How well does Gestalt play?

[TyGuy]

I was thinking about how it would work to run or play a 2 PC gestalt adventure. When I searched for summaries/ reviews I came up empty handed.

There's a wealth of threads on the internet about rules on building gestalt characters. But comments on how they actually play out in a campaign are scarce.

For those of you that have tried it, specifically 2-3 players, how did it pan out? Is combat more drawn out or about the same? More swingy? Is action economy an issue? Anything else to note?

[kaervaak]

I'm running a 5e gestalt Tomb of Annihilation game right now. It started with 2 experienced players and went very well (other than a near wipe to an assassin vine, those things are brutal for lower player counts). The players had tons of options, their characters felt epic, and the action economy problem forced them to be tactical and considerate with their choices.

Some things I've noticed:
- Social encounters are fantastic with low player counts. Everyone is engaged, it doesn't get too bogged down, and there's enough versatility in the players to cover a lot of situations.
- Combat runs fast.
- Single boss monsters are way more viable and the fights are fun.
- Crowds are an issue, especially at low level. Once the party starts to get AoE spells, they become less of an issue.
- Gestalt characters have a lot of resources. They can fight for a long time before burning through all their stuff.
- Gestalt characters are basically 2 characters in terms of game play. Balance encounters like you have 2 characters of the same level for each gestalt character and halve their experience.
- If you keep loot the same, the characters are going to be very rich. Consider adjusting loot somewhat in favor of survivability items and consumables.
- If a character gets knocked out in combat or otherwise incapacitated it can be very hard to recover.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The biggest problem with that will be action economy. Legendary monsters get legendary actions and even lair actions in order to be a viable single-opponent boss fight, because action economy is one of the most powerful things in any game ever.

If you've only got two players, consider having each of them roll a PC and a sidekick from Tasha's chapter 4. Just don't allow a Jackalwere, and keep in mind that if it already has spellcasting, making it a spellcaster sidekick replaces that existing spellcasting completely. So they could add a Boggle Expert if they need skills/tricks/grappler, a Half-Elf Noble Prodigy Spellcaster if they need support spellcasting and pop-up healing, a Battlefield Medic Warrior if they need another frontliner with a bit of support spellcasting, a Wolf Warrior if they want a frontliner that hits extremely consistently, a (choose race) Thug Expert if they want a decent attacker who can also do utility, etc.

[dmhelp]

I'm running a 5e gestalt Tomb of Annihilation game right now. It started with 2 experienced players and went very well (other than a near wipe to an assassin vine, those things are brutal for lower player counts). The players had tons of options, their characters felt epic, and the action economy problem forced them to be tactical and considerate with their choices.


I was going to run Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Horrors w 3 person gestalt. Did you restrict class combinations at all? What combos did your players do? Did anyone combine 2 classes w spells?

[kaervaak]

I was going to run Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Horrors w 3 person gestalt. Did you restrict class combinations at all? What combos did your players do? Did anyone combine 2 classes w spells?

No class restrictions. Spell slots just add up and can be used to cast any spell you know/have prepared. I realize that this is a very generous Gestalt ruling, but so far it hasn't been game breaking.
My players are a War Cleric/Vengeance Paladin (I OK'ed a swap for CHA to WIS for paladin spells and abilities) and a Glamour Bard/Archfey Warlock. They just reached level 6.

We've recently added 2 more players, a Beast Master Ranger/Scout Rogue and a Spores Druid/Totem Barbarian. The extra characters definitely threw off the balance of the module as written. I've had to significantly increase the difficulty of the last few encounters to compensate for the new characters. They steam rolled an encounter that I thought would be quite challenging, so I adjusted and the last encounter was pretty much spot on.

[Nifft]

No class restrictions. Spell slots just add up and can be used to cast any spell you know/have prepared. I realize that this is a very generous Gestalt ruling, but so far it hasn't been game breaking.

Glad to hear it works for you.

Adding up slots does fix the Warlock issue, and means you could use the spellpoint Sorcerer houserule variant thingy without a problem.

