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 ?

Exactly! So full disclosure, but depending on how you slice it, I'm either the youngest Gen-Xer or the oldest Millennial, and I think whoever made that call sort of fucked up the math a bit lol. Or maybe it's because the school year doesn't follow the calendar year? I'm 1981 class of 1999, which makes me the target for everything and precicely nothing I guess.

I certainly identify culturally with the older cohort most times, but the reality is that I'm right there on the line. Sure, generational divides are complete and total nonsense anyway, and I'm certainly not my parents. Not yet anyway - good grief! But yeah, I mean lets not conflate the BG era too hard with what came earlier. I'm old, but not that old! lol Or maybe I am. But also, too young - too young for Star Wars in it's unadulterated form and probably too young for D&D if I'm being honest, maybe a little too old for other later things as well, doubtless - but I will claim that BG1 computer game till the dying day. That one was mine. It hit at the exact right moment in time!!!

To the main subject though, I fully understand that the 6 person party controlled by a single player in a cRPG was largely a technical limitation/compromise at the time. Or also that anyone who really wanted the full PnP D&D experience with other people, wouldn't be truly satisfied with it. The tech barrier no longer exists in the same way, and we've seen what AI companions or henchmen look like in modern RPGs. It's cool, and it's a thing now, for sure, but also a rather different thing with a different spirit. You can't look at old BG and get a good sense of how to make a single player = single character D&D BG computer game hum, since that's not what it was. It was the god mode gold box version, single player with your own personal DM and a team of 6 heroes that gave you your D&D cookies, but in the form of icecream. Just a different deal. I also like the idea the Composer mentioned of just being a PC and nothing more in some games. It's also not what I want from a Baldur's Gate 3 game. Not that my tastes and preferences on this one are any more valid than someone else's, but since we're here to tell them what we actually want, that's what I want... 6.

I also don't know if my 'player/party is the worms!' idea from the previous page works for everyone, but it seems like it could do the trick in this context, similar to the godmode concept from the earlier BG and SSI entries. 6 is the sweet spot for me. Nail that and 4 will be great and I'll enjoy that too, but lowering the ceiling down to 4 and it just can't quite do what it needs to for my sensibility. Not just for the gameplay, but for the whole thrust of the thing. It's just too small.

I'd be fine with a party size of four if there were more companions in general. There is one divine caster (Shadowheart) and one arcane caster (Gale). With my PC, that leaves about one flexible spot open.

I think that’s a stretch if I’m honest.
It’s 4 because that’s a part size larian are used to and I believe because D&D tabletop sees 4 as about the right number.

Baldur’s Gate however has obviously always been a 6 party member affair. You can call it nostalgia if you want, but it is the number the franchise is built around and the number most on this forum would prefer to see.

Some like myself have mused that 5 might be a compromise number, but to say most want 4 is imho wrong. 4 is the number Larian started with for reasons mentioned above, not because the community wanted it.

You'll notice that I worded my post with phrases like: "I suspect..."

...as opposed to wording it like yours.

That said, clearly I disagree with you. You mention the old games having six characters. Yes, that's nostalgia.

As for what "most" people on the forum here want... I *suspect* you don't actually know what most people on the forum want. Even so, how many folks do you figure are on the forum? Now compare that number to how many people are actually playing, have played, or intend to play the game.

So.

1. You don't know what most of the people who visit the forum want. You are free to guess, of course, but you don't know.

-and-

2. The comments here are, by and large, coming from the exact same people over and over again. There are ***TONS*** of people who play this game who have never bothered visiting the latest thread about the party size... and for good reason: because they're probably super okay with four characters. Why would they go crawling around the internet to weigh in on the topic when they're perfectly fine with the way it currently works?

There are obviously plenty of people who are “fine” with it because they don’t know that there was a “previous” and as you say, won’t come on here to comment.

That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t advocate for 6 or any other X number if one bothered to ask.

Is it nostalgia because what… it’s been 20 years between BG2 and BG3, the fact remains 1&2 had a certain party size and this one is different. It’s a change. Is it a better one? That depends on your own point of view, but given the threads on here I will say with confidence that the majority on this forum, given the option, would appear to prefer 6 over 4.

As for the wider world, no, none of us can say, not even you. We can only extrapolate, but that of course brings statistical bias.

Why not. Battle Brothers is cool.


A baseless suspect, not corroborated by any data I've ever seen.

But that aside... Man, If only there was a way to put it to the test.
Some form of pre-release testing environment accessible by a large number of users, where tentative options and features could be made available to see what's more popular and what not.
We could call this Anticipate Entry or something like that.



Quite the understatement.
It's an incredibly disingenuous line of argument.

