Gestalt + Racial Paragon

[Dark Psion]

As I was looking at all the Racial feats that were in the Complete Psionic, I had a thought. What if you combined two aspects of Unearthed Arcana; Gestalt characters and Racial Paragon? Your race becomes your secondary class.

The one problem is that the Racial Paragons only have three levels, this will need 20. And of those three levels, one is just an ability boost. I want something more, well racial. Many of the newer races, like the Shifters of Eberron, would really benefit from this because their shifting ability is based on feats.

And since the main reason behind this is the racial feats, I would have a bonus racial feat at 1st and every 5th level. But what else?

Which classes should get +1 spellcaster or manifester level?
What special abilities should each race get?
What would the PH races use for racial feats?
What about skills, saves and hit dice?

 

[Jack Simth]

Depends on how strong you want the variant to be.

If you want something really strong, just keep repeating the three Paragon levels over and over, changing any set bonuses (e.g., Halfling's racial bonuses getting set to 3, rather than 2) so that they either stack (2nd time around, at paragon 4, Halfling's racial bonuses change to +4; 3rd time around, at paragon 7, they change to +5....), become bonus racial feats (however you care to define them), or that they apply to a different area (E.g., Human Adaptive Learning - new skill is always a class skill). Stats would get kinda crazy, though (at 20th, an Orc Paragon would have an extra +12 to strength, and Darkvision 270).

If you want something a little less strong, you loop it, but replace everything except spellcasting boosts already gained with bonus racial feats.

 

[Lopke_Quasath]

What's wrong with just having Gestalt for the first 3 levels?

The PCs get the benefits of the racial paragon levels, and then continue as regular characters. They have a bit of extra flavor and some bonuses.

Perhaps adjust treasure levels to a level lower to compensate for any extras they get. Or increase the ECLs of your campaign by 1. Or just leave it be and see how that works balance-wise.

Cheers

 

[Nightfall]

*kind of agrees* But if you want a long lasting Racial Paragon, use a monster class with more to it than normal D&D races. D&D monsters, now THERE's your ticket.