Gestalt Play: What are the pros and cons?

[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

Gestalt rules are here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm). In short, a character takes two classes at each level, combines the class features of each, and, for saves/HP/BAB, takes the better progression at that level.

Overall, a gestalt character is stronger on a per-level basis compared to a normal character, but not twice as strong. A gestalt character still has the same number of actions per turn as a normal character.

So, playground, what are y'all's thoughts on the + and - of gestalt, as a PC and as a GM?

[Chronos]

The advantages are that characters are more powerful and more complicated.

The disadvantages are that characters are more powerful and more complicated.

[Honest Tiefling]

Overlap is going to happen. This can be a good thing, that more characters can work together collaboratively. Instead of sending a squishy guy, alone, to scout, everyone comes along and ambushes! Horray for teamwork!

The flipside is that it means that juggling the spotlight gets tricky. Everyone needs time to shine, after all, and not feel completely overshadowed. A mature group that understands this issue is a must in my opinion.

[Kraken]

The biggest issue I've seen with gestalt play is that if you have players who optimize at different levels, it becomes a much more pronounced problem. If you've got one person that can squeeze a gallon of juice out of a lemon compared to someone who can only squeeze out half a gallon, when you give them two lemons in gestalt so to speak, the output gap is going to be a lot more noticeable.

[Fallenreality]

The advantages are that characters are more powerful and more complicated.

The disadvantages are that characters are more powerful and more complicated.

Basically this. It depends on what you're willing to DM for. I believe standard conversion for Gestalt is 1.5 times as powerful as a regular character.

I personally enjoy Gestalt due to the extra leeway it gives me in terms of coming up with a character's abilities. If you have a specific concept in mind gestalt allows you to do it.

For example:
Excalibard (mentioned in my sig) is based off of Excalibur from Soul Eater. So I needed to be able to get on everyone's nerves, but also have a wielder bound to me in some random contract. Summoner Bard. I switch it up a bit by Roleplaying off of the Eidolon as the regular guy wielding me. I would be playing an intelligent weapon using the Court Bard Archetype in Pathfinder. I would then get to spend my turn shouting FOOLS as my bardic performance and use that to demoralize my enemies instead of buffing my allies.

The Summoner conjuration, mixed with Bard illusions and fanciness would allow me to create impressive looking effects with everything I did. While in a performance I would use my actual action to prestidigitation my Eidolon and make it looks heroic.

From a technical standpoint this is also very strong however. Summoner and Bard spell lists work very well together in terms of versatility, and both are based on Charisma. The Summoner creates large swarms of creatures which the bard is then able to make even stronger.

If you don't know what I'm referencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG-v_G6z_94 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4vFP9ZgSI8.

The reason he's a backup character is I've yet to find a group that won't kill me 5 minutes into roleplaying him :P

[Curmudgeon]

Gestalt rules favor spellcasters. For every spellcasting-advancing prestige class which has BAB or skill rank requirements, you can add a second class to your spellcasting to get into the prestige class at the lowest level possible.

Gestalt rules do not increase feats. Consequently feat-dependent classes (mostly non-spellcasting) become bad choices as you would need approximately twice as many feats to gestalt two such classes together.

Basically, gestalt rules make the higher-powered classes easier, and the lower-powered choices harder to accommodate.

[Fallenreality]

To be fair, you arn't allowed to take theurge prestige classes under Gestalt rules. You are also only allowed to level one prestige class at a time.

I find gestalt easier under Pathfinder as the martial classes are less blatantly underpowered. You also find more classes that grant a bonus feat or two. Also, it is much less necessary to prestige in Pathfinder, as all the classes have good options from 1-20.

Making both sides of your gestalt a spellcaster doesn't help too much either. You can still only cast the same number of spells a round.

For many classes that are already T3, you can just add Fighter on and become a solid combatant while keeping your skillmonkey abilities.

Gestalt doesn't make the high tier classes that much more powerful than they were before. It just means they have good combat skills when they run out of spells, there is a reason that the classes only good for combat are T4 and T5. There have been several threads on how spellcasters can invalidate the skill monkey in 3.5. All in all it's a smaller relative boost to the already powerful wizard, but a much larger relative boost to the other classes.

To be fair, even when playing casters most of the people I play with wouldn't choose optimized spells and in general everyone lets everyone else have their moments. It depends on your playgroup. Adding a rogue or fighter onto a wizard won't make the wizard that much more broken than the wizard would already be.

