Making Favoured Classes Count: A Gestalt Character Idea

[GQuail]

I forget if I ever posted this idea or not: if I did, it was gobbled up by the Great Crash, though. I had an idea a while back, and a recent discussions reminded me of it, so I trhought I'd throw it out to ENEorld to discuss.

More than a few people have noted that Favoured Classes, as they stand, don't so much encourage archetypal characters as they do multiclassing in the vicinity of those archetypes. There's no in game benefit for being a pure-classed member of your favoured class, but there is a benefit for being a member of another class who splashes into your favoured class or vice versa. Especially when there aren't as many incentives in the stats of the race for the favoured class as there ought to be (Helloooooooooo, Elf Wizard!) it can render it an irrelevancy to play.

Now, some people quite like the freedom 3.X offers with class choices, and to be honest I'm usually one of them. I like being able to play a Halfling Paladin, Half-Orc Monk or Dwarf Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Theurge without encountering the old hurdles of level limits - but I do know that some people don't like the fact that this can often lead to parties full of odd class choices, and like a more "classic" game where you know most Elves can cast arcane spells, most Halflings can find traps and what have you.

So, the basic of my idea was to use the Gestalt rules, and limit character advancement so that you must take at least one Gestalt class in your favoured class: so a Halfling character can be a Rogue/Fighter, a Rogue/Cleric or whatever, but one MUST be a Rogue. You could make it and/or using Racial Paragon classes as well: so you could be a Elf Wizard/Elf Paragon, an Elf Wizard/Fighter or an Elf Sorcerer/Elf Paragaon, but not an Elf Fighter/Sorcerer.

Arguably, this doesn't really fix the problem: now you can't even choose to be "just a wizard" but have to take levels in something else as well! But I dunno if in play that would be disasterous: an Elf could take Fighter/Wizard and play like a BD&D Elf, or take Wizard/Sorcerer to be a "pure spellcaster". For most classes, splashing in Fighter, Rogue or Wizard/Sorcerer wouldn't break your characterisatiuon: and if you use the Paragon classes instead, you could worry about that even less, since the flexibility increases.

In the case of "Any" classes, some people who use many alternate base classes might find they become a lot more powerful, since only they can be Favoured Souls/Totemists or Truenamers/Warlocks or whatever. You might want to tell the player to pick a class or two on character creation, and those are the ones he's "stuck with".

Now, I do know that this requires using the Gestalt rules and thusly upping the power level and complexity (as well as potential MAD) of PCs: and also, that Substitution levels have been included iun recent books as a patch to this exact problem. It's just something I wanted to share, and since another (now lost) post I madewith a random game mechanic went down well, I'm hoping I'l;l get my ego stroked over this one as well. ;-)

 

[Drowbane]

Meh, we just ignore that silly line at the bottom of race entries known as "Favored Class: X".

 

[ForceUser]

Meh, we just ignore that silly line at the bottom of race entries known as "Favored Class: X".

Gotta admit, the favored class requirement throws a monkey wrench into some of my niftier character ideas. Might do away with it myself in future campaigns.

 

[blargney the second]

I like the OP's gestalt idea. You could broaden the scope a little by saying that that a given race has favoured class: arcane casters, full BAB, or 6+ skill points/level. That way you give a feel without nailing them to a mechanic.

 

[Fishbone]

Throw them a little feat and XP loving. Say, every 5 classes you get another feat, and give a bonus to XP, too like 10%. That'll keep people's interests more than some funky gestalt rules that will totally unbalance the game. Hmm, the Half Orc can either be Fighter 4/Blah Blah Blah 5 or he can be a Barbarian 10 with 2 more feats. I think you'll be seeing a lot more straight Barbarians.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Now, I do know that this requires using the Gestalt rules and thusly upping the power level and complexity (as well as potential MAD) of PCs:

Gestalt characters really do increase the complexity of the number-crunching and the potential of MAD, but the power level doesn't go up that much. Despite all the advantages, you don't get any extra actions per round, which will continue to limit options.

In the gestalt game I'm running for my son, I think it adds only about +1 to the party's "level" in terms of combat. I mean, the fighter-wizard can cast a spell, or full attack, but not both. Gestalt makes the characters much more versatile, but not that much more powerful.

 

[Reynard]

More than a few people have noted that Favoured Classes, as they stand, don't so much encourage archetypal characters as they do multiclassing in the vicinity of those archetypes. There's no in game benefit for being a pure-classed member of your favoured class, but there is a benefit for being a member of another class who splashes into your favoured class or vice versa. Especially when there aren't as many incentives in the stats of the race for the favoured class as there ought to be (Helloooooooooo, Elf Wizard!) it can render it an irrelevancy to play.

I'd call this a good thing, I think. Favored class has the effect of tying a certain aspect -- war, magic, whatever -- to a race. it isn't that Elf Wizards are more powerful than other wizards. It is that elves are magical in nature and every other elf and his cousin can cast a few spells. The same goes for dwarves and fighting, halflings and sneaking and gnomes and, um... singing?

 

[Andor]

Of course a side effect of that would be to make Humans even more popular than they are now since you can make whatever gestalt you want. Heh. Although in that case I might say Humans can gestalt as X/Y where Y can be what ever you want but X is fixed as whatever class you picked at first level, and only the forgotten Half-elf gestalts as Y/Y where they can pick anything at any level.

 

[wayne62682]

Throw my hat into the "Hate 'em, never use 'em" camp. All they do is stifle character options. But yes, the OP's idea is neat despite it using *blecch* Gestalt.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I copied the idea from Conan OGL that every 5 levels in a favoured class gives a bonus feat, because I like the idea that those with favoured classes gravitate towards them (rather than are more likely to dabble in them). It also makes the 'any class favoured' for humans or half-elves more meaningful.

Cheers