Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Maximum Party Size

Hi Larian =D

I always loved that the original BG games allowed up to 6 party members!

I also thoroughly enjoyed D:OS 1 and 2, but honestly one of the big factors (among others lol) that keeps me going back to BG after all these years is the party size. Is there any chance the current party size of 4 will increase to 6 for BG3 in the near or distant future?

Thank you!

Theres a screenshot out there showing all 5 origin characters in party.

I'd be willing to bet that the party limit is 6.

No Larian has already confirmed party size is 4. But one dev did suggest that that is an issue that is potentially open to change.

I would petition for the OPTION, at least when playing single player, to increase party size to 6 with the understanding that this will make encounters easier/less challenging.

I admit I mostly played BG games with custom characters, not only my main characters, but the others as well.
It fitted in either with names and classes my friends played in Table Top or matched the fantasy fiction I was writing and it was fun to imagine it was me and my group in these adventures.

Now that means you miss out on scripted conversations and party interplay, but back in BG1 and 2 it was ok to do so after having played through once with the written characters. Other times i would do a blend. That was possible with a party of 6 characters.

With 4 and with so much work put into origin/important NPC's, I am loathe to play with a custom party (if that is even possible!), though I am certainly going to play with a fully custom main character.

Neverwinter Nights 1&2 annoyed me with their party size (or lack of), but at least in NWN2 you could the party up to 4 iirc by the time you got to the later acts.

I believe I read here that 4 was the number chosen for Multiplayer purposes?! Which I can understand, but as a SP experience I admit I would prefer 5 or 6.

I haven't yet seen anywhere whether the party might not be a split thing where characters stay back at camp whilst your party of 3 or so went out and could change out who comes with you in each "mission". Not overly a fan of that, but it is one solution. Better would be that you cross paths with interesting characters multiple times until you either take them or they go their own way (maybe even being against you later on).

For me 5 would be ideal but I understand the concern with the possible time increase in battles. Tank, melee dps, healer, ranged dps, support/misc dps. This is the most enjoyable for me.

Honestly I don't doubt one bit that when you balance a game for a four men party adding the option for six is going to trivialize things.
And I don't doubt that the game may have a "good flow" with 4 characters, either.

My problem with the small parties is that they hardly allow any composition variety: once you reserve a slot of any major role (i.e. healer, tank, dps, rogue) you are pretty much out of room to personalize and all the alternatives are about sacrificing one of these roles just for the sake of experimentation.

Would love if they added support for six. A true DnD game should allow that. Then you have more customization options and also aren't as limited in picking companions

They stated 4 player multiplayer, I don't believe theres been any word on party size. There are screenshots showing 5 party members

Swen said "4 players + followers" which people took to mean a max party of 4 characters, but he was probably talking about 4 online players max + NPC followers.

As some people have said, there is a screenshot that shows all 5 origins characters in the party, so 4 is clearly not the party size limit.

I also think that the max party size should be 5 or 6. In DOS 1 and 2, you had a lot of flexibility to give characters multiple roles. You don't have as much flexibility in DnD, so if your total party size is only 4 characters, that is going to feel much more limiting.

Dynamic scaling EL depending on party size would be ideal but probably hell to balance. Would be nice if 6 were standard though.

We really need to know more about the Followers, what they are and what they can do.

Nice thing about 5e is that a dedicated healer isn't as necessary as it was in previous editions. Any character with Healing Word (a bonus action spell that heals a small amount of HP, which is still enough to get an unconscious character back on their feet) can handle in-combat healing, and out of combat characters can spend hit dice to recover lost hit points on a short rest. So long as bonus actions and short rests are a thing your party composition is more open already.

Followers, whatever they are, are not true party members. So for me they won't count. And increased party size making combat encounters easier won't matter to me at all either because for me TB combat encounters are unchallenging and pointless anyway. I'd much rather at least have the enjoyment of two extra companions. And as I clearly say, this should be OPTIONAL.

4 companions is nearly always going to be : warrior + thief + mage + cleric.
That sucks you cannot personalize your team and being more creative during the games.

And this is bad for combats, but also for interactions and the "personnality" of your team.
Who cares about random followers/familiars ? They are not party members...

You can potentially substitute with stuff like Paladin for Warrior, Bard and Druid for Cleric and Wizard depending on how exactly they implement some abilities or certain spells. Bard can take some key wizard spells and there's spells like Healing Spirit. That said yes War+Rog+Wiz+Cle is pretty much the default.

I guess going for 4 makes the interactions between Characters easier makes game more close and personal and encounters more noob friendly. That said even though I am not in the BG3 is DOS3 faction an option to go for 6 party would be amazing and feel more strategic and give you nicer options to use all those classes and origins.

Potentially substitute yeah... Maybe I could have said :
Tank + Healer + DPS (incl. a Thief).

Having more characters give you choices and get rid of the concept of "common team" (don't really know if it's the right words in EN, but you'll understand what I mean). That's what is important in Role Play : create the team YOU choose.

If their combat system is too slow/easy for being played with more.characters they probably did wrong.choices somewhere.

With simultanious turns i see absoluteley no reason not to have 6 characters.
6 seems to be the de facto standard teamsize for a DnD party.
with this game beeing based on 5e youre bound to do MUCH less in one combat round compared to divintiy original sin 2 (where you already have more combat skills at level 1 than youll have at level 10 in this unless youre a caster) i definitly want more characters.
Having 3 characters to my own when im playing with a friend would be nice.


And yeah, 4 characters leads to tbe problem that.. well its dnd.
You kind of need a cleric. you could maybe subsittue that with a druid, maybe.
And you kind of need a wizard. There doesnt appear to be a sorcerer class, Warlock doenst substitute a wizard.
Arguably you also need a Rogue, that ones more optional if youve got a wizard, but having only 4 characters seriously limits your party composition

Larian needs to understand that in D:OS a party size of 4 could work fine given that D:OS is a classless system. But D&D is a class-based system, and the different classes are a foundational core characteristic of D&D. If you go with only a party of 4, you might as well not bother creating all of the many more esoteric classes available in D&D because nobody is going to be able to use them anyway. Like many have already said, you basically always need a fighter, a rogue, a cleric, and an arcane caster. No space in your party for any ecclectic characters. No space in your party for that character who is dead-weight in combat but so much fun to have for roleplaying purposes. In a D&D game, that's a terrible shame.

It worked well in NWN2. It's not about how many party members you have but game balance. I liked playing BG with 4 or 5 party members personally rather than 6.