Ask your players how they feel about it
It's possible they don't feel any slowing down (or are ok with it). Maybe a big group isn't a problem for them.
If they want to stay as one group, ask them to help you to make the game flow better. That include:
- Knowing the rules. Not necessary all the rules, but enough so that they know what to roll most of the time.
- Knowing their character and their number. No by heart of course, but they should know where to look for that sudden Natation skill check.
- Knowing the rules specific to their character like how to use sneak attacks, what their spells do, ...
- Still being 'active' when it's not their turn, by listening to what's happening and thinking about what to do.
You can also prepare yourself before the session. For instance:
Have the battleground and the 'flow of battle' ready before the session
Have all informations quickly accessible. I personally have a paper with a short abstract of every NPC to be in the battle. All the attack and defences values, HP, equipment, special abilities... in the same place, always visible to me.
Since you're on Roll20:
- You can use the macro included in the character sheets (or build your own, or make your player build them) to make the game faster. Things like attacking or rolling for Initiative can as quick as clicking a button and reading the result.
If they also feel they're too many, you can split the party.
You can for instance play the two group in the same campaign, with one group going after one half of a McGuffin, while the other track a group of bad guys wanting to use the other half of the McGuffin to gain power beyond imagination.
An other possibility is to split the party, and run the same campaign twice. It greatly reduce your preparation load (even if they follow very different path, you can reuse assets like map and NPC without the players noticing), but you get other problems like not remembering which team did what in that village, or spoilers from one team to another. Careful note taking and a simple explanation to your players should avoid both those issues.
In both case, you need to see about your schedule. Do you run twice as many games? Will it be one group one week and the other the next one? It's for you to decide as the group.
First of all, congratulations on noticing that some people are having a problem and trying to find a solution to it. Most of the dungeon masters I meet just ignore the quiet people who are not enjoying the game and focus on the party's face.
I had similar players before and I spoke with them in private and asked them what I could do to make the game more enjoyable for them. One of them said they just 'weren't feeling it' while another one said that I was not paying enough attention to people who were shy.
In any case, my advice is to speak with them or try to make them feel included by tailoring encounters where their character will shine should you prefer to not to directly confront them.
Best Answer
No more than four, weighing no more than 480 lbs., and with caveats
The basic carrying rules would yield a maximum load of 480 lbs. (16 x 15 x 2) given the giant eagle's stat block (Large size, Strength 16).and
But if your game uses the variant encumberance rule, then you would be subject to the associated drawbacks listed therein when your eagle's load reaches
Then there is the question of how many can fit mounted vs. carried. The basic rules regarding mounts state that you can use a creature as a mount to the extent that it has "appropriate anatomy." So your DM would make a ruling on that as well as how many the eagle can grab, and the most generous ruling I can imagine would be two mounted riders and two additional "passengers" clutched by talons, such that all of them total no more than 480 lbs.
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