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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Matrixryu" data-source="post: 5054641" data-attributes="member: 84553">Let's see, to quicken the argument I'm going to skip to the key parts I think. The orge thing doesn't really matter to me, that was just an example. I could just as easily replace that with a smarter creature like a dragon which should be easily able to take sorceror levels, but for some reason has a harder time learning it than a human with a drop of dragon blood. That doesn't matter so much as the rules themselves though.   Switching classes back and forth between a gesalts two progressions is a problem that exists in normal gesalt rules too. Many people, including me, believe that it is an abuse of the rules that wasn't intended by the creators of the rules.  The key to to add up the *total* abilities the character has. It doesn't matter what combination of levels the player tries to do with his character, if his level 10 fancy rogue/assassin has a sneak attack bonus that is higher than a pure leve 10 rogue, he loses the 'excess' sneak attack until he's no longer breaking the rule of thumb. I probably would count other special attacks like sudden strike and skirmish as a sneak attack for the sake of balance too, aka, no rogue/ninjas. The idea is to be able to create a character with a combination of two very different classes without having to use something like eldritch knight, not to be able to create an unbalanced engine of detruction that does twice the damage of a normal character if it hits. As for the fighter monk thing, all that really matters is that the rule is preventing him from becoming more powerful than a normal character, even if it is be the slightest amount at a specific level. It isn't an exact science because it lets people combine together abilities as long as they are vastly different, but I think it works and is nessissary. You'll see why in my fighter/mage example later in this post. At least, that's my opinion on how to balance things, even with normal gesalts which aren't interacting with normal characters. I believe it is a good rule of thumb.    You're comparing the lvl 15 wizard/fighter to the wrong classes. How about this: would a 15 fighter/wizard be signifigantly better than a fighter 4/wizard 6/ eldritch knight 10? That's the kind of normal character he would be competing with. They would have the same caster level (in fact, the eldrich knight could use a feat or two to get his to lvl 20), same spells. The eldrich knight would have bab 17 instead of bab 15 for the fighter/wizard. The fighter/wizard would have more hit points In the feats, I can see a problem in standard dnd unless you say the fighter and wizard feats don't stack. The fighter/wizard would have gotten 8 bonus combat feats, 3 bonus magic feats, and 6 leveling feats for a total of 17. The Eldritch knight would have 3 fighter bonus feats, 1 wizard bonus feat, 1 EK feat, and 7 leveling feats for a total of 12. There's the slight bonus for the eldritch knight of being about to get his first epic feat, but I won't argue that as making much of a difference. So, in standard dnd the fighter/wizard wins by a few feats, unless you count the bonus feats from the wizard class as not stacking with the fighter feats, thus bringing his total down to 14. Yes, I think I would do that for balance purposes, so the two would only have a feat difference of 2. That's not too bad considering the knight has slightly higher bab. In pathfinder(what I'm playing), things would be a bit closer because level feat progression has been increased to 1 every 2 levels(making those lost levels cost more), and the eldrich knight class got 2 additonal bonus feats. That would put the feat totals at 18 for the fighter/wizard (or 15 if I counted the feats as stacking) and the eldrich knight at 17. In this case, I might let the fighter/wizard keep his bonus feats because EK gets a nasty level 10 ability. Or maybe I wouldn't, for consistancey. That probably doesn't matter to you though, lol. Now you might ask 'why not just use eldritch knight'? Well, the multiclass has a smother power progression, but I probably would just tell a player to use eldritch knight for simplicity. The real reason why I am looking at the gesalts is for more complex class combinations than a simple fighter/wizard. Edit: I said it once before, but I'm more sure of it now: I think I would ban the gestalts from using hybrid classes like eldritch knight. That's just getting too crazy...but I could be wrong. The fact that only one prestige class is allowed at a time might balance it.  You're right, this is one thing I haven't been able to figure out yet. The problem is that someone who starts as a fighter/rogue, and then goes straight rogue from level 5 on, would end having 4 more feats at level 10 than a level 11 pure rogue. I'm not sure how to solve that problem. Edit: Maybe the solution is to give a character who has both normal levels and gesalt levels the same exp penalty that a normal character with too many base classes would get?  Edit: Also, if a normal character tries to make some of his old levels into gestalt levels, the cost is increased until all of his levels become gestalt levels. Then he regains his lost exp.  I must point out that the arcane trickster class seems to show me that the creators think that trading hp and bab for extra spells and special abilities is balanced. Otherwise a prestige class with full wizard spellcasting and full rogue sneak attack would be horribly unballanced. Also, HP can be a problem for non fighter gesalts simply from lost constitution bonuses because they have fewer levels. As for random hp dice rolls, that's not a gesalt problem, that's a rule problem. I give set hp to my players equal to their (hit die/2)+1, but that's just personal prefference since one player complained.  Well honestly, I haven't seen a class combination example yet which is signifigantly more powerful than a normal character, especially a normal character using one of the hybrid prestige classes. At least, most serious advantages that I've seen have been stopped by the limit I put on abilities and feats of the same type. I already proved that the fighter/rogue is balanced with a normal rogue, and that a Fighter/wizard is balanced with an eldritch knight if you don't let him get both fighter and wizard feats. A Fighter/Monk would get hit by my feat limit rule, and is unable to use flurry while using weapons just by the standard rules. You can't use twf with unarmed attacks either, if that's what you mean (if you disagree, let's just agree to disagree).  If you can think of a overpowered class combation using my "lvl 7 gesalt = lvl 10 normal, or level 15 gesalt = lvl 20 normal" rule of thumb, please write out the example and compare it to a normal class combintion (probably using one of the hybrid prestige classes, like eldrich knight, arcane trickster and so on) which is trying to achieve the same thing. If one does exist, I would then have to find a way to fix the rules, lol. I guess my idea is that if using gesalts with these rules is is roughly equivilent to using one of the current hybrid classes, then it would probably be balanced with most more complex class combinations too (like (rogue10)/(fighter5/shadowdancer5)s and the like).   Oh, I'm not talking about him taking duelist late, I just don't like that he would have to give up so many bard abilities to get a few duelist abilities that don't stack at all with what he has. To me, it seems almost as bad as trying to make a fighter/wizard without the eldritch knight or gestalt in 3.5.</blockquote>

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