Tristalt? what is that?

[borninbones]

Ok so I have seen a link for a game talking about tristalts. How do those work? In reference to tiers, do they factor into the creation? IE can i play a cleric/artificer/wizard? cuz I mean seriously what kind of challenge rating would I be setting up for these characters? What would be challenging for a party of 4 tristalts? This seems very extreme to me and I suppose trial and error would probably be the best depending on each group individually, however I thought someone here might be able to provide me advice/rulings on how these things work and how to challenge them

[ryu]

Ok so I have seen a link for a game talking about tristalts. How do those work? In reference to tiers, do they factor into the creation? IE can i play a cleric/artificer/wizard? cuz I mean seriously what kind of challenge rating would I be setting up for these characters? What would be challenging for a party of 4 tristalts? This seems very extreme to me and I suppose trial and error would probably be the best depending on each group individually, however I thought someone here might be able to provide me advice/rulings on how these things work and how to challenge them

Tristalt is essentially gestalting except you tack on two classes by gestalt rules instead of one. The only way to make the game challenging with that setup given all the variance would be to look very carefully at character sheets to get a deep understanding of player abilities and play to that. Also during character creation you kinda have to be extremely careful. It's very easy to make power gaps that would normally happen due to tiers much wider if the group isn't highly experienced.

[(Un)Inspired]

What is tristalt? Madness my friend. Naught but madness.

Most joking aside. Tristalt is what it sounds like. It can be very tricky to accurately balance encounters when one guy brings a Fighter///Ranger///Rogue that he declares to be unstoppable in combat and someone else (me) plays a Erudite///Archivist///Factotum. Power levels can really be all over the place as can players opinions of their characters power.

Making encounters that don't end in single turn takes Socratic levels of wisdom.

EDIT: well Ryu swordsaged the gist of what I was saying

[borninbones]

Alright, thanks for the information. That does help a lot, though I do have to agree with the madness comment.

[AmberVael]

The other two have hit the major points, so I'll just see what detail and minor stuff I can add.


Ok so I have seen a link for a game talking about tristalts. How do those work?
Tristalt is a shambling amalgam of the word "gestalt" and the prefix "tri."
As ryu stated, it uses the gestalt rules (which can be found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm)) with the exception that you combine three classes instead of two.


In reference to tiers, do they factor into the creation? IE can i play a cleric/artificer/wizard?
Kind of and yes respectively.

Tiers don't vanish in gestalt, but often you don't get the best character by simply combining two high tier classes. Your cleric//artificer//wizard (as an aside, / is generally used to denote multiclassing, while // is used to denote gestalt- it's a handy way to quickly show a gestalt build) would probably be outclassed by something like a wizard//factotum//warblade. The problem that builds run into in gestalt is that no matter how many features you have you still only have one set of actions and one set of ability scores. Therefore, you benefit most from taking one powerful class and then classes that can add passive abilities, as well as choosing classes that work well off of the same ability.

While tiers can give you an idea of what a gestalt/tristalt character can do, there are so many combinations and tricks that you can pull out with these characters that you're better off judging each one on their own merits.


cuz I mean seriously what kind of challenge rating would I be setting up for these characters? What would be challenging for a party of 4 tristalts?

Challenge rating is already a bad system, but by the time you hit tristalt you should throw it out the window. It will be useless and irrelevant, along with many of the default monsters it poorly attempts to classify.

As ryu said, your only hope is to know the characters and their capabilities, and then tailor encounters to that. The range of capabilities and powers is so immense that there is no standard that you will be able to rely on. And to emphasize his warning again- you must take extreme care during character creation. I recommend taking an active role in determining and testing power level, because if you don't the game could easily fall apart.


This seems very extreme to me and I suppose trial and error would probably be the best depending on each group individually, however I thought someone here might be able to provide me advice/rulings on how these things work and how to challenge them
It is very extreme. Of course, this is a forum full of people who have lived among these rules for a very long time... and honestly, building powerful characters (but not broken ones) can be pretty fun.

Trial and error probably isn't the best way to go. What you want to do is know their damage output, what kind of save based stuff they can provoke, how they can alter the battleground, and any other attack forms they may have. You also need to know what they can take- what kind of hp and saves they have, what they can recovery from swiftly, slowly, and not at all.

Once you analyze stuff like this, you can tailor challenges to them to give them the kind of fights you want.

[Cirrylius]

What is tristalt? Madness my friend. Naught but madness.


I beg your pardon, but you've misspelled awesome. Twice:smallwink:

[Snowbluff]

Hmm... If I were to do a tristalt, the last part would have to be a weak, complimentary class, like Marshal, Truenamer, etc.

