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

my only problem is that it will make the combat and loot hard to scale as everything will get so much easier, and you can't just up the HP and/or damage of creatures

I remember reading a post from Larian that Act 1 will be the only Act where you have all companions and that you will have to choose just like in Divinity OS 2 who you take.

"Will companions be interchangeable during long rest?
Yes, at the start of your adventure your recruited companions will be at camp when not in the adventuring party, and can be swapped in and out at camp. Just like friends in real life! After the first act however you are going to have to commit, also just like in real life."

6 party size for more chaos and tactics in my combat please!
+1 for OP

If you actually know how D&D DMs design encounters, as I've stated twice in this post, balancing to 4 or 6 people is actually easy. Each monster on the Monsters Manual has something called CR - CR tells you the upper maximum difficulty of the monster, for example the famous Illithid Mind Flayer Arcanist has a CR of 8, meaning a party of 4 players lvl 6 could take 1 on with hard difficulty while a party of 6 lvl 6 could take it easy.

CR is a stat given to monster to balance them throughout the levels of the game as well, so goblins being CR 1/4 are usual enemies on lower levels while Giants vary from CR 5-13 and most Devils are CR8. Of course translating CR to a game will not be 1:1 but balancing encounter for a 6 party is not just upping HP/DMG/Number of Enemies.

Actually balancing for a 6 man party introduce more possibilities that, on Epic encounter like a Lich instead of only having the Lich they can actually summon a Beholder and the party can deal with it, making those unique encounter so much more memorable than just killing 1 powerful enemy.

But how can I add more monsters and difficulty? Late game Monsters are great enemies, most of them have really great stats, are immune to lots of stuff, have unique abilities and acess to spells as well as our characters.

Now IF I'm restricted to the 4 model party (Melee/Tank, Healer, Magic User, Rogue) I can't balance the combat well enough. IF I'm allowed to have 2 more spots I can add so much more to those encounters, I can have another Caster Character focusing entirely on Contolling and Dispelling and the Cleric can go smash and not have to focus on being only healer so it won't have to use most of it's action/bonus action healing.

By the way, most buffs are Concentration based, if you're so limited with a 4 man party probably you won't be able to get much more than a Haste and a Bless in fight since you can only hold one Concentration Spell, meaning our buffs are really limited like this.

This isn't a tabletop game where all you have to do is recalculate some stats and do extra dice rolls. The game has literally been designed from the ground up with a 4 character party in mind. The size and shape of the map, the environments, pathways, encounters/combat zones. This would all have to be overhauled in order to optimise the experience.

This is a new game with new challenges, and all I'm hearing is people saying "but I like to do X with Y character class" well now you'll have to figure out a new way to approach it!

Well simply in your own words: The game CAN be designed from the ground up with a 6 character party in mind. The size and shape of the map, the environments, pathways, encounters/combat zones. Its still EA.

I have to agree that changing any characters class be it companion or the player mid game would just feel wrong and is something I would never do. The only time I could ever see me using such a feature is as a respec option so I could alter some of their stats and abilities within the same class depending on how Larion built them or if I fudged them in levelling.

There will probably be twelve origin characters at launch, one for each planned class and that's probably enough, your right if they make to many origin characters it's too much unnecessary work, but then I would also expect more companions that can be recruited in later chapters to give multiple options to pick from for the different classes who will have different personalities, alignments and skillsets.

+1 5 or 6

Agreed BG has always been 6 - it's just so much more fun! We'll surely that will be one of the first mods to appear 😉

I agree with 100%.

I'll send my thread to add to your point of view.

http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=685704#Post685704

Please make it a 6 party members. I don't want to be stuck with a NPC I don't like just because I can't work around kicking him out and being creative with my party composition.

Hard agree. A six man party would absolutely decimate every encounter currently, though. Would need some rebalancing.

You only need two or three in your party in most circumstances as a rogue can solo significant parts of the game (as of now) and the rest are just meatbags to slow the enemies down or offer targets for an AI which does not know how to prioritize. You need their passives for some checks or a rogue if you are not one yourself. I guess your character, a rogue and a caster for surfaces, speaking with animals and a bit of cc could take down most of the game with patience.

