Big Shout Out!
A point of discussion among my friends is the optimum size for a 3.5 party. Standard is four players but our argument goes that this means non-core classes are played very rarely. Would you like to be in a party without a Rogue? Hmmmm; thought not. Six players can start to get unwieldy. There is a greater chance of doubling up on roles and it often means one or even two players don't get much of the limelight. Five players, however, is neither too hot nor too cold - it seems just right. Core classes can be covered and someone always gets a chance to play a non-core class (and we can all get to see how it works/does not work).
Thoughts? What size party works for your group? Should PRPG be based around four player parties? Or should that particular 'guideline' be dropped?
Personally, I like 6 PC's in a group. I agree that 4 can be too limiting and forces players to have to be the front-line fighter, the healer, the arcane spell caster and the supporting character. The variation is usually impossible. My group really likes to play a variety of classes and we have hardly scratched the surface of the non-standard core classes. Currently, in my STAP campaign I have 7 players. It is a little unwieldy at points. However, given the massive lethality of the AP, they really seem to need all the players.
I find five to be the best number. The group is small enough that I can give everyone special attention, but large enough that the players aren't forced to make characters that have to cover specific niches. Players get to make the characters they want to play instead of characters that they have to play.
For me it's 'No more than six, no less than three'. (That might change with the move this summer though.)
My ideal group is four or five. I like five because it gives the party an extra little kick that they may need (sometimes desperately). Six however is my cap. I've ran games with more than six players and somebody always gets overlooked. I know there are a lot of DM's out there that can run with seven (or more) people in their campaigns, I'm not one of them. Hell there's times I can barely manage three people. Considering my players always seem to play evil bastards, despite their best efforts not too, I guess it would stand to reason why they're such a challenge to run.
Having run elements of Shackled City, Age of Worms and Rise of the Runelords, I'd say that Paizo stretches four-player party design to the limits. Ideally, I like five players for the reasons others have mentioned---but I think the APs might work best with six. The APs seem about as tough as the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale computer games and the six person party worked well in both of those.
im running a party of six players and one npc.
rogue, paladin (who plays a clueless paladin who doesnt realize that she is surrounded by not so good people), wizard, sword sage, warlock, swashbuckler, and the npc is a cleric
its fun having non-standard classes. but i am thinking of a way to get rid of the npc, but then the party's healing ability would be much lower.
I run for three to four players. For example Rise of the Runelords for three. And we played through Age of Worms with 3-4 players. Works just fine for us. I wouldn't be very happy if they changed the challenges to be balanced with something else than four, then I'd have to tweak stats for our games...
To me, running an NPC creates much more overhead than administering players, so I run between 4 - 8 players; I'll always take more players as opposed to running an NPC. I've had my group cap at 10 players before, and before that I ran up to 13 players...it was a circus!
I think that the comfortable maximum for any DM will vary, but for me the comfortable max was determined to be 10. Needless to say, there was never a shortage of core classes - and there was often a wide range of races represented, also.
M
My PnP group is six players. I don't run any NPCs.
Normally there is 1 Cleric, 1 Fighter/tank, 1 Rogue, 1 Wizard/Sorcerer, 1 Fighter/Archer and 1 Other.
Current campaign the other is a home brew Animal Friend (druid without shape change, but extra animal companions and powers). Previous campaign the other was a Monk.
Other than the two chatterboxes at the other end of my dining room table, everyone gets their fair share of time and limelight.
-- david
Papa-DRB
Grognard
My better half and me
We play with three to four. Often an NPC is needed to help boost our ranks, so I can see the argument for five players. We frequently end up with one of the "core" classes being neglected, usually the rogue. Nobody ever wants to play the rogue....
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I prefer five; less than that and you start having not enough inter-character banter and the swing-factor of encounters gets more and more dicey. More than that and it's like herding cats... above six players is certainly a headache-recipe unless you have the good luck of having the world's best-behaved players.
I prefer five; less than that and you start having not enough inter-character banter and the swing-factor of encounters gets more and more dicey. More than that and it's like herding cats... above six players is certainly a headache-recipe unless you have the good luck of having the world's best-behaved players.
Forum ate my post again.....
Have to agree with you completely, I would kill for a party of 5 (well not literally, as if it was literally, then I would quickly have a party of 5 or a jail cell.. well you get my drift). As it is my group has swollen to 7 PC's and I need a more powerful Cattle Prod to keep them focused.
I've gotten used to parties of 6 after running hundreds and hundreds of Living Greyhawk games. I'm very comfortable with 6, but my preferred party size is probably 5.
The 4th edition assumption is a party of 5, unlike the 3.x edition assumption which was a party of 4. This is one of the items on the short list of 4th edition changes that I like.
Isn't the practical upper limit dictated by the number of bums you can fit round your table?
