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Gralamin
2008-12-28, 11:25 PM
I've seen a number of topics like this in the past, but I decided to share my take on it.

Goal
The Goal of this system is to make characters ~1.5 times as powerful.

Auxiliary Changes
Due to the lack of perfect Sync with classes currently, a few changes are suggested in addition to the Gestalt rules.

Any time a player would increase two of their Ability Scores, they may increase three instead.
A Character gains an additional feat at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, and 25th level.
Make the following Feats available:

Gestalt Focus [Heroic]
You gain an additional first level at-will attack from your secondary class.

Twin Utility [Heroic]
You gain an utility power from your secondary class. This utility power must be from a level less then or equal to your current level, and you must not have a utility of the same level from your secondary class already.

Twin Encounter [Paragon]
Prereq: Twin Utility
You gain an Encounter attack power from your secondary class. This encounter attack power must be from a level less then or equal to your current level, and you must not have a encounter power of the same level from your secondary class already.

Twin Daily [Epic]
Prereq: Twin Encounter
You gain a daily attack power from your secondary class. This Daily attack power must be from a level less then or equal to your current level, and you must not have a daily power of the same level from your secondary class already.


Basic Changes
A character has two classes, a primary and a secondary (written as Primary//Secondary). They build their character using both classes, taking the higher HP, Healing Surges, and combining proficiencies. You get the "Forced Skills" (Such as Arcana for Wizard) of both classes, and then the normal skills from your primary and 1/2 of the optional skills of the secondary. If two classes have the same forced skill, you gain a +2 synergy bonus to the skill in addition to being trained in it. You gain both of the class bonuses to defense, and they stack. At Paragon levels, Go into one Paragon Path per class. Only gain one epic destiny.

For example, if a character was a Cleric // Paladin they would have:
All armor proficiencies
Up to Military Melee and simple ranged weapon proficiencies.
Holy Symbol Implements
+1 Fort, +1 Ref, +3 Will defense bonuses
15 + Con Score HP, + 6 / level
10 + Con mod Healing Surges.
Religion as a skill (With a +2 Synergy bonus), and 3 skills from the cleric list, and 1 skill from the Paladin list.

A character then gets the class features of both classes, and use the following rule (or reference the chart below) to select powers:
You get the powers from both classes, and can use them both, with the exception that you have 1/2 the powers of the secondary class (Round up for encounters and utilities, round down for dailies). Any level you would gain a power from your primary class and not your secondary, you may replace your secondary class power. This rule gives a power chart of:
{table=head]Level|Ability Scores|Feats|P. Will|P. Enc|P. Day|P. Util|S. Will|S.Enc|S.Day|S. Util
1|See Race|2|2|1|1|0|1|1|0|0
2|-|3|2|1|1|1|1|1|0|1
3|-|3|2|2|1|1|1|1|0|1
4|+1 to three|4|2|2|1|1|1|1*|0|1
5|-|5|2|2|2|1|1|1|1|1
6|-|6|2|2|2|2|1|1|1|1
7|-|6|2|3|2|2|1|2|1|1
8|+1 to three|7|2|3|2|2|1|2|1|1*
9|-|7|2|3|3|2|1|2|1*|1
10|-|9|2|3|3|3|1|2|1|2
11|+1 to All|10|2|3+P|3|3|1|2+P|1|2
12|-|11|2|3+P|3|3+P|1|2+P|1|2+P
13|-|11|2|3*+P|3|3+P|1|2+P|1|2+P
14|+1 to three|12|2|3+P|3|3+P|1|2*+P|1|2+P
15|-|13|2|3+P|3*|3+P|1|2+P|1*|2+P
16|-|14|2|3+P|3|4+P|1|2+P|1|2*+P
17|-|14|2|3*+P|3|4+P|1|2+P|1|2+P
18|+1 to three|15|2|3+P|3|4+P|1|2*+P|1|2+P
19|-|15|2|3+P|3*|4+P|1|2+P|1*|2+P
20|-|17|2|3+P|3+P|4+P|1|2+P|1+P|2+P
21|+1 to All|18|2|3+P|3+P|4+P|1|2+P|1+P|2+P
22|-|19|2|3+P|3+P|5+P|1|2+P|1+P|3*+P
23|-|19|2|3*+P|3+P|5+P|1|2+P|1+P|3+P
24|+1 to three|20|2|3+P|3+P|5+P|1|2*+P|1+P|3+P
25|-|21|2|3+P|3*+P|5+P|1|2+P|1*+P|3+P
26|-|22|2|3+P|3+P|5+P+E|1|2+P|1+P|3+P
27|-|22|2|3*+P|3+P|5+P+E|1|2+P|1+P|3+P
28|+1 to three|23|2|3+P|3+P|5+P+E|1|2*+P|1+P|3+P
29|-|23|2|3+P|3*+P|5+P+E|1|2+P|1*+P|3+P
30|-|24|2|3+P|3+P|5+P+E|1|2+P|1+P|3+P
[/table]
* At these levels you replace a known power with a new power of your new level.

