Power wise the best size for a party

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IMO the best size for a party would be four which is also the most people that you need for a complete party if you think about it.

The essential bread-and-butter party characters are the Thief, Cleric, Fighter and Mage. while this party does not stand out in any area it should still be enough to get you from the beggining of SoA to the end of ToB if you use there strengths correctly.

So what I am asking is, is there any point of taking a full party for anything other than banters? a party of four or less can get to the xp limit without cheating unlike a six person party.

Here's an example of what I think could potentially beat a party of six

Fighter/Mage
For main frontliner or, alternativly a,
Blade for high casting level/dispel magic and improved song, Pickpockets and lore.

Ranger/Cleric
Can handle almost anything on his own melee wise and can even cast Druid spells.

Thief(10)/Cleric
Can More then hold his own on the front line. party healer.

I was about to make the fourth one one a Sorcerer. But I don't see any reason to do so if you just make a Kensai(DC)/Mage instead since two mages make up enough spell power to be sufficient. And the sorcerer without spells is about as useful in a no-armed-man-in-an-arm-wrestling-contest (yes it was meant to be funny but I forgot how halfway through).
This is a party that has.
Four potential frontliners.
Two healers.
Two mages.
One thief

This is only an example party is not intended in anyway whatsoever to put word's in peoples mouths, or validate my own belief. Because I want to know what people think the best party combination according to size is, as the title says.

 

I like the party of six personally. Not only would you have to make an entire player generated party to fit the criteria or any similar criteria, but you would also miss out on the banter, which IMHO is one of the best aspects of the game.

And also, I never have any trouble reaching the point max. In fact, I have to install ToB in chapter five or six(depending how much I did before Spellhold) to keep leveling up.

 

This goes without saying of course but you can make a simular party without custom building them.
There is the Sola Mod for a F/M (even more overpowered then reguler F/M's BTW)
Haer'Dalis for the alternative Blade.
Jahiera make's up for the (somewhat underpowered in the cleric spells) R/C
Apart from these NPC's your missing one character minus your PC.

But banter is not what the topic is about even if it is great, and as I said the party example I gave is just that, an example. If you want it all custom Chars, all NPCs or a mix then that's your choice and there is no reason that an NPC party cannot beat all possible custom party's except for the most over powered and cheesiest ones.
And you can include fan made NPC's if you wan't to some of them Like Sola and Kelsey are very good for Banters. one say's anything about not including them.
If I have given the impression of getting heated I'm sorry, but 'm only trying to emphasise my point of the party example I gave been just that and not necessarily the greatest best possible party.

 

Oh, I understand completely man. I may have been a little high and mighty there. Probably the way I type. Maybe the lack of Graemlins...

Still think it better to have six though. With four, I would be installing ToB in chapter 4 or so.

 

The best game I played had four characters:
PC - blade, frontline distraction
Cernd - werewolf enforcer
Mazzy - machine gun
Tashia - spell flinger

You level up much more quickly with four in the party, and it's easier to control. For some reason, being limited in number forces you to make use of every single thing your party can offer.

 

Thank you Tassadar I was just about to add that part that I forgot but you beat me to the punch

While six party members can be more versatile and do more, it's useless if you don't have the ability to manage them effieciently -a thing people can have trouble with in large numbers-

It's the exact same with today's world military special forces and such, a team of elite soldiers can be enough to destroy entire military bases and take out larger assault forces if there expirienced enough, plan enough and are carefully equiped. and unlike using a couple hundered soldiers, vehicles and planes can do all this without losing anyone. (or maybe I'm playing too many squad style shooters

 

@ casey:
That is very true. Many times I found myself cursing: "Why in the name of god do I have to take that (insert NPC name here) along when I go to (insert place here)". First time I played solo I noticed how easy it was to keep that one character alive insted of running six guys each somewhere group of angry beholders chasing them.

 

And also the fact that having too many people bunched together when shooting off an are effect spell like skull trap hitting your people can be disasterous especially on insane, which counts friendly fire spells as "enemy spells" for some unknown reason Which I did a lot the first time through.

EDIT: Jaguar do you ever use any multi class characters? and just how much do they effect the xp gainage of other characters?

[ December 05, 2003, 13:54: Message edited by: casey ]

 

Yes.. I can't understand how Fireballs and stuff don't see that this guy is on my side, I shouldn't hurt him that much.

 

I agree that you should use 2 characters.

They should be an Elven F/M/T and a Half-Elven R/C though. The R/C won't have the Mage spells of the F/M/C (already covered anyway), but he'll advance faster, and R/C's have access to BOTH Cleric AND Druid (not covered) spells.

Sweet!

 

I find the party of 4 to be the best way to go. I usually have: Paladin OR Barbarian (depending on what alignment), Fighter/Thief, Cleric/Ranger and a Sorcerer.

The straight up Paladin or Barbarian does his job well. I don't like vanilla fighters since I believe grandmastery to be a waste of prof. points (two stars is 'always' enough). The Paladin and the respective kits are very powerful (except maybe the undead-hunter). I enjoy the Barbarian's insane hit points and his speed makes him very good at defending my sorcerer if she gets in trouble.

There is no need for a 'pure' thief in the game and a fighter/thief with katana in single weapon style provides to be the best backstabber you'll ever see (often pulling out critical backstabs with a weapon that deals 1d10 damage). His HLA 'Use any item' allows him to use weapons my party's alignment wouldn't permit.

I find I mainly use the cleric for healing spells and the occasional buff so I don't need him to be a pure cleric, the dual-wielding from ranger, attacks per round and low THAC0 make him dangerous with Crom and Flail of Ages.

Sorcerers are far more powerful than wizards. With the right spells a sorcerer becomes not a direct damage character but a breacher for my melee-heavy party to get in and beat crap up. Of course having fireball to soften enemies up first never hurt (me).

 

But if you have a M/C character such as F/M does the character take any more XP than other single classes? and also how does the XP get distributed for killing someone? for example if you have a party of six and one of your characters kill a 6000XP monster will that xp be divided evenly to everyone as 1000XP each or does the person that actually make the killing blow get more then the others would?

And BTW Abomination the correct term for a female Sorcerer is not "Sorcerer" it is Sorceress

EDIT: DMC how do you make a F/M/T backstab? I don't have much expiriance with backstabing but I know you need a thief weapon such as Katana, Long sword and short sword to name a few but even after doing all this it never seems to work, any advice?

 

Now, that's 'you getting to the thread before I did.'

Yes, multi-classed characters advance slower than single classed characters. But in a party with only 2 or 4 characters, the XP gets divided by that number, instead of being divided by 6 with a full party. 2 mc characters advance a lot faster than 6 single classers.

 

DMC I loaded a new game with a FMT and tried backstabbing Illisara something like a month ago doing all those things with every thief weapon availible and it did not work. are some enemy's immune?

 

It's not a competition. It's about the "Fine." comment. When read out loud, it sounds like you're stomping your foot, as if someone has beat you. That comment made it sounds as if you were taking offense to my suggest, as if you were "beat."