So yesterday I decided it’s time to finally fix the stupid party limit in Baldur’s Gate 3. Got tired of leaving half my companions sitting on their butts at camp while I explored. Figured installing a mod would be easy, right? Man, I was wrong.
First Try: The Big Popular One
Started with Party Limit Begone because, well, everyone talks about it. Downloaded it, stuck it in the mods folder like the instructions said. Fired up the game, cranked that slider up to 10. Felt like a god walking around Act 1 with my whole squad. Pretty sweet… until I hit Grymforge.
- Game freaked out: Elevators stopped working. NPCs just froze mid-sentence like statues.
- Combat turned glitchy: Some enemies just refused to take their turn. Staring contests aren’t fun.
- Save file grew huge: My load times crawled slower than a kobold in mud.
Clearly, this thing doesn’t play nice past four or five extra bodies. Shut it off fast.
Second Try: The Fancy Configurable One
Switched to Project Hellsomething-or-other. This one promised more control. Supposedly “safer.” It’s got all these settings files and bells and whistles.
- Spent an hour reading guides. Adjusted party size sliders, faction numbers, you name it.
- Less chaos: NPCs didn’t break as badly.
- But then… crashes. Random, nasty crashes whenever I changed zones. Progress gone.
- More headaches: Had to fiddle every time I loaded the game. Needed another mod just to make THIS mod work consistently? No way.
Too much work just to bring Jaheira along.
Third Try: The Simple Dude
Felt frustrated. Almost gave up. Then tried Barebones Party Limit Increase. No crazy settings. Just a simple size increase.
- Set it to 6. Didn’t get greedy this time.
- Just worked. No broken cutscenes in Act 2. Elevators moved. Saved!
- No weird config files. Drag, drop, launch. Done.
- Lightweight. No bloated saves, no crazy load times.
What Did I Learn?
Pretty simple lesson in the end.
- If you want a whole army? Tough luck, even the “big” mods will blow up your game later. Not worth the headache.
- If you love tinkering and hate stability? Try the complex config one. Enjoy fixing things constantly.
- If you just want Karlach AND Shadowheart AND Lae’zel without leaving someone behind? Keep it small. Keep it simple. Barebones saved my bacon.
Now my party feels right. Six feels solid. Enough bodies to cover fights, not enough to break the game. Maybe it’s boring, but hey, boring beats broken any day. Saved myself a weekend of reinstalling mods and swearing.