Gestalt in Eberron?

[gabrion]

I'd not considered the druid to be over-powered. We've had a friend who always played one and he sucked, Mighta been him, though. What makes them so tough?

Well from lvls 1-5 summoning animals while fighting with a spiked shillelagh and having a companion that fights as well as many of the PCs really rocks. At 5+ Wild shape takes over and the druid is an awesome tank, plus they are a full caster. Besides all this, they are almost entirely dependent on one high ability score (although having other high scores is always nice). Druids rock. Period.

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To help with the original question, I don't think Gestalt is too much of a problem, but I'd be more hesitant to recommend it than some of the people here. I'm running two modified rules gestalt games at the moment (you can see the characters here and here), plus I've run a few in real life and I currently play in one (ya, I'm a junky).

To be perfectly honest though, I do usually find gestalt characters to be more powerful than other characters by a large degree. This really depends though on how good the players are at using synergy in building their characters. For instance, there are a ton of ways out there to add CHA to various things (saves, AC, HP, AC, saves, attack, damage, saves, AC, etc. ), so a character doubling up on classes that benefit from CHA can actually become more than twice as effective in a Gestalt game (just an example since this goes for other abilities as well).

The bottom line, IMO, is that Gestalt won't hurt your game too much if you think the players are generally equally skillful at building characters. If you have a few number crunchers in the game they will benefit far more from the options presented by gestalt than the guys in the group saying, "Wow, I can play a rogue/fighter combo!"

 

[solates]

Only thing i can think to add to the above is some simple things.

1. Apply the rules given in the book hardlined. IE no bard/paladins(because of alignment restrictions). This by itself solves alot of would-be number crunchers.
2. Overall only 2 combos really are totally without some drawbacks.
monk/cleric
barbarian/fighter
The reason for this is that the gestalt is still focusing on just one stat vs 2 or in some cases 3. The monk cleric is a good example of how a single stat focused gestalted character has no drawbacks(high wis=good for cleric, and good for monk).
Same goes for barb/fighter combo. This combo simply chooses strength every time without a pause. Barbarians rage, movement, fighters feats, its one way to make one helluva tank.
3. Remember that the characters are still only going to gain character feats as a single classed character(ie at 4th lvl they gain 1 feat, not 2).
4. Also some of the would be omg thats so uber characters turn out to be not so much in play. One example is a wizard/sorcerer, while yes they have tons of firepower, they can still only lay down one spell per round, or 2 if one is quickened. Barring the spellcasting theres no reason to make a wiz/sor because the character does not really gain anything out of it.
5. NO PRESTIGE CLASSES.
6. Druid/cleric has several key components that make for an interesting gestalt. 1 is that one of the clerics domains should be plant or animal the other is that selecting feats for this combo will give you a migraine. Both classes require hard choices in feats, and neither class really shares many feats. On the flip side at later levels you have a hawk that can do a fly-by and turn undead
7. Since this is ebberon and they do allow psionic characters(with dms approval) a really interesting combo is psion/artificer. Does not look so powerful but a shaper psion, and an artificier blend really well. Not to mention a psion can heal to a degree and your never going to be short on actual bodies(shapers summon alot).
8. Another psionic combo that is just nice is soulblade/psychic warrior. There just is no drawbacks to the actual combo. Soulblade keeps your weapons uptodate and psychic warrior keeps you alive(go for the defensive powers early on and focus on any damaging powers later).

Solates

 

[MaxisDB]

I read things over and decided no to do the Gestalt thing right now. This is actually my frist eberron game and I'd rather get a feel for the game itself then have to worry about adding a new game mechanic. Guess the players will just have to come up with a way to get a cleric or something, cause I don't run heal-bots

 

[Targos]

I read things over and decided no to do the Gestalt thing right now. This is actually my frist eberron game and I'd rather get a feel for the game itself then have to worry about adding a new game mechanic. Guess the players will just have to come up with a way to get a cleric or something, cause I don't run heal-bots

Well House Jorasco is known for selling healing services. The changling rogue could invest in UMD and wands of cure wounds. Then the warforged could invest in repair wound wands that the sorcerer could use.

 

[jeffhartsell]

Gestalt is awesome.

We've been in a campaign for about 18 months from level 1 to 16 so far and it is way more fun IMO (we've played DnD together for 10+ years). We'd had 3-5 players over the course of the campaign and have 4 currently. We've got a cleric/paladin16, monk/ftr13 + monk/rogue3, clr/sorc4 + monk/sorc12, and me the ftr/rogue2 + barb/monk13 + barb/rogue1. We have house rules that neither barbarian or monk have to be chaotic or lawful.

Long story short, we are tougher than non-gestalt because we've got better saves, better hit points, better BAB (and 28-point buy), but we are only 4 characters. Having two classes does not double our actions.

We can fight EL+2 fairly easily especially if fighting a large group of even or lower level CR. But fighting higher level CR mobs is still tough. At level 13 we got in a fight with a Marilith (CR17) and 2 Hezrou (CR11) and could not take them (we killed one hezrou). We had to bail and could have been wiped out if we had not gotten lucky, we were not expecting something that tough and did not have the spells handy we needed by the time we fought them.

 

[blargney the second]

I'm co-DMing and Eberron gestalt game, and I think I'd only really recommend gestalt if you have a group of less than 4 PCs. It does add a chunk more uncertainty into encounter preparation, which can be cumbersome as a DM.

-blarg

 

[Scion]

My players currently are in a forced gestalt game.

As in, they get to choose what classes one side gets (although certain prcs are barred) but the other is chosen by me.

Of course, I had a background point where they all went to the same 'college' which allows them free reign but the other half of their gestalt is all Warlock. For all of them.

It makes people play on the same ground and it has been 'very' interesting so far.

Warlock doesnt really have a prime stat so it fits in perfectly. Plus I like everyone having at least a d6 hd.. and they can all use healing items such as wands of cure light wounds

Lots of fun, but while they have more options than normal pc's they really arent all that much tougher. With a decently high effective point buy and this gestalt I treat them as 1.5 levels higher than they actually are. No problems so far.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The druid normally can do most things quite well.
The gestalt character normally can do two things quite well.
The druid gestalt character can do some things exceptionally well, and everything else quite well.

Druids and Clerics are extremely solid classes but their abilities are more diffuse and difficult to focus. Gestalting with another class does not automatically solve that weakness.

If you stick to core rules, the Druid's biggest weakness is AC. In light of the metal armor restriction, what gestalt choice solves that problem for the Druid?

Monk helps with AC, but you are commiting a lot of resources into melee and still have only a Cleric BAB progression. That is good but not impressive.

Fighter really gives some melee potential, but you will just have to suck up the hits.

 

[jeffhartsell]

A druid/barbarian is solid. You've got more HP to make up for lower AC and you eventually get DR. The full BAB makes you much better at combat. At 8th when you can get large forms you become very nasty in combat (dire animals and dinosaurs). We use a HR variant to make polymorph more manageable and a bit less powerful, but polymorphing is still a nice buff and druids are the masters.

 

[Vysirez]

A druid/sorc or druid/wizard would have some rather incredible buffing abilities. Combine that with wildshape and all the other abilities and it's pretty nasty. Wildshape allows you to ignore the physical stats, so the fact you need Int/Chr and Wis isnt a big deal. Mage armor + Bark Skin + wildshape is a pretty nice AC for very little cost.