PDA

View Full Version : [3.5] Gesalt Campaign Help



Rowan Arquest
2009-02-09, 01:17 PM
Okay, I am currently DMing (again:smallfrown:) a Gesalt campaign. In case you are wondering, a Gesalt (Unearthed Arcana) campaign means that the PC's and BBEG's have two classes that level up in tandem, where that character gains all class skills from both chosen classes and the better saves, BAB, skill points, and HD.

Currently the party is 6th level (sort of), with a level 6 Half-Elf Scion(Nomad)/Urban Ranger, a level 6 Human Psychic Warrior/Rogue, and (here is the sort of) a level 4 Werebear Fighter/Barbarian (I have ignored alignment restrictions for both Werebear and Barbarian). I was planning on adding a Cleric/Fighter but now two of my friends want to join in, AND THEY ARE ALREADY DOWNING LEVEL 12 ENCOUNTERS!!!!!! HELP ME!!!!!

evil-frosty
2009-02-09, 05:58 PM
Well each PC is effectively 2 characters, so you will need to readjust the challenge rating system by finding what is a challenge for them.

Draz74
2009-02-09, 06:22 PM
Well each PC is effectively 2 characters,

No.


THEY ARE ALREADY DOWNING LEVEL 12 ENCOUNTERS!!!!!! HELP ME!!!!!

That's very odd. They shouldn't be. Can you give an example of a CR 12 encounter that they beat, and how?

Nohwl
2009-02-09, 06:30 PM
maybe they are all ridiculously optimized.

evil-frosty
2009-02-09, 06:32 PM
Draz, how are they not effectively 2 characters? They get all the abilities of 2 classes, just in one body. Its like multi-classing in 2nd ed.

koldstare
2009-02-09, 06:40 PM
Draz, how are they not effectively 2 characters? They get all the abilities of 2 classes, just in one body. Its like multi-classing in 2nd ed.

I'm not Draz, but I think I can field this one.

You may get the abilities of both but you only get 1 set of feats, 1 set of skill points, 1 set of actions per round, etc...

While you may be more powerful than a standard character, 2 characters > a gestalt character.

I'd say a gestalt character is about 1.25-1.5 characters.

Eldariel
2009-02-09, 06:58 PM
That is true until you have gestalt characters synergising their abilities within themselves. For example, Factotum and Wizard vs. Factotum//Wizard is like to end in Factotum//Wizard's favor above level 8 since while the Factotum has as many actions as the Factotum//Wizard, his actions are MUCH weaker, and the Wizard, with equal action power, has less actions. Also, the Factotum//Wizard beats the Wizard in Initiative and defenses, meaning it's rather easy for him to dispose of the opposing Wizard while protecting himself, and then overcome the Factotum through his superior actions.

So a Cleric and a Wizard beat a Cleric//Wizard handily, but a Cleric and a Druid may have issues with a Cleric//Druid (a Druid Persisting Cleric-buffs on himself and AC probably has the Druid and his AC beat by enough to also make battle with the Cleric; due to the nature of their CL buffs, a standard Cleric is rather poor at dispelling vs. another Cleric (Beads of Karma have a huge impact on this)).

RebelRogue
2009-02-09, 07:06 PM
The recommended adjustment is to add two to the appropriate CR compared to a normal game. Since adding two corresponds to a doubling of number of enemies, it is not that farfetched to equate the power of one gestalt character of two ordinary ones. Still, the gestalt character is weaker because of the mentioned limitations (the most important being the action economic one). However, be aware that not all CRs correspond to the actual challenge, especially if your players like to optimize. So judge and adjust from encounter to encounter and try to find the golden path for your party.

PollyOliver
2009-02-09, 07:09 PM
Two of the main things that make gestalt characters stronger than regular ones are saves and quantity of per day resources. Gestalt characters should have at least two good saves, and many will have three. The casters will also have better HP than normal, because they're probably gestalting with a class that has better hit dice, but saves are the big thing because an enemy monster or caster can't target their weak save if they don't have one. This can usually be fixed by bumping up an enemy's DCs, either by increasing their level, the ability that governs their saves, or using items or feats. Or, in your case, target their will saves occasionally (other than the psion).

Another thing is that classes usually limited by spells or pp/day have greater resources to draw from--either a second casting/manifesting class or the ability to fall back on smacking things--and can thus afford to burn more of these resources on a single encounter. You could try running more encounters per day, or having long encounters that come in waves.

Last time I ran a gestalt campaign, I generally treated the party's level as their average ECL*1.5 for determining the difficulty of encounters. I also bumped the more important enemies (not just the bbeg, but also his "named" minions, guard captains, bandit chiefs, etc) up to gestalt themselves.

