Running a Gestalt Campaign

[Laurellien]

I will shortly be running a campaign with a group of friends, and I have thought about running the campaign as a gestalt campaign. Does Gestalt cause too many problems? Is it really as fun as it sounds? Should I just stick to single classes?

[Ikkitosen]

It increases power levels by a lot and increases character durability a LOT. You can get through more encounters per day no problem. You should raise your encounter CRs by at least 1.

You'll also have to make a lot of decisions about how certain classes and combos interact. Basically, there's some work to do, but players tend to love gestalt!

[The Mormegil]

Since I usually play with a bunch of gamebreakers I tend to rely on Gestalt to make NpCs. They make a good challange and allow me to actually make an enemy bard since he will probably enjoy his second progression much more.

Eventually, it turns out in killing one of my PCs, but I'm not sure that's not what I want, so...

Enjoy your game!
>The Mormegil

[Zincorium]

Gestalt, from my perspective as the DM, is a good thing. The players are very versatile, and so won't get stuck as easily, but at the same time they don't get the higher level abilities any faster than a normal group, occasionally it's even slower due to the lack of focus. You also get to send cooler looking, higher level monsters against them with a lower chance of TPK. Just don't overdo it.

If they're smart and aren't a bunch of barbarian//fighters, wizard//sorcerors, etc. and actually use the gestalt rules for what they do best, they'll be able to tackle a lot.

What I recommend at first is start them off against normal CR opponents and work up from there until it stops being easy for them.