How faster would a party of 3-4 progress instead of 6?

RedWizard

I understand the notion of splitting xp, but I also feel like so much xp in BG2 is quest xp that doesn't get split between characters...
For anyone with experience, how faster do you usually hit the 3m xp for HLAs with 3-4 characters?
Usually with 6 it's the very end of the Underdark for me assuming I did absolutely everything possible, but by then the game is mostly over so it's pretty boring...

JuliusBorisov

I once made a poll: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/40370/party-of-how-many-people-do-you-find-the-most-difficult-to-play-in-a-no-reload-min-reload-runs , answers in that poll are very insightful in the terms of what you're asking.

For example, @semiticgod here - https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/622291/#Comment_622291 - made a whole analysis of how the number of party members influence the XP they get in BG1, BG2 and ToB.

As for reaching 3m XP in SoA, it is indeed the case if you complete everything. I too always get HLAs in the Underdark with a 6-men party. This is why I use the SCS mod to balance things out.

@Blackraven recently decided to keep an SoA level cap in order not to get HLAs in SoA. He can share how to do it.

Blackraven

@RedWizard, I'm currently running a party of four. Charname did Chateau Irenicus with Imoen and formed a new party after that, but not immediately. The party gradually grew to four members, while questing. This maximizes NPC's XP when they join, and it gives Charname more XP than he would have had if he had to share all non-quest XP with three NPCs from the beginning of the game. The party has done all the stronghold quests except Planar Prison, and most sidequests and encounters except the harder ones (Guarded Compound, Twisted Rune, Kangaxx, Dragons). Charname recently reached the level cap and got his first HLA, i.e. well before the end of the Underdark.

@bengoshi, while it's true that I'm playing with the SoA level cap, I'm afraid I can't share how to establish the level cap. I discovered that my install somehow did it, but it was not something I consciously chose. However, if RedWizard you wanted to respectthe SoA level cap (which I doubt given your last sentence), you could always decide to not level up your characters beyond the SoA level cap.

Musigny

With 3 characters instead of 6 in a "completionist" run, you probably get ~1.5-2M more XP per character at the end of SoA, Watchers Keep excluded. However this highly depends on how you play.

Almateria

Hello OP, I crunched some numbers, and it turns out that a party of 3 would progress two times faster than a party of 6. Hope this helps.

JuliusBorisov

Almateria said:

Hello OP, I crunched some numbers, and it turns out that a party of 3 would progress two times faster than a party of 6. Hope this helps.

This is simply not true. As I've said, @semiticgod 's post https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/622291/#Comment_622291 gives an analysis of the XP progress for various party sizes in different games. BG1, BG2 and ToB each has its own rules.

Almateria

That's the level progression
I'm talking about XP 8)

Musigny

Almateria said:

That's the level progression
I'm talking about XP 8)

Your information is wrong. Not all of the XP is divided by the number of characters.

Arunsun

Mmh I would says that a 3-man party gains experience about 1.5 to 1.8 times as fast as a 6-member party, depending on the quest you do (some bring little experience by their content and a whole truck of it as quest experience, and some do it the other way round). But you will mostly feel this difference in late SoA (chapter 5 and on), for early SoA quest bring little experience from enemies and loads of quest experience, while late SoA and ToB give a ton of experience for each enemy killed).

JuliusBorisov

I've found a good post describing how anyone can impose an XP cap to his or her game.

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27408&p=237024 by Jarno Mikkola. He shows it on the example of 89k for BG1EE, but it can be any figure in both games.

It seems not very hard to do even for those who are not friends with editor programs:

"just make a new .txt file, name that as "xpcap.2da", so that the .txt is indeed switched to be the .2da, and set this code in it, and copy that to the game folders Override folder"