What is excessive in Party Max #

[Valdain the King]

I think that 4 or 5 is my max. After that I lose track. I also wont go beyond 3 members if its create your whole party. In Avernum I used 3 and 2 most of the time. When you create a whole party the focus is more on tactics less on character roleplay. Then again they all are on tactics, heh.

 

I think what makes a difference is if there is a tangible name and role attached to a member. If the game has set characters with their own personalities then its easier to know whos who and whos good at what.

I still have a incredibly tough time doing 8 man parties. I am not sure it is possible for me to get through.

 

Has anyone a preference to their party limit and what works for you.

[Kelandon]

No, and I think the concept is sort of silly. Exile had 6. Avernum had 4. Avadon had 3 most of the time, but as many as 5 or (in Avadon 2) 6 at times. Geneforge had up to 8 (sort of). It never struck me one way or another that there was much of a difference.

[Cairo Jim]

For years I preferred 6 in a party due to playing Exile a lot. Now that I've played Avernum a few times, and it's been a while since I've played Exile, I'm used to having 4. I'm not sure which one I'd prefer.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

to me the characters are really interchangeable. i look at it as an army made up of different types of soldiers and really ignored all specific character personality except for how it changed the game. and besides for the character quests it really didn't.

[keira]

Singleton or bust!

[Edgwyn]

I always liked the flexibility in having six. Your characters can be more diverse then, as long as there are enough good/effective builds. Of course a big part of this is nostalgia, as most of the CRPGs that I grew up playing had six. I think that six or at least five would be quite enjoyable in Avadon where there are five distinct character classes. While A:EftP essentially has only three character classes with the ability to play different races in the later games, you could easily have distinct characters. I do not find role playing the additional characters hard as long as there is enough distinction in the characters which is not a problem in Avadon and can easily be done in A:EftP by not going for the Min/Max approach.

[springacres]

I think what makes a difference is if there is a tangible name and role attached to a member. If the game has set characters with their own personalities then its easier to know whos who and whos good at what.

 

And not just who's good at what, but what skills the character would likely want to train in. I have a hard time training Yannick as an offensive spellcaster, for instance.

[Randomizer]

The only time I hate the full Geneforge party is trying to maneuver the lot through damaging terrain and healing them.

[Callie]

I had no problem with six characters in Exile or Baldur's Gate, and I think I ultimately prefer six to four. As Edgwyn noted, it would be nice to have a larger party in Avadon.

 

Someone could be an übertroll and create a game in which the party size can only be a prime number. When the eleventh character dies, a rabid patent clerk from an alternate dimension eliminates characters 10, 9, and 8…in a campy way, of course.

[Rya.Reisender]

The more characters the better for me. But it needs to be well managed and very intuitive. For example auto-selecting the best action for each character as default so you don't have to select it every turn (only if you do a non-default action) and also offering a default party that's already perfectly balanced rather than forcing the player to decide. An easy way to input commands very fast is also important. Hotkeys, macros and stuff.

 

4 is already a pretty small party to me but still acceptable. 3 or less reduces the fun I have with the game a lot.

 

In games with SRPG/TRPG like combat as in Spiderweb games I'd go so far to say that a bigger party is even more important as it adds ALOT to the tactic during combat. Such games should have 6-12 party members (more than 12 and you lose overview and the battles become too long, so that's bad too).

 

The low size of the parties in Spiderweb games, especially in Avadon, is the biggest turn-off for me (apart from the ridiculously high monster health in some section of Avadon and the "I hate towns" problem I decribed in another thread).

[Alorael at Large]

It all depends on how much micro-management is required and how well the engine facilitates the use of a large party. Geneforge is fine; you've got one full character and I'd be able to manage many creations. I think I prefer 4 to 6 for Exile/Avernum; it makes individual character choices more meaningful and limits the ability to swarm to win. In games where party members have dialogue and personalities I like having more, but that's mostly because I hate feeling like I'm missing out on what characters have to say or do.

 

—Alorael, who has a dream that one day RPGs will finish the progression from large group of characters you can't use to all usable with experience leak to everybody comes on every mission, or is at least somehow useful and not just twiddling their thumbs in base. Whether that's smaller parties or more use, he just hates having some character sit around for the entire game.

[Earth]

6 party members = only difficult thing will be equipping them with best possible gear

 

4 party members = battles won't be that easy and its cheaper to equip party members

 

3 party members = same as prev

 

some RPGs there is only 1 char but then that char can do anything so it doesn't matter.

[Valdain the King]

I dont know of many with 8 party members but Natuk had that you created 8 orcs, ogres or trolls and it was interesting. However, it could be problematic as the looks of your characters were very similar. I would say I might be able to do it if the colors were different for each of the chars. Have little squads of my fighters might make sense. The one cool thing about having that many characters is that you can take on much more enemies at once. I think helherron had that too. I have to try an 8 squad some time with little squads to tell the difference

[Lilith]

The second and third Might & Magic games allowed for up to 8 active party members, although at least two had to be NPC hirelings (fully controllable in battle, but with fixed class, race and starting stats). And then of course there are SRPGs like Fire Emblem, where it's common for the game to let you deploy 10-12 units per map, although that's not quite a "party" in the traditional sense.

[adc.]

In Geneforge 5, I prefer a party full of clawbugs, but leaving me with full essence; a game glitch I tell ya

Steps to get full essence with a full party of clawbugs

 

Requirement: Servile race

 

1.) You must have adequate essence to shape 7-8 clawbugs

2.) Everytime a clawbug levels up, you must absorb it or it won't refresh

3.) You must not change any of them throughout the entire game

That's basically it, idk why's this game so clawbuggy

 

But on Skyrim, although the max is 32 characters (using the console of course), I prefer a healer only. I tried playing with a mage, another mage, a healer and me as a tank but found out the game became way too easy, so easy that I didn't need my potions anymore.

 

So I kinda guess it varies from game to game

Edited April 1, 2014 by M'ike the Fibber

[Rya.Reisender]

Don't forget about Wizardry 8. :-)

[Actaeon]

I like three or four- both in tabletop and computer RPGs. Anything above six quickly becomes unmanageable.

[Harehunter]

When I first started with Exile I, I always liked pairing up my characters into fire teams. I could do more with six PCs because I then had a choice of two fire teams of three or three teams of two. I really missed that flexibility while playing Avernum.

[Earth]

I like three or four- both in tabletop and computer RPGs. Anything above six quickly becomes unmanageable.

 

yea unless those (fighters) are controlled by ai like in Ultimas.