best party size?

[teasel]

i like playing with 3 personaly, you can have a character to deal with strenght/constitution checks, one for dexterity checks and one for intelligence/charisma checks, every character get 10 turns and with 5 locations games aren't either too long or too short

 

[Hannibal_PJV]

3 or 4... IMHO.

Good skill coverage.

 

There Are 6 base skills and it would leave two to each character in 3 player party, so that is the optimal choise.

For thematic reason 4 is my favorite. One burglar, one healer, one fighter and one Caboom, spell caster ;-)

[Mainiac]

I would agree that 3-4 is the sweet spot.

 

With that in mind though I decided to create a party of six using the characters that all had a d12 in their main stat (Mersiel, Kyra, Seoni, Harsk, Ezren and Amiri).  I ran them through the first four adventures (0-1 to 1-1) and they did well though I did have to do 0-1 and 0-3 twice due do time.  Same thing just happened in 1-2.  For fun I then decide to create a party with the remaining 5 characters running through the same adventures and for some reason they had an easier time only having to repeat 0-2.  And that was with Lini pretty much doing next to nothing most of the time.  I've decided to run both parties concurrently alternating after completing each adventure.  It will be interesting to see which one has an easier time as it progresses.

[LunarWolf]

Totally agree with 3-4. Fewer than three and you are hard pressed to have characters that can easily close enough locations. More than 4 and there is either too much downtime(if actually trying to play with 5 or 6 players) or there is too much to keep track of (if one or two players are trying to play that many characters).

 

I'm so glad to finally have this in a digital format, where it is entirely possible to play 3 characters by yourself. Try that in the physical game and you are in for a headache!

[Srvannor]

4 is my fav. Classic dungeon crawler setup: healer, tank, utility, and damage (i.e. Kyra, Val, Meri, Ezren)

[ArchSenex]

4 here. More just makes the game too busy for me, and you rush to get through it all.

[TheBigE]

I am enjoying using 6 at the moment in quest mode - I find it much easier to level up characters that way. Also mean I can carry a few weaker characters.

 

For story mode I used 3 and 4 players and that was good fun.

[TheBigE]

I am enjoying using 6 at the moment in quest mode - I find it much easier to level up characters that way. Also mean I can carry a few weaker characters.

 

For story mode I used 3 and 4 players and that was good fun.

[CA_Obsidian]

It's interesting. Take 2 or 3 and the game feels more like a RPG, take 5 or 6 and feels more like a card game.

 

I usually play with my hard core of 3, and sometimes I bring #4 along.

[Patron]

4 is my sweet spot. Realistically, I can close off three locations in the first 15-20 turns, then have the remaining turns to flush out the BBEG.

 

I usually bring one or two versatile guys, like Lem or a higher skill level Lini, with a Dex specialist like Harsk or Mersiel, then a Wis guy, usually Kyra.

[Borissimo]

And just for funsies, here's a totally different opinion.

 

The "best" party size, to me, depends on what you mean by "best."

 

Best size for gaining gold quickly? 2 (or 1, if you're okay with doing the same exact scenario over and over)

 

Best size for first learning the game? 2

 

Best size if you're an experienced player who wants a challege? 6

 

Best size to level up quickly in Quest Mode? Assuming you don't lose much, 6 -- as others have noted, more characters means more experience per scenario

 

So for most definitions of "best," the best party size is 2 or 6, though I don't disagree with all the posters saying 4. Four is indeed the best size if you want to have a variety of characters without ramping up the difficulty too much.

 

I decided to create a party of six using the characters that all had a d12 in their main stat ... For fun I then decide to create a party with the remaining 5 characters running through the same adventures and for some reason they had an easier time ... And that was with Lini pretty much doing next to nothing most of the time.

 

I did something similar -- I picked my favorite 6 characters for my "dream team" playthrough and then did a "rejects" playthrough with the remaining 5. My rejects actually had an easier time than my dream team, and I realized it was because playing with 5 is really just a lot easier than playing with 6. Compared to a party of 6, a party of 5 has an extra turn per character and one fewer location to close. That's huge!