How many PCs is too many?

[atemu1234]

Out of game, around which number of players do campaigns fall apart? As in, no one works together, it just doesn't work out style too many?

[Waker]

Six is my limit for a party. Combat takes forever and scenes can take forever if the party has to split up.

[The Oni]

Any number of PCs is too many. Play solitaire!

I find four is ideal. Three is a bit lonely, five is manageable if the DM is both competent and devoted, and six gets a little silly (unless one or more players is prone to playing passively, but this is of course on a case-by-case basis).

[Captnq]

Depends.

At the table, I found 10 to be my limit.
8 was still pushing it.
6 Seems good.
4 Seems to be less then ideal.
1 Not a problem.

My record is... 44 players. 31 regulars. LARP ran every week for... 3 months. 11 sessions. I was the only GM.

[John Longarrow]

Depends on the group.
For one set of players/DM, it could be 3. For another, 10.

[NoACWarrior]

I've played with as many as 7 PCs. It gets out of hand especially when the party splits up and wants to do their own thing and RP by themselves.

Combat with 6+ takes around 20 mins per round, unless you got a heavy damage / can deal with anything team which kills everything in 2 rounds its not an optimal way to play. The normal group I played with either took 2-3 rounds for an encounter, or up to 20 rounds (yes one fight almost took 7 hours alone).

The solution many came up with was sticking close to the party face and splitting up only when absolutely necessary. It also helped that we did most of our intra party talking on the table with metagame talk translated by the dm to be fruitful in game talk for brevity sake.

[pwykersotz]

I've found more than four to be inefficient. More than 5 leads to more work than I typically want to do.

[Sylthia]

My ideal party size is 6. I don't like having any less than 4, since combat can get too swingy. I also prefer 6, because if a player or two can't make it (which happens a lot), I don't have to cancel the game.

[KorbeltheReader]

I'm in a group that has bloated up to 9 players. Everyone is an adult (30+ years old) and mostly well-adjusted socially, so I think it works better than many groups this size would and the campaign has lasted a good long while without people dropping out. Still, combat never takes less than 30 minutes per round, one of the players often has to play backup GM during combat to make sure people are ready when their turn comes up, and combat is very swingy because the GM has to make very dangerous encounters to challenge a party of this size. Also, the slowness of combat and decision-making means we have to have gruesomely long sessions to get anything done, like 8-9 hours.

[eastmabl]

Six is my high end - more than this, and game night becomes unmanageable.

Five is my sweet spot - you can have the four basic roles* plus something fun.

Four is my floor - I don't want to do the work for fewer than four people.

* You don't have to have the four basic roles (fighting man, healer, thief and mage), but my groups tend to gravitate towards that.

[Sylthia]

I forgot to mention, I'd consider eight my ceiling, with seven pushing it.

[Ssalarn]

Seems like 4-5 is usually the magic number, with more or less usually creating more work and unique problems. Getting 6+ people all on the same page can be a bit of a pain, and it can stretch the time between each players turns out to a point where it's hard to keep everyone invested in the game.

[Spore]

Depends on the played level honestly: If you start up with 8 players going in turns saying: "I hit it with my [insert weapon]" on level 1, then combat is quick and easy. If you start up on level 15 and after one round you have more debuffs and buffs flying around than monsters and players combined are on the battle map, then fighting becomes ... strenous.

[Sian]

4-6 ... depending on how much hand holding the least game-savvy needs...

[CombatOwl]

Out of game, around which number of players do campaigns fall apart? As in, no one works together, it just doesn't work out style too many?

I have run for a dozen people before, I would not do so again. 6 players if individual players, 8 if some of them are couples. That's about ideal.

[killem2]

I don't know for sure. The most I have had is 8 players with 10 characters.

It worked, but combat lasted FOOOOOOOO----EEEEVVVV----EEEEEEEER

[squiggit]

I like being able to count the number of players I have on a single hand.

