Small Party Development

Smaller parties share some of the advantages and have fewer disadvantages than a full party or solo. How great the advantages or disadvantages are of course varies by party size as you will see below. When selecting characters for a party normally you want them to compliment one another and balance out any weakness or lack of skills. Some basic ideas for developing a well rounded, though smaller party will be addressed here.

I) Encumbrance: Dependent on the size of the party this may become an issue. A two person party will naturally have to make more adjustments than a five person party. Try to keep a good supply of items your party members need and use regularly. Limit the supply to what they can carry without becoming encumbered. Excess items can be stored in chests or lockers for your party to return and pick up as needed. Some tips on ways to deal with encumbrance issues are listed in Section I of Solo Development.

II) Gold & Items: Providing for your party may not cost as much as a full size party but you still need to cope with this issue. Anyone with Alchemy skill can provide a good living on Dominus but if there isn't another party member around to identify these concoctions they will sit moldering away in a chest some where. Even without an Alchemy trained person in the party some one still needs to take over the role of identification. A profession with Divinity or Psionics will eventually be able to identify every item in the game by casting an Identify Item spell. If you run a magicless party then one member needs to concentrate on the Artifacts skills. Some additional ways of dealing with this issue and a more detailed discussion can found in section II of Solo Development.

III) Magic & Resistance: In planning a small party you can select professions that will balance out the magic pool and help compensate for any race that has low magic resistance to any realms. In doing so you can include professions that can protect your party from the more devastating realms of magic used by your opponents. The best protective spells come from the Wizardry, Psionic, and Divinity spell books so including members who make use of these schools might be prudent. In addition to protections the Psionic and Divinity spell books have spells to help improve individual and party attributes. If you do not desire to use these professions some other ideas of dealing with magic resistance issues are address in Section III of Solo Development.

IV) Experience & Leveling Up: The small party has the best of both worlds when it comes to this topic. They do not level up so quickly that their skills don't have a chance to keep up with character level as with a Solo. They also don't have the disadvantage of splitting experience up over 6 to 8 people. Your smaller party members will advance a bit higher than a full size party and may have more opportunities to develop expert skills during the course of a game depending on what developmental choices you make for them.

V) Party Formation: Party formation issues can arise if you have party members who are weak in physical combat or have a low armor class. Positioning your characters to make the most of their melee attacks will take some thought as well. These issues are of course compounded or alleviated dependent on party size. Protecting vulnerable characters becomes a bigger problem with fewer party members. On the other hand positioning for physical combat becomes more difficult with a larger group. Of course you can always use characters who don't need protecting or create a party of individuals who will use extended range weapons. Now just how boring is that going to get over the course of a few games?

Protecting vulnerable characters can be resolved by making use of terrain such as doorways or clefts in the boundries of outdoor maps when party size prohibits other members from surrounding the vulnerable one(s). Let's face it the party will not always be able to get to locations like this so training some form of defense is another option. If the character has Shield skill train it up and allot points to it during level up so they can hold their own. Spending one level as a Rogue to gain and power train the Stealth skill is always an option if you don't mind the loss of one level in their chosen profession.

A two to three person party has limited options for protecting vulnerable members. Basically the vulnerable character should stand to the rear and the other members be placed in the center formation circle. They can then "jump" around the circle to face any physical threat that approaches the party. Use of the terrain is highly advisable.

As far as positioning a two to three person party with no vulnerable characters in order to maximize their physical attack options simply place them all together in any single section of the formation circle. No matter what the range of their weapons when monsters engage the party at close range all members can reach the opponent.

For any party of four or more view the Party Formation basics.

Using spells such as Armorplate and Body of Stone will also help to protect vulnerable party members.