The Lives of Gestalt Characters

[Primal Fury]

Something has been bothering me recently about how gestalt characters live their lives. Specifically, I'm referring to how they become gestalt characters and how they spend their time when there are no adventures to be had.

The PCs are characters that spend their whole lives training to become whatever class they are, and it's hard ass work! If it weren't, every random NPC would have at least one level in everything for the minor utility it offered in their day-to-day lives. They don't, however, because it's not practical, and they could die trying to get to that point. The PCs are special though. The fighter has been training with his father's sword ever since he was strong enough to lift it, and he's DAMN good at swinging it (game mechanics notwithstanding). The rogue grew up on some REAL mean streets, and knew that she had to get just as mean or end up dead; I mean, sure, she might like stabbing people TOO much, but ya gotta love what you do, right?. The wizard NEVER takes his nose out of that spell book, and when everything goes wrong, his buddies are happy that he doesn't.

This is where gestalt characters lose me. I suppose you could explain any combination of classes with the right backstory, but how do they manage two classes when multiclassing hurts a character's advanced in a field? It takes hard work just to level up a single class in a world where orcs will eat our butt at the drop of a hat, but these guys are doing two AT THE SAME TIME?! Is there a reason they're so much better than everyone else? Or are they just Mary Sue characters?

TL;DR I like idea of gestalt characters, but how do you justify their existence within the context of the setting?

[legomaster00156]

The gestalt option exists to serve a mechanical purpose, not a story purpose. How any given table explains their existence is up to them.

[Lord Raziere]

I dunno, classes are oddly limited to me. gestalt kind of just makes them well-rounded individuals with actual complete skillsets lot of the time. they just pick the skills up.

an urchin starts in a city steals like a rogue and such, but is drafted into the army for the war because gotta make use of everyone yeah? so they are taught how to be a warrior, but also use their rogue skills to survive. Meaning they use develop both smarts and strength to survive the war like a badass, because war doesn't care about honor, so sneak attack is no problem, stealth is no problem, disabling traps is no problem, honestly rogue + fighter is pretty intuitive, smarts and strength all in one package

like, any well-rounded character I'd play wouldn't be a single class, aside from maybe a Bard and thats mostly because they are a jack of all trades. mostly because bards seem like what every adventurer would eventually become after a while: a traveling guy with a diverse skill set with lots of stories to tell from far off lands, so they learn to be socially adept with interacting with many people and pick up ways to make their stories seem more colorful and dramatic so as to sell more people on hiring them to take care of their problems.

ideally the best characters are ones that I'm not real sure about their class at all, because they are so well developed and complex a person that you can't fit them into an artificial box that has little to do with the reality of being a person or adventurer or hero for that matter. gestalt helps with that.

[Arbane]

ideally the best characters are ones that I'm not real sure about their class at all, because they are so well developed and complex a person that you can't fit them into an artificial box that has little to do with the reality of being a person or adventurer or hero for that matter. gestalt helps with that.

Reminds me of Dragon Magazine's "Giants in the Earth" column, where the writers tried to stat up various fictional characters for AD&D. They almost invariably ended up as multiclass monstrosities that the rules absolutely wouldn't have allowed for player-characters.

Good times.

[Nifft]

Most NPCs don't get PC classes.

Adventurers are already special people.

Gestalt adventurers are special in one additional way.

There's nothing in particular to justify -- some people are just more talented than others.

[RazorChain]

You really can't go down that road in D&D. Please turn off your brain and don't ask to many questions and never ever take things to their logical conclusions.



The logical conclusions is that 1st level characters are really schmucks that practically no better than the rest of the population, no training needed. If I can play a farmboy that has no training whatsoever and went out running around with his father sword and became an fighter-adventurer then you have to question where things like training enters the picture.

In our world we now that training and studying makes you better at things but in D&D world people probably have found out that overcoming obstacles (encounters) makes you better at things. Or in earlier versions gold was all that mattered and then you spent an exorbitant sum on training, nobody explained what you had to do with the gold, maybe your personal trainer got really really well paid or your kettlebells were made of out of solid gold

So trying to explain how you suddenly became a warlock or a barbarian....we don't want to go that way. Just think of it as suddenly your character made a dark pact or channeled his inner rage because it was convenient for meta gaming reasons....namely your character build.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I once had characters become gestalt characters because of an artifact.

But I don't particularly think that it needs any explanation. For example, if you had a very high powered setting where NPCs don't generally fall into NPC classes, it's extra special to have the player party be gestalt.