[Svata]

Pros- Power, UNLIMITED POWER!!! Sorry, got a little carried away there.

Cons- Becomes quite a bit harder to balance encounters for the group, as while their offensive capability has increased quite a lot, their defense is relatively unchanged, especially for melee types, as they already have large HD, and don't benefit as much as casters (exceptions happen, but generally true). So you have to manage being able to take their offense for more than a round, while not increasing the opponents' so much as to maje the game even more rocket-taggy than it already is.

[sakuuya]

Another pro that hasn't been mentioned yet is that gestalt makes it much easier to accommodate monster PCs.

[Ravens_cry]

Admittedly, I've never played it, but I've always liked the concept because of the sheer conceptual breadth it offers right out the gate without needing a zillion books, with some possibilities not being supported at all otherwise.
For example the rogue/cleric concept is rather poorly supported, with the synergy classes as a much poorer compared to the rogue/wizard.

[Vhaidara]

I love gestalt, because it lets everyone be more awesome. Some of my gestalt creations...

Deathblade, a warforged Dread Necromancer/Dread Witch//Hexblade. Abandoned on the battlefield in what became the Mournlands of Eberron, he was corrupted by the magic unleashed there and returned to the world as a walking embodiment of death and fear.

Spiker, a recently gestalt Totemist//Soulborn. The result of Merrix D'Cannith experimenting with Warforged and souls, Spiker is the first Soulforged, a breed of Warforged with an affinity for Incarnum. She escaped and lived in the wilderness for several years, but recently was recruited to an expedition (the adventure). The entire party became gestalt last level, and hers took the form of deciding it was time to bring down Merrix (who it turns out has one of the super dangerous MacGuffins anyways), so I added Soulborn to represent her new status as a champion.

Lord Snailington, The Mountain Snail, Telepath/Thrallherd//Monster of Legend/Half-Troll/Awakened Flail Snail/Titanic. This was for a monstrous gestalt (in case you couldn't guess). I was a mountain with a town on my back. I used my Thrall as my fetch boy (for indoor activities)

We now get into PF characters
Martin Snakehands, Stalker//Warlord. I took massive inspiration from Oberyn Martell (Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones): A nimble spear fighter who uses poison to bring down much larger opponents.

Salish Kalintrone, Summoner//Warlord. Has since changed to avoid massive party overlap (6 Dex based applicants, 3 of whom were also unarmed), but was originally an unarmed combatant who also used Deadly Dealer for ranged combat. Had one ability that allowed ranged disarm. Eidolon was a White dragon with Blue eyes. Totally not based on an anime about a children's card game.

[Almarck]

Gestalt does have one big weakness in my experience. It exacerbates the discrepancies between players of differing levels of skill master and character building. People who are decently good at optimizing will suffer more than people who are just slightly better, especially depending on what class combos and roles will need to be filled.

You can end up with a party of players who are not too flashy, decent, maybe, except for a single guy who dominates everything.

That said, it can lead to some pretty fun scenarios and it is quite fun to have two different classes. They don't need to perfectly synergize, only be useful. It means that there might be more opportunities for some people to do things, even if that means multiple people can do that same jon.

One of the interesting rules you can pull out is if you rule that everyone takes the same class as part of the Gestalting..

My entire group is currently running a game where everyone is taking: THIS CLASS (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/rite-publishing/draconic-exemplar). In other words, everyone is a dragon with full BAB, Good saves on everything, flight, massive bonuses to strength, constitituon, natural armor... ect. It's pretty hilarious really and quite a blast. We would have ran it using archetypes if we knew they existed, but the way things are at right now is fine, so we kept the Gestalted dragons.

As a word of warning, unless you plan to run several copies of spreadsheets, never run Gesalted prepared casters. The number of spells you have to worry about and plan for can be quite tedious, requiring you to prepare in advance.

That said, I did seen a fun combo a friend of mine pulled off. Barbarian Sorcerer, before Bloodragers were out. Rigged his character to do AoOs while he was raging and had an achetype that allowed spellcasting. It was pretty awesome.

[VincentTakeda]

Another danger of gestalting is that its most commonly done to try and mitigate the problem of not having enough players at the table...

The theory is if you only have 3 players, then they need to be able to cover the role of the missing 4th party member...

