3e Gestalt Leveling

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

One of my DMs was planning on running a short little campaign with a few of the other players from my group. He tells us that we will be playing at level 3, but since there will only be 3 of us instead of the usual 5, he said that he wanted to try out Gestalt characters.

Can someone please explain how they work, as well as any differences between 3e and 3.5e. I know that you essentially take 2 character levels each level, and then use the best parts of each.

For anyone who has done this before, what is the best combination? He said that it will be a Monster Hunter inspired campaign, therefore I feel need something with a high combat capability.

[martixy]

There is no "best combination".

Or if there is, it's conceptual: One side that does active things - e.g. wizard casting spell, one side that gives passive bonuses - e.g. fighter with high BAB, HD, lots of passive feats.

You just get more class features to play around with. And 3 levels is not a lot to play with. Just pick 2 things you like and run with that. At 3 levels wiz/fighter will be about as good as anything else. Wiz/Sor will allow you to jump above your casting endurance for this level by a lot - sor for the 1st spells you wanna cast a lot and wiz for the versatility and 2nd level. But all the passive stuff remains bad obviously.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Just combine two classes that have a lot of ability synergy, one class has features you spend actions using, the other class has features that improve the numbers on your sheet and doesn't require actions often.

You could go Wizard+Warblade, have maneuvers like Sudden Leap and Wall of Blades and use Hunter's Sense, and plan to cast spells mostly but also make attacks when you don't want to spend another spell. You could go Druid+Swordsage, preferably using the unarmed variant of Swordsage, have your animal companion fight while you cast spells and pick utility/defense maneuvers.

[Biggus]

If you want a lot of combat power, Barbarian/Cleric would work well. Use your Cleric spells for buffs like Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance, Sign, Divine Favor, Shield of Faith. Take a feat like Divine Might or Divine Vigor to make use of your turn attempts. Power Attack obviously, and maybe Extra Rage if you have enough feats. For domains, Strength is probably the most useful. If the party has a way to know when combat's coming a couple of rounds in advance (max out your Listen skill, big monsters shouldn't be hard to hear coming) you can be a pretty devastating meleeist for 3rd level

[liquidformat]

So here are some of my favorites:

the one side druid 20 other side (City Brawler & Bear Totem) Barbarian (4 or 5)/Ranger 3/Fist of the Forest (2 or 3)/Primeval 10
Very straightforward build going with City Brawler & Bear Totem Barbarian and 3 levels of ranger takes care of your feat requirements for FotF and Primeval (still need power attack and self-sufficient) the fifth level of barbarian gives a +4 bonus to grapple, in the long run third level of FotF is probably a better choice. FotF gives con to AC and a second form of rage that gives an extra bite attack. Primeval gives you an uber beast form, I would suggest Dire Puma though Dire Lion is very good too; Dire Ape is fun if you want to wield a great sword or something. Druid primarily used for buffing spells and some bfc and wild shape fuels primal form. This is a great build for VOP and a lot of fun if you want to smash people's faces in.

Another great option is totemist/Druid, you can either go straight 20 or add in some levels of barbarian and go totem rager. It plays very similar to the above though a bit more versatile.

If you want to make a ranged character Mystic Ranger (12-14)/ Arcane Archer 2/Open and on the other side Wizard or warmage is a lot of fun, haven't fully realized this one but always a fun concept.

[ThanatosZero]

If someone likes a lot charisma usesage, I have here for the Chaotic Good, the following build.

Battle Dancer 2/Paladin of Freedom 2/Fighter 16 //
Bard 5/Abjurant Champion 3/Bard +1 (6)/Virtuoso 1/Sublime Chord 2/Abjurant Champion +2 (5)/Virtuoso +6 (7)

The Battle Dancer gives Charisma to AC,
The Paladin of Freedom gives Charisma to Saves,
The Fighter gives plenty of combat feats, from which the Snowflake Wardance is one of the most useful.

