Gestalt commoners

[Taneel BrightBlade]

I am going to be running a gestalt game (from Unearthed Arcana), and I've been wondering, what do I do with the average people in the world? Should I just use the commoner class or gestalt all the people in the world to balance it? This probably won't be important but I thought I'd see what people think.

 

[blargney the second]

Serfs? Leave them as is.
Important NPCs it's likely they'll encounter in combat? Gestalt.

For everything in between I'd err on the side of leave them alone, but just add more of them.

 

[Nifft]

Yeah. Use Gestalt for named NPCs who need stats.

Other NPCs... who cares? "Commoner" just means that it'll die in one hit, if you bother to hit it, which you prolly shouldn't, because who cares? It's a Commoner.

-- N

 

[hong]

Yeah. Use Gestalt for named NPCs who need stats.

Other NPCs... who cares? "Commoner" just means that it'll die in one hit, if you bother to hit it, which you prolly shouldn't, because who cares? It's a Commoner.

-- N

A 1st level commoner ran over my cat.

 

[Nifft]

A 1st level commoner ran over my cat.

If the cat's got vengeful relatives, that commoner is in trouble. His whole family could be dead in just one round of tiny, pouncy doom.

, -- N

 

[Kae'Yoss]

You could make every NPC a gestalt with commoner as the other class

 

[Sound of Azure]

Commoners could Gestalt with hit dice of their creature type. For most commoners, this will be a level in humanoid.

While it gives them more hit points on average, most other qualities do not improve, since they probably will not have more than a single level.

Since their armour and weapon proficiencies are determined by character class, they still have the commoner proficiencies.

The other boost is the humanoid's (usual) good Reflex save.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Since their armour and weapon proficiencies are determined by character class

Or type, in the case of creatuers with racial HD - which would be the case here.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I regularly have 10th+ level commoners in my games (experts as well as the PCs are most likely to be dealing with them over the dirt farmers). An adult age human (15+ years old) is automatically a 4th level commoner with 1 level added for every 4 years after that. Also i give commoners d6 hit points (they have to be able to overthrow their house cat overlords).

 

[molonel]

Gestalt ... Commoner?

The whole point of the Gestalt is to take the best of either class. The Commoner has the worst of everything: a d4 hit die, a wizard's BAB, 2 + Int skill points per level, no special abilities, all bad saves.

If a class is bad at something, the Commoner will be redundant. If a class is good at something - ANYTHING - it will always win over the Commoner.

Save yourself the time. Either don't Gestalt them, and leave them Commoners, or give them class levels in something else. Gestalting the Commoner is a waste of time.