Anything more than that can either
-Bog down heavily if players aren't experienced and/or are doing optimization tricks
-Make people feel overshadowed (because there's inherently more inevitable role overlap the larger a group is)
-Make it difficult to make every character feel important to the story. As weird as it sounds I've had more big games get boiled down to a couple "main characters" and a few secondary characters who don't say or do as much than in small games.

[HolyCouncilMagi]

Hey, playing D&D solo is a more interesting experience than most give it credit for.

*crickets chirp, laughter sound plays*

Dang it, I swear I'm not weird!

... Aaanyway. It depends greatly on the type of game, but I'm the sort of person who likes to bring nine or ten players together, have them split into two groups, and either have them start in different locations of the same setting or have one session together which ends with a perma-split. Then they can meet every so often if their characters are all in the same area, but I usually am just running two campaigns at different times, which happen simultaneously in the scheme of the whole world (and they sometimes hear things about what each other do).

Of course, this only works because I generally require that each session is one day in-world, unless the two groups talk to each other and agree to a timeskip for some reason, or if something plot-heavy is happening and we need to continue the day, I'll slip in a day skip in some way, usually as a required "character break" after a boss fight or something.

As for how many players should be in ONE campaign? I'm gonna say, like 7 is the very highest. It's just too slow and difficult to focus with so many people.

[SciChronic]

i find 4 to be a good party, 5 being the perfect size. beyond 5 it really comes down to the DM's ability to be a good DM and know when to speed through stuff, and getting the party members to plan out their moves while its not their turn. cause having that one caster who waits to decide what to cast until its his turn, and then has to look through the books while he does so is the worst.

[Spore]

i find 4 to be a good party, 5 being the perfect size. beyond 5 it really comes down to the DM's ability to be a good DM and know when to speed through stuff, and getting the party members to plan out their moves while its not their turn. cause having that one caster who waits to decide what to cast until its his turn, and then has to look through the books while he does so is the worst.

Our cleric after 10 minutes of sifting through books: Fine, I'll cast Bless on the group.

[Seerow]

4-6 is the ideal, the game just doesn't seem to hold up well with more or less than that.

That said my group has been down to 2-3 Players for a few months now. This usually means running multiple PCs or taking leadership to make up the difference. We considered gestalt, but the GM still felt too constrained in what he could throw at 2 gestalt characters.

[Magesmiley]

My current group has 7 players, although we usually have 5-6 for each game.

I had a group that bloated up to 11 active players at one point and it was not fun. I've found 5-7 being the zone I like DMing for the best.

[Fosco the Swift]

Solo- 1: Any; Good for practice, but in any pre-made story the encounters must be seriously downplayed and overhauled. No versatility in the group and TPK involves the first encounter with a Basilisk.
Duo- 2: Melee, Ranged; Fast combat that tends to end in a TPK. Not a very impressive TPK.
Minimum Party- 3: Melee, Rogue and Spellcaster; Melee takes the damage and deals the most, rogue deals with traps and Wizard/Cleric Buffs/Heals the party. Combat moves fast but players lack the options of a 4-5 PC party.
Good Party- 4: Melee, Rogue, Arcane and Divine. Melee takes the damage and deals the most, rogue deals with traps, Arcane buffs and damages and Divine Buffs and Heals. Combat still moves along fast and party has all the needed elements for a versatile group.
Best Party- 5: Melee, Rogue, Arcane, Divine, Extra. [Same as Above] and Extra- any class. Combat takes a little longer but runs smoothly as long as most of the players are skilled at the game. The extra means that if one PC is out for the count, he can step in a take the needed space.
Large Party- 6: Combat begins to take a long time and some players feel left out of the game. Wealth begins to thin per character and difficulties between players becomes common. Encounters rarely end in a PC death.
Maximum Party- 7: Combat is slow, problems are common and Players are bored. Encounters need to be buffed in order to challenge the party in most cases.
8: Story goes no where, players are either arguing, eating or talking about video games. The DM has left and the game has changed to who can drink a can of pop the fastest.