[Kennisiou]

Hmm... If I were to do a tristalt, the last part would have to be a weak, complimentary class, like Marshal, Truenamer, etc.

Crusader/Bard//Wilder//Truenamer?

[(Un)Inspired]

I beg your pardon, but you've misspelled awesome. Twice:smallwink:

Hehe yeah I can be kind fun in a god-stomping kind of way

[ryu]

Ah good old Wizard//warblade//factotum which is a gray elven generalist domain wizard who took a few dips somewhere in their to get int to pretty much everything, is tankier than pretty much anyone else, is about the same amount of powerful regardless of point-buy, has more spell slots than it will ever need, is undead, has more skills than it will ever need, and is also better at melee combat than most people. Tristalt is a silly, silly, place.

[(Un)Inspired]

Just look at gestalt. Just a Factotum//wizard already gets all the actions. All of them. It's their turn? Boom, two standard actions without any spells spent. Someone else's turn ? Bam, celerity! I get actions

Now why would they even need another free 20 class levels?

[Kennisiou]

Just look at gestalt. Just a Factotum//wizard already gets all the actions. All of them. It's their turn? Boom, two standard actions without any spells spent. Someone else's turn ? Bam, celerity! I get actions

Now why would they even need another free 20 class levels?

To get a D12 hitdie, full Base Attack Bonus progression, and a good fortitude save for perfect saves, of course!

[ryu]

To get a D12 hitdie, full Base Attack Bonus progression, and a good fortitude save for perfect saves, of course!

No you already have good hitdie from necropolitan. Mostly for the maneuvers and those other two things.

[JaronK]

Warblade//Factotum//Archivist. Because why not do absolutely everything? All the actions at once!

JaronK

[(Un)Inspired]

To get a D12 hitdie, full Base Attack Bonus progression, and a good fortitude save for perfect saves, of course!

But that's like having the worlds greatest sandwich and complaining that you need more pickles!

...wait I kinda see what you mean. I want those pickles

[ryu]

But that's like having the worlds greatest sandwich and complaining that you need more pickles!

...wait I kinda see what you mean. I want those pickles

Also the ability to turn the sun off on demand, more action economy shenanigans than even before, and easy access to the right to kill anything within ten feet at no resource cost. That combo is funny.

[borninbones]

Well thanks everyone for the assistance in explaining this somewhat perplexing dilemma that I was having. I will now have to try and find a tristalt campaign.

[Psyren]

Factotum//Stp Erudite//Psionic Artificer would be fun

[Jgosse]

Goliath barbarian//fighter//wu gen

Giant size at 20th level with greater and reckless rage probably have something like 80STR with a great horn Great hammer I would guess Colossal +GH GH would deal 10d6+60(maybe more) so on a crit 40d6+ 240 180-480 on a crit
with imp crit and a speed weapon 20/20/15/10/5 that's at least one crit a turn statistical.

I know there are better builds but this would be a fun build.

[Vaz]

No you already have good hitdie from necropolitan. Mostly for the maneuvers and those other two things.

Undead HP is a trap: no Con score.

Wizard with 14 Con gets +80HP by ECL20, with 52.5 rolled HP, for 132.5 A +2 Con item gets +120; 172.5HP.
Necropolitan Wizard gets 12+18d12 HP; 129 on average - Necropolitan after all costs a level.
A Gestalt Warblade with 14 Con has 131.5+80 for 211.5.

If you need the benefits of Undeath a Gestalt Wizard can get Persisted Veil of Undeath.

[ryu]

Undead HP is a trap: no Con score.

Wizard with 14 Con gets +80HP by ECL20, with 52.5 rolled HP, for 132.5 A +2 Con item gets +120; 172.5HP.
Necropolitan Wizard gets 12+18d12 HP; 129 on average - Necropolitan after all costs a level.
A Gestalt Warblade with 14 Con has 131.5+80 for 211.5.

If you need the benefits of Undeath a Gestalt Wizard can get Persisted Veil of Undeath.

Fairy mysteries initiate son. Read it, learn it, love it. Con literally only exists for someone's fort save at that point and undead immunities help a lot with that before you have better methods available. You also have an effective starting ''con'' of at least 20 as a gray elf. Now look at that total and back to your 14 con living warblade gestalt. Tell me which number is higher?

[Snowbluff]

Ryu is right about the Con score. Missing some HP isn't so bad when you remember that you can entirely dump your Con score before hand.


Crusader/Bard//Wilder//Truenamer?

Yeah, pretty much. It's to keep it from spiraling out of control even more than Gestalt can.

I think Dragon Shaman would count for this, too.

[Raven777]

So you're a Wizard who's also a Factotum who's also a Warblade who's also an Undead who banged a Fairy?

