Balancing a gestalt encounter across tiers (MY PLAYERS STAY OUT)

[Prendre]

Burnheart, Whoiam, Seharvepernfan, and Spyder_Cel, go away! :smalltongue:

My ragtag group of PC's is a bit more ragtag than normal, and I haven't actually DM'd gestalt before, so I was hoping for some advice.

All characters are level 3.

There's a Swashbuckler//Rogue, Cleric//Druid, Scout//Ranger 1/Rogue 2, and a Ranger//Fighter (giving up spellcasting for full animal companion). Obviously low-to-mid-op, except for the Cleric//Druid.

I've got a miniboss coming up and I was wondering what sort of power level to aim for and what sort of setting & number of mooks would make for a satisfying encounter for everybody.

The baddie's a Bard//Cleric of at least 4th level.


I'm imagining something like:

--Characters track baddie down
--Initial combat encounter with minions thrown at players
--Baddie runs away in a way that will let the Rangers play with Track and into something that will let the Rogue play with traps
--Mini-dungeon
--Final encounter/escape


So... what sort of power should I give the baddie & her forces?

[Godskook]

While gestalt makes them more powerful, it doesn't make them any more durable(relative to their level). As a result, the best way to challenge them isn't to raise CR but to raise optimization capabilities and/or durability(adding warrior levels or maxing HD is what I typically do).

Also, I'd consider bumping your boss up to level 5. This unlocks animate dead, which gives a legitimate reason for having undead around. The zombies are incredibly durable, and you can put whatever ranged opponents behind them to mop up. A warlock is a fairly strong addition; make him lvl 1-2 if you just want a debuffer/nuisance, or lvl 3 if you want a more serious threat.

Dungeonscape has some nifty traps that make for more fun encounters than a simple trap or two would.

[Vanzanze]

So... what sort of power should I give the baddie & her forces?

Before going full-throttle into this, I'd suggest "testing" the party with a few random encounters ranging from EL 4 to EL 6 or so. Vary it so that each encounter focuses on a different spectrum (melee, ranged, spellcasting, etc.), so that you can get a good idea of how the synergy of the party works.

Technically, gestalt characters are only +1 EL, but ... I've seen some nice combos that actually make a character either much easier to play (fighter//warmage) or harder (rogue//cleric). So, you'll have to play-test.

[Greenish]

I've seen some nice combos that actually make a character either much easier to play (fighter//warmage) or harder (rogue//cleric).:smallconfused:

One of those is a destruction incarnate, a powerful fighting machine that can rain magical destruction on it's enemies or go toe-to-toe with them and pound them into mincemeat.

The other is a fighter//warmage.

[Vanzanze]

:smallconfused:

One of those is a destruction incarnate, a powerful fighting machine that can rain magical destruction on it's enemies or go toe-to-toe with them and pound them into mincemeat.

The other is a fighter//warmage.

Oh, did I mention the cleric//rogue uses a whip and a kukri as weapons, and is constantly challenged to a battlefield-type scenario, rather than close combat? And that the fighter//warmage doesn't want to work with him to help him flank/sneak enemies?

I knew I'd probably forgotten something.

[Greenish]

Oh, did I mention the cleric//rogue uses a whip and a kukri as weapons, and is constantly challenged to a battlefield-type scenario, rather than close combat? And that the fighter//warmage doesn't want to work with him to help him flank/sneak enemies?That's not the gestalt combo that's creating the difficulty, but player issues.

Okay, fighter//warmage is easy in the sense that you only have two options, "hurdur i hit again" or "hurdur i blast again", where the cleric//rogue has way more options, but really.

[Prendre]

Yeah, I said "at least level 4" for the bad guy because she needed to reliably cast Suggestion. I definitely imagine her as 5 or even 6--probably 5 because the enemy cleric doubling the level of the party cleric sort of kills everybody

I'll check out the trap advice too.

The real problem is that this will be the first combat encounter for this group--we lost three players due to PbP attrition and two new ones just got introduced.

I actually could have them track down the person they're looking for only to find her recently gone and some sort of playtest-friendly ambush waiting. That should work.