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Angry Bob
2011-01-01, 11:15 AM
One of the guys in my group has expressed an interest in playing a gestalt campaign. So I'm beginning planning now.(We play thusly: If you tpk, your campaign ends and someone else's begins). That particular player is likely to take an LA race. Problem is, if used as written, LA is even weaker in gestalt than vanilla D&D - almost no amount of special racial abilities are worth 1 class level, not to mention 2. So in addition to being allowed to gestalt with racial hit die(perhaps even have racial hit die on both sides of the gestalt), a character's total LA will be halved and rounded down. So, if a character wants to play a goliath, they have an effective LA of +0, while if they want to play a Mineral Warrior Goliath, they'll have LA +1.

Can anyone predict any problems? Has anyone else dealt with LA in a gestalt game? How so?

DragonOfUndeath
2011-01-01, 11:18 AM
LA only applies to one side of the Gestalt. it is LA1//Class1 not LA1//LA1

Angry Bob
2011-01-01, 11:21 AM
Thank you. I don't know where that ruling came from, but it's better than mine.

LOTRfan
2011-01-01, 11:23 AM
With LA races, you only gain the benefit of one class for a total amount of levels equaling the LA.

To use your Goliath example, a 1st level goliath character would be a (Insert Class) 1. At second level, the goliath would benefit from two classes, so he would be an (Insert class) 1, (Insert Class)//(Insert another Class) 1.

DragonOfUndeath
2011-01-01, 11:23 AM
LA is borked anyway. It was made to allow PCs to play monsters while trying to dissuade them from doing so.

LOTRfan
2011-01-01, 11:26 AM
LA is borked anyway. It was made to allow PCs to play monsters while trying to dissuade them from doing so.

Sadly, 'tis true. :smallfrown:

DragonOfUndeath
2011-01-01, 11:30 AM
at least the Monster Classes were a bit better. with tweaking of course (+1LA for 1 Natural Armour? +2 for 2+ Natural Armour???)

LOTRfan
2011-01-01, 11:31 AM
Really? Savage Species says +1 for every 5 points of natural armor. :smallconfused:

DragonOfUndeath
2011-01-01, 11:32 AM
Really? Savage Species says +1 for every 5 points of natural armor. :smallconfused:

Maybe I remembered that part (I'm AFB ATM) but it still needed tweaking to be good

Urpriest
2011-01-01, 02:48 PM
Thank you. I don't know where that ruling came from, but it's better than mine.

Neither is a real ruling. Gestalt rules make no mention of LA and have no RAW interaction with it because gestalt is a sketch of a suggested houserule, not an actual alternate system. Different campaigns rule it different ways, so you should just choose whichever fits your purposes.

Ernir
2011-01-01, 04:18 PM
LA only applies to one side of the Gestalt. it is LA1//Class1 not LA1//LA1
With LA races, you only gain the benefit of one class for a total amount of levels equaling the LA.

To use your Goliath example, a 1st level goliath character would be a (Insert Class) 1. At second level, the goliath would benefit from two classes, so he would be an (Insert class) 1, (Insert Class)//(Insert another Class) 1.

Eh, read the rules again. There is no mention of it being handled in this (or any) way. (A.K.A I agree with Urpriest.)

This is a viable way to do it in some cases (and is how it has been done in all gestalt games I've played in), but there's nothing to support it in the rules.

ericgrau
2011-01-01, 04:43 PM
Putting LA on both sides is a little too weak. Putting it on one side is way too strong, since you still have a full class level. A gestalt level is not nearly as strong as 2 non-gestalt levels; e.g. a 10 // 10 is not nearly as strong as a 20. So by putting LA on one side you get most of the benefit with little drawback. Sure, it might seem fine with only a couple LA especially since you might want to reduce LA a little anyway, but that is a different issue. If you want to reduce LA then do it directly.

If it's a small amount of LA you might get away with either method without noticing much. Maybe you could do something halfway in between, plus if it's a high power group add your LA reductions on top of that.


LA is borked anyway. It was made to allow PCs to play monsters while trying to dissuade them from doing so.
I don't think this is true at all. It sounds like a warped interpretation of a comment on their attempts to balance monstrous races, which are stronger than PC races, so that they aren't the automatic choice instead of PC races. There are a lot of good options, and even the bad ones are only 1/2 an LA behind. It merely gets worse under lots of splatbooks where the classes, feats and races are better than the core versions and thus the core races LA should be reduced as mentioned.

