Gestalt question

[CrimsonWineGlass]

I recently started a campaign and decided to try out gestalt, level 10. Last session one of my players' character died and he was creating a new one. He wanted to do a sorcerer/barbarian, and going into Loremaster. Making his character level 10 sorcerer/level 9 barbarian/level 1 loremaster. We had some questions regarding the fact that the loremaster gains spells as though he were one level higher in his previous spellcasting class. Would his sorcerer spellcasting be as though he were a level 11 sorcerer? Or does it just stay as a level 10?

 

[Thanee]

Spellcasting ability can only be gained from one side, of course.

Basically, as a guideline, whenever some combination grants you an ability, that you could not normally achieve by this level (like having a BAB of +11 at 10th level, or the spellcasting ability of an 11th-level character at 10th level), something is probably wrong.

Gestalt grants characters more breadth in ability, letting them cover a wider base, but it does not make their individual abilities more potent (though the combination of abilities might end up being more potent, as when combining fighter and rogue, attacks will be more potent, because sneak attack can be combined with the fighter's attacks and thus the fighter's attacks will obviously become more potent all-in-all).

That character should rather be a Sorcerer 9 / Loremaster 1 | Barbarian 10

Bye
Thanee

 

[CrimsonWineGlass]

Thanks, being new to gestalt I tend to get a slight be confused on occasion.

 

[Alzrius]

Be aware that the gestalt rules suggest that you not be allowed to gestalt with prestige classes. That is, that you can only gestalt two base classes, and prestige classes must be taken the normal way (single levels). That's because, pound for pound, prestige classes are better than base classes, and already tend (as a generalization) to combine abilities from two classes.

 

[Thanee]

Spellcasting ability can only be gained from one side, of course.

This is not very precise, and just for clarification's sake... you can gain different spellcasting abilities (i.e. Sorcerer | Cleric), but you cannot improve the same spellcasting ability twice in one level-up (i.e. Sorcerer | Loremaster would only give you +1 to caster level, Spells Known, Spells per Day, etc, and the special abilities from the loremaster, plus the usual stuff like hit points, BAB, skills, saves, etc).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

Be aware that the gestalt rules suggest that you not be allowed to gestalt with prestige classes. That is, that you can only gestalt two base classes, and prestige classes must be taken the normal way (single levels). That's because, pound for pound, prestige classes are better than base classes, and already tend (as a generalization) to combine abilities from two classes.

While that's what I do, I don't think this is suggested in the Gestalt rules. They say, that prestige classes can only take up one side of the Gestalt, and that you cannot improve two PrC at the same time, though.

And there are quite a few prestige classes, which should not be used at all with Gestalt, like the Mystic Theurge, Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, etc. Basically all PrC, which are a combination of two classes and are a tool to enhance multiclassing with those two classes under the normal, non-Gestalt ruleset. With Gestalt, you already have highly superior options to 'multiclass' those two classes, so adding the benefit of one of those PrC on top, would give the character too much power.

Bye
Thanee