[animemetalhead]

I was part of a 3.5 group once, where we started with 5 players running 6 characters, and quickly swelled to 8 players running 10 or 11 characters. Honestly, what broke the group apart was that 1 of the newcomers was annoying the rest of the group. The main incident being that he was specifically told not to make an evil character, and when he did, and the rest of the group killed him, he claimed he "didn't know he couldn't be evil." After that we split into 2 groups, one running Savage Worlds, the other switched to a homebrew system.

From the DM side of the screen, I'm typically running for 3-4 people depending on who does or doesn't show up. As much as I'd like to try running a large party, I'm not sure I could handle it.

[Felvion]

4 has worked well and maybe is the ideal for me.
5 is good cause that extra helps a lot and lets the party make unusual choises while still covering every role.
6 is what i'm unsuccessfully trying to manage now. Same group, two campains. I dm in one of them and play in the other. I feel things get out of control easily when it comes to decision making....
Anything more than 6 is pure madness for me...
3 is manageable especially if the one of them is the allmighty druid along with his loyal mighty companion serving as the melee character...

All the above come from personal experience, obviously it depends on the DM's skill and the players' too...

[Sylthia]

4 has worked well and maybe is the ideal for me.
5 is good cause that extra helps a lot and lets the party make unusual choises while still covering every role.
6 is what i'm unsuccessfully trying to manage now. Same group, two campains. I dm in one of them and play in the other. I feel things get out of control easily when it comes to decision making....
Anything more than 6 is pure madness for me...
3 is manageable especially if the one of them is the allmighty druid along with his loyal mighty companion serving as the melee character...

All the above come from personal experience, obviously it depends on the DM's skill and the players' too...

Pet classes can add another level of initiative clogging. Usually it doesn't matter too much, but if half the party has a pet or minion, it can make a managable 5 person party swell into a slow, directionless mob in combat. Still, it's better than having a dozen PCs.

My current party at most is 6 PCs plus 1 NPC, which is a bit much, but 2 of the PCs are gone more often than not, so a party of 5 is more common in our current campaign.

[Fosco the Swift]

I'm currently playing a 6 character game (but technically 8). 3 Players with 2 PC's. I'm technically running 3 characters because one character, Arcan, is a Pathfinder Summoner. He comes with a Eidolon who is powerful enough to count as an extra character. And my GM has an NPC that belongs to the story arc. The game has actually been running fairly smoothly, and with the number of characters the group is able to beat encounters in many different ways.

[Spore]

While I like your addition to this thread, Fosco, there are two major complaints for me.

Your first post implies that rogues are useful enough to force you to take a spot in the group but you reduce their roll to dealing with traps (at least in your post). A good rogue player - which I am not - tends to bring scouting, trapfinding and bringing in the occasional needed backstab into the mix. Most likely I would play Melee/Arcane/Divine for a 3 guy party if I had the choice.

Your second post counts Summoners as two characters. Eidolons are powerful that is true, but have you had an isolated look on the summoner on his own when you substract the eidolon? (The eidolon is still out and thusly blocking the summon monster SLA). They're basically poor bards with an blocked SLA. I would say a good summoner with a great eidolon is borderline T2, that much is true and the class blows up action economy like no one else (Master Summoner especially). But do not mention them as being two characters. They're not as the Eidolon is a class feature.

Summoners are about as effective in battle as Magus is. Their small spell array and SLAs tend towards a bursty playstyle. They cannot compete with spontaneous or prepared casters in terms of spell slots but they can compare their damage potential to melee classes.


Pet classes can add another level of initiative clogging. Usually it doesn't matter too much, but if half the party has a pet or minion, it can make a managable 5 person party swell into a slow, directionless mob in combat. Still, it's better than having a dozen PCs.

You are correct if it's done badly. I love my pet classes but I am pretty good at deciding the optimal course of action for my turn. I think maximizing DPR/combat effectiveness is a skill you'll get after playing MMOs as support, heal or damage dealer for nearly a decade :amused:

[kkplx]

From my experience of solely online play, 4 is perfect if you can trust your mates to always show up, 5 is the sweet spot for a game where the guys don't mind playing with one guy missing every odd session.

