Partial-Gestalt Savage Species - Good or Bad Idea?

[Lord_Gareth]

Many of my players like the idea of playing a monstrous character. Now, I, personally, hate the Savage Species rules and instead use a homebrew solution here on the forums.

The problem is, they love the SS rules and hate my preferred solution.

So, my idea was this: while they take their monster progression, they gestalt with another class. When they're finished with the monster progression, they do not gestalt further. On first blush, this seems like a tenable solution, but I wanted to ask the Playground for opinions before I go forth and unleash this on my game.

[Darth Stabber]

It heavily favors big ECL monsters. Why would I want to be a pixie, when I could instead go with ogre mage? If you want my suggestion, give everyone gestalt up to the highest ECL chosen keeping the drow even with the illithid.

Example (not saying I am 100% accurate but close enough to make a point)

Pixie4/swashbuckler3//beguiler7
Ogre7//barbarian4/fighter2/hulking hurler1

[Lord_Gareth]

It heavily favors big ECL monsters. Why would I want to be a pixie, when I could instead go with ogre mage? If you want my suggestion, give everyone gestalt up to the highest ECL chosen keeping the drow even with the illithid.

That almost seems like it'd work against higher ECL monsters, though, as every single Savage progression is strictly worse than taking a level in another class.

[Metahuman1]

I played a few of games like this.

First one used that exact rule. It was great!

Second One used a slight twist of "and once you finish your species progression, you can start picking up class levels." Didn't work as well, but it wasn't horrible and the group had fun.

Third time, we had Class//Class//Monster progression. For very high power or Regular high power with High flavor games only, to be sure, but it was a BLAST!

[Flickerdart]

Tauric Thri-Kreen Monstrous Scorpion Savage Vampire Totemist.

YES.

[Jude_H]

Why wouldn't someone play a monster in this, especially a ridiculous one with a bazillion SS levels?

I mean, I suppose it has the potential to smooth out the differences between a weak SS class and something like the Trumpet Archon or Ghaele (if the weak monsters go caster and the strong monsters go samurai), but I'd honestly expect things to get worse than better than basic SS.

[Darth Stabber]

Tauric Thri-Kreen Monstrous Scorpion Savage Vampire Totemist.

YES.

That is a scary monster on a number of level, and I am likely to steal it for a gestal game starting this weekend (though I will likely leave off the savage vampire part). Now is this psionic or non-psionic thri-kreen?

[Hiro Protagonest]

This rule can easily become game breaking powerful. Unless you made it so you had to gestalt in tier 5 or lower classes, there's no reason to play a human warblade instead of a half-celestial warblade.

[Lord_Gareth]

Why wouldn't someone play a monster in this, especially a ridiculous one with a bazillion SS levels?

I mean, I suppose it has the potential to smooth out the differences between a weak SS class and something like the Trumpet Archon or Ghaele (if the weak monsters go caster and the strong monsters go samurai), but I'd honestly expect things to get worse than better than basic SS.

They're all going to be playing monsters anyway, so this is a non-concern for me. And...there's never a reason to play basic savage species. No, not even then. Not even the most broken monster in the game is anywhere near playable by those rules, and gestalting shouldn't actually make it all that better (especially as I've got a list of banned monsters already made).

[Flickerdart]

That is a scary monster on a number of level, and I am likely to steal it for a gestal game starting this weekend (though I will likely leave off the savage vampire part). Now is this psionic or non-psionic thri-kreen?
He was non-psionic, but a handful of PLAs make him quite a bit more versatile.

The vampire is just there to put energy drain on his ridiculous number of claws.

[Darth Stabber]

That almost seems like it'd work against higher ECL monsters, though, as every single Savage progression is strictly worse than taking a level in another class.

Not really, infact it has been my general experience that players will amlost invariably choose to play a monster race if they may take a savage species progression for one side. Might not be a big one, becaue even if suboptimal, gestalt takes a lot of the sting out of ECL. My current gestalt party is a drow2/binder2//crusader4 and pixie4//beguiler4, and they are likely to be joined by an Ogre4//barbarian4.

[Lord_Gareth]

This rule can easily become game breaking powerful. Unless you made it so you had to gestalt in tier 5 or lower classes, there's no reason to play a human warblade instead of a half-celestial warblade.

Luckily I also don't need to worry about this at my table, as my players are bleeding incompetents.

[Malimar]

You might consider letting them gestalt savage progression with an NPC class only. My first inclination is just Commoner, but I doubt Warrior or Adept would break the game, so you could just let them pick any NPC class. That way, they still get HD+BaB+saves+skills at every level, but it's not so much "there's no reason not to play a monster character".

Any option you introduce should be nice, not required.