2-player Gestalt versus 4-player standard 3.5

[Magma Armor0]

Greetings and good day, fellow playgrounders. I'm just gonna throw the situation at all of you, and you can pick and choose how/what you want to answer (some of this is DM tips, some is character creation/optimization, some is I don't even know what)

The situation:
So my wife and I want to play D&D occasionally, just the two of us. However, this is rather tricky, given that a DM is needed, and a 1 player adventure is just awkward. As such, the "method" (if it can even be called that) we've been using is to grab free adventure modules from the internet, not read them at all, and send our gestalt characters at them, reading the descriptions for each room as we come to it (using 2 gestalt characters to substitute for the intended 4 character party). As such, I have a few areas I'm asking for help from the playground in:

1. Tips on co-DMing while we are also the players. Personal experiences work great. Also take note that my wife does not enjoy all the stuff that is not actually playing the game, so "having each of us design half the encounter, then smooshing them together" won't work for this.

2. Tips on modules. Finding good free ones online (where the links aren't broken). Balancing encounters. Trying to get a sense of a cohesive storyline between encounters. Everything and anything you can suggest would be welcomed

3. Tips on character building. We've agreed to gestalt, and we've each gotten a free +2LA race (already bought off) to compensate for the reduction in action economy. Current builds are below.

4. Reward balancing: very specific instance. Our characters, as a reward for finishing a recent module were allowed to choose between a defensive and an offensive reward. Mine chose defensive, and received the "Mantle of the Fiery Spirit" spell, granting him the fire subtype. My wife's character chose offensive, but I'm not sure what, exactly to give her that's balanced against the fire subtype thing (see her build details below for additional info.)

5. Any additional tips that I haven't thought of are appreciated.

Character details:

Note: as a houserule, we get feats every level EXCEPT levels that give ability score increases.

Duskblade 9/Beguiler 6; Rainbow Servant 3
Race is a Primordial (choosing invisibility for the SLA) Half-Ogre. Current Stats:
STR 22, DEX 14, CON 14, INT 22, WIS 15, CHA 14

Traits: Musclebound, Aggressive. Flaws: Innattentive, Murky-eyed
Feats: Apprentice (spellcaster), Combat Expertise, Improved trip, Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Spiked Chain), Mentor(Spellcaster), combat reflexes, item familiar, Large and in Charge, Knock-Down

Overall, going for a tripper/AoO build to maximize application of full-attack channeling, using beguiler/rainbow servant to add cleric spells to list for channeling purposes. Also note: as part of a ritual given as a quest reward, he has Regeneration 2 (as a troll, but smaller).
Places I really could use help: 1. feat recommendations 2. Spells that would be good to channel from the cleric list 3. what else to do with the build after Rainbow Servant 10 and Duskblade 13.


Basically, she wants to be Black Widow from the avengers. So far, we've been doing a swift hunter thing with ascetic hunter redone to unarmed swordsage instead of monk.

Ranger 6; ?3/Rogue 1; Swordsage 2; Scout 3; ?3
(not sure what to do with 3 levels on each side of the gestalt here)
Race: Deepwyrm Drow (she always plays drow)
Traits: Quick, Aggressive
Flaws: Shaky, Murky-Eyed
Feats: Apprentice (Martial Artist), Weapon Finesse, Item Familiar, Ascetic (swordsage) Hunter, Shadow Blade, Lucky Start, Mentor(Martial Artist), sudden recovery, gloom razor

What I particularly need help with: this build is all over the place, and I know it. not sure how best to make a Black Widow character. So far, she's been liking the feel of the unarmed swordsage stuff, especially with the Gloom Razor movement auto-triggering skirmish.

Thank you in advance, fellow playgrounders!
:smallsmile:

[Lightlawbliss]

out of combat, 2x gestalt is almost equal to 4x normal, but you still have fewer chances at a task the entire party can make, fewer saves to roll (can be good and bad), and fewer total skill points.

in combat, 2x gestalt is actually much weaker than 4x normal. The biggest reason for this is action economy, but you also have the downside of it being much more difficult to fill the rolls well with 2 people since different rolls prefer different locations on the battlefield.

I would personally rank 3 gestalt characters at about the power level of 4 normal characters, give or take.

[Gnaeus]

in combat, 2x gestalt is actually much weaker than 4x normal. The biggest reason for this is action economy, but you also have the downside of it being much more difficult to fill the rolls well with 2 people since different rolls prefer different locations on the battlefield.

I would personally rank 3 gestalt characters at about the power level of 4 normal characters, give or take.

This does depend somewhat on the optimization level of the gestalt in question. Her character, for example, is a very unoptimized Gestalt. It has a bad will save. It lacks full spell or maneuver progression. And taking high reflex skill monkey classes on both sides of the progression is essentially wasted class features. Ranger really gives it very little other than a few points of BAB, fort, and hp. My gestalt game features a wizard//carmendine monk which is vastly better in melee than a normal monk would be, and far more survivable than a normal god wizard (all good saves, Int to AC).

If character rebuild is an option, I would drop the ranger. The optimized choice would be to replace it with something like Druid (best!) or Cleric (still pretty good). That gives you the good will save, and full casting (and wildshape) will far outweigh a few points of BAB. Failing that, any full ToB progression class would be better. Or keep Ranger 5, take wildshape variant, and then advance in Warshaper and MoMF.

If you can rebuild, but dont want wildshape or full casting, maybe something like Swordsage 9//swashbuckler 3/fighter 2/Assassin 4. It is still much much weaker than most of the above options, but it has better saves, almost full bab, good skill progression from Swordsage, and good maneuver progression. I can see Widow as a fighter/assassin

[Ettina]

For the co-DMing issue, what my brother and I are doing is having one of us be a DM with a DMPC (a character controlled by the DM who acts like a player character). Just have to be careful not to use DM knowledge to help your character succeed - my brother does it by having his character follow my character's orders.

It would be hard to use any standard adventure module without getting spoilers pretty early on. In Murder at Baldur's Gate, it outright tells you what's really happening within the first few encounters if you're DMing (which is the main mystery in the campaign). And that's kind of necessary, because players often come up with stuff that isn't in the manual and you need to know what's going on to know what clues to feed them.

It's easy with a standard dungeon crawl, but even knowing the character's stats can give away quite a bit.

[Groshuk]

I have some friends that when they are bored they do a dungeon adventure with just the 2 of them, they roll dice for everything. Which way does a passage go? Odd is left, even right. Roll percentiles to see if you have an encounter, roll to get a CR, roll to pick a creature and how many there are. They seem to have fun with it and it doesn't take much prep.