Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Mega-threads and Guides Party Size Discussion

If we got more companion later 4 is extremly few and lacking, especially if u make your own hero (and why the hell not) . Plus yes I not really bothered the updated DOS engine + combat, and to be honest I think its really fitting for BG3 and close to the tabletop type gameplay BUT with bigger party size would be mor BG for me too.

-1

Adding a dissenting voice here. You do not "need" a mage / cleric / any one role in a game based on the 5e system. The difference between a party of 4 and party of 5 is massive and will trivialize most encounters in a way that cannot be fixed by simply adding more HP. A party of 6 in this game would be preposterous.

You can heal by eating food (let alone by resting essentially at any time for free), and the game is much more combat focused than a traditional session of D&D where skills and utility spells are not nearly as significant. There is much less need here for a balanced party that covers all possible bases than there is in D&D 5e, which is already very forgiving in terms of party composition needs.

The tabletop recommends a party size of 4, and in the turn based system, trash encounters would become a slog if they were balanced for 6 players, since they would have to add more mobs in each encounter to compensate.

+1

I understand there are arguments for a 4 man party max, having to do with encounter length and people apparently having trouble keeping up with managing 6 characters and their abilities. At least some such arguments were being made when Pillars of Eternity wanted to cut down the party from 1 to 2. Also there is and argument for wanting to limit the tools a party has at their disposal to encourage creative solutions to problems and Larian seem to like that kind of thing. But the truth is this will lead to pretty much every party being the same utility based one with 1 healer 1 rogue and the other 2 switching depending on the PC class.

6 characters wont take away the utility party problem entirely. Even with Baldur's Gate 1&2 There is always high pressure to have at least the healer and rogue. But atleast 6 party members leaves some slack there to play with.

Now BG3 is obviously turn based which makes the encounter length problem more prominent than in the real time with pause titles. But I would rather leave this up to the player and perhaps inform the player that with a bigger party combats will likely take longer.

I disagree with the OP about just plonking in the option for 6 party members without any balance considerations. I'd actually prefer a tweakable difficulty with the option for the player to increase the amount of enemies in combat situations. Give the player some of the DM's balancing power so to speak. I recently played BG1 again and I was kinda sad that I could not simply increase enemy amounts and would have been forced to also give them more health. I wanted core rules but with a bit more enemies.

Ofcourse this also puts a bit more pressure for having more companions. BG1 had tons, and I'm still not sure I've ever met them all. BG1 companions were also super simple with just a few combat barks and no dialogue. So it is going to require way more resources from Larian to add a full fledged companion. Pros and cons.

The thing with 4 characters is that you are kinda forced to take specific members. In my playthrough I feel forced to take Shadowheart, Astarion and Lae'zel because they add something I need like a frontliner and healer and a rogue that can lockpick and find traps. But I would really rather hang around with Wyll and Gale which are much more nice and friendly and interesting to me. But in a way I feel I can't because then combat and exploration will be really really hard.

I'm content with 4 companions, someone at Reddit summed it up nicely, though judging by responses there is lots of die hard fans of 6 members and no matter arguments everyone against them will hit a wall so why bother. 4 that's the number

I'm content with 4 companions, someone at Reddit summed it up nicely, though judging by responses there is lots of die hard fans of 6 members and no matter arguments everyone against them will hit a wall so why bother. 4 that's the number.

So when the "modern game designer" who watched five episodes of Gamemaker's Toolkit on youtube comes in, winks at you and tell you knowingly "Trust me, you don't really want a party of six, that would mess up TEH PERFECT BALANCE" he can't really expect anything more than being welcomed with loud burps.

Larian has already confirmed that the level cap is 10

I just love these arguments-4 person party was good enough in DOS, why change? Well maybe ask Larian to make another DOS game and leave Baldurs Gate to us ?

Just reading through the suggestions pages for DOS 1 & 2. Interestingly, I'm struggling to find any requests there at all for increasing the party size. Almost as if it's not critical to the game's enjoyment level in this engine.

Well, a GOOD argument for four would go a long way.
Too bad there can't be anything else than half-hearted bullshit arguments for it, because we aren't talking about guessing randomly and taking a stab in the dark, here.

People who want a six-men party already played games that had them, have solid reasons to think it's better than the alternative and have tested their expectations in reality over and over across the years.


So when the "modern game designer" who watched five episodes of Gamemaker's Toolkit on youtube comes in, winks at you and tell you knowingly "Trust me, you don't really want a party of six, that would mess up TEH PERFECT BALANCE" he can't really expect anything more than being welcomed with loud burps.

My 2 cents : it's not the same game, and not the same system.
In DOS and DOS2, classes are "fluid" : you can chose your skills the way you want.

I doubt that. I'm pretty sure some good arguments were already posted and similar to Reddit, those arguments were downvoted to oblivion .

Personally, ,if 4 provides deep companion relationship, be it cutscenes with companions breaking in, rich dialogue options, etc. but 6 would not, then the choice is simple for me - 4.

Just reading through the suggestions pages for DOS 1 & 2. Interestingly, I'm struggling to find any requests there at all for increasing the party size. Almost as if it's not critical to the game's enjoyment level in this engine.

And why 6 would not? running business revolves around money but everyone seems to forget about that, maybe you are just too young
but again, 4 is just perfect for deep companion relationship

I'm 42, I've been into this genre since I was 12 or so starting with series like the old Ultima games and I'm also starting to get the impression you are running your mouth for the sake of it at this point.
"Money" is not an argument for anything here. You are just trying to sound smug without any real understanding of what you are talking about.

I'm sorry but i'm not the emotional one in here and if you think that money is not a good argument then there is nothing else that I have to add on top of what I already wrote and you only proved my point