Regarding rebalancing of difficulty, the key thing to remember is that they're going to do that anyway. They've said that they have systems in place to see where players die and how often so that they know how they need to adjust difficulty. So if they're going to change the party size, it has to be now because then they can simply factor that into the rebalancing.

Not really sure what you are exactly trying to say, but let's be clear of one thing upfront: wanting a six-members party has nothing to do with the idea that "you NEED it" to beat the game.
It's about enjoying the variety of characters, builds and possible party compositions that comes with it a lot more.

Not to mention being able to carry on more companion questlines during a campaign.

I've never had any of those issues that you listed in the original BG series nor would it be a problem for BG3. Players would still have options, still would be re-playable and still would have to strategize since you have more lives on the line. If players don't want to take more time during combat since combat has been sped up from DoS (a few extra seconds on an extra character or 2 would not take an eternity). If players want more of a challenge, they can still use 4 or less party members.

I understand your point with the Urchin background but that still won't replace a rogue. Also, that's now how I wanted to play my wizard and roleplay the character. Still have to have rogue in my party and I can't change the companions backgrounds.

It's an option not set in stone. I have to add, I thought Goblin party encounter was pretty goofy with 20 enemies and only 4 of my party members. You're right, it probably would've been easier for me have that extra party member or two but I would've killed them faster.

+1
Well said! 6 is characters are going to be very useful for those encounters just like original BG 1 and 2.
Players can still have that choice for 4 characters but are going to have really hard time. Like you said, those concentration spells are important.

This is an excellent point. History shows that in a lot of cRPGs if you have sufficient mastery of the system you can beat most games solo. The point is that the vast majority of players don't have that mastery and aren't interested in achieving it. What they want is to be able to enjoy a wider variety of companions and companion interaction without feeling like they need to be experts in the system. I'm very much a beginning and need a tank and healer in my party. I happen to like Shadowheart and Lae'zel but I don't want to be limited to them and/or whatever other tank/healer they introduce into the game and one other character. A game like this should be forgiving enough that a person with basic familiarity with cRPGs who learns everything the game teaches and nothing else can get through the game with a feeling of solid challenge while still allowing them the potential to experience the majority of what the game has to offer. Not that they absolutely will experience everything, but that no matter what class they choose, they CAN experience everything. I'm someone with several years of experience with cRPGs, a modest understanding of D&D and I certainly do not think I could make it through the game without Shadowheart and Lae'zel.

The last point is viable I guess.

I found the majority of companions in Baldur's Gate 2 (in 1 they had a lot less personality) boring or badly written even in my teenage years so I never cared much about them and some people are just getting on your nerves. The Enhanced Edition is even worse. The only rpg where I love the companions is Planescape Torment. Mask of the Betrayer is a close second though. I guess being a Pen&Paper player dulls a lot of enjoyment for me because pc games never reach up to the experience with your real life group and then shallow or bad writing ruins it even more. If the evil characters would not be stupid evil (which only the shar priestess has displayed so far) I would care for them more. If the the good characters would be multi-dimensional I would care for them more. That is the problem with DnDs alignement system and why it is ultimately bullshit. If you want an evil character he should at least be more like Bayaz from Joe Abercrombie's books (First Law triology etc.) or even better Black from A Practical Guide to Evil.

At this point a premade three char group offers more depth because you can imagine their banter, be it witty, playful or funny. But I guess that is the roleplayer in me because it puts my imagination above the failing character immersion with badly written chars who I would not take along me unter any realistic circumstances because they are shallow, stupid and unimaginative.

I killed Lae on my second character because I hated her on my first try because she is a stupid evil rage machine. Shadowheart is useful for acting as a bind tank and I take her along for that (she got Lae's plate armor) but her spells fail most of the time or do not matter so I don't really care for her(her personality is at least a bit wittier than the vampire torture porn fetichist and the aforementioned stupid evil warrior so I do not cringe every time she opens her mouth). The wizard is stupid but useful for crowd control. The warlock is useful for starting encounters. I can't bring myself to care for them beyond their carrying capacity and body mass to trick the AI in wasting turns they should use to take me down.

The game is beautiful, the plot interesting and I love cthulhumanoids but the party has far less personality combined than the red prince from Divinity Original Sin 2 and I loved that you could play the original characters in multiplayer. If that would be possible in this game I guess I could even like stupid Githyanki and emo vampire because playing as them might endear them to me.