Balance question, if you ever did this or something similar, I need help...

[GrayDeath]

...to avoid obvious pitfalls.

Our longrunning game just ended, due to players moving too far aweay (while we are still counting it as in Cryo SLeep, it wont be played in the foreseeable future).

Now while the remaining 3 players and a new one were pooling our ideas, the following rebalance/setup came up, and was seen as "lots of fun" by all players but me and the other DM, who saw some potential problems.

The Setup:

T 1 Casters do not exist.
T 2 may gestalt with T5 and can have a free LA 1 Template OR (if they do not gestalt) get 3 pts of LA for free AND one Feat.
T3 and 4 may freely gestalt with each other (and T5/6 of course if they want to) and get 1 LA for free OR take any 5 pts of free LA if it is a internally consistant build.

All "free" LA`s do in no way whatsoever count towards ECL.

OR: you may play a Dragon (except Steel Dragons obviously^^) of the groups ECL -1 in CR, with all Stats assumed to have rolls of 14. Otherwise they are exactly "as is".

For all LA`s that still count (yes, we can take more than the free ones) there are the following LA Buyoffs in Play: Up to 3 pts of LA may be bought off, as follows: 1st at L 6, second at L 12, 3rd at L 16.

Game will start around ECL 8 to 9ish.

In addition (as it is the same world as the last one) it might be important to know that divine Magic is quite ... finicky in the setting. Usually only Spells central to the patron/the Principle granting the power work always (Example: light and healing and Fire for pelor, or Commanding/Controling and Debuffing for Bane etc), others have a chance of 10% each to fail or be boosted by 50%, and a chance of 5% to use up 2 Spell Slots.

Arcane Magic is limited to Spontaneous Casters of any kind (ergo you need inborn talent, pacts,e tc, to use it at all) and seen as "Dragons Gifts", with pros and cons socially depending on how one sees Dragons.

Psionics are the dominant Supernatural Power in use, as it works "as is" (with the obvious exception of StP Erudite and infinite looping which we ban^^). A lot of Rulers are Telepaths, most Praetorian Guard Equivalents Psychic Warriors,e tc

Initiating, Incarnum, Warlocks and Binders exist, but are relatively rare.


Do you see any obvious pitfalls in the setup?

I am open to any feedback, ideally if you used parts of this setup yourself.

[Kayblis]

As I see it, it's a heavily homebrewed, high-power setting. I'm assuming everyone optimizes decently and magic items are readily available. Would be good to know what level the campaign starts on, and how far you guys plan on playing it.

Going too hard by Tier standards is a clear pitfall, as any T5 chassis slapped on a T2 caster is a noticeable power-up and better than common LA. As I understand, T3s and lower get 5 points of LA for free, which makes Ghost, Lich and Half-Illithid free of charge, not to mention the usual template stacking. If that's an intended consequence, keep it. If not, change it.

You don't seem to think much about PrCs, which are the actual problem with Gestalt and optimized characters. Can a Bard enter Sublime Chord and just be a T2 caster from then on, while enjoying all the perks of T3/T4 templates? Can annyone enter Ur-Priest to enjoy the life of T1, or are specific PrCs banned? How about big shakers like Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper, which derive most of their power from class features? There's a lot of ground to cover there.

But most importantly, if the group is fine with it, you can tweak this as it goes on. Just get ready for some retraining when people find out some specific combo was banned on the spot.

[MisterKaws]

As I see it, it's a heavily homebrewed, high-power setting. I'm assuming everyone optimizes decently and magic items are readily available. Would be good to know what level the campaign starts on, and how far you guys plan on playing it.

Going too hard by Tier standards is a clear pitfall, as any T5 chassis slapped on a T2 caster is a noticeable power-up and better than common LA. As I understand, T3s and lower get 5 points of LA for free, which makes Ghost, Lich and Half-Illithid free of charge, not to mention the usual template stacking. If that's an intended consequence, keep it. If not, change it.

You don't seem to think much about PrCs, which are the actual problem with Gestalt and optimized characters. Can a Bard enter Sublime Chord and just be a T2 caster from then on, while enjoying all the perks of T3/T4 templates? Can annyone enter Ur-Priest to enjoy the life of T1, or are specific PrCs banned? How about big shakers like Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper, which derive most of their power from class features? There's a lot of ground to cover there.

But most importantly, if the group is fine with it, you can tweak this as it goes on. Just get ready for some retraining when people find out some specific combo was banned on the spot.

This.

