Possible New Gestalt Game [3.5 or 3.P]

[Kansaschaser]

Some friends of mine want me to start a new D&D game using Gestalt. I was wondering how to prevent it from getting out of control. Should I limit what people can take as their gestalt class using the Tier system as a guide?

For example: If someone wanted to play a Wizard or Cleric which are both tier 1, should I limit thier gestalt choices to tier 5 classes? So they would be Tier 1 / Tier 5.

Second example: Someone wants to play a Tier 4 class. Should I make them take a Tier 2 as their gestalt?

Basically, is a Tier 1/Tier 5 and a Tier 2/Tier 4 equal in power? Or how about Tier 3/Tier 3?

I certinly don't want anyone playing a Tier 1/Tier 1 character, but I don't want someone to take a Tier 5/Tier 5 either.

Thoughts? If any....

[Hirax]

Depending on how they optimize their tier 1 side, tier1/tier5 might not be much less of a headache than tier1/tier1. You can do a lot of evil things with wizard20/tier4-5dips.

[Kansaschaser]

Depending on how they optimize their tier 1 side, tier1/tier5 might not be much less of a headache than tier1/tier1. You can do a lot of evil things with wizard20/tier4-5dips.

That's another thing I'm worried about. :smallfrown:

If I do force the players to select classes so their tiers are "balanced", what kind of combos can they make that would give me a headache?

Are there any Tier 1/5, Tier 2/4, or Tier 3/3 combos that would make them "gods" so to speak?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

The efficacy of various classes in Gestalt changes. As a class with a bunch of passive abilities, Monk goes from "terrible" to "okay, good out of the box" as long as you pick a better active side. Factotum goes from solid T3 to ridiculous due to the action economy advantage. Similar story with Psion.

Without too much optimization, T1//T1 isn't all that scary. It usually means they have more win buttons and rarely run out. If they have a way to use them efficiently (lots of prebuffs or, as mentioned, action economy abuse) then it becomes a problem, but there are ways of curbing that.

If you have a difference in optimization levels in your group (it seems like it from what you've said), universal restrictions aren't going to stop gestalt from exacerbating the problem, and forcing people away from certain concepts is also not going to help. Maybe ask your players to try and end up around the same power level, so the more experienced players can help "bring up" the less experienced players? Soft restraints like that are often more trust dependent but also a lot more robust and straightforward.

Edit: Druid//Monk and Druid//Ninja can both get pretty silly in combat shapes. Warblade//Factotum is another combat beast. Factotum//Beguiler is a full caster (with useful spells) who can have multiple standard actions in a round. Just a few ideas.

[Kansaschaser]

The efficacy of various classes in Gestalt changes. As a class with a bunch of passive abilities, Monk goes from "terrible" to "okay, good out of the box" as long as you pick a better active side. Factotum goes from solid T3 to ridiculous due to the action economy advantage. Similar story with Psion.

Without too much optimization, T1//T1 isn't all that scary. It usually means they have more win buttons and rarely run out. If they have a way to use them efficiently (lots of prebuffs or, as mentioned, action economy abuse) then it becomes a problem, but there are ways of curbing that.

If you have a difference in optimization levels in your group (it seems like it from what you've said), universal restrictions aren't going to stop gestalt from exacerbating the problem, and forcing people away from certain concepts is also not going to help. Maybe ask your players to try and end up around the same power level, so the more experienced players can help "bring up" the less experienced players? Soft restraints like that are often more trust dependent but also a lot more robust and straightforward.

Edit: Druid//Monk and Druid//Ninja can both get pretty silly in combat shapes. Warblade//Factotum is another combat beast. Factotum//Beguiler is a full caster (with useful spells) who can have multiple standard actions in a round. Just a few ideas.

I knew about the Factotum trick with extra actions. Most of my players don't know about the awesomeness of the Factotum. Most haven't even read Dungeonscape. If someone wants to make a Something/Factotum, I'd probably stear them another direction.

Oh, and the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of these two new house rules.

1. No other base classes other than the two you start with.

2. Any prestige classes you take must be taken to their max level before you can start progess on another prestige class.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I think it is best to go an a case by case basis, ask your players what they intend to gestalt and why; more often than not there are "weaker" combinations that serve the fluff just a s good as the stronger ones, Wildshape Ranger//Monk for example is just as good as Druid//monk for a Kung-fu panda build; but less powerful and easier to manage as a DM.

Or you could go partial gestals (as the Tier thread says)for example tier 1 classes are banned from gestalting, tier 2 can only gestalt with NPC classes and tier 3 can gestalt with tier 4,5,6 and the rest can gestalt normally.

[flabort]

I knew about the Factotum trick with extra actions. Most of my players don't know about the awesomeness of the Factotum. Most haven't even read Dungeonscape. If someone wants to make a Something/Factotum, I'd probably stear them another direction.

