Dragon as Gestalt - do I remember right?

[Analytica]

I vaguely remember True Dragons have LA = HD. If so, it it legal in Gestalt to basically play dragons-as-written: LA on one side, Hit Dice with all that brings (like caster progression) on the other?

Am I remembering right? And how balanced is the result?

[AvatarVecna]

I vaguely remember True Dragons have LA = HD. If so, it it legal in Gestalt to basically play dragons-as-written: LA on one side, Hit Dice with all that brings (like caster progression) on the other?

Am I remembering right? And how balanced is the result?

Effective Character level is LA + HD for everybody. The community is split on whether for gestalt that means LA/Class A//Class B, or LA/Class A//LA/Class B, but them's the shakes.

Dragons all have their HD and LA listed on the SRD - at least, the core ones do. Past a certain point, though, they don't have listed LA. By RAW, this means that dragons that old can't be played as PCs at all, but if you look, it becomes pretty clear that WotC just didn't bother giving them LA cuz any LA they'd deem appropriate would take the dragon over ECL 20, and they don't bother having LA for epic characters. You'd need to ask your DM what LA is appropriate for epic dragons.

I vaguely recall that there might be LA for the creatures in the Epic Level Handbook in a 3.5 update somewhere, but it's never something that's interested me so I don't know for sure.

[vasilidor]

for a gestalt game i ran, i only had the characters apply the level adjustment to one side of the class. this included hit dice for things like dragon. it is the only way that makes sense, to me any how, and the issue has never been officially addressed to the best of my knowledge.
an example is everyone is a 5th level gestalt, and you are a half human dragon. so on one side you would have class a at level 5, on the other class b at level 2 and half dragon. or if you were starting at level 1, you would be a level 1 something, nothing on the other side until you hit level 4 for being a half dragon.

[Analytica]

Effective Character level is LA + HD for everybody. The community is split on whether for gestalt that means LA/Class A//Class B, or LA/Class A//LA/Class B, but them's the shakes.

Dragons all have their HD and LA listed on the SRD - at least, the core ones do. Past a certain point, though, they don't have listed LA. By RAW, this means that dragons that old can't be played as PCs at all, but if you look, it becomes pretty clear that WotC just didn't bother giving them LA cuz any LA they'd deem appropriate would take the dragon over ECL 20, and they don't bother having LA for epic characters. You'd need to ask your DM what LA is appropriate for epic dragons.

I vaguely recall that there might be LA for the creatures in the Epic Level Handbook in a 3.5 update somewhere, but it's never something that's interested me so I don't know for sure.

That's the thing, I have this vague memory that some source did state their LA also equalled their HD (making their ECL double HD), but you are right, SRD lists LAs lower than that so I was wrong. Thank you for clarifying!

[FaerieGodfather]

Honesty, I used to be a diehard partisan for Level Adjustment on both sides... but there are how many threads about how 99% of Level Adjustments are already stonking ridiculous in non-Gestalt games?

I still don't think Level Adjustment is going to work as intended if it's only on one side of a Gestalt progression, for reasons I still think are entirely self-evident... but even a corrected Level Adjustment for a standard game is going to be too high for a Gestalt game if it takes up both sides. Level Adjustments need to be corrected differently, individually, for Gestalt games.

Failing that... Level Adjustment on both sides, but cut it in half. This actually makes a difference.

[AvatarVecna]

Honesty, I used to be a diehard partisan for Level Adjustment on both sides... but there are how many threads about how 99% of Level Adjustments are already stonking ridiculous in non-Gestalt games?

I still don't think Level Adjustment is going to work as intended if it's only on one side of a Gestalt progression, for reasons I still think are entirely self-evident... but even a corrected Level Adjustment for a standard game is going to be too high for a Gestalt game if it takes up both sides. Level Adjustments need to be corrected differently, individually, for Gestalt games.

Failing that... Level Adjustment on both sides, but cut it in half. This actually makes a difference.

I mean, at least part of the issue is that LA is just blatantly hedging its bets on the side of "way too much" almost across the board, and is kinda just bad game design. It puts forth the idea that the difference between class level X and class level Y is always the same value for a class/build/etc, and that's not even true of Fighter, let alone a caster.