Gestalting only pretends to fix that problem because, at the end of the day, action economy will kick the party's butt even if everyone is heavily optimized.

So the number one reason people would usually think about gestalting doesnt actually accomplish what its intended to. Fill in for missing party members.

[atemu1234]

Pros: Casters are more powerful.
Cons: Who plays martial characters anyway?

[Jeff the Green]

To be fair, you arn't allowed to take theurge prestige classes under Gestalt rules. You are also only allowed to level one prestige class at a time.

Second one's true; first isn't. Banning theurges is recommended, but isn't part of the rule set. I mean, the whole thing's a variant anyway and there's a lot of lose ends, but if we're going to be technical.

Anyway, a few of my own observations:

Pros

It makes monsters much more viable
It makes some classes (like 5/10 casting PrCs, Geomancer, and lower-tiered classes) more viable.
Monk 20 isn't actually crippling.



Cons

A lot of stuff is ill-defined. LA in particular is a pain to decide what to do with.
Calculating BAB and saves for higher-leveled characters is a pain unless you use a couple houserules.
BAB and saves can be dysfunctional (Wizard 20//Fighter 1/Sorcerer 19 technically has BAB +20).

[Svata]

In some ways, it helps martials too, as they get to obtain the class features they want to be effective more quickly. It also makes Fighter longer than two levels, and sometimes as many as six.

[Snowbluff]

I agree with the overlap and overcomplication stuff.

Pros- Power, UNLIMITED POWER!!! Sorry, got a little carried away there.


I prefer "POWER (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naoNvvQ1XdM) OVERWHELMING! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYgF9vAX5ZM)"

Actually, this guy in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYgF9vAX5ZM

[The Insanity]

Pro - it makes "mundane" classes much more powerful.
Cons - don't see any.

[Zirconia]

One of the interesting rules you can pull out is if you rule that everyone takes the same class as part of the Gestalting..

I'm in a long term campaign now where this was done, everyone is a Wizard + (class of your choice). The PCs are students at a Wizard school, to provide the rationale. One thing that keeps it simpler is no multiclassing or prestige classes on either side, if you don't get enough flexibility with a Wizard plus another class of your choice, then tough luck. :) It is also even simpler because we were limited to PHB classes, though not everyone may want to do that. It has worked out very nicely, we progress in levels based on semesters so it doesn't really matter if the DM bumps up the CR of foes we face.

There was a bit of an issue with people using different levels of optimization, but based on past experience that would have been the case for non-gestalt as well, and since we are long time friends we generally make adjustments as needed. For example; the DM and I designed an Artifact level weapon for the Barbarian who doesn't like to Rage or charge to bring up his power level, we had to do the same thing for the same player in an Exalted (White Wolf system) campaign. The DM also vetoed my request for the Fairy Mysteries Initiate feat for Int bonus to hit points, wisely IMHO. :)

[Wiggins]

Yeah, you pretty much have to use Fractional saves and BAB, but in my opinion everyone should anyway.

Plus we ignore multiclassing penalties.

Level Adjustment is pretty easy (you give up Gestalting for that many levels), but we've found that for the sake of balance LA and Racial Hit Die must be taken on the same side, not one down the left and the other down the right.

Other than that and limiting most Theurges (case by case, depending on party balance and optimisation, once had someone allowed to use Ultimate Magus because the rest of the party were at least that overpowered), it's pretty easy to use.

When we want to really want to have fun with it and skip some of the paperwork, all player characters get the "Able Learner Feat" from start regardless of race, so we don't have to pay attention to which levels we got our class skills, and every character may have one proficiency feat for free too. Those 2 have happened often enough that it's almost a standard house rule.

[Togo]

You tend to get more overlap between characters. As such I find it works better mainly for smaller groups.

