Gestalt vs Mythic

[DreganHiregard]

So, as written and by the rough estimates provided in their respective sources gestalt effectively raises the challenge ratings of what players should face by anywhere from about 1 to 3 roughly. And the mythic rules indicate for every 2 mythic tiers a character has their effective level is 1 higher. in theory anywhere from 2-6 mythic tiers are equal to being Gestalt, again very roughly estimated.

This is the given written numerical theory behind these two similar but different options however it's generally the case that wizards and Paizo don't always have the best estimates of power and balance. So I ask you all, how do these variants really stack up? And as an added bonus what do you all think of a campaign where you could be either mythic or gestalt?

Assuming you get one mythic tier for every two character levels what would you rather be? And at what levels would that decision change?

[Psyren]

With gestalt it really, really depends on what you're gestalting with what. Fighter + Expert is better than fighter, for instance, enough to raise it a tier. Rogue + Expert, or even Monk + Expert on the other hand barely budges.

Mythic meanwhile cares more about what abilities you pick up and when. But even just the basic abilities are a big increase for many martial characters, never mind the path abilities.

[DreganHiregard]

With gestalt it really, really depends on what you're gestalting with what. Fighter + Expert is better than fighter, for instance, enough to raise it a tier. Rogue + Expert, or even Monk + Expert on the other hand barely budges.

Mythic meanwhile cares more about what abilities you pick up and when. But even just the basic abilities are a big increase for many martial characters, never mind the path abilities.

Very true, Mythic always adds nice stuff, gestalt can potentially give you a lot of overlap and not much benefit if you don't pick right. From that standpoint they get trickier to compare. What would you personally rather play?

[Psyren]

There is value to both. Mythic still has that "new subsystem" smell where I'm still finding interesting things in it though, so I'm leaning more in that direction as I go.

Mythic's greatest strength is being class-agnostic - it can staple specific abilities to any build without needing a specific class or access to specific spells. Mythic for example can give any class Iron Heart Surge without warblade levels, or give every class a bonus standard action every round without being a psion. Mythic incorporates a lot of "fixed" versions of feats that people have been clamoring for in standard D&D/PF - like Mythic Quick Draw or Mythic Vital Strike. It's also very modular - you can choose to grant mythic feats but not mythic spells, or you can grant mythic abilities to the Fighter or Monk but not the Wizard by having only the former ascend, narrowing the gap between the two. Now you can segregate gestalt in this way too, but once you open the floodgate it's harder to stop - you can't exactly tell someone "okay, your second class stops leveling now while the first one keeps going" and even if you do, the difference in power the higher you go tends to become negligible. But you can stop mythic progression while continuing to advance in a base class without worrying about the mythic ability becoming irrelevant.

[Larkas]

Well, in my experience Gestalt (or at least interesting combinations thereof) roughly equate to LA+2. Don't know if that helps you, though.

[Mehangel]

As a player, i would prefer Gestalt. Why? Because I like to think that I am good enough at optimization that I can always pick two classes that mesh well together without too much overlap. I also know that every level will be gestalt, as opposed to the Mythic system where, one only progresses in Tier through specific encounters.

As a DM, I would prefer Mythic. Why? Because as the DM, it is up to me to decide if the encounter they faced counts as Mythic. As such, it is quite possible for a DM to experiment with granting the first tier of Mythic. If it starts getting out of control, you can simply not put forth any more mythic encounters and keep the party with only Tier 1 Mythic abilities (which arent really all that gamebreaking).

So I suppose it really depends for me which role I would be playing in the game. If I as a DM wanted to ensure party member balance between players, I would choose Mythic. It is very much controllable without a whole lot of rules. What is really nice is if you decide that you dont like Mythic, after you have already granted party members Mythic Tiers, you can have characters lose Mythic Tiers through lack of Mythic Deeds, Being Brought back to life, or any other means. Hell, a DM could grant the party's first Mythic Tier be a Temporary boon by some God to accomplish a task which would slowly dwindle after X (quest completion or amount of game-time). But as a player, if I had to choose between the two, I would choose Gestalt. Just because i would prefer to get my power increase every level as opposed to depend upon the dm for Mythic Encounters to increase the Tiers.

I would find it interesting if in a campaign, one would implement both. For example, upon character creation, one could choose between Gestalt or Mythic. If the character chose Mythic, they would begin with Mythic Tier 1 while if they chose Gestalt, they would be denied access to all Mythic Tiers no matter how many Mythic Encounters they accomplished. Of course, in order to keep it fair, the GM must include Mythic Encounters, to allow for Mythic Tier Advancement.

[DreganHiregard]

Thanks guys! This has been really insightful. They really do have a lot more details to consider than I'd originally counted for. But It seems like we generally have about the same consensus about the drawbacks and benefits of each.