I did the "local LAN game" trick to create four custom characters, and I was almost immediately struck with decision paralysis. My main character is a Rogue (AT), and I'm taking a Cleric as well, and then I had two slots to decide on some combination of Dwarf Fighter, Human Warlock, and Tiefling Wizard.
Can a Cleric alone be my front-line fighter? If I take the Warlock, how will he be able to see in the dark without the Light cantrip? I eventually went for Rogue/Cleric/Warlock/Wizard, but now I am worried if this is actually viable, because If I'm wrong, there's no way I can fix it later. Especially if I tried it in the full game where the rest of your companions go away.
Some people say that you don't need a dedicated Cleric or Rogue in the party, and you can multi-class and use backgrounds to cover roles... but how are people unfamiliar with D&D 5e supposed to understand the right way to build characters to do that? The choices made at character creation cannot be easily undone.
I really feel like I need at least 5 people in the party to feel comfortable. Four is too small.
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In terms of the UI, the game already perfectly handles 6 portraits at the lower left. Lal'ezl and Us were added to my 4-person party without issue.
For the character panels, that's also not impossible to workaround. Display 4 panels as normal, and arrows at the edges so you can shift to show the other two. Like so:
[A B C D]E F [B C D E]F A [C D E F]A B [D E F A]B C [E F A B]C D
You'll still be able to compare any two party members together.
Thank you for that addition to the thread, it's exactly my point and done so beautifully.
By they way it need to be adressed there will be 12 classes (13 if they include the Artificer) in the game. How am I going to feel only being able to choose 3 more classes out of those 12 and have a good agency of my part if I'm really restricted? Multiclassing? Sometimes you don't wanna multiclass specially if BG3 will go until level 20.
I should also say that, this limite on party member will be so hurtful to the RPG aspect of the game people are actually going to min max choose which ones they bring and which characters they create (yeah hey you Shadowheart I like you but your stats are a mess for a Trickery Cleric). When more companions come around we might see some companions just never being a part of any playthrough only because you're so damn much restricted and forced to choose into specific roles instead of having one or two jack of all trades spot (hello bards).
