Racial HD and Gestalt

[Aazenius]

I am preparing to DM a gestalt game using the rules found in Unearthed Arcana. Lately I've found myself wondering if intelligent monsters should have their racial hit die gestalted with a class hit die. For example should I gestalt a Hill Giant's Giant Racial HD with Barbarian HD (its favored class). This would give the Hill Giant 12d12 for HD, it would have a BAB of +12 instead or +9 and it can then use Greater Rage 4/day adding +6 to Strength and Con further making it even more deadly.

I don't want to kill my group off in the first game, but I dont want certain monsters to be too easy. Should I leave Racial HD alone, and not count them when using the Gestalt rules. I know that the rules say that you should take two standard classes and combine them, but I wonder if that makes Intelligent monsters with just racial HD weaker in the long run.

Any advice on how to handle this would be appreciated.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Gestalting racial HD as a virtual class will open up immense powergaming potential, which is not necessarily a bad thing if the DM handles the issue carefully. I would hesitate to go there, even if it may make some intelligent monsters weaker in the long run.

The Hill Giant is already offense heavy, and gestalt PCs are not necessarily vastly better in the melee defense side of things. (The Wizards and Rogues will tend to have a lot more HPs, but the melee specialist cannot really go further up than a d10 or d12.) Giving him Barbarian or Fighter levels will crank up his offense by about 50%. Look carefully at his full iterative attack. This Hill Giant can kill a PC with in one round if he concentrates his attacks on a single target.

You will have basically made this Hill Giant as tough as a Fire Giant. Maybe that is the desired effect.

IMHO I would not do this normally. But in a gestalt campaign it makes perfect sense for a special NPC.

 

[Aazenius]

Thats what I was looking for. I guess its better if Racial HD are NOT used for Gestalt. In effect it does add about 2 or 3 to the CR of a monster. Probably the best thing to do in this case is to leave the Hill Giant as is, and then give him 1 level of Barbarian - which still makes him tough, but not deadly like a Gestalt Barbarian Hill Giant.