Oh, and the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of these two new house rules.

1. No other base classes other than the two you start with.

2. Any prestige classes you take must be taken to their max level before you can start progess on another prestige class.

Hmm. #1 Seems a bit harsh. Maybe limit them to one other base class. None is just asking for them to try a dual advancement class while still taking levels in one of the classes it advances.

[Hirax]

What level do you anticipate going to? Wizard20//factotum8/swiftblade10/anything2 would still break action economy, being able to take 2 additional standard actions per turn. INTx2 to initiative combined with moment of prescience means you'll always win initiative and the wizard will be casting 4 spells every round without needing time stop. Switch to sorcerer and start throwing in arcane fusion and other shenanigans and you'd be able to nova all your spells pretty quickly.

Really, the only effective way to keep your player's power level in check is asking them to be reasonable. 3.5 is just too flexible, to make a list of rules for this purpose wouldn't be worth the effort. Make a build or two for them to balance their characters against to aid them with their character creation, and ask them to keep things sane.

[Kansaschaser]

Hmm. #1 Seems a bit harsh. Maybe limit them to one other base class. None is just asking for them to try a dual advancement class while still taking levels in one of the classes it advances.

I'll consider letting some of them take another base class if they need it for a specific prestige class. Other than that, I think I'll keep #1.


What level do you anticipate going to? Wizard20//factotum8/swiftblade10/anything2 would still break action economy, being able to take 2 additional standard actions per turn. INTx2 to initiative combined with moment of prescience means you'll always win initiative and the wizard will be casting 4 spells every round without needing time stop. Switch to sorcerer and start throwing in arcane fusion and other shenanigans and you'd be able to nova all your spells pretty quickly.

Really, the only effective way to keep your player's power level in check is asking them to be reasonable. 3.5 is just too flexible, to make a list of rules for this purpose wouldn't be worth the effort. Make a build or two for them to balance their characters against to aid them with their character creation, and ask them to keep things sane.

Wizard / Factotum would not be a usable gestalt combo if I allowed gestalt and Factotum. I would allow Factotum and any other Tier 3 class.

Er, now that I think about that, they could still do Factotum / Beguilar and they still get access to Haste. :smallyuk:Ugh....

I'm okay with letting them play gestalt, I just don't want one player's turn taking 30 minutes with all their actions. It really annoyed me when I was a player and the Psion/Archivist kept taking tons of extra actions in the same turn. It wasn't a lot of fun for the rest of us who only spent less than one minute per turn.

[graeylin]

Gestalt is no more broken than normal non-gestalt: if you run/allow a broken game in one side, odds are you run/allow it in the other.

Talk to your players, ask them what they want to play. Work with them to get something cool. that's what the game is all about anyway, FUN.

and remember: since all the players are gestalt, so are all the monsters and BBEG's.. so you just up the level. A rising tide lifts ALL boats, not just the PC's.

Wait till they hit their first gestalt kobold, or rust monster with cleric spells (hey, you are the DM, you get to have fun too).

[Anderlith]

Have everyone gestalt as monk. Like Wizard-Monk, Cleric-Monk, Fighter-Monk. This makes the lucky Druid-Monk even more awesome.

[DeAnno]

My typical boilerplate quote about Gestalt:


The thing you have to remember about Gestalt builds, is that they really aren't about playing two classes at once. They're about becoming a force of nature, a contradiction in terms, an instrument of death. If you look at your gestalt build and you don't feel something like that inside, you're doing it wrong.

The skill curve in Gestalt is even more harsh than it is in normal 3.5e. If you're concerned about people stealing the spotlight due to imbalances in the group, it's probably not your best option.

[Saint GoH]

I had always though a wise option was to break up what tiers can gestalt with what.

So you want to play a T1? Congratulations, you can't gestalt. You want to play a T2? You can gestalt only with T6. T3? T5-T6. T4? Other T4's-T6.
It limits the variability a bit, but also lessens the power curve. It lets some classes actually expand their abilities and become half way decent, but keeps the upper tiers mostly where they are.

Granted you could always just gestalt all their enemies and it would just be like playing Exalted. /shrug.

The idea that everyone should gestalt with monk sounds also good. That gives the character some decent passive abilities (good saves, decent base attack, increased movement among other things). I tend to like warlock as my other side in gestalt, mostly because they get UMD, a ranged attack, some handy tricks like darkness or spider climb, flight, short range dimension door or invis. All at will.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

I had always though a wise option was to break up what tiers can gestalt with what.

So you want to play a T1? Congratulations, you can't gestalt. You want to play a T2? You can gestalt only with T6. T3? T5-T6. T4? Other T4's-T6.
This is how I would also do it.

Another option is to make pre-made gestalt combos and make them chose from those.