Abjurant Champion empowers Abjurant Spells. They grants you additional AC by the same amount of levels you have in this class.
Sublime Chord grants you 9th level access and increase your CL using perform.
And Virtuoso gives you more bard tools, plus more skill points.

[skunk3]

It is generally best to level up in two different classes that give you very different benefits so there isn't a ton of overlap, but synergy between the two is great, such as sharing important ability scores, etc.

Personally, I think that Warlock is a great choice for any gestalt build because the only ability score that matters for it is CHA, and to a lesser extent, DEX. A Warlock with something else that keys off of CHA would be good. The best part about Warlock abilities is that they are unlimited.

Also, since you are starting at level 3 you can also look at races that have level adjustments. You can take up to a +3 LA race starting out, which in many cases is gonna be better than class levels in something. You can also go for templates. The Dark template is a favorite of mine and it's just a +1 LA. You could go for a half nymph with the dark template (for +3 LA on one side) and 3 levels in Warlock or some other CHA-based class on the other. :)

Afterwards you could continue to level Warlock on one side and take something like Binder on the other. Flavorful!

[martixy]

Guys. You got 3 levels to work with.

Don't go suggesting 20-level builds!

[Fouredged Sword]

You can play I am going to suggest a magical rogue if you don't know exactly what you want to play. Rogue 3 / Wizard 3 is a solid combination that will let you hit pretty hard. The rogue skills and extra dice on sneak attacks plays well with wizard utility spells and ranged touch attacks. The rogue makes even a cantrip useful and a wand of a cantrip isn't actually that expensive. For a short adventure it likely won't run out before the end. The int stacking is useful, but don't over commit in your point buy. You want a bonus spell in all your spell levels, but don't care about spell DC's because you focus on touch attacks rather than spells with saves. A 14 is fine so you can not skimp on dex and con, with some points saved for cha.

[Maat Mons]

Some of the finer details of how gestalt works will be up to the DM.

For example, as written, gestalt gives a Wizard 20 // Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 full base attack bonus. However, many DMs will combine the fractional progressions variant with gestalt to avoid this sort of thing.

And class stacking feats. Are those allowed?



Smarty Pants Builds

Know-It-All Boxers: Psion // Eidetic Wizard
Use the Psion side to cover bread-and-butter effects, so the Wizard side has more space free for ... whatever you call the less-commonly-used spells that are still good.

Wisenheimer G-String: Erudite // Archivist
Try to prepare exactly what you need on the Archivist side. And when you don't have something that you need, fill it in on-the-fly with Erudire.



Wise Man Build

Sensible Fellow: Cloistered Cleric // Paladin
Use the Serenity feat to key Divine Grace and Turn Undead off of Wisdom. Use one of the Cleric variants that replaces Turn Undead with something that can still be used to power divine feats, so you have two pools to work with. Multiclass out of Paladin later.

[Biggus]

Some of the finer details of how gestalt works will be up to the DM.

For example, as written, gestalt gives a Wizard 20 // Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 full base attack bonus. However, many DMs will combine the fractional progressions variant with gestalt to avoid this sort of thing.


Do you mean they get full BAB all the way to level 20? If so where are getting that from?

[Dimers]

Do you mean they get full BAB all the way to level 20? If so where are getting that from?

The theory goes, fighter has +1 BAB at first level, wizard's BAB improves at 2nd level, sorcerer's improves at 3rd levels, wizard's at 4th, sorcerer's at 5th, et cetera. Not how I see it, but it's a reasonable interpretation of the text. "A gestalt character follows a similar procedure when he attains 2nd and subsequent levels. Each time he gains a new level, he chooses two classes, takes the best aspects of each, and applies them to his characteristics."