For example, a level 1 character has 3 at-wills (one of which is from his secondary class), 2 Encounters (one of which is from his secondary class), and 1 Daily. He may use all these powers, just as a normal Level 1 character can use 2 at-wills, 1 encounter, and 1 daily.

DMing with Gestalt
If your DMing a game that uses Gestalt, You can make encounters that are still challenging by thinking of your party as if it has a size of (Party Size) * 1.5. Do not round for this calculation. If you end up with a ".5" simply make sure half the encounters are of Size -0.5, and half are of size +0.5. So a So for a three character party, half of the encounters are built for four characters, and half are built for five characters.

When handing out XP, Hand it out based on the changed party size, so if an encounter for 3 level 1 characters is 500 xp, each player receives ~111 xp. Alternitivly, just leave a note for how many characters the encounter is built for and divide by that (so 100 xp each in the previous example).

When worrying about Treasure, first examine your characters builds. Any that needs a variety of items (Holy Symbol, Weapon, and Rod for example) to use their powers well count as 2 characters (Provided there isn't an easy to combine some of these, so a Hammer using Paladin // Warlock should count as 1, as they can get a Crusader's Weapon fairly quickly. A Non-Hammer using Paladin may count as 2, provided they cannot use a Pact Weapon (Since perhaps they use a sword and are not Eladrin). Any that need only the standard amount of items (A Weapon for example, or a single implement) to use their powers well count as a single character as normal. Add up this changed party size, and use appropriate Treasure Parcels for that many characters.

[hr]
I know this looks a bit complicated, but it isn't really after a bit of practice (Though I've only tried it in heroic so far). Thoughts? Comments?

TheGrimace
2008-12-29, 03:26 PM
I liked this entire thing up to the last paragraph. I can understand giving people extra treasure, or not, but to give players more treasure because they picked a suboptimal combination is not something I really approve of.

Without that detail, great job, and it is quite possible I'll try this style in the near future.

kudos

Gralamin
2008-12-29, 04:16 PM
I liked this entire thing up to the last paragraph. I can understand giving people extra treasure, or not, but to give players more treasure because they picked a suboptimal combination is not something I really approve of.

Without that detail, great job, and it is quite possible I'll try this style in the near future.

kudos

The Specific Example I gave was a Paladin // Warlock, Which can be a very flavorful and very powerful build. It suffers from one problem though: It needs 3 items to preform its job well. A Two-Weapon Ranger // Paladin, which is perhaps one of the strongest combinations, also needs 3 items: two Weapons and a Holy Symbol. Sometimes the way of solving this is giving them combination items, eg: A Pact Blade, but Paladins Can't Combine their implement and weapon without a Holy Avenger (A level 30 item), or a
Crusader's Weapon (Which is hammer/Mace only). Its basically taking into consideration how screwed otherwise good builds are.

I guess I'll add a few details to that paragraph, but at least now my reasoning should be clear.