Also, be ready to over-CR monsters and increase number of creatures in an encounter, because when you start templating, it gets weird real fast. Watch out for Tauric, Symbiotic, Incarnate Construct, Effigy and Entomanothropes with fine/diminutive insects. Those templates can all break the system in tiny pieces if you know how to. Another important thing is to decide the backstory to Anthopomorphic animals in case someone wants to play one, because depending in the backstory you decide, they may or may not be allowed to take Human Heritage, which opens up more template shenanigans because of the Humanoid(Human) type.

[GrayDeath]

As I see it, it's a heavily homebrewed, high-power setting. I'm assuming everyone optimizes decently and magic items are readily available. Would be good to know what level the campaign starts on, and how far you guys plan on playing it.

Going too hard by Tier standards is a clear pitfall, as any T5 chassis slapped on a T2 caster is a noticeable power-up and better than common LA. As I understand, T3s and lower get 5 points of LA for free, which makes Ghost, Lich and Half-Illithid free of charge, not to mention the usual template stacking. If that's an intended consequence, keep it. If not, change it.

You don't seem to think much about PrCs, which are the actual problem with Gestalt and optimized characters. Can a Bard enter Sublime Chord and just be a T2 caster from then on, while enjoying all the perks of T3/T4 templates? Can annyone enter Ur-Priest to enjoy the life of T1, or are specific PrCs banned? How about big shakers like Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper, which derive most of their power from class features? There's a lot of ground to cover there.

But most importantly, if the group is fine with it, you can tweak this as it goes on. Just get ready for some retraining when people find out some specific combo was banned on the spot.

Its up there, we start around ECL 8 or 9. If our Campaigns so far are not outlyiers we should end it around Level 15 to 18ish.

As for your points. Forgot to mention that Prestige Classes, with the Exception of a few martial ones for flavour reasons, are completely out.
Also the Gestalting is limited to one class per side. Will be edited in, my bad.

As for Optimizing: we all tend to optimize in the middle of the road to slightly above, as we tend to go flavour over every alst ounce of power, and both the other DM and I shut down obvious "only for power" Combos down at build.

High Power yes, High magic....depends. The dearth of T1 casters, problems with divine Magic and very varying view on Arcane magic make some Magic items nonavailable in some regions, and overall many are between 10 and 40% more epxensive, but more or less everything exists, yeah.

Edit. As for template stacking: as long as it follows a clear, fluffy path, its a-OK. We only stop clearly brokens tuff (say, half Minotaur double half Dragon for free on a Melee Character, or Ghost+ on a Caster) for no real reason". But yeah, I aleready thought these parts needed the most watching.

No problem with playing Dragons at CR -1?




This.

Also, be ready to over-CR monsters and increase number of creatures in an encounter, because when you start templating, it gets weird real fast. Watch out for Tauric, Symbiotic, Incarnate Construct, Effigy and Entomanothropes with fine/diminutive insects. Those templates can all break the system in tiny pieces if you know how to. Another important thing is to decide the backstory to Anthopomorphic animals in case someone wants to play one, because depending in the backstory you decide, they may or may not be allowed to take Human Heritage, which opens up more template shenanigans because of the Humanoid(Human) type.


As the Setting sees Lycantrhopes/Any thropes rather negatively, I am not TOO worried about one or more players going for it, more akin Casters going free Petal+whatever. ^^


Thanks for the Feedback!

[Jack_Simth]

Do you see any obvious pitfalls in the setup?Let's see...

Let's see... you're going to get some advancement questions:
You mentioned starting at 8th or 9th. Well, a CR 7 or 8 dragon - a Juvenile Brass is CR 8, and has 13 hit dice; a Young bronze is CR 7, and has 12 hit dice. Either blows all other skill monkeys out of the water, and can melee quite well. Then folks level up. Do the dragons "age" up into the next category as appropriate, possibly just taking simple racial hit dice until they do, or do they grab class levels?

Critters that give long-term status conditions (including the dead condition) will be extra-dangerous (unless someone gestalts with Healer of a deity of healing, which is a T-5 prepared list caster with all the fix-it spells).
Inconsistent Magic (especially with no T1's): Few folks are going to want to play a caster. You're going to be missing out on a lot of your combat actions if you do. Expect to see more melee and skillmonkey types. This will in turn exacerbate a different problem: "Day after" spells. The game assumes you'll have access to a Cleric, who'll be able to prepare (Lesser / Greater) Restoration, Break Enchantment, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Raise Dead, et cetera as the need arises. With no T1's, you have no Clerics. With inconsistent magic, the Favored Soul (if you even have one!) is liable to be wasting spell slots to fix the problems... if the FS player even took that spell. Thus, things that grant long-term status conditions will be extra-dangerous (unless someone bites the bullet and grabs Healer).