[Biggus]

The theory goes, fighter has +1 BAB at first level, wizard's BAB improves at 2nd level, sorcerer's improves at 3rd levels, wizard's at 4th, sorcerer's at 5th, et cetera. Not how I see it, but it's a reasonable interpretation of the text. "A gestalt character follows a similar procedure when he attains 2nd and subsequent levels. Each time he gains a new level, he chooses two classes, takes the best aspects of each, and applies them to his characteristics."

Wow, that makes...absolutely no sense. Look at the tables for Wizard and Sorcerer. You don't get +1 BAB at a given level, your BAB rises to a certain number, which stacks with the BAB of any other classes you may have. So at most you get +11 BAB.

[Maat Mons]

What's the math that gets you +11?

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

How would templates work. Like, if I wanted to make a mineral warrior barbarian/cleric. Mineral warrior being a LA+1 template. If I were to buy it off, using that one system I don't completely understand how it works, would I be a barbarian 2//cleric 2//mineral warrior1 OR barbarian 2/mineral warrior1//cleric 3 ?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

How would templates work. Like, if I wanted to make a mineral warrior barbarian/cleric. Mineral warrior being a LA+1 template. If I were to buy it off, using that one system I don't completely understand how it works, would I be a barbarian 2//cleric 2//mineral warrior1 OR barbarian 2/mineral warrior1//cleric 3 ?

It's really up to your DM, some groups do LA takes up one class worth of your progression (Mineral Warrior 1/ Barbarian 2// Cleric 3) while other groups make LA fully apply (LA +1 with Barbarian 2// Cleric 2). If you're planning on buying it off, it should fully apply for ease of bookkeeping. Otherwise you'll need to recalculate your saves and skills if you switch from taking Barbarian 1 at Cleric 2, to taking Barbarian 1 and Cleric 1 both at 1st level. But the right answer on this one is to ask your DM, but the RAW is that LA works the same in gestalt as it does with non-gestalt.

[Quertus]

The theory goes, fighter has +1 BAB at first level, wizard's BAB improves at 2nd level, sorcerer's improves at 3rd levels, wizard's at 4th, sorcerer's at 5th, et cetera. Not how I see it, but it's a reasonable interpretation of the text. "A gestalt character follows a similar procedure when he attains 2nd and subsequent levels. Each time he gains a new level, he chooses two classes, takes the best aspects of each, and applies them to his characteristics."


Wow, that makes...absolutely no sense. Look at the tables for Wizard and Sorcerer. You don't get +1 BAB at a given level, your BAB rises to a certain number, which stacks with the BAB of any other classes you may have. So at most you get +11 BAB.

But… a (non-gestalt) Monk 1 / Cleric 1 / Rogue 1 has base saves 4/4/4; a (non-gestalt) Fighter 1 / Ranger 1 / Paladin 1 has BAB +3. Everything I know says it is additive, not that it "rises to a certain number".

[Doctor Awkward]

Rules for building Gestalt characters can be found here. (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm)

In summary you take two classes and combine them into one class. When leveling, for every feature of the class at each level you choose the better of the two and apply it: BAB, weapon and armor proficiency, each saving throw, hit die, and so on. Any class features that are the same at a given level do not stack. You only gain it once. For instance if both classes offer evasion at your current level you get that, not improved evasion. The rules also prohibit you from taking prestige classes on both sides of your character. So if you are a a rogue/assassin then you must have only a base class as your other half. And although it is not strictly prohibited, the rules also recommend that the DM disallow certain prestige classes that already function to combine two other classes, such as mystic theurge or eldritch knight.

The conventional optimization wisdom for gestalt is to choose an "active class" that does the majority of the activity, and a "passive class" that provides benefits that enhance the main one. The official rules discuss Wizard//Sorcerer as though it is a particularly powerful combination but it most assuredly is not. It uses two different casting stats, increasing attribute dependency, and you are additionally still limited by the number of spells you can cast by the number of actions you can take in a round.

