4 is such an arbitrary low number, like I know it’s multiplayer but cmon, theres absolutely no room for npcs in a human party. Also what’s the point of locking the appearance of the hirelings if they don’t get a backstory? Pillars of eternity 2 let you create custom party members and they had custom made companions that werent like full party members but some of them actually talked.

I know mods can fix this but I would really like to just be able to create 4 custom characters at the start even if im not playing multiplayer. Also maybe let us change the race and appearances of the hirelings if they gonna be blank slates.

  • iridaniotter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Oh yeah, I’ve been playing with my friend and it’s fun to each have control of a second character. But then we had a third friend join us and it was pretty weird having just one of us with the extra character. It’s probably just much easier to balance the game around 4 characters instead of scaling to arbitrary numbers.

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      D&D has bundles and bundles of rules for scaling encounters going back 40 years. There is no mechanical excuse what so ever for restricting party size to 4 and if one of the devs tries to say there is throw your drink at them and accuse them and tell them they’re a bad DM. All of the problems with running combats evaporate when a computer is handing all the dice rolls.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I mean, hold person/monster a bunch of them, time stop, meteor swarm, force cage, maze, dominate, backstab a couple of people in to chunky salsa, cast haste on the fighter/rogue dual wielder and set him to “frappe”, let the barb off the leash, summon CoDzilla if it’s one of those editions, summon a few dozen bears, and maybe turn in to a dragon or a balor for good measure.

          IDk how 5e works, I took one look at the mess of a rule book and went and bought Pathfinder 2e, but back in the day high-level fights often turned in to rocket tag, where whoever won initiative wiped out half of the opposition on the first turn. In the old Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale games I had so much alpha-strike I could melt most monsters at end game, and when I couldn’t things often got really, really bad.

          • motherofmonsters [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            Tactically sound but I’m talking about how long it takes for npc’s to take their turns. It’s a minute between each of my party members’ moves at end game

              • motherofmonsters [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                I think it’s a lot of pathfinding processing. I’m playing a misty step heavy party so it’s constantly having to solve for how to get up terrain and around obstacles.

                But yeah. Older crpg’s were a doodle compared to the oil painting that is BG3