[Zakerst]

For my two bits

The Good of Gestalt:
It is much easier to actualize many concepts in gestalt
It lets "power builders" (people who think they're good at optimizing) feel powerful without actively trying to wreck games.
It generally raises the floor in power
Racial classes/monster classes/monster PCs, are now kind of viable
Taking a PRC (along with many other choices) for role play or flavor reasons will often gimp you much less

The Bad of Gestalt:
It is much easier to abuse the system, even without meaning to, just picking synergies can result in PCs that are OP (compared to other or new DMs)
More rules to wrap your head around, unless you and or everyone else has good system mastery and can agree to just "let it slide" some of the time, more rules is not a way to improve the system
With more rules comes More Paper Work, not the biggest issue but lazy players or DMs can be the bane of Gestalt
Figuring out CRs is now harder than ever
If combat goes slowly at your table expect it to get slower

The Ugliest two-faces you've ever seen:
figuring out what to do about LA is not fun ever this is even truer in Gestalt where you can argue for it counting for only one class side reasonably enough, however you've likely also had and agreed to LA buy off in other games and then figuring out how to merge the two if at all is a pain. (From my table : if(LA(number) <= +3){ PlayerA(class1(LA(number)); // if LA is less than +3 put it on both sides but let it be bought off, otherwise...
PlayerA(class2(LA(number));
PlayerA(UseBuyOff);}
else {PlayerA(class1(LA(number);} //... use one side but NO LA buy off.

sorry if the code is a bit wrong but I remember it going something like that, :smallredface:
You have to figure out for each NPC if they're gestalt or if it's just the PCs, or if the whole world is gestalt. (For my group its typically PCs are special, but most named NPCs are also special, unnamed NPCs get one class if that, if someone becomes important/named latter then they keep what they had but might advance as Gestalts.)

More judgment calls need to be made when approving/submitting/crafting characters
The if one person already is always "better"/"more powerful" at your table this will make that problem worse most of the time.
Some things that the game makers never intended to come up do, if you play very "by the book" you may have issues with the increased grey space.
You may encounter issues of "how do those two fit/go together at all?!?"

Some truisms from my table: "casters are still way more powerful than non casters"
"everyone has some form of sneak attack" (note we allow generic classes in out gestalts and tend to allow most "gestalt classes" as well so long as nothing gets out of hand
"hay look at that monk isn't a half bad choice"
"double palis are crazy"
"well that happened" (there will be more of these moments most likely)
"you're/it's/was a what now?" (we tend to play full disclosure at the end of the night)

[Chronos]

People have said here both that it helps mundanes, and that it helps casters. Neither is really true. What it helps is people who are good at optimizing.

Suppose you have someone who wants to play a warrior-type, for instance. If he's inexperienced at optimizing, he's likely to do this by taking the two best warrior-type classes (barbarian and fighter, in core) and gestalting them together. Yeah, he's gained something: He's basically a barbarian with a bunch more feats. But he hasn't gained all that much. Or maybe we have more books available, and he's heard a little about optimizing martial characters, and so he goes Tome of Battle: Now, he's gestalting warblade and crusader together, and still not really gaining much over either base class. By contrast, a more skilled optimizer might combine fighter and monk in core, or fighter and swordsage in an all-books environment, and get more meaningful gains.

Similarly, a low-op player who wants a divine caster might do something like cleric//druid, and have very little advantage over straight druid, or might be a druid//monk, and get a significant power upgrade.

[Fallenreality]

Similarly, a low-op player who wants a divine caster might do something like cleric//druid, and have very little advantage over straight druid, or might be a druid//monk, and get a significant power upgrade.

*Hides the Druid//Monk VoP gestalt he was going to play at one point*

Druid and Monk!? Don't be silly... I never optimize!
>.>
<.<
What gets really silly with Druid//Monk is once you can, replace the monk levels with Warshaper and Master of Many Forms. You are now gargantuan sized kung-fu VoP Cryohydra with full Druid casting. It could be sillier but I don't like looking at Planar Shepherd.

On topic: You do tend to find a bit of a gap with optimizers and new players using gestalt. I usually offer to help the new players in my group come up with a build that works with the campaign power level.

[Jeff the Green]

Yeah, you pretty much have to use Fractional saves and BAB, but in my opinion everyone should anyway.

The other route, which is how I generally ask to do it as a player anyway since it's much easier, is to calculate it for each side and take the better of each save and BAB. You do have to rule that you can't have the same class on both sides, though that's a reasonable houserule that helps eliminate some of the abuses. Actually, it's not a bad idea to treat each side as an entirely separate character that chose the same feats and skills (and has more class skills/skill points). This way you can't get into classes that would normally require multiple dips (like many requiring evasion) early or do something like Wizard 1/Warblade 10/Wizard +9 (10)//Archivist 1/Mystic Theurge 10/Archivist +9 (10). (Incidentally, this is part of the reason I think allowing theurge classes can be okay. The other part is that later ones, like RKV, Soul Manifester, and Anima Mage are actually interesting in their own right. As long as they're not gotten into without the normal opportunity costs, the only problem is that they're much more complicated, and the consequences for that lie pretty much entirely on the player.)

