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

I too find a 4 character limit to be too restrictive. I was raised on Original flavor D & D, and the AD&D 2.0, and truly enjoy the addition of support classes beyond the 4 major food groups - adding a ranger, bard pallie or such provides more variety. And while some folks want to enjoy the replayability enforced by a 4 person limit, some of us have other responsibilities that limit our play time. I've been playing one single run of PoE2 since release, and only just hit lvl 17 on that first play through. Work, family etc. take up far too much time for me to ever play 100 different BG3 run throughs.

My DOS2 game uses the mod that allows me to use additional group members, and if Larian doesn't add that to BG3, I expect to grab the first mod that allows that flexibility. My time is valuable, and what payed for the $60 I handed over for the game.

I agree 5 or 6 slots would be better ; allow more diversity ; but the game would have to be rebalanced ; and you'd probably need to recruit every companion. I wouldn't mind temporary NPCs joining the Party at times also.

Four party members is classic DnD video game size. Considering how cake fights have been so far with just four, I can't imagine how broken six might be.

We absolutely need at least a 6 man party. If Larian doesn't add this in vanilla I will have this be my first mod. Well written

Indeed we need at least 5 man party, being restricted to 4 is suffocating. In DAO you could keep your companions all the time and take them for a quest if you feel like it. But in DOS2 at some point they gone forever, and BG3, for now, resembles DOS2 alot. Why make the player to discard the precious banter options? It's looks like a indirect way to force the player replay the game more times. Personally i can accept 5 man party, but is that such a problem to add one more up to six? Apply to 6 man party some xp penalties, this is not that difficult.

But, the thing is, if that issue left to the modders, rebalancing the whole game for 5 or 6 party will take a while and the result will be imperfect anyway.

+1

True, but it is better then nothing unfortunately.

DnD 5e is balanced around a 4 player party, so I think this is fine. What I dont like is that you again seem to lose some of your party members after act 1.

Personally I'd trust that if Larian want to make & balance the game around a 4 person group, then that is the optimal way to go. In fact I'd be concerned that if enough people keep clamouring for a 6 man group then they will end up using time & resources to cater to them, to the detriment of other aspects of the overall experience.

Sounds like the marrying of a baseless assumption and a pointless concern.
Tweaking the UI to adjust for six characters wouldn't be that much work (especially if they also take the chances to improve party control, which is sorely needed regardless of party expansion) and encounters are still in the middle of balancing/tweaking, so better address the idea of a bigger party now rather than later down in production.

+1

Exactly , great point and summarize what needs to be done and planned right now before even a biger update on EA.

By the way people saying they can just wait for modders, I feel this is a really lazy approach on Larian if they rely on community and third parties to help them on their own game, as well as if they do that the game can't be balanced well for those who wish to experience a true D&D experience with a party.

More than anything, "modding" shoudl be reserved for fringe little ideas that are a matter of taste.
When the overwhelming majority of your community seems to be in favor of a solution over an other and the full release is still possibly even more than a year away, maybe it's time to start reconsidering what should be part of the core design.

I personally would love to see party sizes of six as well, just for the sake of it, but when even the official DnD adventures are tailored to 4-man parties, it will be hard to convince Larian to do otherwise. Besides that, balancing might be even more troublesome for them, plus with only like six to ten companions at the end, parties might look very samey every time you start a new game.

I donìt get this argument.
Aside for the fact that "only six companions" would be disappointing regardless of party size, if anything reducing the number of slots is going to make me even more wary of experimenting with the occasional odd class/specialization. When you have only four slots, each one of them becomes even more valuable to cover for a key role, rather than trying fancy combinations and synergies.

I actually like the 4 party member limit. Bigger parties will slowdown combat (which is already an issue), increase the time spent managing all party members (this is a wide issue I have where I try to create my own character and 'connect' with it but I spend just as much effort managing all other characters) and will make every other party member less valuable. Just a personal preference, but I feel 4 is just fine.

I also like the fact that I might not have all bases covered with my party. If I don't have a rouge I can't do rouge things. Great. It adds to the story, force me to make certain choices. The limit number of characters actually adds to the verity of plays I will have over time.

Of course I can always choose to only take 4 characters (even if the games allows for 6) but I would bet the game would be balanced and design for a full party. It's not the perfect solution, but I can live with it if it's important to other people.

Agreed Tuco. I mentioned somewhere that playing as a ranger I'm not even thinking about taking Shadowheart and Lae'zel out of my party because with how much trouble I'm having with combat currently, I would have no chance without them. I might trade one of them out for a paladin if such a companion were introduced, but if they don't provide more companions that can fill a tank or healer role in the party then effectively that only leaves me with one extra slot I can devote to another companion.

weak argument. this is a video game not dnd and there is already its own balance. in addition, there will be difficulty levels so balance need to be adjusted to them all.

so 5-6 party is a must

We already addressed this: in short, that's not true at all.
First, because if anything more party members would "clean up" the enemies quicker.
Second, because making room for 6 party members doesn't mean you CAN'T still play wioth 4, 2, or even solo if you want (surprise surprise, that's exactly what some people did with the past two Baldur's Gate games).
The mere fact you are splitting exp among less party members automatically address party scalability making smaller parties level up faster.

Have they changed it? I haven't played EA, but iirc in the gameplay demos XP seemed to be the same regardless of party size.