Pondering Gestalt -- advice?

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I love the Gestalt rules, and I use them in practically every occupational class-based game I run. (They don't work well with Unearthed Arcana's Generic classes or with d20 Modern's attribute classes.)

That said, there are some things I'd immediately suggest:

1) If you're playing with non-standard races, allow racial HD to combine with the race's Favored Class and knock 1 or 2 levels off of anything with an LA of +4 or higher.

2) Do not, under any circumstances, allow the combination of any two manifester classes or the combination of Fighter and Psychic Warrior. Other combinations are more powerful than standard characters-- these combinations are almost always abusive and sickening, even when they're not intended to be.

3) This is more of a flavor thing, but I wouldn't allow full casters of the same type to combine-- no Bard/Wizard, Cleric/Druid, and so on. I don't mind mixed casters, but I see the benefit of the Gestalt rules as flexibility, versatility, and depth-- qualities you lose when you allow characters to simply double their artillery reserves.

4) Get some non-standard base classes into the mix. Gestalt games are more fun when the players have more class combination options to consider. In my game, I'm using 20 base classes from a variety of sources; the more diversity you offer in terms of base classes, the more diversity you'll see in PC abilities.

 

[Voadam]

So, we're starting up Age of Worms on Eberron. One of the players asked if Gestalt was an option. My initial reaction was, "No". But further thought leads me to ask myself, "Why not?" This'll be something of a beer-and-pretzels game to give me some space in my normally intensive prep-work for my homebrew. I don't know that I really care if the game is deep or serious. Just fun and easy.

So, I come here to ask: Why (not) use gestalt?

The only difference is that they are a little more powerful than the baseline so CR and EL are a little off for calculations of toughness of encounters if you have an ingrained feel for the baseline.

If everyone is gestalt and it is for beer and pretzels I'd say don't worry about it and run with it if it sounds fun for you.

And yes it is in general a power increase, a wizard or sorcerer for example usually gains much more hp and saves and BAB no matter what they gestalt with making them tougher and survive longer. A barbarian with a fighter's feats is pretty cool too, raging and mastering feat chains early.

I played a gestalt rogue variant barbarian once and it was fun.

 

[Mercule]

One thing that is very deadly is Monk/Wizard and Shapechange.

The mix that occured to me, while eating dinner, is that a fighter/warmage who took the feats from CArc that lets one cast in medium and heavy armor would be quite disturbing. d10 HD, full BAB, two good saves, proficiency in all weapons, the ability to cast in armor, the most damaging spells in the game, and all the feats one could ever want. *shudder*

 

[Oberyn]

I had alot of fun with gestalt when i played my halfling monk/rogue. and no i didnt make her a ninja. she was part of the special opp's group for the halfling millitia.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Think it'd be a blast to play, I'd give it a go as an experiment. Like others have said there are certain combinations that are possibly best avoided...

One answer might be themed Gestalt where everyone gets the same 'free' class.

I was going to do this for a silly short campaign. Most likely everyone gets to be an OA ninja.

 

[Gwaihir]

Gestalt

We use Gestalt for our campaigns, which have 3 to 4 players, with standard classes only. I would love to include the non standard class options that Korimyr suggests but none of us own anything except the core books. (Hijack) What suggestions for a book that gives a variety core class options. (/Hijack)
The only downside to Gestalt classes in my view (DM) is the extra time spent rolling up npcs, since previously I would have used one of the generators to do so.
I got around this somewhat by using a homebrew in which there are greater races (Gestalt-able) and lesser races (standard PH). We also use really high stats (4d6 best 3;12 times take best 6) mostly because thats the way weve done it since 1e.

All this seems to work well, though I admit, Interestingly enough, I feel my pcs are somewhat short on combat firepower.

 

[Vurt]

I've been running gestalt games for a while now, using mostly published adventures. If there's a particularly interesting NPC for a climactic encounter, I'll stat them up as gestalt as well, but for the most part I leave them alone. Too much work makes the DM grumpy.

I'm currently running the Lost City of Barakus, which is a meatgrinder. There have been six character deaths so far. One got swarmed by the ratmen. Another two went down to the Green Tree Bandits. And three more were toasted by a random encounter in the forest.

All in all, it's not terribly difficult to challenge even gestalt characters. They have the same number of actions per round as regular characters, so to up the challenge all you need to do is to increase monster numbers slightly. Increasing the number of encounters per day also helps. If that results in characters leveling up too quickly, scale XP rewards down. Barakus recommends awarding only 50% XP, and that seems to work well so far. (Well, for the survivors, in any case...)

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The mix that occured to me, while eating dinner, is that a fighter/warmage who took the feats from CArc that lets one cast in medium and heavy armor would be quite disturbing. d10 HD, full BAB, two good saves, proficiency in all weapons, the ability to cast in armor, the most damaging spells in the game, and all the feats one could ever want. *shudder*

It's not quite as bad as all that-- though you only have to drop one Battle Caster, at 9th level, to get full armor access.

Fighter/Warmage has a ton of artillery available, and if they take Arcane Strike they can use it (and/or true strike) to wreak havoc in melee, but they don't have any other options. They don't have skills, they don't have mobility or stealth, and they don't have the utility spells that would make up for these shortcomings.

The Fighter/Warmage makes a hell of a hammer, but they're pretty useless when the party's problems aren't nails.

(Hijack) What suggestions for a book that gives a variety core class options. (/Hijack)

Wish I could help you-- I use one or two classes each out of a handful of books. At the very least, Expanded Psionics Handbook gives you four different classes (though Psychic Warrior is difficult to work around in Gestalt) to work with.

Otherwise, my additional classes are the Artificer from the Eberron Campaign Setting, the Noble from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting, the Hexblade from Complete Warrior, the Warmage from Complete Arcane, the Scout from Complete Adventurer, and the Shugenja and Favored Soul from Complete Divine. (I nix Psychic Warrior and Paladin to bring the total to 20.)

In games where it is appropriate, I'll add Mechanist and Pilot from the Starfarer's Handbook, and I'm seriously trying to locate some kind of non-magical healer/doctor class. I may end up putting one together out of bits and pieces of d20 Modern, or trying to modify Mechanist or the Tech Specialist from Star Wars Revised to fit the bill.

 

[Thanee]

(Hijack) What suggestions for a book that gives a variety core class options. (/Hijack)

The Complete books (Complete Warrior/Divine/Arcane/Adventurer) have a few nice ones.

The only downside to Gestalt classes in my view (DM) is the extra time spent rolling up npcs, ...

Just use standard NPCs without Gestalt rules... up their CR by 1-4 depending on party level (roughly +1 for every 5 levels the PCs got) and you should be fine.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mercule]

The Complete books (Complete Warrior/Divine/Arcane/Adventurer) have a few nice ones.

Yup. Complete Divine is the weakest, though, IMO. The others all have one class that pretty well begged for inclusion, and another that still intrigued me.