Gestalt Game Help

[Crothian]

Very ture. I usually give much less xp than average anyway and give story xp rewards. I'm trying to make sure everyone is fairly equal, but one guy is set on a monk/ranger hafling. :\

I wouldn't be that concerned with it. He looses the armor that Ranger would want to wear, monks excell at unarmed attacks but the ranger class wants to be an archer or a two weapon fighting. 2WF and flurry of blows don't interact, so many of the abilites are not that great together. Both already get great saves so not much is gained there. He has a great skill list, but not enough skill points to take advantage of all of them. Attributres will be Dex and Wis high, more then likely as both classes need them.

 

[The Human Target]

I wouldn't be that concerned with it. He looses the armor that Ranger would want to wear, monks excell at unarmed attacks but the ranger class wants to be an archer or a two weapon fighting. 2WF and flurry of blows don't interact, so many of the abilites are not that great together. Both already get great saves so not much is gained there. He has a great skill list, but not enough skill points to take advantage of all of them. Attributres will be Dex and Wis high, more then likely as both classes need them.

Well that was actually kind of the problem . He may be too weak. If I have a cleric/monk, or a wizard/druid he is going to be fairly average. Both classes are so specialized in the first place it might make his character very specialized. But I'll see what he can come up with.

 

[Crothian]

Oh, my bad. Okay, then I'll hit on what the Ranger/Monk will be great at. Ranger he can take the ranged combat options and be deadly with a bow, and his monk levels allow him to fight well in melee, so he will be able to do both. He has great skills and with a good intelligence or even being human can be great at sneaking and tubling, and spoting,, and many other things. Imagine a character with lots of ranks in like jump and climb who uses the speed of the monmk to position himslef quickly in high, hard to get to areas and snipes badguys from there. With the right Ranger spells he can help out his skills as well.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

You need to review the gestalt rules again. You only get the better value from the combined classes for Hit Die, Base Attack, and Base Saves.

That is indubitably correct.

Therefore, the Base Save tops out at a +12 at 20th level just like a non-gestalt character's saves do.

That is not correct. Do you have multiclass characters' saves top out at +12? (That, also, should be no!)

I believe you misunderstand the rules for it. At each level, you take the BAB, Saves and Skill points for each class you have at that level, and take the best, and add them to what you had before. You know, like how you do it normally anyway. It really helps to think of it as multiclassing on steroids. So, let us consider the Fighter-Monk:

Level 1: Monk-1 gets +0 BAB, +2 Fort, +2 Refl, +2 Will, and 4+Int Skill Points
Level 1: Fighter-1 gets +1 BAB, +2 Fort, +0 Refl, +0 Will, and 2+Int Skill points

Ergo, at Level 1, the Fighter-Monk has BAB +1, Fort +2, Refl +2, Will +2, and 4+Int Skills (x4 for first level).

Level 2: Monk-2 gets +1 BAB, +1 Fort, +1 Refl, +1 Will, and 4+Int Skill Points
Level 2: Fighter-2 gets +1 BAB, +1 Fort, +0 Refl, +0 Will, and 2+Int Skill points

Level 2 Fighter-Monk has BAB +2, Fort +3, Refl +3, Will +3, and 4+Int Skill Points to distribute.

Level 3: Monk-3 gets +1 BAB, +0 Fort, +0 Refl, +0 Will, and 4+Int Skill Points.
Level 3: Fighter-3 gets +1 BAB, +0 Fort, +1 Refl, +1 Will, and 2+Int Skill Points.

Level 3 Fighter-Monk now has BAB +3, Fort +3, Refl +4, Will +4, and another 4+Int skill points to distribute.

Note how having both classes with good Fort saves at the same levels results in no benefit to the character.

Now, let's mix it up a bit, and take Monk and Rogue as our fourth level classes*.