Psyren
2011-01-01, 04:57 PM
at least the Monster Classes were a bit better. with tweaking of course (+1LA for 1 Natural Armour? +2 for 2+ Natural Armour???)

That is odd if true. Neraphim get +2 NA for 0 LA (among other things), and Dromites get +3 NA for +1 LA (among other things).

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2011-01-01, 04:59 PM
Most balanced answer: racial ECL on one side, template LA on both. Keep in mind though, gestalt is such a high power variant your balance issues are far from over.

Ernir
2011-01-01, 10:18 PM
Keep in mind though, gestalt is such a high power variant your balance issues are far from over.

Hmm. It's likely, but not a given. I've seen people build Gestalt characters that are, if anything weaker than most non-Gestalts they make. Really. Gestalt served to nerf them.

It's amazing how many just don't "get it". =/

DragonOfUndeath
2011-01-01, 10:57 PM
Just cause some players can build better No-Gestalt than Gestalt doesn't make it balanced. Some people can make better Dread Necromancers than Wizards but they aren't balanced

Ernir
2011-01-02, 04:39 AM
Just cause some players can build better No-Gestalt than Gestalt doesn't make it balanced. Some people can make better Dread Necromancers than Wizards but they aren't balanced

Good god, I wasn't saying it's balanced. I also wasn't saying it isn't a high powered variant. :smalleek:

I was saying that it does not necessarily have to spike a game's power level. Nothing else.

To clarify my position, I still think it's more likely that it happens.

Kobold-Bard
2011-01-02, 08:28 AM
Use GitP Monster Classes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178692) instead[/subtlepromotion]

playswithfire
2011-01-02, 09:07 AM
While I enjoy playing in games where LA and HD in gestalt are handled as LA/HD/class1//class2, I've also used a version where the LA and HD are spread across both sides, e.g. a harpy would start out as
LA/LA
LA/HD
HD/HD
HD/HD
HD/HD

DragonOfUndeath
2011-01-02, 09:12 AM
While I enjoy playing in games where LA and HD in gestalt are handled as LA/HD/class1//class2, I've also used a version where the LA and HD are spread across both sides, e.g. a harpy would start out as
LA/LA
LA/HD
HD/HD
HD/HD
HD/HD

I did that for a character too. I had
LA1/Rogue1//Dread Necro/LA1
unfortunately the campaign didn't make it to 3rd level.

DementedFellow
2011-01-02, 10:50 AM
I think people put LA on one side to minimize confusion mainly, rather than coming from a balance issue. Otherwise, which side do you choose when you have an odd LA? It just seems cleaner when working at an already more complicated ruleset.

Kylarra
2011-01-02, 10:56 AM
Usually if we're doing LA in a gestalt game, it's applied to one side and everyone takes more or less the same amount of LA to make things "fair".

Salanmander
2011-01-02, 03:46 PM
Otherwise, which side do you choose when you have an odd LA?

Clearly the left side. The right side is underpowered as it is, so putting the extra LA there would make the left side even more broken. ([/sarcasm])

I've usually seen alternating sides LA as well. In a campaign I'm gearing up to run now in which I want to make fairly low LA races feasible, but discourage particularly weird critters (it's city based), I'm making each of the first two levels of LA take up one side, while the third and beyond take up a whole level.

In other words, there are a lot of options. Make it work for you.

PlzBreakMyCmpAn
2011-01-02, 05:05 PM
Good god, I wasn't saying it's balanced. I also wasn't saying it isn't a high powered variant.Take any T4 or T5 character. Now let him into a no-prereq PrC that instantly gains full wizard casting ... at no cost, not even levels. That is gestalt - even an unoptimized, lazy version.

:smallmad:

Salanmander
2011-01-02, 06:46 PM
Take any T4 or T5 character. Now let him into a no-prereq PrC that instantly gains full wizard casting ... at no cost, not even levels. That is gestalt - even an unoptimized, lazy version.

:smallmad:

That's also "playing a wizard instead of a T4 or T5 character". It is true that if you take any character and add gestalt onto it, it can't get any less powerful (as a character, it /is/ possible to play it less optimally, obviously), but gestalt isn't an instant "throw sanity out the window" button.

Any more than D&D already is, that is.

dextercorvia
2011-01-02, 08:38 PM
It is true that if you take any character and add gestalt onto it, it can't get any less powerful

Unless you lose focus. Playing gestalt with two active classes, for instance. Also, you don't get twice as many feats or WBL, so you can spread your other resources too thin.