You don't know either, what most people want, yet you 'suspect' that most people want, what you want. How very convenient.
I see you throwing around statements like that in a lot of threads, so maybe back it up with some numbers?
Otherwise why not just discuss opinions without throwing in some assumed majority?

I was responding to a comment that said most people wanted six.

I rejected the notion that it's a foregone conclusion that most people want six. And I said that I suspect most people want four.

You say I don't know either. Clearly. That's why I said I suspect it as opposed to saying that I know it. And the fact that none of us know for certain is entirely my point when I'm responding to a comment asserting otherwise, insisting that most folks want six.

Hello guys I am mister Most People, weird name I know but I like it. Just chiming in to say I will like the game regardless of the number Larian choose. Your subjective debate is highly entertaining though.

I suspect the actual majority doesn't actually care. It's mostly us with either D&D or BG1-2 experience who care and I don't think either of these demographics are to be scoffed at, but I doubt they're a majority.

So, you're saying that 5e's party size is 4? This is kind of funny then, especially if posters that are insisting that we need more than 4 are also advocating for more 5e? That's some delicious irony, isn't it? Inb4 "but that's only a suggestion": all of the "rules" are suggestions. There are no penalties to a table that chooses to ignore a rule "because they think it's mean", an argument I've actually seen on this very forum, or for having a table with 6 players + a GM, or any other number, for that matter. So, I guess it's not "Trust in 5e", but "Trust in 5e, but only the stuff that I like"?

No, I’m saying that the “un-official meta”, is 4. I.e. it’s the arbitrary number D&D reckons is the normal party size for table top in 5e.

There’s no irony here, it’s simply 2 slightly differing points of view. D&D 5e vs the original BG set-up. Both are valid. I would “prefer” 6, because apparently I’m a nostalgia junky lol.

6 though is probably a logistical “nightmare” for Larian given character interactions etc… let alone the turn based issues it “might” cause (I.e slowing combat further).

I think the discussion is a little heated and unnecessary frankly. Larian have set it to 4 with apparently scope for mercenaries/creatures that get you to a “6”, though we’ve yet to see it in practice. The rest is just wishful thinking from an arbitrary number of people on an Internet forum.

We can ask and hope for a change, but frankly we’re all just typing into the void here.

Number of players/characters does not make the game more or less 5e. It is not a rule in any sense. It is about how encounters are balanced as default and a good DM can re-balance them for any number of players.

There are actually benefits of restricting the number of players in tabletop because everyone plays one character. You get your own round less often. This is not a problem for CRPGs where you play each character. Also scheduling problems, again not a problem in single player CRPG.

Is it? It's not like most of the poster hang on every change Larian made, only those that in their opinion would be better off if left in their original form.

I would also question if party size is the same as gameplay rules - never played TTRPG, but I play Table-top games quite regulary and player size can get out of hand with too many participants - not because it's bad for gameplay, but because how much time it take before each player gets to play. Being the only player kinda erases this consideration. So which partysize will provide me a better playing experience? I know my preference.

EDIT: that said, with how poor party controls are I wouldn’t want to babysit party of 6 and prevent them from getting lost, running into surfaces, jumping and stealthing poor twats 1 by 1. At this point merging all party members into 1 for the exploration, jRPG style, might be a worthwhile thing to consider

Actually, it was an issue for my 4 people multiplayer group. Some encouters were very long and I found myself alt tabbing because I was waiting for my turn for so long. Also our schedules were often a problem so we could only play once every week.

I was talking about single player.

...and I would argue that how much time it takes for each player to get their turn is a gameplay issue, when players aren't actually doing anything but waiting for their turn. Being the only player doesn't erase it, it just spreads it out over however many NPCs are involved, both in the player's party, and the opposing faction's party. There have already been threads about slow combat on these forums. That will be compounded with the addition of more characters in the player's party.

Then there's the point about balancing, which I removed from my post originally, because I know how that will be met, because it's already been stated, in this very thread, as a "strawman". People have already stated that they wouldn't have any issues with "the game's too easy with a party of 6" threads, presumably because they got what they wanted? Of course, if they find that it's too easy, and then insist on further balancing to increase the difficulty, that will be alright, because then it's what they want, and they've got to start squeaking, so they can get greased, right? Isn't that the stated position that resulted in this post in another thread?

Sorry if anyone thinks I skipped their post, but the primary argument had been covered by "suggested party size". People have been adding homebrew rules to these TT games since they've existed, and commenting on adding more, while advocating for strict adherence to the rules is funny.

Show me an official document/rule/whatever that states party size in DnD 5e is 4. Not for a specific campaign but as a general rule. Then we can talk about homebrewing.

It is the default suggested number and what challenge rating is generally balanced around. There is no rule but there is a standard.

Again, not a problem ...

6 members party =/= 6 players.
It can easily stay 4players top + 2followers