How does Gestalt compare (in power) to PrCing?

[Riffington]

I realize this is a very apples/oranges* kind of question, but:
Suppose a campaign allowed players to pick either Gestalt (with one class on each side; no multiclassing; no prestige classes) or standard rules with "moderate unreason" (Planar shepherd ok; using it for time dimensions not ok).

Obviously, at low levels Gestalt would be much more powerful. Obviously, overoptimized builds beat Gestalt at high levels. I guess my question is around level 10ish, without taking advantage of loopholes or questionable rulings, but permitting PrCs that shouldn't have been written: how do those compare in power level?


*apples are better.

[Zincorium]

Personally, I'd pick gestalt. Every time.

The thing is, there are a lot of good PrCs out there, but there are also a lot of classes that have no real reason to ever take a prestige class because their standard class features are so good.

Planar shepherd is good, but druid//swordsage still knocks it out of the park. Pretty much any full caster//Tome of Battle is in the same league.

[Yuki Akuma]

Gestalt allows you to play a Wizard with full BaB. You don't even need any other class features when you have twice the BaB as normal for your touch attacks.

Gestalt. No contest.

[Fishy]

Eh, apples/oranges, but let's try.

Consider everyone's favorite stupid PrC, the Mystic Theurge. Mystic Theurges suck because you have to be three levels behind a full caster, baring trickery. That's caster levels rather than class levels, but when casting is what you do, that's rather important.

A gestalt wizard//cleric is measurably better than a Cleric/Wizard/Theurge, by about a whole 3 character levels.

Yes, MT is on the low end of the PrC scale, yes Cleric/Wizard is stupidly unoptimized, yes, the number three doesn't really mean anything, but that's a low estimate the kind of power gap we're looking at.

Apples better, by quite a bit.

[Dr_Horrible]

If you are a caster PrCs. If you aren't a caster, be a caster.

Druid Planar Shepard-awesome. SLAs is teh sweet.
Wizard Incantatrix-tons of Persisted spells is also teh sweet.
Cleric Dweomerkeeper- Persisted spells + no XP costs and supernatural spells? teh sweet.

[Eldariel]

As said, Gestalt wins out handily most of the time. Like, the Big Three PrCs: Incantatrix, Dweomerkeeper & Planar Shepherd could offer something on a similar scale, but still, your Archivist/Factotum (or god forbid, Spells to Powers Erudite/Factotum), Druid/Cleric, etc. is going to mostly kick the living out of anything.

Like, Planar Shepherd gets insane action crap few times per day, Archivist/Factotum gets it in every encounter along with Int to basically all rolls & AC, a bunch of Wizard-spells and...yea. Incantatrix can überbuff & blast, but Druid/Cleric is at the very least on the same boat and has a free extra buffee available. Artificer/Factotum could easily outdo Incantatrix's booms (due to nova capabilities) and match the buffing. Dweomerkeeper would probably have the least replicable abilities, especially in a world without Thought Bottles & Candles of Invocation, but the real question is if it can truly outperform Cleric/X (where X is e.g. Druid).


And yeah, outside the insane broken PrCs, nothing comes close.

[Killer Angel]

If you are a caster PrCs. If you aren't a caster, be a caster.

Druid Planar Shepard-awesome. SLAs is teh sweet.
Wizard Incantatrix-tons of Persisted spells is also teh sweet.
Cleric Dweomerkeeper- Persisted spells + no XP costs and supernatural spells? teh sweet.


mmm... The OP is considering a 10° lev. pc, and you cannot cheese a lot with PrCs, even with the coolest ones. So IMO the winner is Gestalt.

[Killer Angel]

Eh, apples/oranges, but let's try.

Consider everyone's favorite stupid PrC, the Mystic Theurge. Mystic Theurges suck because you have to be three levels behind a full caster, baring trickery.