[ZamielVanWeber]

Biggest pro is that it opens up so many options, especially of monster classes.
Biggest con is that is really exacerbates the differences between power level of players and can create massive power gaps between players. I can take a Succubus/Ur-Priest//Sorcerer and enjoy 8 divine and 9 arcane casting, some nice SLAs, stats boosts, movements modes, and extra skill points. Meanwhile my buddy who took Barbarian//Fighter for the bonus feats is going to be left higher and drier than just the Barbarian vs Sorcerer comparison.

[RoboEmperor]

Gestalt only works with non-powergamers.

For me I go monk/sorcerer just so I can be a true equipmentless weapon. No where near power gaming as monks suffer from MAD, and CHA is a must dump for them. Only way I made this work was mid level after spending all of my WBL on +6 stat gear (which made the true equipmentless weapon into a equipment dependent weapon T_T).

I've seen rogue/wizard as well. These characters are actually fun.

Then you got the power gamers. Cleric/Druid? My goodness! double the spells, same casting stat. Add in prestige classes and... it's over.

I've also seen fighter wizard, solely for the d10 hit die. Fighter bonus feats also really stack up with the wizard's bonus feats.

Sorcerer Dread Necro was also a beast.

[Necroticplague]

The other route, which is how I generally ask to do it as a player anyway since it's much easier, is to calculate it for each side and take the better of each save and BAB.

I'm pretty sure that's the RAW of gestalt, because of this clause:

Base Attack Bonus

Choose the better progression from the two classes.
Base Saving Throw Bonuses

For each save bonus, choose the better progression from the two classes. For example, a 1st-level gestalt fighter/wizard would have base saving throw bonuses of Fortitude +2, Reflex +0, Will +2—taking the good Fortitude save from the fighter class and the good Will save from the wizard class.

So the commonly-cited "fighter1/sorceror19//wizard20 BAB 20" is wrong, because the "better progression" is just "the one that gets to 11/6

Back to the topic, the best way I've found to summarize both the good and the bad of gestalt: "It's more 3.5". The good parts of the system (flexibility) and the bad parts of the system (large power disparity) both are multiplied. Only real exception I can think of is that being a monstrous PC is less painful, since you can now compare purely the merit of the class you give up, instead of also the HD you give up.

[Jeff the Green]

Gestalt only works with non-powergamers.

For me I go monk/sorcerer just so I can be a true equipmentless weapon. No where near power gaming as monks suffer from MAD, and CHA is a must dump for them. Only way I made this work was mid level after spending all of my WBL on +6 stat gear (which made the true equipmentless weapon into a equipment dependent weapon T_T).

I've seen rogue/wizard as well. These characters are actually fun.

Then you got the power gamers. Cleric/Druid? My goodness! double the spells, same casting stat. Add in prestige classes and... it's over.

I've also seen fighter wizard, solely for the d10 hit die. Fighter bonus feats also really stack up with the wizard's bonus feats.

Sorcerer Dread Necro was also a beast.

None of those are particularly optimized. Casters really don't suffer from too few spells, so caster//caster builds don't result in huge increases of power. Fighter//Wizard suffers from having Fighter in the mix when almost anything else with full BAB would be better.

And powergaming is a problem only when it results in a large power differential (either among PCs or between PCs and DM's capabilities). A game I'm in has rather ludicrous power levels, but has survived for a few years (an impressive feat in PbP, particularly when the DM is taking AP classes). And I mean ludicrous power levels: my character casts as a better version of a Sorcerer, can cast a number of any number of spells whose levels sum to no more than HD as a full-round action, has most of the abilities of an Artificer and Factotum, and can make nonmagical items that give his +8 Intelligence bonus to his allies' saves or attack. The important fact is that everyone is around the same level: the beatsticks can kill most anything on a successful charge, the blaster has extremely high damage and DCs plus a few other tricks, and the scout is an Incantatrix.

[Chronos]

I have to say, I'm amused that the very example I cited of a poorly-optimized gestalt caster, someonenoone11 used as an example of power-gaming.