Meanwhile, Wizard//Factotum is an incredibly powerful combination. Both classes rely mainly on Intelligence and Factotum provides very strong passive buffs using your Int score. The extra actions provided by the Cunning Surge ability allow you to cast additional spells each round, and the Factotum's own spellcasting can help to fill in gaps by allowing you to prepare spells from your barred schools from Wizard. Additionally, Factotum is a perfectly functional class to take to 20, allowing you to prestige out from Wizard.

There isn't really a "best" combination. It all comes down to the type of character you want to play.

-Rogue//Warlock is notably powerful combining sneak attack with Eldritch Blast to do some impressive damage at range and is ideally suited to the party face and skill monkey roles.
-Druid//Monk is also particularly powerful and singly dependent on Wisdom, allowing you to dump physical stats and make them up with Wild Shape. In fact, Monk pairs very well with any class that utilizes Wisdom.
-Any melee build is well served by putting a Tome of Battle class to 20 on one side, preferably one that compliments the ability score: Warblade for Intelligence, Crusader for Charisma, Swordsage for Wisdom
-Pisonics works well as a passive choice in most instances if you choose primarily powers that provide buffs.

[Biggus]

What's the math that gets you +11?


But… a (non-gestalt) Monk 1 / Cleric 1 / Rogue 1 has base saves 4/4/4; a (non-gestalt) Fighter 1 / Ranger 1 / Paladin 1 has BAB +3. Everything I know says it is additive, not that it "rises to a certain number".

It's additive between classes, but within a class it rises to a certain number. Look at the class progression tables: at 6th level, for example, a Wizard gets "BAB+3" as a class feature, not "your BAB increases by 1". That stacks with the BAB gained from other classes.

Gestalt says you gain the best class features of each class at each level. If you have 19 levels where you take both Wizard and Sorcerer, you get the better of the two BABs for all those levels, which comes out at +9. A 20th level of Wizard gets you to +10, and a level of Fighter on the other side arguably gets you to +11 (I'd say it's still +10, but some may disagree).

[Doctor Awkward]

The theory goes, fighter has +1 BAB at first level, wizard's BAB improves at 2nd level, sorcerer's improves at 3rd levels, wizard's at 4th, sorcerer's at 5th, et cetera. Not how I see it, but it's a reasonable interpretation of the text. "A gestalt character follows a similar procedure when he attains 2nd and subsequent levels. Each time he gains a new level, he chooses two classes, takes the best aspects of each, and applies them to his characteristics."

That is not at all a reasonable interpretation of the text.

The text says repeatedly that when comparing the base attack bonus "Choose the better progression from the two classes." Not the better bonus at each individual level. When comparing a classes that have Full BAB progression to ones that have 3/4 BAB or Half BAB, the one that has the better progression will never change.

[Quertus]

Normally, abilities gained from classes are an "and"; gestalt applies an "or". So, let's imagine every possible way to implement this.

1) It could look at what you gained this level, perform an "or", and then "and" that to your character. This results in Wizard 20 // Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 having BAB 20.

2) It could look at the "and" of each side, and then perform an "or". This results in a Wizard 20 // Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 having a BAB of 10.

3) it could treat each level as a named class; ie, the Wizard 20 // Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 took 1 level of "Wizard // Fighter", and 19 levels of "Wizard // Sorcerer", calculating the "progression" of each of these classes with an "or", before treating them like normal classes, and performing the "and" normally. This results in a Wizard 20 // Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 having a BAB of 10.

For the simple case of the Fighter 20 // Wizard 20, all three of these will produce the same result: 20 BAB, 12/6/12 base saves, Wizard 20 casting.

Now consider the case of the Fighter 10 / Wizard 10 // Wizard 10 / Fighter 10.

1) 20 BAB, 14/6/14 base saves, Wizard 20 casting.

2) 15 BAB, 10/6/10 base saves, Wizard 10 casting.

3) 20 BAB, 12/6/12 base saves, Wizard 20 casting.