See it the other way... Mystic Theurge is a Great PrC: you can take it, and after a few levels, your sucky dual class pc, has became only a weak caster: as you can see, given the initial mistake, is a great improvement! :smallwink:

[Eldariel]

mmm... The OP is considering a 10° lev. pc, and you cannot cheese a lot with PrCs, even with the coolest ones. So IMO the winner is Gestalt.

All of those kick ass level 10.

Planar Shepherd already has Magical Beast Wildshape (including all manners of Hydras, and similar), Planar Bubble 1/day (or in English, Super Time Stop For The Whole Team) and all the normal Druid goodies. Sure, it gets the most insane ability on level 14 when you can Wildshape and acquire spell-likes and the like, but Planar Shepherd is not fair.

Incantatrix already has 3+Int spells persisted by himself and does that 3+Int times for an ally's spells too, along with a couple of bonus metamagic feats and the ability to spontaneously apply metamagic to spell trigger items. Of course, he could also use those 3+Int abilities on modifying some other spell effects. Oh, and he can steal Concentration-spells from opponents.

And Dweomerkeeper, while the tamest out of the bunch yet (because the truly abusive things come when you acquire Limited Wish, that is on level 13), but still, casting almost any spell without any costs is fairly insane.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

How much PrC cheese is allowed is the real question. Wizard/Factorum is beyond good, but even that isn't Cindy level. I'd put it above just about every PrC except the big 3, though.

[Killer Angel]

[QUOTE=Eldariel;6019223]All of those kick ass level 10.
QUOTE]

Wow... I totally confused the entry level of Incantatrix (I was convinced you needed 10 rank in spellcraft, not 8).
And i still think that dweomerkeeper, under lev. 13° is no better than a solid Gestalt. Still, are very few the PrCs that can win Vs. a gestalt character.
(Well, unless you gestalt a monk / fighter)

[Myrmex]

All of those kick ass level 10.

Planar Shepherd already has Magical Beast Wildshape (including all manners of Hydras, and similar), Planar Bubble 1/day (or in English, Super Time Stop For The Whole Team) and all the normal Druid goodies. Sure, it gets the most insane ability on level 14 when you can Wildshape and acquire spell-likes and the like, but Planar Shepherd is not fair.

Curious; what plane do you pick where you get to both leaf through every book printed for monsters, AND get the time trait?

[Eldariel]

Curious; what plane do you pick where you get to both leaf through every book printed for monsters, AND get the time trait?

It depends on the cosmology we're working with. Just as a correction, you shouldn't be looking for monsters from every book printed, just few very specific ones that have completely unmatched prowess in whatever you use them for (for example, Hydra is a combat beast bar none, and Cryo/Pyro-variants are easily available on the elemental planes and outer ones as well).

You'll probably want the time traits first and foremost to make Planar Bubble truly busted enough; this limits you to Dal Quor & Xoriat for Eberron. Other cosmologies offer more variety though. Shavarath really offers you a good selection of creatures though, packing almost all aligned outsiders. Fernia probably offers the most abusive forms, packing Balors, Pit Fiends, Efreeti, etc.

Ultimately, I'd go with Xoriat, just because a Pseudonatural version exists of most creatures. The problem is of course the Outsider-type they've got; finding solid Magical Beasts can be a tad difficult here.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Curious; what plane do you pick where you get to both leaf through every book printed for monsters, AND get the time trait?You don't. You either grab a plane with, say, Efreeti and snag +5 to all stats for everyone in your party that stacks with everything, infinite wealth, and all of your enemies just got transported to the middle of the sun, or you snag the Time trait for 10+ spells/round. There's only a few planes that give you both, but if you have access to them, use them.

[Zhalath]

Technically, gestalt and regular characters shouldn't co-exist. The book does say so, because of it unbalancing things. But, you could try it.

In this case, gestalt wins. Even without prestige classes or multiclassing, you can coordinate abilities enough to become godly. As broken as say, Planar Shepherd may be, you can probably do the same thing with Wizard/Cleric or Wizard/Druid. Plus all the other benefits of such a pairing.