[Fallenreality]

Stacking two full casters is actually fairly low op. Spells are one of the things that benefit the least from Gestalt. You can still only case one a round.

The most powerful things in Gestalt are those that give consistent versatility and action economy breaking. Druid//Monk is good due to being almost completely self reliant to do everything (Except maybe diplomacy). Druid//Cleric gives the Druid nothing he really needs over his basic stuff.

[Necroticplague]

Gestalt only works with non-powergamers.

For me I go monk/sorcerer just so I can be a true equipmentless weapon. No where near power gaming as monks suffer from MAD, and CHA is a must dump for them. Only way I made this work was mid level after spending all of my WBL on +6 stat gear (which made the true equipmentless weapon into a equipment dependent weapon T_T).
You do know there's feats specifically for this? Ascetic Mage would have turned all your WIS based Monk abilities to Charisma. Meanwhile, an equipmentless concept could have gone VOP for the simple +stat, instead of items (or just ponied up the spell slots for the buffs). Meanwhile, this is actually a good gestalt combination, as it follows the recomended "one passive, one active"


Then you got the power gamers. Cleric/Druid? My goodness! double the spells, same casting stat. Add in prestige classes and... it's over.

Sorcerer Dread Necro was also a beast.

Meh. You can only use up your spell slots so fast, simply having more of them doesn't do you much good. Especially with that first one, which has a lot of redundancies on there spell list. The second is a bit better, because you can pick the sorceror spells to cover the holes in the DN spellcasting, but not by much (and as a whole, I'd say it doesn't even reach the level of a non-gestalt Rainbow Dreadsnake.

[RoboEmperor]

I dunno, cleric/druid and sorcerer/dread necro were really powerful in my experience.

Sorcerer allowed you to spam powerful BFC while necro allowed you to create a powerful army ooc. Literally could solo the campaign he played in. No action economy problems.

Druid and clerics, I guess it's not different than having one of each in a party and sharing spells, but still, they could boost their AC and damage sky high as soon as they got wildshape. Not to mention being able to spam several highest level spells every fight, instead of playing conservative.

Fighter/wizard aren't as powerful as the above, but the fighter bonus feats basically gave the wizard all the ranged feats he needed to become a legit crossbow glass cannon (dumped str so no long bow), along with enough bfc and minionmancy to solo the campaign. So a god who is also a glass cannon who can make an army of big stupid fighters. Also, fighter BAB + hydra polymorph+greater mirror image. No action economy problems here XD. He probably didn't even need to use minions with that combo, and all you need is power attack to 1shot everything especially with the +attack buffs

So basically 1 OOC crazy class + 1 in combat crazy class results in a solo character. Monk/sorcerer? Nah XD. Monk was only used after spells were exhausted. If I remember correctly I was trying to emulate a batman villain with that build.

So anyways to answer the topic question
Pros: Can emulate a character you saw on TV
Cons: Power difference gets more drastic between the optimized and the unoptimized.

[Wiggins]

Jeff the Green


Wiggins: Yeah, you pretty much have to use Fractional saves and BAB, but in my opinion everyone should anyway.


The other route, which is how I generally ask to do it as a player anyway since it's much easier, is to calculate it for each side and take the better of each save and BAB.

I meant both. Of course in Gestalt you take the better of the two at each level, but by combining this with Fractional Saves and BAB, you end up with appropriate saves, and not some horrific mash of saves gained at the first levels of each class, with some saves horridly low, and others horridly high.

My favourite Gestalt character was a
Wolf Totem Barbarian 2, Swashbuckler 3, Drow Fighter 1, Warblade 4
//
Factotum 3, Cloistered Cleric 1, Swordsage 1, Overwhelming Strike Monk 2, Drow Fighter 1(2nd), Feat Rogue 2

He had Full BAB (+10/+5), Fort 7 (+11), Ref 6 (+20 and evasion), Will 3 5 (+8, +10 vs fear)

Without Fractional Saves, they'd probably have been Fort 35, Ref 18, Will 2 Fort 14, Ref 11, Will 8

[Necroticplague]

I meant both. Of course in Gestalt you take the better of the two at each level, but by combining this with Fractional Saves and BAB, you end up with appropriate saves, and not some horrific mash of saves gained at the first levels of each class, with some saves horridly low, and others horridly high.