Yakk
2008-12-29, 05:02 PM
Some issues:
1> Your characters don't nearly have the HP budget of 1.5 standard characters. In essence you boosted the offense of the group, but not the defense.

2> You have an action budget problem. Without burning any feats, your chart gives L 30 characters 7 ! per-encounter powers. With feats, nobody will be using at-will powers, and even daily powers will be cheap. With feats, you are at 8 encounter, 7 daily, 12 utility powers. When can the character use at-wills?! (And yes -- this can happen in standard 4e. But in this system it will happen very early)

3> Your gestalt feats are so good, they are no-brainers. Everyone should take them, ASAP. In that case, why not strip them, hand them out automatically at a measured pace, and remove the bonus feats? If you are allowed to take them more than once, they are seriously broken!

4> 4e doesn't seem to balance the "auto skills" differently than the "choose skills" -- auto skills seem to just be chosen by flavor. You seem to treat them very differently... What if you gained the most class, plus 1/2 of the lesser class skills, and had to buy every auto skill? The rest you can pick from the combined choice list...

---

Giving characters way more offense, but no more HP, seems dangerous. Instant-character death becomes more of a danger if they are fighting 1.5 times as many opponents, with no more HP than standard.

Level 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, 28 remain "weak" levels in 4e progression. Might I suggest moving the "gain/upgrade powers from your secondary class" to these levels?

With the number of per-encounter powers expected, the action budget problem rear's it's ugly head. Basically, we probably need a way for these characters to have more actions than a standard character.

I'd suggest hijacking Action Points -- find a way to give them out faster somehow, then restrict their use to 1 per round instead of 1 per turn.

If your character has 1.5 times as many HP, 1.5 times as many actions, and 1.5 times as many encounter/daily attack powers, they are roughly 1.5 times as powerful as a standard character in combat.

As a note, this does make healing powers slightly stronger (each use is like 1.5 uses in the normal system).

Idea:
At level 1, you get (Con) + (Highest HP class) + 1/2 (Second HP class, rounded up) + (Con Bonus).
At Level 2-30, you get (Both class HP - 3).

This gives you slightly less than 1.5 times the HP of a standard character.

You get the Healing Surges of the higher class, and none from the lesser class (these already scale).

Note that Healing Surges are now the thing that will restrict healing more than healing powers -- healing powers got cheaper, but each healing surge use didn't!

...

Buying "Level -5" items is really cheap -- so a Paladin using a Sword with a Holy Symbol and a Rod can manage with one of their items being 1 plus behind without the game breaking. I don't think there really needs an increase in item drops because of this.

The price of the 'combo items' is that they don't have the neat secondary power. The advantage is that they require 1 less limb to wield. And that is actually a serious problem.

I'd simply say for the magic item problem "be generious with custom combo items for strange gestalt choices". A Pact Hammer vs a Pact Sword is a flavor effect more than anything.

Allow for "Mage Blades" that act as implements for Wizards, and weapons for the Fighter half -- or what have you. They should lack, or have a very weak, "secondary" power that other magical items have (ie, Wizard wands give you a per-encounter power as a daily...)

Gralamin
2008-12-29, 06:28 PM
Some issues:
1> Your characters don't nearly have the HP budget of 1.5 standard characters. In essence you boosted the offense of the group, but not the defense.
Generally adventurers have extra Healing Surges and HP left at the end of the day. Very Rarely do I see a group rest when they are out of healing Surges, only near the end. But this is still a valid concern.


2> You have an action budget problem. Without burning any feats, your chart gives L 30 characters 7 ! per-encounter powers. With feats, nobody will be using at-will powers, and even daily powers will be cheap. With feats, you are at 8 encounter, 7 daily, 12 utility powers. When can the character use at-wills?! (And yes -- this can happen in standard 4e. But in this system it will happen very early)
As I said, its only been tested in Heroic. At Paragon that may very well be the case, but it also encourages taking a few more situational abilities. If your character has at-wills to fall back on, why not take a power you might not use every encounter? I can see how some wouldn't think that way, but play-testing so far suggests at-wills are still often used (Might be a problem with my play testers and methods though)


3> Your gestalt feats are so good, they are no-brainers. Everyone should take them, ASAP. In that case, why not strip them, hand them out automatically at a measured pace, and remove the bonus feats? If you are allowed to take them more than once, they are seriously broken!
For "No Brainers" I rarely see them taken. While they are powerful, taking them ASAP is not always a good idea, there are other ways to boost your effectiveness that could be seen as better. The bonus Feats are often used to grab class specific feats that would ordinarily be difficult for a two-class character to grab.


