Opinions on Gestalt

[Auramis]

Morning everyone.

Our family has never played with gestalt before, though our dad is interested in trying it out. Unfortunately, my brother thinks it sounds a bit too powerful for his tastes and is hesitant to the idea.

Just wanting the opinions of anyone who has tried it, did you have more fun playing as gestalt over regular characters, or did you have more fun playing regular rule sets for classes?

[QuintonBeck]

I've ran a gestalt game (though it was only quasi-gestalt as I as DM picked the second class for everyone, I know that sounds railroady but I was just trying to provide access to healing for a small group of new players) and I'm playing in a gestalt game currently. The power level depends highly, like everything, on the level of OP.

For instance, in my current game since it's a new DM and she's only doing gestalt because of low player count I'm going Archivist//Cloistered Cleric. That's pretty low-OP in the sense of gestalt (other than having about double the amount of spells), there's lots of overlap and so I'm essentially a slightly bolstered normal character. Now, if I had paired up some disparate classes that were essentially SAD but offered different bonuses in different areas I'd be roflstomping everything sooner than most D&D characters do.

All that said action economy is also still a limiting factor (until it isn't) so say you're a Barbarian//Wizard you're tough and strong (and pretty MAD) well, do you rage and smash for a bit or do you cast that spell? Are you the tank or the battlefield controller with the abilities you have? In other words, even if you have more abilities than a normal character you can only show off so many at a time.

[intothenight]

Sessions I run don't allow gestalt PCs, but I'll occasionally throw a gestalt enemy at them to keep them guessing. A Spellthief/Favored Soul was one of the better enemies (and occasional allies). I've never mentioned to the PCs that the character is a gestalt. They probably just assume she's multiclassing, which technically she is.

[PersonMan]

I like gestalt. It's mainly good for making otherwise useless things actually work.

For example, a while ago I made a non-melee cleric who worshiped the moon. She was a Were Dire Wolf. In a normal game, she would be so far behind in casting as to be nigh useless, but with Gestalt I just tossed the LA + Animal HD on one side and used the other for her Cleric levels.

Caster focusing types often don't get as much of a boost as other classes from it, since you have action economy restrictions.

Weak classes with neat abilities can actually be picked without worry, as long as you have some way of picking up the slack with your other class(es).

One important note: Template stacking is really strong in gestalt, even more so in further 'stalts (tristalt, quadstalt, etc.), so it could be a good idea to limit the number one may take.

[Aegis013]

Gestalt is excellent if you've played several non-gestalt games and want to open the doorway to a wealth of additional character building options. Things get very interesting when you can make effective use of classes you normally wouldn't even consider from a mechanics standpoint.

The power-level will highly depend on your group. I had a player be less mechanically effective in a gestalt game than in a non-gestalt game. (Warblade 20//Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 10/Bard 4 vs. Bard 10/Sublime Chord 10).

[Vaz]

Gestalt seems powerful (it is, don't get me wrong), but you have to remember that combining something like Wizard and Psion, despite the Int synergy and innate power, the lack of feats means one side recieves the most benefits. Some classes gain benefits from feats and other resource investment, others, don't.

Dragon Shaman, or Incarnum work wonderfully, especially with regards to their passive benefits/always on abilities as opposed to action intensive ones. A psion with Schism for example gets twice the power, basically, even without metapsi.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Umm Psion/Wizard is pretty powerful thanks to Psionic's easy access to action economy boosters (Schism is pretty useful, never mind stuff like anticipatory strike or sychronicity)

[Vaz]

Not as powerful as it could be. A Psion with feat access (PP recharge tricks, Metapsi etc) is more powerful than one without.

A Cleric is more powerful with Feats (DMM persist) than without.

[Black Jester]

While the gestalt rules are usually associated with massive optimisation and tension-defying character powers, I think the actual strength of these games is not in optimisation but in creating interesting characters in their own right while being lifted from the same amount of pressure to maximise the character's capabilities. It is also a good way to balance the game, actually; one of the standard rules we used in the last 5 years or so was 'mundane characters can gestalt freely, spellcasters must use an NPC class for the second branch' and while that isn't enough to close the power gap between mundane and supernatural characters, it helps.
I vastly prefer gestalt games over regular ones - right now, the standard D&D 3.5 rules have particular appeal to me any more (that might change in the future), but our quasi-monthly gestalt group is something I would truly miss.

[Pesimismrocks]

I love gestalt. It allows for more class abilities and more interesting characters. Two important notes though: Make sure the fluff makes sense and CR is ECL*1.5

[Vortenger]

Gestalt requires more effort on the part of the DM to run, and can be quite a bit trickier to challenge PC's appropriately. That being said, its a heck of a lot of fun for the players. I would perhaps suggest looking at the Tier system, and allowing lower tier classes (or just new players) to gestalt for the sake of long term relevance.. There are several such partial gestalt ideas out there, and so far partial gestalt works swimmingly for 1 of my groups. (Haven't convinced the other...yet...)

As an aside, gestalt is sometimes the only mechanical way to redeem a class (the Dragon Dragon Shaman Adept, for example. Making two sucky classes with a similar theme into one you wouldn't mind having in the group.)