Next, look at the case of the Monk 20 // Fighter 1 / Ranger 1 / Barbarian 1 / Crusader 1 /… (all +1 BAB, good fort classes)

1) 20 BAB, 40/12+/12+ base saves, Monk 20 abilities.

2) 20 BAB, 40/12+/12+ base saves, Monk 20 abilities.

3) 20 BAB, 40/40/40 base saves, Monk 1 abilities.

Anything wrong with my math? Any other ways to calculate gestalt bonuses that I'm missing? And, less importantly (to me, at least), any of these methods clearly and unambiguously violate the RAW of gestalt?

[Maat Mons]

@Biggus

I'm still confused by the +11 base attack bonus math.

So, the idea is that the Fighter // Wizard levels give you the +1 BAB, because that's the best between Fighter 1 and Wizard 1? And the Sorcerer // Wizard levels give you +10 BAB, because that's the best between Sorcerer 19 and Wizard 20?

But then what happens if you flip things around? To Sorcerer 19 / Fighter 1 // Wizard 20? The Sorcerer // Wizard levels give you +9 BAB, because that's the best between Sorcerer 19 and Wizard 19? And the Fighter // Wizard levels give you +10 BAB, because that's the best between Fighter 1 and Wizard 20?

I feel like that can't be the method you referenced, because it produces ridiculous results in certain situations (even more ridiculous that the one I mentioned). But it's so far the only method I've been able to devise for arriving at +11 BAB with the Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19 // Wizard 20 build.

Though, since you said this hypothetical +11 BAB isn't the interpretation you subscribe to, I guess this debate is a bit academic.



@Quertus

For method #2, are you just looking at the total number of Wizard levels on each side, then checking the Wizard table for the BAB at that number of Wizard levels? So taking Wizard levels 1-10 on side A and Wizard levels 11-20 on side B is the same as taking the odd-numbered Wizard levels on side A and the even-numbered Wizard levels on side B?



Anyway, my personal opinion is that gestalt only consistently produces "sensible" results if combined with fractional progressions (or that homebrew variant of the fractional progressions variant where you only get the +2 to any given save once).

If I were running a gestalt game, you'd replace the numeric progressions for BAB and saves with the word "good," "medium," and "bad" written in at each level for BAB, and the word "good" or "bad" written in at each level for saves.

So then you'd level by level, pick the better of "good," "medium," and "bad" for BAB and the better of "good" or "bad" for each save. Then you base attack bonus is 1 x [number of "good" level] + 3/4 x [number of "medium" levels] + 1/2 x [number of "bad" levels], rounded down at the end (not once for each term of the sum). And each base save bonus would be 1/2 [number of "good" levels] + 1/3 [number of "bad" levels], plus an extra 2 so long as there is at least one "good" level, also rounded down at the end.

Though that's just how I run my game, and is neither here nor there for any RAW debate.



Also, sorry for derailing this thread with an argument over how to interpret rules text. What I was really trying to get at is "You should suggest to your DM that he use fractional progressions for his gestalt game."

[Quertus]

@Quertus

For method #2, are you just looking at the total number of Wizard levels on each side, then checking the Wizard table for the BAB at that number of Wizard levels? So taking Wizard levels 1-10 on side A and Wizard levels 11-20 on side B is the same as taking the odd-numbered Wizard levels on side A and the even-numbered Wizard levels on side B?

Not exactly.

For method 2, I'm doing an "and" of each side first, then doing an "or" between those two, treating it as gestalt two "final" builds. So, a side that took 10 levels in Fighter and 10 levels in Wizard gets 15 BAB, 10/6/10 saves, and Wizard 10 casting. Gestalt that with its mirror twin, and you gain nothing - the "or" still products 15 BAB, 10/6/10 saves, and Wizard 10 casting.

Completely agree with your logic on the fractional advancement bit, just… I've never played with that, and I'm not aware of it being done around here. I guess I should either add it as a 4th option, or specify "if you use integer advancement…".