3 just came off as comedic more than anything else, because they got killed off so early that during my first playthrough, I had already forgotten what the deal with them was.

If anything, it basically kneecapped the last quarter of the game, given that all of the major antagonists during the last arc of the game were closely tied to specific party members.

I am lucky I completed DOS2 even once...I had to force feed myself at the end to fulfill that competitionist itch.
DOS 1 is still in my library...started it twice...finished it 0 times.

I did have lots of fun...until I didn't.

And, as 6e (or whatever it is called) releases in 2024, and BG3 releases "sometime" in 2023, there may even be the prospect of BG3 being out of date at release

At the very least, the fully finished/updated and bug-fixed version of BG3 is likely to be after the next D&D comes out.

Here's a thought to horrify some people. What if the WotC/Larian collaboration with BG3 informs the rules changes for the new version? Surfaces and barrels galore, mega-push capability, pro-active reactions, bonus actions for everyone! All the fun of the fair!

OK, I'll shut the door on my way out.....

I’ll admit I’m in the prefer 6 group, but other than nostalgia for the BG series, do I need more than 4?

5e supplied so much crossover that I don’t quite need the quantity of characters to cover the skills like you needed in 2e.

To boot, Larian have already said we can get mercenaries or tag along a later on that temporarily bolster the group size.

So do we want 6 for nostalgia, for the party interaction maybe?

I’m also actually not against losing characters, because frankly the concept of people waiting at a camp location until you the protagonist come back pretty offensive. It’s lazy in this day and age and makes zero sense.

At least Dragon Age inquisition had a castle and other tasks that had to be done, so you got the concept of splitting up but keeping choice.

I am very fine with 4, Pathfinder games have 6 and it is sometimes a chore to go through so many turns. The worst part has to be the buffing ritual you have to do at the start of each fights.
It would be a bit awkward for multiplayer as well, I feel like 4 players max is the optimal number for an all-players party.

Well, thank god then this isn't Pathfinder, both for how the buff work (Concentration being a thing) and for encounter design.

Not to mention I would HATE to play Wrath of the Righteous or Kingmaker with a party of 4 too, if I have to be perfectly honest, so we have a strong disagreement from the the very initial premise, here.

NWN 2 had a tavern that we used as a base, and I see no reason that the same can't be done here. The selected party clears the way, and the rest follow later. Whether it's a tavern, or some other base doesn't really matter, but having that base, which is already implied via the current camp, makes perfect sense. In fact, once we're "out of the weeds", the base camp could switch to the current base, whatever it may be. With the added benefit of there are no wasted story beats. All of the party members are there, and can do their stories, depending, of course, on whether or not some beats interfere with others. Maybe doing X's story means that an NPC needed for Y's is either dead, or won't deal with the party any more.

5 atleast mainly for party interaction.

I do not believe that mercenaries were mentioned as a party booster, I think they were mentioned in the context of being able to replace companions with custom character options after already being into the game as opposed to needing to make them when you start the game. I could very well be off on this though.


Personally I want 6 for a number of reasons most of which have been mentioned. I've seen people say that a larger party would mean less interest in additional playthroughs, but I think the opposite. I'm not really a fan of most of the current companions. I'd consider an extra run or 2 maybe though if I could run a team I want and have 1-2 others tag along with out taking up primary party spots.

I plan on heavily modding the game after release and the modders have had time with the toolkit to put out finished products. That is certainly going to include mods for increasing the game's difficulty. Quite frankly the current version of the game, even without resorting to "Larian cheese" tactics, is fairly easy with the 4 player party we have. I'd be looking for increased difficulty options/mods regardless of a party cap increase.

That, my friend, is what you call fanboyism