I think it probably only matters for the tone of setting you want. Gestalt characters have more resources and tools to fall back on and use, so it directly affects how useful they can be in any given situation. They are much less likely to look at a given obstacle and either have to retreat/give up or hope that a party member can solve the dilemma.

[Quertus]

Eh, I'd say look at River Tam as an example of someone so naturally talented, they'd pick up additional class(es) in their spare time / as a hobby.

[KillianHawkeye]

I suppose you could explain any combination of classes with the right backstory, but how do they manage two classes when multiclassing hurts a character's advanced in a field? It takes hard work just to level up a single class in a world where orcs will eat our butt at the drop of a hat, but these guys are doing two AT THE SAME TIME?! Is there a reason they're so much better than everyone else? Or are they just Mary Sue characters?

There's something you need to realize:

Gestalt characters should not exist in the same world as ordinary "one class at a time" characters. Playing gestalt is literally replacing the default assumptions of the game with a new, more powerful paradigm. It's totally normal that gestalt characters don't make sense when compared to regular characters, because they're pretty much from a parallel universe where everybody learns two things at once.

[Honest Tiefling]

Reminds me of Dragon Magazine's "Giants in the Earth" column, where the writers tried to stat up various fictional characters for AD&D. They almost invariably ended up as multiclass monstrosities that the rules absolutely wouldn't have allowed for player-characters.

I think that was what happened to the Forgotten Realms characters when they were updated to 3rd edition. Drizzt was some sort of strange Barbarian/Ranger/Fighter and he was probably one of the better ones.

I think it's best to think of characters in fiction or myth that dabble in two things. A gestalt fighter type/mage type is just a gish, like the Githyanki gishes or a elven bladesinger, just better at combining the two. A barbarian/rogue or fighter/rogue is just Conan. Fighter/Bard? That's any bard or skald from mythology, most of which were very accomplished warriors. Wizard/Racial half-demon hit die? Merlin! A paladin or crusader/fighter would probably work for any number of mythical generals or kings. They're just really accomplished people who can indeed learn two things or once, or just master one thing really well for the case of similar classes. So something like a really good arcane trickster or theurge who just isn't as limited as normal people.

Through I'd argue that minor NPCs in a gestalt campaign, particularly ones in need of rescue or protection, should probably be single classed or a gestalt of a NPC class for simplicity's sake.

[Darth Ultron]

It seems obvious to me: Gestalt Characters are just special. The top 1%.

Most people, even most characters, can only really do one thing really good. But that is not true of everyone.

People like: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Jim Thorpe.

Or in fiction, like: Tony Stark, Bruce Wyane or John Carter.

[JBPuffin]

I always assumed gestalts simply practiced traditions that didn’t fit class models very well. The rogue//wizard is a Batmanesque intellect with the toolkit to match, not someone who has to actively schedule sneak-thieving and arcane studies separately; they might be an apprentice to a wizard with a penchant for skullduggery, or an order of arcane assassins who seamlessly blend spell and stab into their arsenal. Just because they’re two labels on a character sheet doesn’t mean they’re completely impossible to blend flavor-wise.

[Max_Killjoy]

I thought this was going to be a thread about characters who are gestalts... not yet another thread about multiclassing and/or how detached class-based systems are from all but the most bizarre settings.

[Primal Fury]

There's something you need to realize:

Gestalt characters should not exist in the same world as ordinary "one class at a time" characters. Playing gestalt is literally replacing the default assumptions of the game with a new, more powerful paradigm. It's totally normal that gestalt characters don't make sense when compared to regular characters, because they're pretty much from a parallel universe where everybody learns two things at once.
Okay. I did NOT know that. I thought the gestalt rule only applied to the PCs. I didn't know it worked for all major characters.

And thanks to the rest of you as well. I really am just thinking about this too hard.

[Max_Killjoy]

I always assumed gestalts simply practiced traditions that didn’t fit class models very well. The rogue//wizard is a Batmanesque intellect with the toolkit to match, not someone who has to actively schedule sneak-thieving and arcane studies separately; they might be an apprentice to a wizard with a penchant for skullduggery, or an order of arcane assassins who seamlessly blend spell and stab into their arsenal. Just because they’re two labels on a character sheet doesn’t mean they’re completely impossible to blend flavor-wise.


It doesn't even have to be a "tradition". It's not like every character needs centuries of organized lore, or structured training from a master.