[jdizzlean]

also, only blocking out steel dragons is fine, but gem dragons, mercury, tome, all these things especially when you add the cheese that is lore drake or wrym of war or the like that is free.


all the "free" LA also sounds a bit hinky, especially since there are different amounts of free LA based off what you're gestalting w/. it really sounds like a nightmare. I'd go w/ 1 of those things instead of all of them conclusive

[MisterKaws]

also, only blocking out steel dragons is fine, but gem dragons, mercury, tome, all these things especially when you add the cheese that is lore drake or wrym of war or the like that is free.


all the "free" LA also sounds a bit hinky, especially since there are different amounts of free LA based off what you're gestalting w/. it really sounds like a nightmare. I'd go w/ 1 of those things instead of all of them conclusive

For Loredrake Tome and Hex Dragons you might as well treat their RHD+LA as the actual level, because they have caster levels equal to HD. They work pretty much exactly like Sorcerer/Fighter Gestalts with some extra bonuses. They're pretty decent to play like that, actually. Not that overpowered.

[False God]

My first thought is: sounds fiddly. Not bad or good really just like it's over-complicating things.

I'm not sure what power level you're saving by banning tier 1 classes and then allowing dragons, or anything else that's allowed in that list. You'll get some serious power boots to T2's by sticking them on top of T5's, and not even "I have to really try hard to make this work." just a kind of "Yeah that's the natural outcome of putting these things together."

And it's relevant how you allow dragons to "level up", do they start taking classes or can they get a new age category every 3HD, ie: every 3 levels? Either one will result in a dramatic power boost.

I guess to me it sounds like you want to ban high powered things....but then play high powered things. So I'm confused on the purpose of the banning.

[Segev]

I’ll bite: why are steel dragons “obviously” disallowed when other dragons are not?

[MisterKaws]

I’ll bite: why are steel dragons “obviously” disallowed when other dragons are not?

Steel Dragons are notoriously under-CRed. From Young and onwards they have the highest Caster Level for their respective CRs and at pretty much all ages they have the highest HD for their CR among dragons(and most other monsters except Undead and Constructs, to be fair).

If you add Loredrake to it(which you shouldn't because it is a Faerun-only dragon as far as 1st-party books go), it just breaks the CR system in little pieces.

[GrayDeath]

As Mr. Kaws says, Steel Dragons are more or less out of the Box Sorcerer Gishes, instead of Dragons with a little bit of Casting tacked on (the ones we allow), so yeah, them and Loredrake are out.

As for progressing Dragons: We will let them level up Dragon HD; and every time they would advance an Age Category, they do (there is even some in Setting explanation, though I dont know it yet, they are the other DM`s baby^^).


@ false God: Power we are fine with, prefer it,even. Power in EVERYTHING we are not, hence why the setting didnt have prepared Casters to start with, but later on we allowed the lower powered ones normally, just removed the Tier 1s.

[False God]

As Mr. Kaws says, Steel Dragons are more or less out of the Box Sorcerer Gishes, instead of Dragons with a little bit of Casting tacked on (the ones we allow), so yeah, them and Loredrake are out.
Yeah but if you stick a Sorcerer on top of a Fighter you basically have a loredrake, messy napkin math aside, end result is: "spontaneous caster + fighter ~= loredrake".


As for progressing Dragons: We will let them level up Dragon HD; and every time they would advance an Age Category, they do (there is even some in Setting explanation, though I dont know it yet, they are the other DM`s baby^^).
So depending on your rate of level progression, this could be HUGE, but at the same time, with Gestalt characters it might not be that big of a deal


@ false God: Power we are fine with, prefer it,even. Power in EVERYTHING we are not, hence why the setting didnt have prepared Casters to start with, but later on we allowed the lower powered ones normally, just removed the Tier 1s.
I mean, if it's a setting thing sure ok. On it's own the pure restriction on T1 classes will mostly result in somewhat lower power and significantly reduced available healing. (as now you would have to specifically build a primary-role-healer, and IME people just don't do that) But I think the gestalt element undoes a dramatic amount of that power reduction.

I can't say I've done much gestalt. I have however run dragons.

Big ones too.

The end result is: throw your CR guides out the window. Take every monster in the book and toss it in the garbage. Then custom-build every monster you expect your players to fight. Even a party of low-CR dragons (I ran a 5E and 3.5/Pathfinder party of whelps using the same system of "every 3 levels you gain an age category") can trounce a lot of appropriate CR encounters. The biggest element is sheer survivability (large HD and high Con) combined with multiple movement modes (flight, swim, burrow) It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun.

I also did a "you can be X level or level X-Y with 1 template of LA Y" templates are a lot easier to balance around. Much less comprehensive packages than gestalt or dragons (mostly).