[3.5]How do you view prestiging on both sides of gestalt?

[Zephyros]

This has risen in the character building-approving part of a campaign I am about to run for some friends.

I specifically asked not to have double prestige levels (as in both sides of he gestalt) And then the beatstick guy comes and asks for it. Since all of my players know the woes of 3.5 balance-wise they won't have a problem with it. Yet, I still wanted to know your opinions and which of my PCs should I fear the most.

Player A chose to not prestige at all. He 'll play a Whisper Gnome Rogue7/Duskblade13//Beguiler20. Pretty strong I can say from just a quick glance - and he is a connoisseur of the intricacies of UMD.

Player B will play a Feral Human Druid 17 (or 16?)//Psychic Warrior 10/Slayer 10. I expect a lot of "RAWR! I smash face with claws and lightning and lightning claws" from him.

Player C made the casterless choice and asked if I could allow him to play a Warblade 10/Eternal Blade 10//Crusader 10/Champion of Corellon 10. He justified his choice as symmetrical and pretty easily justifiable in terms of character growth. I am worried power-wise though.. What will he be able to accomplish that the others won't? I mean ToB is powerful and stuff but...

In the end, I have no trouble allowing it. I think he will have trouble playing it. What do you think?

[Mongoose87]

The others have a crap-ton of spellcasting, al he'll have is maneuvers. He shouldn't be a problem.

[Satyr]

There is a very simple, yet effective rule of thumb using gestalt rules: Mundane characters are gestalt, casters, especially tier 1 casters, are not. It's pityful enough that a single class druid would probably be still more efective than a Gestalt ToB character, but the gap is a bit smaller. And no, for a mundan e character two prestige classes should probably be no problem at all. After all, they are still only mundane characters, and therefore eternally disadvantaged by default.

[kamikasei]

The gestalt "rules" are guidelines. In gestalt even more than normal play, actual power depends heavily on the actual build, not on the general rules of how the build is put together. In this case, the player has told you his full intended build, so you can look through it with him and see what it lets him do, and decide for yourself whether the specific abilities he'll gain are balanced or not. Your only real problem is likely to be that the other players may feel it's unfair for him to get an exception to the general rules - but that's only if they don't feel they got a chance for such back-and-forth. If they're kept in the loop, and he doesn't get an unfair advantage over them (as, looking at their characters, it seems unlikey he will), you should be fine.

[DragoonWraith]

Something I wrote in a Recruitment thread on this topic:


I can't say I think the rule is bad. PRC's are an extreme boost in power.
The vast majority of PrCs are not a substantial increase in power. Many actually decrease power (like, almost every single one that loses a level or more of spellcasting progression; Sandshapers, Malconvokers, Fatespinners, and Recasters are about the only ones that come to mind that actually earn that lost level). I disagree with your assessment of PrC's in general.

Mostly, Druid 20? Stronger than just any character with a Druid base and taking PrCs, with the sole exception of the hideous Planar Shepherd.

Wizard 20? OK, less to lose, and plenty of PrCs are 'free', but very few would be worth much of anything if they lost spellcasting levels (like, Incantatrix, Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil, and Shadowcraft Mage are probably the only ones, in addition to the four I've already mentioned, and the Sandshaper's worthless to a Wizard).

Cleric 20? Same issue as the Wizard, but again, not many PrCs that are worth losing the really meaningful feature. Plus I can't think of any Cleric PrCs worth losing spellcasting levels over.

In both the Wizard and Cleric's case, PrCs are strictly stronger because they're something for nothing, but in most cases the only reason you take them at all is because they are free; 20th level spellcasting is still your primary and most meaningful feature, and the rest are just little bonuses, usually.

Sorcerer 20? Qualifying for things hurts hard, and in many cases hurts more than it helps (very few feats, very few spell choices, both of which are often restricted by pre-requisites). Many times just going Sorcerer 20 is better.

That's high end. Cleric and Wizard can get away with it because they have options where they don't lose anything meaningful, but in all cases PrCs simply not worth losing anything.

Low end? Fighter 20's a joke, as is Monk 20. Psychic Warrior's a base class that is effectively a Monk Prestige Class, because of the way Talashtora works out - and it's still massively weak, by the standards of the Tier 1 or even Tier 2 classes. There's not a lot of reason to take Paladin past like 6 or so. But outside of outright cheese, they'll never touch a Tier 3, much less a Tier 1. Does a Dervish substantially increase the power of a character? Depends on the character. A Fighter, certainly; he actually gets the ability to move and make his attacks. A Crusader or Warblade? Eh... maybe, but probably not. You lose maneuvers for the dervish ability; pretty close, I think.

Further, it's a gestalt game. Power levels are going to be intense pretty much no matter what you do.

To my mind, the rule is not an effective check against power, but is an effective check against doing interesting things with your build. Since character building is a very large part of my enjoyment of the game, this rule simply makes me sad - and I do not feel it effectively prevents me from becoming powerful. In fact, the odds of my character being more powerful with that rule, which nixes the character concept I did want to play, are pretty high. If I chose to play with that rule.
For the record, we already had a character apply for and get approved for the game with a Cleric//Wizard that had rolled the equivalent of a 49-point-buy, while my rolls were largely odd numbers and the equivalent (IIRC) of a 29-point-buy, and I really wanted to make a Swiftblade//Dervish. The DM agreed with me, for the record, though the characters in that game are still level 1-2.

[Draz74]

a Whisper Gnome Rogue7/Duskblade13//Beguiler20
a Feral Human Druid 17 (or 16?)//Psychic Warrior 10/Slayer 10
a Warblade 10/Eternal Blade 10//Crusader 10/Champion of Corellon 10

That actually sounds like a pretty awesome, well-rounded, well-balanced-with-each-other Gestalt party to me. I say, give the third player the exemption from the normal rule like he wants (cuz CoC is really pretty weak), and sit back and enjoy the show and don't worry.

[Tyndmyr]

As long as it doesn't involve full casting classes somewhere, then a PrC on both side isn't the end of the world.

I wouldn't allow it for full casters tho...definitely not.

[Telonius]

I'd make the exception. Even with ToB, he's not going to outshine the casters unless they make absolutely horrible picks for feats and spells.