My favourite Gestalt character was a
Wolf Totem Barbarian 2, Swashbuckler 3, Drow Fighter 1, Warblade 4
//
Factotum 3, Cloistered Cleric 1, Swordsage 1, Overwhelming Strike Monk 2, Drow Fighter 1(2nd), Feat Rogue 2

He had Full BAB (+10/+5), Fort 7 (+11), Ref 6 (+20 and evasion), Will 3 (+8, +10 vs fear)

Without Fractional Saves, they'd probably have been Fort 35, Ref 18, Will 2

Um, you do know Fractional BaB still allows for the +2 at the start of a good progression, so you can still get those dip-caused disparities, right?

[Wiggins]

It allows for a +2 in each save the first time you take a class that gives a good save of that type, not a +2 every time you take a class that gives a good save

You're half right, I never gave him the +2 in Will when I took the Cleric level. So; +7,+6,+5

Without Fractional it would be +14,+11,+8

Are you arguing that that's more appropriate for Level 10?

In my opinion, Fractional is an absolute necessity for any time you lower penalties for multiclassing in D&D

[Jeff the Green]

It allows for a +2 in each save the first time you take a class that gives a good save of that type, not a +2 every time you take a class that gives a good save

Nope. Reread Unearthed Arcana. It's pretty explicit about getting the +2, and its included in the example. Using fractional rules never results in lower saves or BAB.

And, honestly, I'm fine with high saves for multiclassed characters. Those tend to be mundanes and could use the help.

[Chronos]

someonenoone11, those characters were powerful because casters are powerful, not because they got a big boost from gestalt.


Sorcerer allowed you to spam powerful BFC while necro allowed you to create a powerful army ooc. Literally could solo the campaign he played in. No action economy problems.
You know who else could do the exact same thing? A pure sorcerer with Animate Dead as a spell known.


Druid and clerics, I guess it's not different than having one of each in a party and sharing spells, but still, they could boost their AC and damage sky high as soon as they got wildshape. Not to mention being able to spam several highest level spells every fight, instead of playing conservative.
No, it's not like having one of each, because one of each could both cast in the same round. And a pure druid can also boost their combat stats sky high as soon as they get wildshape. Adding cleric lets you boost them a little higher, sure, but it's not as big a difference as adding, say, monk, Master of Many Forms, and Warshaper instead.

[Fallenreality]

No, it's not like having one of each, because one of each could both cast in the same round. And a pure druid can also boost their combat stats sky high as soon as they get wildshape. Adding cleric lets you boost them a little higher, sure, but it's not as big a difference as adding, say, monk, Master of Many Forms, and Warshaper instead.

Don't forget your Vow of Poverty on that Druid//Monk. Some of those exalted feats are great for Druid. I personally like the one that gives you blink dog form.

[atemu1234]

Don't forget your Vow of Poverty on that Druid//Monk. Some of those exalted feats are great for Druid. I personally like the one that gives you blink dog form.

The only VoP monk that's ever fun to play.

Though I did once stick it on a gold dragon and throw it at an evil party. That was fun.

[RoboEmperor]

You know who else could do the exact same thing? A pure sorcerer with Animate Dead as a spell known.

Nah, tried it, but sorcerers got no ability to heal their undead, unless of course, you go lord of the uttercold with wall of fire but that's gonna eat up a ton of feats.

I'll admit cleric/druid is not as OP compared to the others, but it's still very powerful as you can deal damage, tank hits, heal, summon minions, and BFC like a boss. Pure blaster is viable with so many spells per day, which is often the limiting factor for low level blasters. So throw a BFC, AoE Blast the crap out of everything, then finish up with your melee, all the while taking virtually no damage, and be able to do this every fight.

But still, you can see the difference between a gestalt whose foundation is based on performance rather than theme, which um... proves no one wrong in this thread? Iunno, just sharing my opinion :\, Even if it's stated before.


I have to say, I'm amused that the very example I cited of a poorly-optimized gestalt caster, someonenoone11 used as an example of power-gaming.

Huh, I missed this post earlier XD. I'll be honest, I haven't played that many gestalt games (I think... 2), but I still remember a bear with 30 ac walking around destroying everything with call lightning and flame strike all day, while throwing entangles around too. Anyways, compared to my sorcerer monk, the 3 builds I mentioned severely surpassed my character, and the players built them for performance rather than theme. Thank god sorcerers are tier 2 other wise I would've been dead weight.