[Daedroth]

Have everyone gestalt as monk. Like Wizard-Monk, Cleric-Monk, Fighter-Monk. This makes the lucky Druid-Monk even more awesome.


But...if they don't want to be lawful at all?Better gesalt with fighter

[Kansaschaser]

This is how I would also do it.

Another option is to make pre-made gestalt combos and make them chose from those.

This sounds like a decent idea.

So if someone wants to play a Wizard, I will give them a few choices, such as Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger, Duelist, or Monk.

I just need to come up with enough combinations that it doesn't seem like I'm limiting them too much.

:smallsigh: I have my work cut out for me.

[Hirax]

You'd be better served simply by limiting their prestige classes, if they can prc out of their crappy base class on the other side it doesn't matter past level 5.

edit: for instance, wizard20//whatever5/chameleon10/ab champ5 - and this doesn't even scratch the surface of possibilities.

[flabort]

So you want to play a T1? Congratulations, you can't gestalt. You want to play a T2? You can gestalt only with T6. T3? T5-T6. T4? Other T4's-T6.
It limits the variability a bit, but also lessens the power curve. It lets some classes actually expand their abilities and become half way decent, but keeps the upper tiers mostly where they are.

No. There's a number of reasons a T2//T6 is not equal to a T1. I won't list them all, but if you want to do something like this, pretend T6 doesn't exist at all. So, T1 can't gestalt. T2 can gestalt only with T5, and T3 gestalts with T4 or less. Or, use this table:
{table=head]Teir|points
1|5
2|4
3|3
4|2
5|1
6|.5[/table]
You can add another class to get a sum of 5 (allowing for Gestalt or Tristalt, or even Quadstalt). A T2//T6//T6 still isn't as strong as a T1. Neither is a T4//T4//T5, or a T3//T4. Planning on playing a T5//T5//T5//T4? Enjoy being the least powerful character in the party.

But this still gives the illusion of being more powerful, giving many options, and is generally fun, which is the point.

Now, another problem is that the numbers assigned to tiers don't actually mean anything except "1 is better than 2, 2 better than 3". It doesn't say how much better, or anything like that. And their based off of someone's opinion. It's like saying a movie got 4/5 stars. OK, so in your opinion, that movies better than the one you gave 2/5 stars, but why, and how much better? "2 stars" doesn't really mean anything. So the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2, could be as much as is between Tier 2, and Tier 5! It's not, but we don't know for sure if it is.

And I'm not even going to go into what happens when you try adding prestige classes, or switching classes. Lets just say, your T5//T5//T3? When you decided you wanted to take a T4 class, you stopped progressing anything on one side completely. And when you added Master of Many Forms to a pentastalt, you lost a lot more sides than 1.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5070.0
Read it.

[flabort]

So here's a tristalt using that tier-to-point system I posted, that may actually be ok.

Rogue//Ranger//Fighter
Tier 4//Teir 4//Tier 5
2 points//2 points//1 point

Lets say you start at 6th level.

From rogue you get Good Ref
From fighter you get good fort
From ranger you get both good ref and fort
You have poor will in all three (!)

You get good BaB from both fighter, and ranger

You have 8+Int skill points from rogue
(2 and six from fighter and ranger, ignore those)
Of skills not on the rogue's list, Fighter gets Handle Animal and Ride
Ranger gets both of these, too, and concentration, heal, survival, and some knowledge skills.

Fighters get most of the proficiencies this allows for.
Rogue picks up hand crossbow, and rangers gain nothing new.

Finally, class features.

Up to this point, Fighter has been redundant.
Now it gets it's bonus feats. Four extra feats (yay-ish. Not impressive)
Rogue has Sneak Attack +3d6, Trapfinding, Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, and Trap sense +2.
Ranger has 2 favored enemies, Track, wild empathy, second feat from Combat Style, endurance, animal companion, and some spells.

It loses a lot of it's features by wearing medium or heavy armor, or takes penalties.

We then adventure around for a while, and become 10th level. We don't multiclass or prestige, for simplicity.

We now have six fighter feats (two new ones).
The ranger side has a new spell level, woodland stride, swift tracker, evasion (which we already had), and a 3rd favored enemy.
And the rogue side improves to +5d6 sneak attack, improved uncanny dodge, trap sense +3, and gets a special ability.

So, is this equal to or better than a wizard? Answer seriously.
Remember, a wizard has 3rd level spells at 6th, and 5th level spells by 10th. Our tristalt has only 1st and 2nd level spells at 6th and 10th, respectively. And not very many/day.

IMHO, this build might result in a high tier 3, or a tier 2 if played well, with a good feat selection.
It's up to you to decide which is more fun.

Here's another gestalt from that system:
Psion//Monk
Tier 2//Tier 5
4 points//1 points

Ooh. Psionics. Something most everyone either loves, or hates.
Personally, I have trouble understanding most of it. But, I hear that if you try, it's the most abuseable system in the game. IF YOU TRY, that is. (Ever here of the Save Game trick?)

