Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - Optimum number of players?

I am about to play this one hopefully the next month. I think it is fairly balanced with both parties of 4 or 5. There are even some locations where you place an extra monster for the 5th player. Might be rather hard with party of three though.

The thing is, the low level characters are extremely vulnerable and can go down quickly. Well, there is Runara to take care of that, but the thing is, the dice rolls can make it very easy… or very hard and lethal.

Anyway, I will go with 5, I think it is better to err on the side of the adventure being too easy, especially during the first levels. 

4-5 players is perfect, 3 or 6 is reasonable, less than or more than that is pushing the limits.

Smaller parties are more fragile, as one downed player takes out a larger percentage of the party. Having NPC sidekicks is one way of subverting this issue. Sidekicks can keep fighting when the heroes go down, or can focus on supporting and healing the players characters.

 Larger parties are more powerful and reliable, but slow down combat as each player added means another turn each round. If you have an experienced group who plan out their turns between rounds, you can make a party of 7+ work. But with new players? Stick to 5 or less.

NOTE: I haven’t played the new starter set. This is just my opinion from my experience with D&D in general. 4-5 is the rule of thumb for all adventures.