PinkysBrain
2009-02-09, 07:24 PM
EL 12 encounters? That's like 7 Kyton's ... or 3 Vrocks. Either way you should be obliterating them. My guess, you are pulling way too many punches :)

Draz74
2009-02-09, 07:32 PM
As others have filled in for me (thanks!), the biggest difference is that a Gestalt character still only gets one set of actions per round.

Yeah, you can get strange synergies if you really work for them. Especially if you use things that I wouldn't allow as a DM anyway (e.g. DMM(persist) or Font of Inspiration). Note that without FoI, Wizard//Factotum is excellent but not nearly as good as both a Wizard and a Factotum. :smalltongue:


The recommended adjustment is to add two to the appropriate CR compared to a normal game.

Actually, the SRD says just add one. Two would be reasonable if the characters are built with relatively good synergy between their two sides.

Temp.
2009-02-09, 07:46 PM
THEY ARE ALREADY DOWNING LEVEL 12 ENCOUNTERS!!!!!! HELP ME!!!!! Then pit them against level 13 encounters.

And would that have anything to do with this V guy?

...level 4 Werebear Fighter/Barbarian...
Seeing how this character is about twice the level of the rest of the party, he may have something to do with it.

Y'know... being ECL 13 before gestalt comes into the picture and all...

Rowan Arquest
2009-02-09, 08:35 PM
Actually, the werebear's ECL is only 7, one higher than the rest of the party. the level adjustment is 3 'cause he is a natural lycanthrope, but he is carrying a large size greatsword for when he transforms (I thought a greataxe would be a little OP... and it would have been.), plus he gains his bite attack when he is fighting something that can't contract lycanthropy (aka how he was able to take down a horrid bear by himself [he was down to 3HP by the end of it, so they used all the healing at their disposal, only to get hit by disintigrate, which he made the save for but was at 2HP by the end of that encounter])

The psychic warrior gets crazy amount of actions and movement because of Speed of Thought, Skate, and Hustle. But he doesn't pose too much of a threat cause his dice always seem to be cursed.:smallamused: But the scion really does a lot of the damage, mostly due to the brokenness of Mind Thrust. If he hits, the damage is huge after he augments it.

By the way a Fighter/Psychic Warrior gets twice the bonus feats. Just thought you guys would like to know.:smallwink:

- - - - - - -
EDIT - Got a little off my train of thought.

What I meant to ask is:

1. How will I be able to keep things balanced with two more party members? I mean, I threw an encounter with 3 HD advanced Mephits when they were still level 3 (starting level) and the Mephits were one hitted on most occaisions.

2. I want things to be hard, but I dont want them leveling after every session. So how should I dole out the XP?

Eldariel
2009-02-09, 08:42 PM
What encounters have you thrown at them and how have you run them? Open terrain favors PCs, for example. Likewise, poor tactics on the adversaries' part will likely make 'em far easier. And some things (such as most Giants) are just over-CRd. They're CRd without remembering the whole "Will/Ref-save and they die"-part. Just few of the more likely issues.

PollyOliver
2009-02-09, 09:05 PM
Actually, the werebear's ECL is only 7, one higher than the rest of the party. the level adjustment is 3 'cause he is a natural lycanthrope (snip)

He should also have six animal hit dice before he gets to take any class levels, though he can gestalt on the other side of them.

Rowan Arquest
2009-02-09, 09:07 PM
I have been giving them mostly urban terrain (think Sharn from Ebberon), but the world that I made is essentially hundreds of interconnected demi-planes (material plane got nuked by thousands of Antigenesis effects, concentrated at the same time.) of larger than normal size (errata for my specific setting). So I can throw any kind of terrain at them but I have been giving them open terrain and enclosed buildings. I have thrown traps, surprise encounters and multiple enemies, plus a level 12 wizard that had the time to cast all her buffs including Stonskin, Cat's Grace, Fox's Cunning, False Life, and of course, Mage Armor. She was made to leave them after the first time she was hit, but she was able to cast Disintigrate, Fireball, Summon Monster V, and Dominate Person. They actually tried to subdue her with grappling, but never underestimate a caster with Silent Spell, and Still Spell, no armor and a really high Concentration score. They barely made it through that one, and only ended up doing ten damage on one hit, so she chose to escape and let the fire elemental distract them. But then they graped the fire elemental.

I've thrown a sorcerer lvl6/rogue lvl6 (multiclass, not gesalt) with two lvl 4 warforged rogues for backup. (I know it is a wierd mix, but it helped during the surprise round :smallamused:) The Sorc/Rogue painted the wall with his brains... crit from a bear claw. (not the large greatsword cause the Sorc/Rogue had hit him with Tasha's Hideous Laughter, so he couldn't concentrate on the tranformation right, so he ended up a bear.)