[Slipperychicken]

Solo feels lonely, and I usually get killed pretty quickly because of encounters designed for 4 PCs.

I personally prefer 3, although 4 works about as well. Five can be okay if people can decide and resolve their actions quickly (i.e. when I don't have to remind them how attack rolls work every turn).

Things start to break down around 6, where I start running into long wait times between turns. I would say it is typically too much for a pnp RPG like D&D or Shadowrun, unless the group is really quick and has their act together.

I've played in games with ~10 PCs, every single PC in a different location with his/her own little subplot, and gone whole sessions where I took a grand total of two IC actions, and spent most of the time playing Skyrim because of how bored I was.

[Cloud]

For me, at least 3 players. To answer the question, at most 6 players. More than that keeping the adventure moving along aside, combinational explosion of what everyone can do makes combats hard to make remotely challenging without making them swingy. 4 or 5 obviously given that range is ideal, with a I guess 5 being preferred (less focus on having to handle the main 'roles' of the game with any one character, and if two people want to play the same class, whatever).

[Werekat]

As others have said, 4-5 is the sweet spot. Six can work, but take exponentially more from the DM and some people are sure to get left out at each session. And it just goes downhill from there.

That said, games where there are one, two, or three players work well, too. You just need to recognize you're playing a different game now - the party will not be self-sufficient, they *will* rely on NPCs to fill roles, and most of the relationships will not be between the party but between the party and the DM's world and NPCs. It's also more work than 4-5 players.

[magwaaf]

i'm not sure really, we started with 15 and 2 dm's now we are at 6 and one dm since people's jobs/school/life drama got in the way. it's the smallest group i've ever been in but it's always flowed well regardless of how many we had

[BWR]

4-6.
While individual sessions can get by with three players, it's too few to keep an entire campaign lively. Any more than six and too many people are competing for the spotlight and it takes too long between each time someone can do something, be it combat or talky-stuff.

[MrNobody]

To me, the perfect number is 5. Enough to cover all the classic roles (tank, caster, healer, "rogue") and provide an usefull extra.
There isn't an objective way to define "too many" because it strongly depends on the DM and the players. If the out-of-scene players are not willing to respect other turns (in and outside combat), keep chatting during other's actions, disturbing roleplay and so on, that's "too many".
Too many is also when the DM cannot handle the group: in players are "left behind" because the DM cannot split his concentration between all the PCs, that's "too many".

In my experience there are two solution that can help solve this situation: the co-DM and the side-DM.
The side-DM, in groups of 6-9 players, is a role taken by the most experienced player that helps the DM taking care of "minor" issues, like the right use of rules/spells/abilities, leaving the DM free to focus on the plot. It also helps keeping noisy players at bay. The side DM is still a player and has his own PC.
The co-DM occours in group with more than 10 players, it's not a player but a full-time DM who tells the story along with the "first" DM. This is usefull expecially because the plot can be split in two, each one followed by a group of 5 or more player and one on the DMs.
We did this once, in an epic quest: DM, co-DM and 14 players. It was great!

[tyriuth]

It really isn't a matter of how many players, but more of how well they work together and how well they play their individual characters. Having played in, and DMed, games with players ranging from 2-8 players it has always been more about the interaction than the number. The biggest issue in having large groups of players in D&D, as I have recently found; is finding encounters that will be sufficiently challenging enough to the group without killing any of them. Although larger groups, as aforementioned, have the advantages of giving the players quite a bit of leeway in what class they play and it doesn't matter too much if one or two people don't show up (even if said player is the only healer etc...)

[lytokk]

I've played in a group of 8, DMed a group of 7, and even ran a game for one person. I didn't like the 1 person game, at least running it. Granted combat ran so smooth.
Playing in the group of 8 combat took forever, and I hated it, the whole game was a series of combats one almost right after the other.
Running for 7 was tough, and it was very difficult to keep everyone on track.
My sweet spot is 4-5. Right now I'm running a party of 5 players +1 pet +1 DMNPC. The druids turns take the longest due to summons, but thats normal, but normally only about 30 seconds per combatant on the field under her control. Her pet and minions run on her initiative, so its not bad at all.