[JBPuffin]

It doesn't even have to be a "tradition". It's not like every character needs centuries of organized lore, or structured training from a master.

Oh, I agree; was having trouble coming up with good examples while at work, otherwise I would’ve made that more obvious.

[No-Kill Cleric]

I find gestalt to be a good way to round out a character. A religious druid would be a druid-cleric.

Let the players surprise you on how they justify their character.

[Honest Tiefling]

Okay. I did NOT know that. I thought the gestalt rule only applied to the PCs. I didn't know it worked for all major characters.

And thanks to the rest of you as well. I really am just thinking about this too hard.

Hey, better a DM that thinks too hard then not. And assuming you have a group you have played more than a few games with, there's a good chance one of them might think like you in terms of the game and need some help understanding it.

It'll also give you phrases to plunder when selling them the game and describing it. I'm not sure if a gestalt game is the best time to try to run a down-to-earth unremarkable character after all...

[Nifft]

Okay. I did NOT know that. I thought the gestalt rule only applied to the PCs. I didn't know it worked for all major characters. Yeah the usual thing is that boss-monster NPCs and things that were intended to challenge the PCs one-on-one would also be Gestalt.

But the line where regular NPC ends and "major character" begins is pretty vague -- and you can stack on Templates instead of going Gestalt, too.

As a DM, you've got a lot of room to maneuver.


I'm not sure if a gestalt game is the best time to try to run a down-to-earth unremarkable character after all... PCs are often remarkable.

But as a Gestalt PC, you could be a Rogue // Fighter or a Rogue // Barbarian, and be "unremarkable" compared to the magical freaks in your circle of friends -- thus you'd be pretty remarkable when compared to the general population, but you're not compared to the general population because you're standing next to a flying Kobold (Dragonwrought Dragonfire Adept // Sorcerer, aka "Troo Dragünn"), a telepathic bear riding another larger bear (Halfling Druid // Psychic Warrior, aka "Bilbo Beornbjorn"), and a faceless person dual-wielding spellbooks (Changeling Archivist // Wizard 5 / Incantatrix 10 / Recaster 5, aka "Whats-Her-Name")

[AshfireMage]

I generally agree with the vein others have taken- it doesn't really need a justification any more than any normal collection of class features would. However, I did once play a game where the gestalt was taken as a plot point.

This wasn't technically a gestalt game, the DM called it gestalt-lite. We picked a "secondary class" at the start of the game. This class could never be changed, but we would acquire all class features for it alongside our normal progression. The concept of the game was that the fabric of reality bent at one point (around the time of our characters' births) and our alternate universe selves bled through onto us, granting us a bit of the life experience we might have had, if things had gone differently. It was a really fun concept actually.

[Xuc Xac]

I find gestalt to be a good way to round out a character. A religious druid would be a druid-cleric.


If a "religious druid" would be a druid-cleric, what would a martial fighter be?

[Satinavian]

Gestalt is just a way to give characters more powers and make them far more flexible in their individual approaches without just using a higher level and thus making available the higher level powers that regular multiclassing would allow.

It is an option for a change to character progression rules. In game there is not much difference between a gestalt character and a slightly higher level multiclass character. There is not anything to explain.

[Goaty14]

If a "religious druid" would be a druid-cleric, what would a martial fighter be?

Fighter // Rogue

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Fighter // Rogue

In 3.5 could such a character take the Feat Rogue ACF to double up on feats or make up for losing them to Dungeoncrasher?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I played in an online game where the PCs had racial stuff on one side of the gestalt and class levels on the other, as we were all monstrous characters. Of course, I went with a kobold refluffed as a Heinz 57 crossbreed that most resembled a tanuki -- or a raccoon boy. See my profile pic and screenname, in fact.

Anyway, he was an illithid breeding experiment whose purpose was to find Pandorym the Elder Evil, which would then be broken free and then enslaved and consumed by the illithids. Insane, yes, but so were they. He had psionic manifesting on one side of the gestalt, which was effectively his magical racial abilities. He was "liberated" by a human raiding party and then sold into slavery (hence the quotes on "liberated"), and he grew up as a pet to a local lord's children. He happened to be incredibly intelligent, and he spent a lot of time sneaking around the manor, getting in trouble; he especially liked listening in on the children's lessons and learning all sorts of things. Thus the other half of his gestalt being factotum, specializing in sneak-thievery and Knowledge skills.

So in that case, his "racial abilities" progressed naturally as he got older, while he actually spent time and effort training in non-manifesting stuff.