4> 4e doesn't seem to balance the "auto skills" differently than the "choose skills" -- auto skills seem to just be chosen by flavor. You seem to treat them very differently... What if you gained the most class, plus 1/2 of the lesser class skills, and had to buy every auto skill? The rest you can pick from the combined choice list...
That seems overly complicated. The current method uses the logic that "Auto Skills" are exactly that: Flavor, and if you're a paladin // Cleric, you've probably studied religion more then just a normal paladin or cleric, the +2 bonus is to represent that without going as far as giving out skill focus.


---

Giving characters way more offense, but no more HP, seems dangerous. Instant-character death becomes more of a danger if they are fighting 1.5 times as many opponents, with no more HP than standard.
Instant character death is hard in 4e, unless everything is focus firing on one character. Usually the damage is spread around a bit more, and a lot of people are tempted to take Defender classes as secondaries, for the bonus AC, HP and HS they provide. Those that do so give another way of spreading the damage around to themselves, as they can mark as well now.


Level 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, 28 remain "weak" levels in 4e progression. Might I suggest moving the "gain/upgrade powers from your secondary class" to these levels?
Thats a good idea.


With the number of per-encounter powers expected, the action budget problem rear's it's ugly head. Basically, we probably need a way for these characters to have more actions than a standard character.

I'd suggest hijacking Action Points -- find a way to give them out faster somehow, then restrict their use to 1 per round instead of 1 per turn.
I'm not sure Action Points is whats necessarily needed, and there are a lot of bonuses associated with them, especially later on. Perhaps more efficient action usage is what is needed: Drop some powers down to a 1/round minor action, or Change the Gestalt feats to turn powers into a minor action.


If your character has 1.5 times as many HP, 1.5 times as many actions, and 1.5 times as many encounter/daily attack powers, they are roughly 1.5 times as powerful as a standard character in combat.
I can see the logic there, but its really a question of "Do they need to be 1.5 times as strong as a normal character in every aspect to be 1.5 times as strong?" And I'm not really sure they do.


As a note, this does make healing powers slightly stronger (each use is like 1.5 uses in the normal system).
Yes.


Idea:
At level 1, you get (Con) + (Highest HP class) + 1/2 (Second HP class, rounded up) + (Con Bonus).
At Level 2-30, you get (Both class HP - 3).

This gives you slightly less than 1.5 times the HP of a standard character.

You get the Healing Surges of the higher class, and none from the lesser class (these already scale).

Note that Healing Surges are now the thing that will restrict healing more than healing powers -- healing powers got cheaper, but each healing surge use didn't!
A Good idea, but seems to add some complexity that I'm not sure if the system really needs.


...

Buying "Level -5" items is really cheap -- so a Paladin using a Sword with a Holy Symbol and a Rod can manage with one of their items being 1 plus behind without the game breaking. I don't think there really needs an increase in item drops because of this.

The price of the 'combo items' is that they don't have the neat secondary power. The advantage is that they require 1 less limb to wield. And that is actually a serious problem.

I'd simply say for the magic item problem "be generious with custom combo items for strange gestalt choices". A Pact Hammer vs a Pact Sword is a flavor effect more than anything.

Allow for "Mage Blades" that act as implements for Wizards, and weapons for the Fighter half -- or what have you. They should lack, or have a very weak, "secondary" power that other magical items have (ie, Wizard wands give you a per-encounter power as a daily...)

I could see that working, and I'll definitely consider this instead.