Gestalt monsters

[Asmor]

I'm brainstorming ideas for my campaign, and basically I'm going to have a plant-themed demon lord who uses black roses to infect people and turn them into his zombie minions...

Now, here's the thing... I could see them being considered plants (obviously), but also evil outsiders (primarily so they can be turned by clerics who turn evil outsiders, a factor in my game), and also undead (just because I like the idea of them being undead... ok, I could probably ditch this).

So, basically, here's my thought... Gestalt monsters! Pick 2 types (or even 3 or 4 or whatever makes sense to ya!) and use the gestalt rules... I.e. the monster gets the best skill points, best base attack bonus, all relevant traits, etc. They're affected as all of their types, for example a plant outsider [evil] is affected by anything that affects plants, and anything that affects outsiders, and anything that affects either with the [evil] descriptor.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

I say go for it!

I've had the idea of using Gestalt monsters in the back of my mind for a while, now. Nothing to do with plants, though. My thought was that things like Ogres would also gain an equivalent amount of class levels for their hit dice that would work like the Gestalt rules... taking whichever is best.

It's certainly a good way to differentiate monsters a little more.

 

[Will]

It also solves the same issue players often face; how useful is a ogre magi, if he's ogre 10/wiz 2 (or something)?

The MM idea of fractional CR for 'secondary' levels is really clunky.


If the PCs are also gestalt, I think you're fine. If they aren't, I'd add 1 CR per 5 HD or so.

 

[eschwenke]

There's an Amalgum Creature template that was published that does almost the same thing, except that the creature only counts as one type, but I'm sure that could be easily changed. I don't know the orriginal source for it off hand, but I know that it was in Monte Cook Presents the Year's Best d20.