[evisiron]

I had my players use it when the numbers were low, and it was a lot of fun. It brought to the fore an element that you don't typically get access to, so character creation was refreshing and different.

It also meant that they got to try options that they avoided before. One player always fancied playing a Dragon Shaman, but thought the class on it's own was a bit rubbish. But when paired with Barabarian, it became much more attractive.

Be warned though, I played with 2 players and it was great, might still be good with 3. By the time you have 4 players, the characters will be so versatile that it's very likely that characters will be stepping on each others toes as the party roles are much less clearly divided.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Anything that gives more options is going to help optimization. If the main source of imbalance in your group is player-driven then across-the-board gestalt will exacerbate that problem. If the main source of imbalance are the classes themselves, then as long as no one accidentally chooses a broken option it shouldn't make things too ridiculous.

[Curmudgeon]

If you're trying to use classes which both need general feats to round out the class features, Gestalt characters will end up quite a bit weaker. Feat insufficiency is the chronic problem of Gestalt.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If you're trying to use classes which both need general feats to round out the class features, Gestalt characters will end up quite a bit weaker. Feat insufficiency is the chronic problem of Gestalt.If you treat one side of the gestalt as "active" and one as "passive," specializing in the active side, this shouldn't be a problem. It's when you're trying to do two things at once that it gets messy, but that's even worse without gestalt.

[aleucard]

Two of my more amusing ideas were a Warlock/Artificer for item crafting supremacy later on, and a Warlock/Rogue for being able to do damn good damage anywhere from melee to close range, and still have options at any time I needed them.

If a DM were to handwave the Chaotic requirement of a Warlock (maybe through the demonic influence either being from an Exalted one or it being switched for something not Always Evil), though, I wouldn't mind seeing how it'd work when paired with Paladin. Should ratchet up their capabilities, at least. Would also look cool as Hell.

[kaminiwa]

I personally ban multiclassing / prestige classes entirely for mine. Pick two base classes, and that's your character. It's a lot easier to balance, avoids a huge swath of munchkinism, and still allows almost for pretty much any character concept. It's also fun getting to see people play base classes 1-20; I've never had a 9th level Monk in my campaigns before! It's equally neat that no one has to worry about entrance requirements, and it just makes character creation vastly easier.



I think the "CR = ECL * 1.5" formula sounds about right, but be sure to review encounters carefully! Some monsters just have stupid-low CRs for the challenge (*cough* Dragons *cough*), and others simply assume the group will have Death Ward, or can beat SR 30 (At level 9, this is... tricky).

I also encourage the group to pick up scrolls, especially if they know what is coming. It's an easy way for them to make up this short fall, but it only works if they have a decent sense of where they should be spending their money.

Do NOT be stingy on loot - it's really the only way for the PCs to make up those shortfalls :)



Regarding multiple players, I'm now up to 5, and they still manage to specialize fairly well. The action economy really helps here: A Wizard/Cleric is still limited to casting one or the other each round, so if you have two of them, one can focus on Wizardly spells, and the other focuses on Clerical. When they run low, they can switch roles and exhaust the other half of their resource pool.

Teamwork-oriented characters really help, too: A Scout/Monk that sets up flanks is wonderful to have in the group, even if they're not topping the "DPS charts." An Artificer is utterly indispensable for buffing, despite being otherwise horrible at affecting combat.

[kaminiwa]

If a DM were to handwave the Chaotic requirement of a Warlock (maybe through the demonic influence either being from an Exalted one or it being switched for something not Always Evil), though, I wouldn't mind seeing how it'd work when paired with Paladin. Should ratchet up their capabilities, at least. Would also look cool as Hell.

I've always run a house-rule dropping alignment restrictions on all classes. My current gestalt game has a Chaotic Evil Paladin/Warlock, and it is indeed utterly awesome :)

[Greenish]

I personally ban multiclassing / prestige classes entirely for mine. Pick two base classes, and that's your character. It's a lot easier to balance, avoids a huge swath of munchkinism, and still allows almost for pretty much any character concept. It's also fun getting to see people play base classes 1-20; I've never had a 9th level Monk in my campaigns before! It's equally neat that no one has to worry about entrance requirements, and it just makes character creation vastly easier.That's actually a pretty good idea, especially for groups with new players or people who aren't that interested in character building. With some forethought (and a not-too-high op level), 20//20 makes for a fairly simple but elegant build.


I think the "CR = ECL * 1.5" formula sounds about right, but be sure to review encounters carefully! Some monsters just have stupid-low CRs for the challenge (*cough* Dragons *cough*), and others simply assume the group will have Death Ward, or can beat SR 30 (At level 9, this is... tricky).Also true. Another thing to watch out for are the gimmick monsters whose CR comes largely from a single save-or-lose ability, since gestalt characters often have more good saves than the system expects (though that's not always true).

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

If the gimmick is an SLA that doesn't have a save, however, it is often much more problematic for gestalt characters, as they simply don't yet have the tools to deal with it. For instance, enemies with Blasphemy don't care that your small number hit dice are better than normal; they just kill/paralyze you unless you've prepared very specific countermeasures.