Gestalt to help balance martial vs casters?

[Gwazi Magnum]

You've all probably seen these topics before, how to balance casters and martial characters.

Granted I've made one or two of these topics, but they died out a long time ago and I don't feel like going necromancy on those threads.

However, this is asking about an idea that came up today when discussing it with part of a d&d group that has yet to start.

What if all Tier 2 and Tier 1 characters had to level up with one class per level only like usual, but Tier 3 and below were allowed to Gestalt?

Note: This effectively bans Gestalt's from ever picking a Tier 2 or 1 class preventing abuse of the system.

Does this sound like a good step at least to balancing?
Are there any other things you can suggest outside of this that also both:

1) Doesn't resort to weakening/restricting the casters

2) Allows the other classes to still have their proper feel
(Aka. A Swordsman still needs to get close to the enemy to hit them cause he's a swordsman. No legend crap with 30ft range swords where you can excuse it with air slashes, faster than monk speed or any other concept breaking explanations)

End goal here being to make it so casters and non-casters can play side by side without the non-casters constantly being overshadowed by the casters, always being beaten by the casters etc. Putting them on a more equal footing without making the casters feel cheated/robbed.

Now, I relise in the end Casters will still be more powerful no matter what. But the goal is to lessen the gap as much as possible while still making it fun for the players.

[chaos_redefined]

This is similar to one of the fixing ideas from the tier thread. The major difference is that jaronk allowed tier 2 to gestalt with tier 6.

[eggynack]

This is similar to one of the fixing ideas from the tier thread. The major difference is that jaronk allowed tier 2 to gestalt with tier 6.
That seems untrue. Here's the partial gestalt fix in full, taken from the tier system for classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293):

"Option #2: Partial Gestalt. Tier 1s and 2s are normal. Tier 3s and 4s may gestalt their levels with an NPC class of their choice (Adept, Expert, Commoner, or Warrior). Tier 5s and 6s may gestalt their levels with any other Tier 5 or 6 class of their choice, or Adepts. Result? Again, a healthy power boost for the low Tiers. Suddenly the Rogues can have full BAB and lots of hitpoints, and the Monks can have Fighter powers too. Very handy. Plus, multiclassing works... it's just that if you start as a Fighter//Monk and want to take a level of, say, Ranger, that level must have an NPC class on the other side. If for some reason you wanted Sorcerer, you wouldn't be gestalt at all in that level. Lord knows Fighters get a lot better when they can be Fighter//Monks or Fighter//CA Ninjas or whatever."

[thethird]

My biggest trouble with this has always been that classes are constructs, and levels are just bricks. And there are some levels that are better than others. Two levels in monk are pretty good for example and if you gestalt them with two levels of fighter that's pretty neat (at least for two levels).

[ArcturusV]

I dunno. I mean... lets look at it practically.

Lets say I wanted to be an armored swordsman type. So I'd probably be a Fighter/Paladin? Not exactly a lot more powerful than either one. Though having the bonus feats with the Fighter means that my Paladin could branch out a bit from Chargelot to other combat tricks.

It's a power boost, but not really much of one. And it still doesn't really close the gap power wise between a Sorcerer and a Fighter, for example.

Course, this works better for other archetypes like the Rogue/Beguiler, which becomes a non-combative beast.

[Hazzardevil]

That seems untrue. Here's the partial gestalt fix in full, taken from the tier system for classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293):

"Option #2: Partial Gestalt. Tier 1s and 2s are normal. Tier 3s and 4s may gestalt their levels with an NPC class of their choice (Adept, Expert, Commoner, or Warrior). Tier 5s and 6s may gestalt their levels with any other Tier 5 or 6 class of their choice, or Adepts. Result? Again, a healthy power boost for the low Tiers. Suddenly the Rogues can have full BAB and lots of hitpoints, and the Monks can have Fighter powers too. Very handy. Plus, multiclassing works... it's just that if you start as a Fighter//Monk and want to take a level of, say, Ranger, that level must have an NPC class on the other side. If for some reason you wanted Sorcerer, you wouldn't be gestalt at all in that level. Lord knows Fighters get a lot better when they can be Fighter//Monks or Fighter//CA Ninjas or whatever."

The problem with this is that it only brings up tier 5/6's to Tier 4 at maximum.
Fighter//Monk can now melee, but that doesn't solve the problem of they can't deal with flyers, or do anything but fight.

[JaronK]

This is similar to one of the fixing ideas from the tier thread. The major difference is that jaronk allowed tier 2 to gestalt with tier 6.

Nope. Pretty sure he went with Tier 1 and 2 normal, Tier 3 and 4 with any NPC class, and Tier 5 and 6 with any other Tier 5 or 6. :)

And for the record, it's a hack together fix... it's by no means perfect. But Factotum//Adepts are kinda cool, and Fighter//Rogues are at least a heck of a lot better than pure Fighters.

JaronK

[ahenobarbi]

The problem with this is that it only brings up tier 5/6's to Tier 4 at maximum.
Fighter//Monk can now melee, but that doesn't solve the problem of they can't deal with flyers, or do anything but fight.

Yeah, Fighter//Monk doesn't look like a good idea. Fighter 2/Monk 2// Rogue 4 on the other hand gets skills, gets fighter & monk bonus feats to get combat basics right, gets some rogue goodies & utility (trap finding, sneak attack) and can safely invest WBL in covering things that it misses (like flight).

[Der_DWSage]

The problem with this is that it only brings up tier 5/6's to Tier 4 at maximum.
Fighter//Monk can now melee, but that doesn't solve the problem of they can't deal with flyers, or do anything but fight.

