Gestalt and Lvl Adj.

[Blackhawk748]

ok im gonna be Dming a Rokugan campaign and its gonna be Gestalt, now everybody is playing something with level adjustment. One a Half Vampire (what i call a Dhampire), a Feral Gargun, and me a Nezumi with the Shadow Template. Right now i just have Level adj taking up levels in one 'track' of the gestalt, and im aware that it makes us a bit overpowered even for gestalt. I was just wondering if anyone knew of any official rulings on this?

[AthasianWarlock]

There is none that I am aware. Unearthed arcana poses the question as to how much more powerful they are, but simply states they are not twice as powerful because they have the same number of actions per turn. Gestalt classes are just strictly better classes.

[Blackhawk748]

ok, i guess as long as everyone does it its not a big deal, we just can't use lvl adj buyoff like this.

[Snails]

Letting the LA cut into only one track is probably a very good deal, especially for minmaxers. I am not a fan of races of LA because the adjustment cuts into your top shelf abilities, e.g. is a few benies and better stats a good deal if you delay getting 5th level spells to 12th level? Normally this effect is unavoidable. But it I am going, say, Ranger/Wizard, I could pick a race that hurt my fighting but boosted my spellcasting while keeping my top levels in Wiz. It makes offensive superstacks much easier.

If everyone is doing it, that might be okay.

The real danger here is not the party is more powerful, as a DM you will inevitably need to do a little fudging. The problem would be it opens up a(nother) route by which skilled minmaxers will leave mere competent players in the dust.

Let us throw some math at the problem....

Suppose that being Gestalt were the equivalent of a +2 LA "race".

If I have a Gestalt Fighter10+Cleric10, that would be "equal" to a Fighter12.

Now suppose I choose Vampire as a race. I could be Gestalt Fighter10+(Vampire8)/Cleric2. By the Gestalt calculation I "should" still be level 12. By the usual book calculation I am clearly level 18.

So if everyone is playing with +2 or +3 LAs, that might be fine. But it is going to go completely bonkers with +4 LA and bigger.

[Gnaeus]

LA is usually really badly balanced. Looking at previous example, Vampire Fighter 2 is going to get its ass handed to it by Fighter 10, and will just be dusted by cleric 10. For this reason, I find that allowing LA/RHD on one side of gestalt is usually ok.

Yes, it does allow for Min-maxing. But really, 3.5 allows for min-maxing, and Gestalt even more so.

3.5: Fighter 10 vs Druid 10
3.5 Gestalt: Fighter 10//Barbarian 10 vs. Druid 10//Swordsage 2 (Wis to AC)/Cleric 1 (2 domains for feats and turn attempts allow divine metamagic)/Barbarian 1 (pounce)/Totemist 1/Master of Many Forms 5

Would allowing a +LA race really have made that worse?

[Blackhawk748]

honestly we don't have much in the way on crazy builds, or even a whole lot of min maxing in our group. we're kinda weird i guess lol. so there shouldnt be anything terribly broken. and the biggest LA we got is a +2 as we are level 6

[Snails]

There will always be disparities from minmaxing. I think your example shows that one has to be extra super careful about mixing PrCs and Gestalt.

[Gnaeus]

OK, no PRCs.

Fighter 10//Barbarian 10 vs

Druid 10//Cleric 1 (Planning and undeath Domains)/Human Paragon 3 (+2 wisdom, DMM Persist as bonus feat)/Barbarian 1 (pounce)/Monk 1 (Imp unarmed Combat, Imp Grapple, Wis to AC)/Fighter 1 (Improved Initiative/Warblade 2 (White Raven Tactics)/Crusader 1(White Raven Tactics again)

So I'm a bear, with persisted bite of the weretiger, Pounce and improved grapple, an excellent AC, and every time I take my turn, my pet bear who shares my persisted bite of the weretiger can take an entire extra turn.
He is a barbarian with some bonus feats.

It really isn't the PRCs.

Simple builds only?
Druid 10//Warblade 10
Bear now has full BAB, WRT, IHS. Stances, Strikes, and bonus feats.

Druid 10//Focused Specialist Conjurer (Abrupt Jaunt variant)
Now I'm a bear with magical defenses that I share with my pet and an Imp familiar UMDing wands to buff us. And whenever you try to hit me I teleport away.

Druid 10//Factotum 10
Now I'm a lockpicking bear with full spellcasting who can cast several spells per round.

If you are playing gestalt and you are worried about optimization disparity, you are fracked big time.

You can have an optimizer build all the characters, or you can tell the optimizer to build something with a niche. But really gestalt is going to lead to high power games, and LA on one side doesn't change that at all in any way.

[Darth Stabber]

The issue with LA races in gestalt is that taking them as one track is really good, but taking them as both tracks is horrible as to be untenable for any character with even a modicum of optimization.

Now my choice for best race in gestalt is pixie (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sprite.htm). That is some serious benefits that are great for any non-druid, non-finesse melee. Click the link and tell me that those abilities aren't rockin'. Especially for casters, though swordsages and rogues can surely benefit (always invisible, massive dex, and free finesse, bwah!).

I will say that there isn't really a major imbalance in one track LA if you know what you're doing. Even pixies can be outgunned by smart mixing of two full class progressions. Pixie wizard is nice, but human wizard//factotum is going to be pretty frightening. Ogre barbarian is cool, but human barbarian//factotum will likely do much better. LA races are better in gestalt than in default, but still they still aren't outdoing human (then again what is going to out do humans? you'd think the writers were human). In a low-op game it will probably be really good, but low-op is really swingy anyway.

[ksbsnowowl]

Just for a different take, in my Gestalt game I have LA split between both sides, and any odd level can be gestalted with a class level.

So, the +1 LA Goliath could start in a first level game as a Barbarian 1//LA 1, and at second level could become a Barbarian 2//LA 1/Scout 1.

The +2 LA Drow could start a second level game as LA 1/Cleric 1//LA +1/Wizard 1.

RHD stay on one side, just like a class level.

I find this is a very balanced approach to gestalt LA, cutting down on the pain of the LA, but not completely eradicating the balancing factor it is supposed to be.

[Flickerdart]

With LA and RHD on one side, races with LA and RHD finally become playable, because now you're sacrificing something of equivalent value (the extra abilities from a second class in order to get extra abilities from a race) rather than something of greater value (hit dice in addition to all that stuff). If you put LA along both tracks, you make it even more worthless than it normally is.

Edit: This part got ninja'd.
One middle-ground solution could be putting LA and RHD along both tracks at the same time - so a creature with 4 RHD and 2 LA only takes a hit for three levels (presumably, gaining only the RHD) and then progresses as a normal gestalt creature. So a Vampire Fighter//Rogue would be LA 4/Fighter 16//LA 4/Rogue 16, for instance.

[Greenish]

Let us throw some math at the problem....

Suppose that being Gestalt were the equivalent of a +2 LA "race".

If I have a Gestalt Fighter10+Cleric10, that would be "equal" to a Fighter12.

Now suppose I choose Vampire as a race. I could be Gestalt Fighter10+(Vampire8)/Cleric2. By the Gestalt calculation I "should" still be level 12. By the usual book calculation I am clearly level 18.I don't know where you're pulling the "gestalt =+2 LA" thing that you base your maths on, but your example is pretty poorly chosen, given that Figher 10//Cleric 10 is clearly more powerful than Fighter 10//Cleric 2/Vampire 8.