So we have good Will from psion.
And all good saves from monk.

So we have medium BaB from Monk. d8 Hit dice. And 4+Int skills.
All these are better than psion's poor BaB, d4 HD, and 2+Int skills.

Monk gives us Flurry of Blows, and a nice Unarmed Damage progression. And an AC bonus, and a speed bonus.
Psion gives us some bonus feats, and the awesome psionics casting system.

We also get some more bonus feats from monk, and a few other features, like evasion, Ki Strike, slow falls, whatever.
Psion gives us an interesting Discipline.

Flavor Wise, these classes go together like bread and butter.
But action-economy wise, this combination sucks. Why?

Flurry of Blows requires full attacks. no other actions that round.
Manifesting powers, requires actions. If you use the monk's features, you can't use the psions.
And if you manifest powers with your psion side, your missing out on your other side's main feature.

Really, this combination only doesn't suck if you know an ACF to trade out Flurry of Blows for something usefull if you have one attack/round.
And I don't know of such an ACF.


This is definitely not a tier 1. It's already a Tier 2, and it can't go down. But it's not a tier 1.

[Hirax]

All these mish mashes of what tiers of base classes to allow do the OP no good at all because they don't factor in prestige classes. Unless you're saying to not allow them at all. Anyone saying a T2 can gestalt at all is basically inviting the T5 gestalt side to only take 2 levels of the base class, then 3 racial paragon levels for a stat bump and bonus feat, then immediately prestige class into ur-priest, chameleon, or something else that trivializes tier restrictions.

Don't waste your time with hard and fast rules. They wrongly shut out fair options, and fail to meet their objective because there is always a way around them, unless, as I said, you write an entire treatise. Dialogue and understanding with players is the only way to keep things at your desired power level.

[flabort]

Alright. So, concerning prestige classes:
Yes, they would throw the balance out the window if allowed like that in such a system. But prestige classes, have their own power levels, too. Some are stronger than others.

So, you would have to find out what tiers each PrC effectively are, so that you don't replace a tier 5 class with ur-priest, or any other class. You'd need to replace a tier 5 class with a prestige class that is effectively tier 5. So...
Say you had a rogue//bard (tier 4//tier 3). The duelist (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/duelist.htm) PrC is roughly tier 4 (at a guess), so you could add duelist levels on the rogue side, or Bard side. But a Loremaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/loremaster.htm) is roughly a tier 3 class (depending on chassis. On a wizard it might be tier 2, or even 1), and can not be taken on the rogue side, only the bard side.

You'd have to review the prestige classes based on chassis as individual cases, and it would take a lot of work to put all the prestige classes into tiers. Especially with varying classes to put them on, and gestalt rules for classes like Mystic Theurge.

So until someone puts in the time to assemble such a list, I'd say either the DM has to be careful when allowing PrCing in such a system, and review PrCs on a case-by-case basis, or not allow PrCs at all, yes. Working with your players to choose the best PrCs for this balance level is the best case.

Also, one rule I may or may not have mentioned: if you change tiers (such as by taking a PrC that's sub-optimal, or multiclassing to a better tier class), you should be able to add or remove sides. So, say you have a druid, and take a "Trap" PrC that doesn't fully advance your casting, and advances only a few of your other features, and gains some other bad abilities, too. Say this PrC dropped you to tier 2. I'd allow gestalting a Tier 5, for the duration of the class.

I might also say "A PrC fits into this tier (tier 3, for example), and is worth X points (3). But because it's a PrC, It's worth an extra half a point, as are all PrCs, so if you want to take this PrC, you're going to have to drop this side (say a tier 5) a little, to about this tier (tier 6, or for a higher tier, Y-1+a tier 6). Which might be too complicated. But with the druid PrC that drops it to tier 2, that would only allow a tier 6 to gestalt with the PrC. Which would still suck.

And this post is a lot longer than I meant it to be. But my point is, because PrCs should have tiers, too (even if they vary based on the class used to qualify), and that should be a factor, if you use such rules, if you allow PrCs. Not to totally invalidate your point, of course, Hirax.

[Hirax]

And this post is a lot longer than I meant it to be. But my point is, because PrCs should have tiers, too (even if they vary based on the class used to qualify), and that should be a factor, if you use such rules, if you allow PrCs. Not to totally invalidate your point, of course, Hirax.

That was my point exactly, who wants to try and explain all that to their players :smallbiggrin:

However, come to think of it, it makes for a fun reverse optimization challenge: come up with a rulesheet to limit optimization in gestalt, with judging criteria being simplicity, concision, and effectiveness. Maybe that can be started up when we've run out of prestige classes for iron chef contests. :smallsmile: