Ever use Gestalt Character Rules from Un-Arcana?

I was looking through a friend's copy of Unearthed Arcana and saw the section on Gestalt Characters, where each PC has 2 core classes mixed, with the best HD, BAB, combo Saves, All bonuses and feats, and can do everything in both classes at the same time (well, almost).

So, for example, PC#1 is a barbarian/sorcerer - can rage like a barbarian and cast spells like a sorcerer, with the barbarian's HD and a combo of the saves, & etc.

Well, has anyone ever run a game like this?

BC

Not yet, but some friends and I are all gonna be co-DMing a campaign in a few weeks that will be gestalt. It looks pretty good so far.

A few questions have arisen so far, actually- such as how do level adjustments (from templates and whatnot) affect gestalt characters? I don't think it would make too much sense just to give them one of their two classes, because let's say you're a Sorcerer/Barbarian, gaining +1 BAB per level and a d12 hit die, as well as other goodies. Then, at one level, you get bitten by a lycanthrope and take a level adjustment, so you decide to stop taking Sorcerer for a level or so. Well, you don't get any spells (since you didn't level up to get more spells), but you still get a d12 hit die, and +1 BAB per level. You've just "lost" half of a class you didn't even take anyway- and thus, you really didn't lost much other than the spells. (At least, you didn't lose as much as a single-classed character would have.)

I figured you are locked into that gestalt class

UltimaGabe said:

Not yet, but some friends and I are all gonna be co-DMing a campaign in a few weeks that will be gestalt. It looks pretty good so far.

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Cool. I would love to hear about it!

UltimaGabe said:

A few questions have arisen so far, actually- such as how do level adjustments (from templates and whatnot) affect gestalt characters? I don't think it would make too much sense just to give them one of their two classes, because let's say you're a Sorcerer/Barbarian, gaining +1 BAB per level and a d12 hit die, as well as other goodies. Then, at one level, you get bitten by a lycanthrope and take a level adjustment, so you decide to stop taking Sorcerer for a level or so. Well, you don't get any spells (since you didn't level up to get more spells), but you still get a d12 hit die, and +1 BAB per level. You've just "lost" half of a class you didn't even take anyway- and thus, you really didn't lost much other than the spells. (At least, you didn't lose as much as a single-classed character would have.)

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I figure you'd be locked into that Gestalt class, you can't go to 2nd level without both Barbarian and Sorcerer to go to 2nd level. They are twined together as one class, so with one, so with the other.

At least that's my perception of the gestalt rules.

You could then multiclass into a wizard/paladin, and then you'd be a barbarian/sorcerer 2, wizard/paladin 1 sort of thing. Also, the rules say that you can mix a prestige class with a regular class, but not two prestige classes, so you could have a Eye of Grummsh/sorcerer, or a Mystic Theurge/bard, or a Assassin/swashbuckler.

BC

I am currently playing in a campaign with gestalt characters. It is great for making powerful and yet pretty well rounded characters. Good skills. For Gms you should count the characters as 1 level higher than they are for figuring ECL, since every character will have better saves, more hitpoints and almost certainly itirative attacks as soon as any fighter class. The hting that can really make them powerful is when every ability is staggered. i.e. when 1 class gets a SAS and the other doesn't and then next level the same thing happens to the other class, so in effect the BAB gtoes up every level. That aside I am having a tremendously fun time in this campaign, especially from the role-playing side, the power level has not stopped us from nearly getting anihilated on several occasions. Scott if you are reading this, Thanks.

It's an interesting set of rules, and allows for an interesting shift in power, while a character still has at most 1 hit die per level (although normally higher than normal) it's still 1 hit die per level. Thus they can still get dropped pretty quickly. Basically it spreads out the abilities of each character, which provides greater endurance to the character.

Also, you aren't locked into a class combination. You could easily take your first level as a barbarian-sorcerer, then your next as a fighter-sorcerer. Basically you have two class streams from which to draw.

Also, some PrC's are removed (Mystic Theurge and similar classes which only serve to give those characters in odd multiclassing circumstances a real chance) and would prove easily abuseable in the gestalt setup. Cleric-Wizard 5/MT-Fighter 10... and such things like that.

I find it good for small parties or if you really want to give a theme to your party (require that all characters have one class stream rogue or sorcerer or whatever) or to make the characters truly exceptional.

We use gestalt for 2 of our campaigns. We only have 2-3 players at a time so it works great in covering all the bases with just a few characters.

