D&D 5E How Many in your Group?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

And, if 5e groups are trending larger than before, (if they even are), what about 5e makes it easier to play with large groups than, say, 3e or 4e?

I somehow didn't see this question before posting the first time, but felt it was important enough to answer that it warranted another post:

My group struggled with having everyone present in 3e and 4e sessions because the combat math didn't mesh with us.

With 3e it was that the system felt too swingy, a single good roll could completely change the way an encounter is going (like a crit sending a PC from "fine" to "dead" in one go), and the system math assumptions made it so that there was a very fine line between "push over" encounters and "impossibly deadly" ones.

With 4e it was that we couldn't get the game moving fast enough for us even after applying some pretty serious house rules (not that I lay blame on the system alone, many of the group simply were overwhelmed by all of the discrete action options available and trying to use the right one at the right type and not forget any of them).

5e, in contrast, feels like the right amount of simplicity for us and has system math that is less swingy so I don't have any difficulty scaling encounters to the larger party size. It feels like 2e to us, except the game math assumes a lot of small hits rather than a few big hits to get to the same result of usually needing a few rounds (or a few characters working together) to take down a monster.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Something that was a bit contentious in the change from 2e to 3e was the presumption of party size. AD&D presumed a pretty large group with about 6-8 PC's being the standard used for a lot of modules, plus various henchmen, retainers, and other hangers on. 3e drastically reduced this and made the 4 PC party the baseline from which the game was largely designed. Monsters were benchmarked vs 4 PC's, treasure and whatnot presumed 4 PC's and modules were also baselined at 4. 4e rolled around and increased the baseline to 5, and then proceeded to design from there.

5e, with it's much looser mechanics and presumptions, seems to be benchmarked at about 4-6 PC's. Six might be a bit high, but 3 PC's is going to have a pretty tough go of adventures and the DM's going to have to work fairly hard to not overwhelm the party.

I'm just curious though. I've seen a lot of posts lately (and it might just be my own confirmation bias) of groups of 6-8 PC's. I know my current group is 6 PC's as well. I'm just wondering where things are falling out.

And, if 5e groups are trending larger than before, (if they even are), what about 5e makes it easier to play with large groups than, say, 3e or 4e?

Never played 4e but compared to 3 there are fewer things to keep track of, shifting mods due to a huge number of feats being the big one, less buffing, and less tactical combat. 3e really got too much for me to have fun with once the PC got to be around 10th level.

 

[Greg K]

3e drastically reduced this and made the 4 PC party the baseline from which the game was largely designed. Monsters were benchmarked vs 4 PC's, treasure and whatnot presumed 4 PC's and modules were also baselined at 4.

To be fair, the baseline was, supposedly, based upon their surveys and other research that they did.

 

[sleypy]

My groups are Monday 5-6 PCs, Tuesday 3-4 PCs, Wednesday 5-7 PCs & Thursday 3 PCs. Though my Monday group had spiked up to 9 before some external issues cause it to shrink down to 5.

 

[sleypy]

The largest group I have ever had is 9, and it got crazy because it was 4e. I started letting the players split the party and just handed out monsters and NPCs to the players who didn't have a PC present during any given scene.

In some ways, it worked pretty well. I never had players paying attention so closely. Unfortunately, some personal conflict I wasn't aware of became disruptive. I had to tell a player multiple times that they could not coup de grace a PC.

 

[dracomilan]

My group was 6 in the 90s (Rules Cyclopedia and AD&D 2e), 5-6 in the 00s (3.x), has been 4 PCs since (4e and 5e).

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, the baseline was, supposedly, based upon their surveys and other research that they did.

Oh, for sure. I didn't mean to imply that they didn't have a good reason for the changing baseline. They certainly did.

It's kinda funny. My current group is very solid for attendance and whatnot, but, before this, I had a solid group of 4 players and we wanted 5. So, we would fill that fifth chair and, invariably, that 5th player would drop out within 1-5 weeks. I had a two year campaign that saw 4 regular players and about 16 very short time players in that cursed 5th seat.

 

[Talmek]

My first 5e group consisted of 5 players, with my latest group made up of "the core 4" (caster, fighter, cleric, rogue). Based on the two different campaigns that I've run in 5e there seems to be a BIG difference in that, the first group never really struggled with any of the encounters, and the second seems to be spot-on with the difficulty (every encounter they've had they were required to expend a lot of resources to survive and overcome, making it feel more challenging).

Granted, there's quite a few differences in the experience level of the players behind the characters of each group. Overall I would stick with groups of 4 in the future as it just feels right.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Six. It's the official limit at encounters tables. The un-official 4e game I ran at the same FLGS ranged from 5-12 players. 5e 'fast combat' helps a bit, but TotM starts to with a large number of players, especially if you match that with an equally large group of monsters, likewise, if you're a large group of fighters & such, it's pretty fast, if you're a large group of indecisive casters, watch out.

So, no, not really trending larger, about the same as 4e. Unless you compare it to the playtest. There were times I had to dragoon people into playing to get the playtest table up to the official minimum.

 

[Lanefan]

This is a bit difficult for me to wrap my head around. You like splitting up the party? Doesn't most of this make your campaigns...rather meat-grinder-y, unless you make special effort to avoid it? I mean, no edition I know of has terribly well supported a solo, duo, or trio group--at least, to the best of my knowledge. Are there any other ways people can "do individual actions" without splitting the group? "Don't split the group" is probably my number-one personal rule of thumb--groups that split are groups that die.

My crew split up and rejoin all the time. The PCs are largely played as individuals, rather than part of a group-think. While adventuring in the field they tend to (most of the time) stick together, but sometimes a few go back to town to train or whatever; and if the whole group's in town then they'll wander all over the place.

As for party size, in my 1e-variant games I usually cap at 5 players around the table because that's all that'll fit, but I'll always allow a player to run two PCs at a time if so desired and they'll bring in or pick up party NPCs as well, so party size tends to range between about 7 and 15. If I were ever to jump to 5e I'd do it exactly the same way.

Lan-"a flowchart of what PCs have been in what parties in my current campaign would look like a plate of spaghetti"-efan