i could do with a little help here

[azura13000]

hi guys i have had a look at posts on here on and off for quite a while and decided it was finally time to join in

im looking at running a gestalt campaign for a few friends as i prefer high powered games. im planning on allowing an "anything goes" system as long as the can show me the book its from so i can verify the wording on abilities and such. they will also be informed that anything they can use so can the NPC's

i was wondering if anyone on here has used gestalt characters and if there is anything i need to look out for to see if characters are becoming a lot more powerful than gestalt characters should be for their level

any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Fallenibilis]

Spell Casters in general can be easy to abuse like a Sorcerer on the one side with paladin 2 and monk 2 and take the Ascetic monk then you go the rest Favored soul.... Then you got the capability by level 20 to cast 8th level Divine spells, 9th level Arcane, and you Add your Cha modifer to your AC and Saves.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, in general you should avoid allowing anything that could lead to an infinite loop. Beyond that, I don't know what your tolerance for power level is, so hard to advise. As long as the gap between the most powerful PC and the least powerful PC isn't so large that you can't challenge the former without making the latter feel useless (or face off against something that can easily kill him/her), you should be fine.

Oh, you should ban any prestige classes that give a dual progression, since those are not necessary in gestalt and can easily lead to brokennes. There should be a general rule that your level for something, outside of stuff that boosts your effective level like the 30,000 gp iuon stone for caster level, it cannot exceed your hit die. Lest players try to find some scheme to advance caster level in the same class on both sides or something. Multiclass feats (like the one mentioned in the quote below) are fine to allow, as long as they adhere to the "HD cap" rule. Most of those feats have side benefits besides level stacking, making them still worthwhile. For example, Ascetic Mage feat lets you use cha instead of wis for monk class features. Song of the White Raven lets you use Inspire Courage as a swift action. And so on...

Spell Casters in general can be easy to abuse like a Sorcerer on the one side with paladin 2 and monk 2 and take the Ascetic monk then you go the rest Favored soul.... Then you got the capability by level 20 to cast 8th level Divine spells, 9th level Arcane, and you Add your Cha modifer to your AC and Saves.

That's...really not that broken. Pretty average for what you can do with Gestalt, really. The Cha to AC being made up for by the complete lack of physical armor, in particular.

 

[azura13000]

thanks guys

so far it seems like im going to have a lot to look out for

StreamOfTheSky i like to play high powered games and i'd love to see my players come up with interesting builds. im planning on rewarding those who choose to make their characters in unusaul ways and combine things in useful and new ways, as anyone can just look up a build and copy it.

 

[Dandu]

Watch out for the Monk/Truenamer. It's absolutely broken.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Watch out for Dandu, he purposely makes no distinction between his serious posts and his joke posts.

 

[azura13000]

dandu would you mind explaining why it is broken please?
i dont think ive looked at the truenamer yet

 

[Dandu]

Broken as in "it doesn't work as intended". Truenamer is a class that gets weaker as it levels up, unless you spend an inordinate amount of time optimizing it. Then it's simply average.

Monks are... not impressive, power wise. Added together...

 

[azura13000]

ah fair enough

ive seen a few classes and prestige classes that dont really work as intended really

i currently have a dragon disciple and after looking through other books and finding a 3 level progression for turning into a half dragon it seems like a bit of a waste to spend 10 levels on it. however i like my character and the way i made him. he's fun to play and still massively overpowers almost all of my group except the wizard. i occasionally dumb down what the character would have done to allow the other players chances to come up with something fun. however using alter self to become a large dragon and then picking up our paladin and using him as a massive lawn dart while he weilds his holy avenger and is thrown from a charge while descending on the dracolich that our dm had just had created in front of us ended it in only a few rounds. dm ruled that due to the massive amount of damage and that it was a holy avenger hitting it that it instantly killed it after the damage we had already dealt