Yeah, it's not a perfect fix, but it does let you do a few things. For starters, it does open up magic options to those that take the Adept NPC class. It also allows Warrior/Rogues, which are now a bit nastier in combat if they're fighting alongside their heavily armored mates...or even a Rogue/Adept that just uses Web to heckle opponents and set up their ranged sneak attacks.

Perfect? No. But it does open up options. I'd actually say that a smart combo (Fighter/Healer with a focus on mounted combat, Monk/Adept, Paladin/...Samurai? Okay, I give on that one.) could brush up to tier 3 pretty cozily. Being able to do multiple things well but not game-breakingly so, or being able to do one thing particularly well and being able to at least contribute slightly during things that are not their specialty.

It's not as elegant as introducing homebrew fixes that solve several underlying issues such as MAD and lackluster class abilities, but it at least serves to bring people up to being able to do multiple things unless they really want to focus on just one thing.




Yeah, Fighter//Monk doesn't look like a good idea. Fighter 2/Monk 2// Rogue 4 on the other hand gets skills, gets fighter & monk bonus feats to get combat basics right, gets some rogue goodies & utility (trap finding, sneak attack) and can safely invest WBL in covering things that it misses (like flight).

And while that looks pretty nice...Rogue is in tier 4, mate. So it'd look closer to Fighter/Monk 2 // Rogue/Warrior 2. Still some pretty nice goodies, but not as nice as you were thinking.

[TuggyNE]

Nope. Pretty sure he went with Tier 1 and 2 normal, Tier 3 and 4 with any NPC class, and Tier 5 and 6 with any other Tier 5 or 6. :)

Are you certain? :smalltongue::smallwink::smallbiggrin:

[Gwazi Magnum]

So, are people hearing saying the tier fix from the other forum is better than the one I listed above?

I'm not sure cause once someone brought it up it looked like everyone jumped to that and the original post was kind of left alone... :/

[eggynack]

So, are people hearing saying the tier fix from the other forum is better than the one I listed above?

I'm not sure cause once someone brought it up it looked like everyone jumped to that and the original post was kind of left alone... :/
I dunno. Your way might be better, though you might want more specifics about protocol of the gestalting of the lower tiered classes. Like, maybe tier 4 and 5's are always gestalted with tier 3's, and vice versa. I think that what happened with the tier list's version has very little to do with quality. Chaos misrepresented the tier list's partial gestalt system, and then I corrected him, and JaronK made a correction phrased as a joke. By that point, the topic was more about the tier list's version than yours, just by merit of post count, so things kinda got away from us.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Sounds fine to me. Just remember to stick Beguilers in tier 2 where they belong. When it's just some abstract concept, whatever. When it makes the difference between getting gestalt or not? No way. Nada. Not happening.

[Gwazi Magnum]

I dunno. Your way might be better, though you might want more specifics about protocol of the gestalting of the lower tiered classes. Like, maybe tier 4 and 5's are always gestalted with tier 3's, and vice versa. I think that what happened with the tier list's version has very little to do with quality. Chaos misrepresented the tier list's partial gestalt system, and then I corrected him, and JaronK made a correction phrased as a joke. By that point, the topic was more about the tier list's version than yours, just by merit of post count, so things kinda got away from us.

I find tier 1's and 2's are so far ahead I'd rather not limit who Tier 3's and below can gestalt with other than not with a tier 1 or 2.

I'm also debating if I should assign different ability score arrays in on top of this though.

[eggynack]

I find tier 1's and 2's are so far ahead I'd rather not limit who Tier 3's and below can gestalt with other than not with a tier 1 or 2.

I'm also debating if I should assign different ability score arrays in on top of this though.
Fair enough. I guess a tier 3 gestalted with another tier 3 isn't going to break the game in a party with a wizard. On the ability score array thing, the tier system also already has a write up for that option. It's option one, actually. :smallbiggrin:

[Gwazi Magnum]

Fair enough. I guess a tier 3 gestalted with another tier 3 isn't going to break the game in a party with a wizard. On the ability score array thing, the tier system also already has a write up for that option. It's option one, actually. :smallbiggrin:

I saw, I was just unsure if that would work if used in combination with the Gestalt ruling or not.

[JaronK]

Honestly it's a cheap hack linear fix to an exponential problem. You could certainly try it out though.

JaronK

[Kaeso]

Tier 3 gestalts can be pretty gamebreakingly effecitve though, making them tier 2's. Think about the possibilities for a beguiler//Dread Necromancer gestalt. Add a few prestige classes on either side and bam!

[eggynack]

Tier 3 gestalts can be pretty gamebreakingly effecitve though, making them tier 2's. Think about the possibilities for a beguiler//Dread Necromancer gestalt. Add a few prestige classes on either side and bam!
But that's the approximate goal of the whole thing. Also, I think that a factotum//beguiler would probably be more powerful. The int synergy and passive//active nature of the gestalt are both pretty big advantages.

[Gwazi Magnum]

Tier 3 gestalts can be pretty gamebreakingly effecitve though, making them tier 2's. Think about the possibilities for a beguiler//Dread Necromancer gestalt. Add a few prestige classes on either side and bam!

As long it keeps them more on an equal footing with tier 1's and 2's that's fine.
The goal is to allow martial characters to feel competent next to high level magic users.

[dspeyer]

Lets say I wanted to be an armored swordsman type. So I'd probably be a Fighter/Paladin? Not exactly a lot more powerful than either one.

Try Paladin//Feated Rogue. All the violent sophistication of the fighter, plus enough skills to be a diplomat and investigator, which paladins really should be.