How Many Characters Should I Start With?

I would actually prefer to start with just two or three and pick up followers along the way, but I'm wondering if that is a viable option ...

Your opinion?

 

You could start with 2 or 3, no problem, if you are going heavy on NPCs. i' d probably lean towards 3. NPCs don't work as "face" characters, so you might want to cook one up on your own for interacting with NPCs -- I'd make it male, too, btw.


Make sure you adjust the settings with the Co8 mod front end to allow you to use more NPCs, too. I think it is default set to 5 player created and 2 NPCs. You can change it to 3 player created and 5 NPCs.

You can get pretty easy access early in the game to about half a dozen NPCs depending on if you have a paladin or not(can't group with evil characters).

 

Thanks Vendor! I finally feel ready to just sit down and play this game after trying to get everything right with the mod, etc.

 

I'm playing the game with the standard 5. My concern is that, if I expand it to eight PCs, I'll unbalance the game too much.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

 

What do you mean exactly by expanding it to 8 PCs? If you mean from the start of the game having 8 level 1 pre-created characters, it's probably not that big of deal assuming you just play through the game without intentionally farming exp. The more characters you have, the slower they level up. If you mean filling your party up with recruitable NPCs that join your party, that could be a problem since some of them are quite high level already when they can first join and that totally defeats the handicap of leveling slower.

 

No, no, I meant 8 PCs, not 5 PCs and 3 NPCs. I'm talking level 1 created characters.

 

It might make some of the very, very early encounters a bit easier but overall it's probably not going to change much. There are also some quests that require you to have an open party slot, so if you intend to do them, you will at least want to have one party slot open.

 

Gotcha. I was just wondering because, I thought, it might end up that the extra meat shield/glass cannon/backstabber/debuff machine/whatever would make encounters too easy. I suppose it could also slow leveling to the point where encounters are too hard, though, unless you farm XP by doing random encounters in the wild.

 

I usually play with six, as that way you can do all the quests that involve bringing NPCs into your party temporarily.