It's coming back to me now. I was playing a fire based blaster in order to attempt to copy a guy I saw on Teen Titans. Man, how childish I was back then XD.

But Chronos is probably right. The cleric/druid was focusing on blasting, which is why the huge number of spells per day caught my eye as too powerful, but we all know how low-op blasting is. But that was way back, when i thought sorcerers > wizards in every way possible. Funny how new knowledge doesn't affect old memories unless specifically examined.

[Chronos]

Nah, tried it, but sorcerers got no ability to heal their undead, unless of course, you go lord of the uttercold with wall of fire but that's gonna eat up a ton of feats.
Or unless you just carry around a bag of black sand.


Huh, I missed this post earlier XD. I'll be honest, I haven't played that many gestalt games (I think... 2), but I still remember a bear with 30 ac walking around destroying everything with call lightning and flame strike all day, while throwing entangles around too.
In other words, a druid. What's the cleric getting you, there?

[SwordChucks]

As a DM gestalt lets you throw different types of encounters at a party because the players are more likely to have a way to win*. If nothing else the illusion of power the PCs get is nice and increased options help to prevent boredom.

"Oh noes the bad guys have SR! Better sword them up." or "Oh noes the bad guys are combat beasts! Better use a save-or-suck."



*This is of course meant for a low OP party. Casters usually don't care about SR anyway.

[Vaern]

The biggest problem I can see with gestalt characters is that it might tempt you to roll a character whose class combination causes MAD. But then again, if you stick with the active/passive class combinations that have already been mentioned, that won't cause too many problems.

[atemu1234]

The biggest problem I can see with gestalt characters is that it might tempt you to roll a character whose class combination causes MAD. But then again, if you stick with the active/passive class combinations that have already been mentioned, that won't cause too many problems.

Quorbred Wizard // Sorcerer say what?

[Jeff the Green]

Quorbred Wizard // Sorcerer say what?

Alas, quorbred only changes the DCs, so you still need Charisma. Its why it's better for something with SLAs or Su abilities. If you really want Intelligence-based Sorcerer casting in 3.5 you need to be a riddled dragon.

[Almarck]

On the topic of Sorcerer Gestalts in Pathfinder.

There's taking Sage Bloodline for Sorcerer to make Int your casting stat, THEN taking Wizard for the benefits of both spontaneous and prepared casting.

Or just taking Oracle and Sorcerer since this makes you a double Learned caster using both the Priest and Wizard spell lists.

[Fallenreality]

On the topic of Sorcerer Gestalts in Pathfinder.

There's taking Sage Bloodline for Sorcerer to make Int your casting stat, THEN taking Wizard for the benefits of both spontaneous and prepared casting.

Or just taking Oracle and Sorcerer since this makes you a double Learned caster using both the Priest and Wizard spell lists.

See, this still isn't a very effective gestalt. A full caster makes a great half of a gestalt. If you're doing Pathfinder why not combine your int based Sorcerer or your Wizard with a Magus? Or mix your Sorcerer with Summoner for the Eidolon? Taking two 9th level casters for your gestalt cuts back on your versatility. You can still only cast one spell a round.

[Manly Man]

One of my favorites is, quite easily, Psychic Warrior (especially in Pathfinder, thank you DSP)//Swordsage. All good saves, decent BAB, a gajillion maneuvers to choose from, spiffing powers, a boatload of feats (especially the psionic ones), and a lot of potential abuse for Diamond Mind maneuvers. Have Psionic Meditation, Psicrystal Affinity, Psicrystal Containment, (Greater) Psionic Weapon, and Deep Impact. Using your two psionic foci, you get to add 2/4d6 to your attack, and make a Concentration check that has to reach the target's touch AC to deal quadruple damage in one hit. I usually do Perception for Diamond Mind maneuvers in PF, or Autohypnosis if psionics are allowed. Do all of this with a deep crystal weapon, and by expending two power points on top of all that, you're getting at least another twenty-four points of damage if you take Greater Psionic Weapon. Even if you've only got Ruby Nightmare Blade, this is still freaking killer.

[Kraken]

Incarnum classes tend to make excellent halves for gestalt for those taking the active/passive approach, due to many of their abilities being passive, versatile, and synergistic.