I only pull bums into play when I can't get enough players. The other players can only take so much of Pokey the Knife Wielding Hobo
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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As a DM whose group has been as large as ten I can definitely tell you the stress prepping for a group like that can be! At the moment we're running the STAP with 7 (though only 5 tend to be there). Five seems to be about the ideal number for our group when it comes to balancing roleplaying and combat.
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I like to have 5 or 6, more flexibility and cushoning for the group and lots of plot pieces that can be developed (and since, as with my group now, there are various levels of gaming experience not everyone has to be developed evenly... some people are still coming to grips with rules and abilities). Four players is doable, but I find it a bit uncomfortable. I like to use NPCs as occasional tools, not as a necessity that has to stick around. And for me, 7 players is just moving into the cluster-fornication range.
BTW, Heya Marc!!! Good seeing you around recently! Hope life is treating you well.
I like 5-6 myself though keeping the group that small is bloody hard. I've been forced to take on 7 and am I always feel bad when I have to tell yet another player that their is no space at my table for them.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
Most of the groups we run are actually six players because people want to play and it's hard to say to a really good friend 'not this one' simply to cut the PCs down to five. Kudos to those DMs who run more than six - let alone ten!!
The only time we deliberately run with greater than six is twice a year when between ten to twelve players gather for a weekend of roleplaying at a beachhouse. It's a great way to keep in touch with friends (some players fly interstate and international to attend). The rigours of running such a large group, however, is only bearable *because* it is a special event. I ran the group for nearly four years - a homebrew campaign starting at 1st level (the party is currently at 17th level) - and the amount of preparation and the actual energy output over the weekend is enormous. I've had a break from running the group (for a year and a half) and our most experienced DM (he has been running games since he was 13) has taken the mantle.
The major problem I've had with trying to keep a party down to five PCs is the interest of players. I started a group last year and had a firm intention of keeping player numbers to five; six at the most. I called the game off a couple of months ago (work woes) and the party was eight and climbing. Eight was way too many for me. I had to adjust every encounter and this meant quite a deal of work. It's just not good enough to double the number of foes. I had to pretty much rework everything.
I'm interested to read that many people prefer five. And I didn't know 4e will be based around a five PC party. This is a constructive step forward. Four PCs often meant some pretty arbitrary results. A crit at the wrong time and it's all over red rover. Even though 4e will be making this change, it won't be enough for me to buy the system. I'll be sticking to 3.5 and PRPG. I'll be starting RotR with a party of five towards the end of the year and will be using the Alpha rules. In the meantime, I'm pretty excited about the Pathfinder Society and will be joining and playing as soon as that becomes possible.
To the DM who is thinking of getting rid of the Cleric NPC: don't. In a party of six PCs, we often have two Clerics. Clerics, after all, are the most powerful class. Never go anywhere without your Cleric and, as my mates say, if you're wondering what class you're going to play, you can't go wrong with another Cleric!
I'd say five is better in terms of managing the players and for voting but I actually like the kinds of groups the players can design with six PCs more then what one gets with Five.
With five PCs you have one player that can be something a little unusual but your still pretty much covering the four main bases.
With six players the bases tend to get covered not so much by a player taking the correct class but by the party as a whole working out who is contributing how much to each of the bases. Essentially a five player party still tends to be pretty traditional. At six players and beyond that traditional party design is no longer needed as combo's of classes can fill out aspects of the four main bases by nontraditional means.
I'll be made fun of for this, but I've had the most fun with two (2) players. I used to play with like 8 people, and it was a goat-rope; very little actual playing got done.
The problem with the smaller groups is that the DM pretty much HAS to write the adventures for the characters; there aren't enough PCs, with enough different abilities and enough actions at a time, to really tackle a Paizo AP or something similar.
I like your rationale, Jeremy. And the more I have thought about it, the more it makes sense. Six players does allow for more flexibility even though I find five slightly more playable. So five or six seems to be the most prefered.
Kirth: I'm certainly not going to laugh! Back in the day, I once started running a CoC game (CoC, for many years, was my game of choice). I made the mistake of simply telling my friends I was going to start at a certain time at a certain place. Thirteen players turned up!! I made it through that afternoon and evening and then went home and arbitrarily split the thirteen players into three groups: one group of six, one group of four, and one group of three.
The group of four fell apart after about three or four months. The group of six I ran for nearly two and a half years and was one of the most enjoyable games I've ever run. But for sheer terror - a real evocation of the outre creepiness which is CoC - nothing beat the group of three. Because there were only three players, *anything* that happened at all scared the living s@#$ out of them. In fact, I spent most of the time scared s@#$less myself and I was the Keeper!!
So I guess the moral of the story is that small groups can be really rewarding but a lot depends on the willingness of the players and the synchronicity between players and DM.