Level 4: Monk-4 gets +1 BAB, +1 Fort, +1 Refl, +1 Will, and 4+Int Skill points.
Level 4: Rogue-1 gets +0 BAB, +0 Fort, +2 Refl, +0 Will, and 8+Int skill points.

The Level 4 character now has BAB +4, Fort +4, Refl +6, Will +5, and now has 8 skill points to distribute.

Questions?

* - Note that there's an annoying hole in the gestalt rules where mixing classes is concerned as regards to XP penalties for multiclassing. There is no current official answer that I've heard of, but given that you're supposed to take two classes at each level, ignoring XP penalties completely isn't a bad way to go.

Brad

 

[Crothian]

ACtually the hole happens when you multi class,

Howver, you are doing the gestalt wrong. It say take the better save progreession, noit take the better save bonus at each level. So, at third level the ref and wil saves do not increase.

They way I'd do is keep track of both classes serperately, but only use the better one. If the fighter half switches to rogue you add the fighters ref with the rogue and if that is higher then the monk you use that.

 

[RSKennan]

My reading of the rules says that "characters take two classes at every level, choosing the best aspects of each", and the language regarding choosing the better progression seems to mean "when choosing save bonuses, choose a given save from the class with the best progression." This can actually mean that in certain cases you have to choose the worst bonus for a given level from the options available.

So assuming that's what Crothian meant, I'm with Crothian.


This is a tangent, but how much trouble would it cause to give gestalt levels on say, every even level? What effects do to think would come of that?

My gut tells me that it might nudge things towards characters that are more archetypical than full gestalt. You'd basically have a primary class, say wizard, and a secondary class, like sorcerer.

The combat classes of course would still be a source of quick power-ups, but I personally don't see that as a huge problem, given the power level desired when using something like this in the first place. A character would also have to decide whether he was more of a fighter or more of a spellcaster, unless he wanted to fall behind as both.

The standard Gestalt rules don't seem to have that factor.

Am I wrong?

 

[DaveMage]

Interesting - kind of a "gestalt light" approach. I think it would certainly work, but I suppose it depends on why the PCs are gestalt in the first place. For my group, we only have 2 players + DM, so we wanted the abilities of multiple classes.

However, if a group is playing gestalt just for the uniqueness, what you are proposing would certainly add an interesting aspect without too much of a powerup.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

ACtually the hole happens when you multi class,

Howver, you are doing the gestalt wrong. It say take the better save progreession, noit take the better save bonus at each level. So, at third level the ref and wil saves do not increase.

Hrm...looking at it again, it says progressions, yes.

Except when you get to the part that discusses 2nd and higher levels, which states to choose the best aspects of each. Given that the introduction to the section says it's similar to multiclassing, I believe what I outlined above is the procedure.

They way I'd do is keep track of both classes serperately, but only use the better one. If the fighter half switches to rogue you add the fighters ref with the rogue and if that is higher then the monk you use that.

That's the thing, though; it works fine when you have two classes from 1-20, but what if you want to multiclass? It also doesn't agree with the "add best features of both" that I mention above.

Brad

 

[Crothian]

Gestalt is an unfinished idea. Its an option that wa sa neat thought but the more I look at it, the more incomplete the idea becomes. So, if you are going to use it I suggest completeing the idea and figure out howe all this works together.

 

[WildWeasel]

For gestalts, I highly recommened the fractional BAB/base save accounting (UA p. 73). This neatly fixes the problem of alternating class levels with good saves for a +1 at every level-up. Now you just get a +1/2, for a net +1 every two levels, as good saves normally progress.

The monk/ranger combo is a good one. Very broad suite of abilities, ranger for ranged combat, monk for meleeing. Keep in mind that he'll be able to flurry off the full ranger BAB.

For the gestalt Eberron game I'm running, I'm turbofeating the PCs: everytime they'd get a feat based off character level, they get two, to better support the extra class progession (and feats are cool, and I won all the D&D books so I should get some use out of them, dangit).

The stacking skill points is a good idea for the same reason.