Making Favoured Classes Count: A Gestalt Character Idea

[GQuail]

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.

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.

I like this idea a lot, and think it's a funkier fix than substitution levels. Easilly modified by changing the number of levels from 5 if you want to make it less/more of an incentive, also.

 

[Wik]

I like the idea of adding an "incentive" to playing the favoured class. We see some of these incentives already - dwarves get the war axe if they take a class that offers proficiency in all martial weapons, for example.

I think it'd be nice to say something like: "if you play a dwarf fighter, you automatically get weapon focus (axe)" or somesuch. It doesn't even need to be that big: Elven Wizards learn one extra spell per level (or even start off with an extra spell, and that's it). Halfling Rogues gain +x on one of the following skills...."

Or something. Just spitballing, here.

 

[GQuail]

I like the idea of adding an "incentive" to playing the favoured class. We see some of these incentives already - dwarves get the war axe if they take a class that offers proficiency in all martial weapons, for example.

I think it'd be nice to say something like: "if you play a dwarf fighter, you automatically get weapon focus (axe)" or somesuch. It doesn't even need to be that big: Elven Wizards learn one extra spell per level (or even start off with an extra spell, and that's it). Halfling Rogues gain +x on one of the following skills...."

Or something. Just spitballing, here.

I like this idea: it encourages characters to stick to their archetypes, and even if they don't little things like "gains bonus skill points" or "gains bonus to hit with axes" means that they'll still have a little tendency towards their racial archetype, even if they're something totally different. Balancing what each race should get m,ight take a bit of work, but it's got promise. :>

 

[GQuail]

Another idea for favoured classes, this time one that's only relevant for Gestalt games: what if each character had rather than a favoured class, a favoured Gestalt combo?

One half could be racial as usual, the other would be based on his country/town/religion/etc: so, all the forest-dwelling Halflings of a setting might have "Rogue/Ranger" as a Favoured class, but the more savage northern ones have "Rogue/Barbarian". You can expand this with non-core classes to theme races and sub-races to your whim: you may have evil Elves living around Volcanoes packing "Dread Necromancer/Fighter", but the noble Elves of the coast are "Wizard/Knight". Both would be melee/mage types, but would play and feel very different.

In this variant, Favoured Class:Any races could either require the player to pick a combo for his character, or one part would be picked by his background and the other be a wild card: so a human from a land with a strong Druidic tradition might have "Druid/Any" as his favoured class, and thusly his highest level Druid gestalt combo doesn't count for multiclassing.

This does still have the same issues mentioned in my first post regarding favoured classes: it still would only matter if you were multiclassing, so if this rule is combined with the "feat every five levels of favoured" rule I think it could be funky. Furthermore, by picking odd combinations of classes for a race, you can both encourage the use of non-core classes you don't see often and help make your game world unique: a whole Orc tribe might have a totemic tradition and thusly have "Barbarian/Binder" as a favoured class, a combo your players would never have thought of.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In FFZ, the work I'm doing on the jobs definately uses the idea that there should always be some incentive to play to archetype. Dwarf knights use axes, so dwarf knights are better at axe use, while mooge thieves are better at being tricksters and scoundrels.

You could check out some of the job pdfs to get a look at the different bonuses the tribes can get, and use those as a launching point.

The thing in FFZ is that you get a bonus for your race no matter what class you choose, but the bonus emphasizes something your race does. If you're a moogle knight, you will still closely fit the archetype of a tiny little trickster/inventor sprite, despite having hp through the roof.