I wouldn't do it if we had 5+ players. 4 players would be borderline.

The fractional saves and BAB are a must.

I'm running a gestalt game. 3 players.

I forced one stream to be one of: druid, sorcerer, monk for in-game reasons.

Its working out well thus far.

So far as ECL races go ... I figure you have it take up one of the classes. So if you're playing (say) an plane-touched (+1 ECL), then at first level you'd be a class X/plane-touched. At following levels, you'd be something like:
class X/other class X-1

Which I think will work out fairly well.

I've been in and run more gestalt games than current posts in this thread. Its just a power boost. We run the LA races differently, 1/4 level can be LA, it puts you back a little in the idea of being a half dragon, but given how easy it is to make some PrC's in gestalt its just worth the restricted nature sometimes.

for an example try this:
(Cleric, Marshall)/Healer going into Heirophant with healing domain, augment healing and such, healing a cure light for 24 (8+2+5+9(cha 28)= ) at level 14, no rolling needed. Theres other combos, like Psion/Fighter with a huge weapon swinging it around decapitating Boccob ( only if he lets you go first, and you get that UBER lucky set of max) at level 7. The whole issue is finding a new balance in the game, Vow of Poverty Monk/Paladins. You get the idea, the whole thing gets a little odd.

I allowed a 17th level sorcerer / 17th level favored soul gestalt character into my game yesterday. He was also of the angel subtype. It is a pretty powerful and potent mix but altogether, I thought it was fairly blanced and managed to keep up well with a couple of 17th level characters with special abilities and artifacts. I treat them all as 19th level and this seemed to work out well.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Ongoing Gestalt - With Tips!

Hey all,

I've been running a gestalt game since I first read about the idea in Unearthed Arcana. I really can't imagine going back to the "core" rules after the fun we've had with gestalt. The campaign has 6 active characters, and the players absolutely love the gestalt rules. I've found, as a DM, that this gives players much more opportunity to experiment with different classes and game ideas. My players have "grown" by leaps and bounds just because they are more likely to step out of the box and do something new with gestalt rules.

We made several adjustments for this campaign. First, we get feats on every odd level (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.) instead of every three. With several hundred feats available in the campaign, you just couldn't play with most of the rules. Don't forget to adjust monsters for the same! Also, I found that gestalt rules "broke" rather quickly along the saving throw lines. Before long nothing, PC or monster, could fail a saving throw. Spellcasters were crippled unless they cast spells with no saves. So, we adopted a new save progression. Every character chooses, at level 1, two good save progressions and one bad. This stays with the character throughout the campaign. To balance, all monsters and NPCs do the same. Sounds like a lot of adjusting, but it is simple math (good save is half HD +2 and bad save is 1/3 HD). Even the character playing the monk (who kind of got hosed by losing a good progression) has found the new system vastly superior when using gestalt. Without this tweak, I had 10th-level characters that just couldn't fail a save without rolling a 1.

We have been using level adjusted races as well. Here's how we do it. A powerful race has either half or full level cost. If it has half cost, you can take a PC class level with each of your "race" levels. If it has a full cost, you cannot. For example, in our campaign, the half-dragon template costs 5 half-levels. So, you could be a 5th-level fighter half-dragon. At level 6, you can now start taking two levels (such as fighter and rogue) at the same time. If you wanted to play something that is Large by default, such as minotaur, it costs 8 full levels. Until level 9, you cannot take anything but minotaur levels. However, at level 9, you can take two levels like any other gestalt character (such a barbarian and ranger).

All of this has worked tremendously well. We are absolutely loving this campaign and will likely never play non-gestalt again. With so much material published, this really puts more options in the players' hands. I have found that players are gravitating toward the half-celestial template (costs 6 half-levels), and I think it is undervalued. I'd recommend anyone else make it a more expensive race to start with.

As far as what power level the characters can handle, we just finished a big adventure. The climatic battle was with a kaiju monitor lizard (using template from Dragon Magazine 289). Basically, this creature was Godzilla. With a CR of 17 and 804 hit points, dealing 50 to 60 hit points of damage per hit, it was brought down by a gestalt party of 5 and 2 cohorts, with the death of one PC and one NPC (later raised); average party level 12.

Anyway, I highly recommend gestalt to anyone who has experience with D&D. It is a lot harder to teach to new folks, however. I really recommend experience players for it.

Black Falcon