/mind blown

[AstralFire]

Call me crazy, but I'd mostly only be interested in a Triple Gestalt ruleset if you were limited to T4 (maybe 1 T3 if you have a T5 or T6) and weaker, see what you get out of combinations.

[AmberVael]

Call me crazy, but I'd mostly only be interested in a Triple Gestalt ruleset if you were limited to T4 (maybe 1 T3 if you have a T5 or T6) and weaker, see what you get out of combinations.

It's not a bad idea to limit tiers or classes somewhat so it doesn't get too absurdly out of control (if you're not out for massive power, but just interesting combinations). That said, I definitely think you'd want to allow at least one Tier 3 class in the mix just because most of the Tier 4 and below classes are terribly boring. I get the feeling you'd see a lot of the same combinations.

[Snowbluff]

So you're a Wizard who's also a Factotum who's also a Warblade who's also an Undead who banged a Fairy?

/mind blown

The fairy gets to qualify for Lichloved, too. You know her build totally needed it. *rolls bluff* :smalltongue:

[Logic]

Call me crazy, but I'd mostly only be interested in a Triple Gestalt ruleset if you were limited to T4 (maybe 1 T3 if you have a T5 or T6) and weaker, see what you get out of combinations.

In a game (of mostly terrible optimizers) where a lot of players basically demanded their "legacy" characters were Gestalt Fighter//Wizards or Psion//Wizards my DM took a look at my one legacy character and told me to make him a Paladin//Fighter//Cleric to keep up with the power of the others. I wasn't going to complain, the tri-stalt fit my character concept better than the other options, and that particular combination doesn't gain a whole lot out of the combination.

And NO ONE should ever let players play as a Samurai without automatically gestalting both versions together. It's just plain cruel otherwise.

[AstralFire]

It's not a bad idea to limit tiers or classes somewhat so it doesn't get too absurdly out of control (if you're not out for massive power, but just interesting combinations). That said, I definitely think you'd want to allow at least one Tier 3 class in the mix just because most of the Tier 4 and below classes are terribly boring. I get the feeling you'd see a lot of the same combinations.

Good point. 1 T3 class sounds like it should be enough for variety, I think?


In a game (of mostly terrible optimizers) where a lot of players basically demanded their "legacy" characters were Gestalt Fighter//Wizards or Psion//Wizards my DM took a look at my one legacy character and told me to make him a Paladin//Fighter//Cleric to keep up with the power of the others. I wasn't going to complain, the tri-stalt fit my character concept better than the other options, and that particular combination doesn't gain a whole lot out of the combination.

And NO ONE should ever let players play as a Samurai without automatically gestalting both versions together. It's just plain cruel otherwise.

I had a player who insisted he use the CW Samurai because ToB was too overwhelming (he was brand new to the system.) Didn't fight with him, let him do his thing, then 2 months later I let him sheepishly and quietly rebuild his character as a Warblade with one or two custom feats. :smalltongue:

[ryu]

So you're a Wizard who's also a Factotum who's also a Warblade who's also an Undead who banged a Fairy?

/mind blown

Who also dipped monk and a few other things at otherwise dead level cruft in the not wizard branches to ensure int applies to EVERYTHANG.

[AmberVael]

Good point. 1 T3 class sounds like it should be enough for variety, I think?
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. That method has a lot of things going for it- you have more allowed classes, which means more potential combinations (which you definitely want given how many classes each person is picking), you have at least one class available that can give interesting mechanical options (without giving everything to everyone), and you also even define primary roles for each character more than you usually could in gestalt/tristalt.

[Coidzor]

Making encounters that don't end in single turn takes Socratic levels of wisdom.

You still only have one character's actions with which to use one's abilities. :smallconfused:

And most of the infinite action loops only require gestalt.

[ryu]

You still only have one character's actions with which to use one's abilities. :smallconfused:

And most of the infinite action loops only require gestalt.

You can quite easily end encounters in a single action without any gestalting at level one. Tristalting just makes the likelihood go up.

[Vaz]

Fairy mysteries initiate son. Read it, learn it, love it. Con literally only exists for someone's fort save at that point and undead immunities help a lot with that before you have better methods available. You also have an effective starting ''con'' of at least 20 as a gray elf. Now look at that total and back to your 14 con living warblade gestalt. Tell me which number is higher?

Might be worth stating that then. While I do know of FMI, (and slightly embarrassed I forgot it), for someone who's not either a) current with every single little nuance of book-mining, or b) capable of reading your mind, it's not explicitly obvious. Not only that, itt's Dragon Mag, (not even compendium), meaning it might not be accepted by all DM's, and neither is there always the same amount of resources you can spend on those classes. I

Still, that Wizard is underpowered.

[AmberVael]

Still, that Wizard is underpowered.

