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Muffin_Man
2007-06-22, 02:40 PM
I'm starting a first level gestalt campaign with my group, and one of the player asked if he could get a racial class as one of his classes. I will give them 28 points to atributes, and I'm wondering if this will make him way too overpowered (mare then a gestalt should be) with extra atributes.

I would like to know what you think about it.

Zincorium
2007-06-22, 04:40 PM
I'm currently in the same situation you're looking at, and it's worked fine so far. Admittedly, that may be because the two sides do not have near the synergy that's possible (evil variant paladin and mindflayer racial class).

It's one of those things where you have to make up example characters of both the proposed idea (racial class on one side) and compare it to a viable alternative. Better yet, tell the person who's requesting it to make up the character they want and what they'd play if you didn't allow it at levels 1, 5, and 10 for example.

Then decide if one has an indisputable advantage. If the racial class version does, that doesn't mean you have to throw it out, but it strongly suggests that changes are in order.

RTGoodman
2007-06-22, 09:17 PM
Well, part of the super-power of gestalt is that you get the best of two different BABs, saves, etc. Taking up one 'side' of the gestalt with LA or monstrous HD is probably not going to get the full effect (since most racial HD are not as good as actual class levels anyway, barring Outsider and things like that). I'm not sure which way your player is using (LA or racial HD), but here's what I think:

In my last (all-kobold) gestalt game (where one side was a regular class and the other HAD to be an NPC class), I played a Half Red Dragon 3 (LA)//Warrior 3. Using part of the gestalt combo to make up LA wasn't overpowered, and really it was lagging behind until I got other class levels. Of course, I still had great stats (for a kobold) and a full BAB.

Of course, with racial HD you could have more of a problem (since they'd still get best of two different classes), but most racial HD aren't very good (especially humanoid and such). I'd say this way you'd want to look into before allowing it.

Ditto
2007-06-22, 09:29 PM
If you're afraid of it being overpowered, you might consider counting racial HD against both side of the gestalt. I know I've seen people do it that way, or else doing that with LA. It can swing either way, but it's an easy way to adapt.

Zincorium
2007-06-22, 11:17 PM
If you're afraid of it being overpowered, you might consider counting racial HD against both side of the gestalt. I know I've seen people do it that way, or else doing that with LA. It can swing either way, but it's an easy way to adapt.

That should be held in reserve unless you either really think the player needs a nerf or you just don't like them. Most races that have an ECL adjustment are just barely on par with normal characters as it is, setting them as-is in a gestalt campaign, which are generally much higher powered and deadlier is going to mean they're rolling up a new character pretty quick and it's fairly easy for people to get bitter over that.

Best solution in my opinion is like I said before, adjust for the campaign. Either spread the abilities of an overpowered race over a greater number of levels, or reduce the LA/HD and have it take up both sides. Rule 0 is your friend here, change whatever you feel needs to be changed, just make sure you and the player come to an agreement, they'll be the one trying to keep the character alive after all.