I've thrown 6 horrid rats which took forever to die due to really high AC, 4Horrid wolves which made for a really good encounter, and one horrid bear (should have done 2:smallmad:)

oh, and 2 blues was their first real encounter, which actually downed one of the PC's, I had also increased the saves, even though it didn't make much of a difference.

And when I said level 12 encounters, I meant CR, :smallredface:, so that might help everyone understand. Oh, and the wizard could have killed them all if she stayed around for just one more fireball, or even 1 or 2 magic missiles.

Rowan Arquest
2009-02-09, 09:09 PM
He should also have six animal hit dice before he gets to take any class levels, though he can gestalt on the other side of them.

:smalleek: huh?

EDIT- Oh, duh. yeah he has those HD but I didn't think to factor them into ECL... oops. It really does make his HP high too.

Temp.
2009-02-09, 09:14 PM
Actually, the werebear's ECL is only 7
6 racial Hit Dice + 4 Class levels + 3 LA = ECL 13. Remember the HD; if not, you just gave this character 6 levels at no cost.


1. How will I be able to keep things balanced with two more party members? I mean, I threw an encounter with 3 HD advanced Mephits when they were still level 3 (starting level) and the Mephits were one hitted on most occaisions.

2. I want things to be hard, but I dont want them leveling after every session. So how should I dole out the XP?
1. I would approach this through trial and error. There's no surefire way of telling what's going to be a challenge and what isn't. Just wing it for a bit; you should get the feeling for it before long.

2. You could just give them exp at the rate you want. If you want them to take six encounters to get from level 6 to 7, divide the 6000 exp they need as you feel appropriate for their encounters.
Or calculate experience as if they were half again their actual level; that's usually how gestalt characters are approached anyway.

Nohwl
2009-02-09, 09:26 PM
I'm not Draz, but I think I can field this one.

You may get the abilities of both but you only get 1 set of feats, 1 set of skill points, 1 set of actions per round, etc...

While you may be more powerful than a standard character, 2 characters > a gestalt character.

I'd say a gestalt character is about 1.25-1.5 characters.

if its a gestalt character vs the 2 classes that make it up, yes i agree. if its wizard//something against 2 monks, i would be betting on the wizard//x.

Rowan Arquest
2009-02-09, 09:27 PM
do you think maybe I should remove some of the extra HD from the werebear to give him some balance, after all I totally overlooked them in the ECL. Then again, with the extra party members I could remove him for a while and make recovering him incentive for a quest, after all, I am the one controlling him, because when the campaign started, it was me and 2 friends, so I added a third PC to round things out.

Nohwl
2009-02-09, 09:37 PM
2. I want things to be hard, but I dont want them leveling after every session. So how should I dole out the XP?


tell the group you dont want them leveling every session and make up whatever experience you want.

PollyOliver
2009-02-09, 09:40 PM
do you think maybe I should remove some of the extra HD from the werebear to give him some balance, after all I totally overlooked them in the ECL. Then again, with the extra party members I could remove him for a while and make recovering him incentive for a quest, after all, I am the one controlling him, because when the campaign started, it was me and 2 friends, so I added a third PC to round things out.

Personally, I'd tone down some of the most devastating of his abilities (str and con bonuses, dr) to more reasonable levels for a while and have him start taking his animal hit dice on one side of his progression. Then, I'd slowly raise the abilities as he levels, so that they hit their normal levels when he takes his 6th animal HD. If you don't want to make him take that many HD, consider letting him be a black bear werebear instead (only 3 hd, if I recall correctly). It does have significant drawbacks with respect to brown, though (something like 10 less strength and medium size).

Edit: Oh, I didn't realize you were playing him. Honestly, I'd just drop him from the party. It makes sense to have a DMPC with only 2 players, but once the group starts filling up it would probably be better to get rid of him; four gestalt characters will be strong enough on their own. Plus, it'll probably be easier to run encounters if you only have to play one side. :smallsmile:

Temp.
2009-02-09, 09:42 PM
I would drop him.

I always feel that DMPCs are bad form, especially when used in a flashy attention-grabbing role, when made more powerful than the PCs and when used unnecessarily (a Healer or Adept in a party that feels it needs someone to fill that role is fine as is a Rogue/Expert in a party that feels it needs needs a skillmonkey). Your character seems to fall into all those categories.

And the point of Gestalt is usually to remove the need for a full party. It looks like the players have casting, melee and skillmonkey roles covered even before the new players show up; the Werebear seems kinda extraneous.