Underpowered? But- Wizard//Factotum//Warblade- it...
*brain break*
Word choice, seriously! I'm not sure I agree with you, but it will take a lot more than a minor racial drawback to cripple that build.

[ryu]

Might be worth stating that then. While I do know of FMI, (and slightly embarrassed I forgot it), for someone who's not either a) current with every single little nuance of book-mining, or b) capable of reading your mind, it's not explicitly obvious. Not only that, itt's Dragon Mag, (not even compendium), meaning it might not be accepted by all DM's, and neither is there always the same amount of resources you can spend on those classes. I

Still, that Wizard is underpowered.

Need I remind you that we're talking about Tristalting? When the DM is allowing blatantly more powerful versions of already silly rules variants everything is on the table. Also notice that while speaking I was choosing classes that all have direct and heavy benefit from int and even went so far as to point out that this was still about the same power regardless of point buy point set. Why would I be able to say that? The build is able to literally dump everything but int and still be happy if it can get int to 18. All else is minor gravy and minutia.

[Vaz]

Underpowered? But- Wizard//Factotum//Warblade- it...
*brain break*
Word choice, seriously! I'm not sure I agree with you, but it will take a lot more than a minor racial drawback to cripple that build.

Yup. Psion :).

Can break action economy far more effectively than Factotum, and has every spell in the game on its list thanks to scroll crafting, Wizard learning and StP erudite, no Max limit on spells per day and with a Recharge Mechanism it is sorted, no XP cost spells thanks to linked power, Immediate Action spells thanks to Anticipatory attack.

Xpless Dark Chaos Shuffle for every feat, and can reshuffle skill points on the fly thanks to PsyRef.

Bard 1/Divine Oracle 10/Tainted Scholar 1 to act in the surprise round. Immediate Action Anticipatory Strike folowed by Teleport Through Time with a DC in the low millions.

Ryu, lose the Condescension.

[ryu]

That wasn't condescension. That was a tinge of annoyance at being accused of all sorts of assumptions about you that I didn't make, and at the tone I perceived in your post. I'll apologize if you do, but that wasn't condescension. When I do that it's far more blatant and obnoxious. A bit blunt in my self deprecation, but this is how we recognize personality facets in ourselves that we find sub-optimal.

[AmberVael]

Yup. Psion :).

Can break action economy far more effectively than Factotum, and has every spell in the game on its list thanks to scroll crafting, Wizard learning and StP erudite, no Max limit on spells per day and with a Recharge Mechanism it is sorted, no XP cost spells thanks to linked power, Immediate Action spells thanks to Anticipatory attack.

Xpless Dark Chaos Shuffle for every feat, and can reshuffle skill points on the fly thanks to PsyRef.

Bard 1/Divine Oracle 10/Tainted Scholar 1 to act in the surprise round. Immediate Action Anticipatory Strike folowed by Teleport Through Time with a DC in the low millions.

And then I make a non-gestalt pun-pun and your level 20 tristalt build looks tame. In short, just because there is broken stuff out there doesn't make something powerful underpowered.

[borninbones]

I think I will make one just for fun. Heh i guess the ideas, like the game are endless.

Engineer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114229)//artificer//ranger

wizard//psion//cleric - just to have the best all the time

druid//monk//barbarian - armorless god stomper - bear shape with rage

heh too much fun

[ryu]

I think I will make one just for fun. Heh i guess the ideas, like the game are endless.

Engineer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114229)//artificer//ranger

wizard//psion//cleric - just to have the best all the time

druid//monk//barbarian - armorless god stomper - bear shape with rage

heh too much fun

Actually multiple spell lists tend to stack less well than you'd think. One set of actions to use on your turn and one set of stats to fuel all three makes that choice sub-optimal. As mentioned earlier it's better to take one caster and pile on a bunch of passive goodies without spreading stats out further. This is why I agree with Wizard//Factotum//Warblade, mentioned dipping other classes, and alluded to other feats like FMI. Most all of those benefits are passive things meant to cut down as much reliance on stats as possible while remaining relevant even if a classes features aren't being actively used on your turn.

[borninbones]

Sometimes its not about affectiveness but about <I>all the choices in the world</i> cuz at that point you have so many spells to choose from, perhaps not the most effective spellcaster, but omg the choices!

To be able to say fireball? flame strike? psionfirehurtyspell? I got those. That sounds like fun to me.

about the flavor: sorcerer//binder//warlock (Jafar from Aladdin)
personal Story: druid//ranger//shugenja for a woodland hermit

[Zrak]

So you're a Wizard who's also a Factotum who's also a Warblade who's also an Undead who banged a Fairy?

/mind blown

It sounds like a ridiculous character concept, until you remember that True Blood exists, then it still sounds ridiculous.