It really does come down to a matter of personal taste as to how many are too many, or too little.

[CombatOwl]

i find 4 to be a good party, 5 being the perfect size. beyond 5 it really comes down to the DM's ability to be a good DM and know when to speed through stuff, and getting the party members to plan out their moves while its not their turn. cause having that one caster who waits to decide what to cast until its his turn, and then has to look through the books while he does so is the worst.

If I know I have a lot of people at the table, I bring a minute glass for just that reason--turn timing. If you can't describe what you're doing in a minute, you can't do it in 6 seconds.

[Telonius]

Multiply the number of PCs by 2.5. If you can handle that many NPCs or monsters at once during a single combat, you're fine. If not, it's too many.

[Sylthia]

You are correct if it's done badly. I love my pet classes but I am pretty good at deciding the optimal course of action for my turn. I think maximizing DPR/combat effectiveness is a skill you'll get after playing MMOs as support, heal or damage dealer for nearly a decade :amused:

Yeah, it's always dependent upon the player. In my current group there's a few quicker people as well as a few who are always a bit slower with their turns.

[RedMage125]

I'm going to throw my 2 cp here as well.

4, even for 3.5e, seems a little too low, despite being considered "standard" for 3.5e.

5 is a perfect party size. I liked that 4e also made 5 the "standard".

6 is the max I will go, for either 3.5e or 4e.

Any more than 6 bogs down gameplay too much. Less than 4 requires the remaining players to be versatile in their roles. I once got to play in a 3.5e game with only 2 players (started at level 10). One guy made a ranger. In order to fill in the healer, arcane caster, and rogue bill for the party, I made a Bard. The two of them could both be sneaky, were both competent (although not spectacular) in a fight. Bardic healing spells were enough for only 2 people, and my character's knowledge skills, and arcane casting (was going for Seeker of the Song as well) was enough to get us by. Had ranks in UMD as well, to use wands and scrolls, too.

[3drinks]

I find myself being comfortable within the three to five range. In my Crestfallin' PbP campaign, I started with six but one of the players had to leave. It might have been a blessing-in-disguise or maybe not - I feel like in PbP you can run more PCs since everything is kept track of much better. But ultimately this is a very DM-centric topic and each DM has their own preferences.

[Hurnn]

Depends more on who the players are, their mastery of the system and their ability to be on point and stay focused. If everyone knows what they are going to do before their initiative count comes up then 6+ should be no problem, if you have to slog through with each player making their decision at the time and it takes 3 minutes a pop then even 4 is the stuff of nightmares.

[Elkad]

Started my current campaign with 8 players. Added an NPC (which I handed to a player to run unless I overruled something), took him away (inadvertently turning him into a "recurring villain", yay). Gave them another NPC. Lost 2 players a few sessions in, their characters stayed in (run by other players), as we thought it was a temporary absence. Turned into permanent absence. One of those abandoned characters was then separated from the party, who made no effort to save him, and then eaten by ghouls.

I took their NPC away at the beginning of the last session. So now it's 6 players, 7 characters (and one animal companion). We use an initiative tree so everyone can see who is next, play in a room with minimal distractions (no TV/consoles, just a snack-stealing labrador), and the players have gotten pretty good at being ready to roll when their turn comes up. If we need a rule lookup, by the time the current player has explained what his action is, someone has pulled up the rule on a tablet or a book and handed it to me.

6 is good. 8 works if it runs smoothly, or at low levels. I like battles with lots of mooks, so everyone has plenty of targets. That also slows it down a bit, but it removes the problems with one or two appropriate CRed monsters getting lucky and dropping characters. The party has learned quickly that doors are deathtraps for the guy in front facing 5+ bad guys, and they need to find a spot to fight where everyone can do something instead of being jammed up in the hall waiting.


I've never run a game with just 2 players. 3 players I've allowed two characters each. 4 I'll give them an NPC to hand around, or a wand of summon monster I or something. I'd call 6 the sweet spot, but I've run as many as 11 players before (with a part-time co-DM)