[Greywander]

- Gestalt characters are basically 2 characters in terms of game play. Balance encounters like you have 2 characters of the same level for each gestalt character and halve their experience.
Is this what you've noticed from actual experience, or are you just talking from a theoretical standpoint here? Because the action economy prevents a gestalt character from being as strong as two characters. You do get additional class features that can stack to provide additional benefit, and even when limited by the action economy you do still have a broader set of actions to choose from, making it more likely you'll have a more ideal action to perform. I've typically estimated that a gestalt character is about 50% stronger than a non-gestalt, but that's just a best guess on my part. I can tell you for certain that a gestalt character with four or five classes instead of two will be a lot weaker than a four or five person non-gestalt party.

To the OP, what I noticed when playing a gestalt character was that I was gaining too many new abilities too quickly, and as a result I would often forget a spell or class feature that I had that could have been useful. Part of that is a lack of play experience, but that's still something that should be considered as not everyone is a pro. To address these issues, I came up with a different system that is sort of a hybrid between gestalt and multiclassing, where only your highest level in a single class counts toward your character level, while all other levels are treated just like the extra class levels a gestalt character has. If you're interested in checking it out, it's in a doc here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XkpH63RskT5akra8IpHP2STak2LeeDi7lpc91fc0mXg/edit?usp=sharing), just skip straight down to the "Beyond 20" section and read the section on Gestalt Levels, then skip down to Gestalt-Multiclassing. Ignore the last section on epic levels, as it is unfinished (though do check out Epic Boon Class Levels, another houserule I'd recommend).

However

If you're wanting to run a small party, gestalts and similar rules mods only partially address the issues with a small party. One thing having gestalt PCs does is increase the versatility of the PC, allowing them to cover multiple roles within the party, but ultimately the action economy will still limit you in combat. The other major limitation is that one failed save can be a lot more disastrous for a small party. To that end, perhaps even before gestalts, you should consider something along the lines of Herioc Actions and Heroic Resistance (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?596581-Solo-small-party-Try-Heroic-Resistance-Actions).

[dmhelp]

I think the multiplier effect depends on how deadly the encounters are.
So if you are doubling up spell slots then out of combat you have double the pc options.
In easy encounters with optimized pcs you may not be taking a lot of damage and essentially have twice the resources for recovery.

Deadly encounters where the action economy is more valuable are where you are worth less than 2 PCs (except perhaps things like Paladin/Sorcerer using quickened spells with smiting and Rogue extra attack combinations).

When everyone is playing a gestalt I was considering restricting Sorcerers to only multiclassing with non martials/non Warlocks (due to quicken). And further restricting Rogues to not combine with extra attack to try and level the playing field between options a bit. I would let people double up on spell slots (when everyone is gestalt).

For mixing gestalt with standard characters I am planning on using the best spell slot table instead of doubling up. I was also going to have gestalt characters lose subclasses except powers from level 1 Cleric/Warlock to differentiate Gods/Patrons (again when mixing with standard characters), which helps balance the amount of class features.

[The_Jette]

I've played some with gestalt characters. It's a lot of fun. Your characters feel powerful, but not overpowered. Any monster that can challenge a normal party your level can still challenge you. Just, you have more options for what to do. I built a Rogue/Bard gestalt and played with two others who were gestalt. Combat is essentially the same, but out of combat challenges are going to be easier, just fyi. Still, I would say try it out and see if it's your style.

[heavyfuel]

Due to how Action Economy works, I'd say 1 Gestalt character is roughly equivalent in combat as 1.33 regular characters. So, 3 Gestalt characters function roughly the same as 4 regular characters.

Gestalt characters also have a tendency to be pretty MAD, unless you go for some classic SAD combinations like Hexadin. So if a character goes for a Fighter/Wizard focusing on Int over Dex/Str, you can't expect this character to do melee combat as well as single-class Fighter who's invested in Dex/Str.

However, as I said, this is in Combat encounters. Outside of combat, where action economy isn't an issue, gestal characters are roughly equal to 1.66 regular characters. They have similar number of skills, but twice as many resources (spells, ki, suo dice, etc) to overcome Exploration and Social encounters.

Personally, my absolute favorite way to play D&D - pretty much regardless of edition - is with 2 players using Gestalt characters. Games flow beautifully when there's only two people making decisions and role-playing and when combats have half as many participants.

While a regular campaign might require years to go from Tier 1 to mid-Tier 3, a two player campaign can do that in a few months. Espicially if scheduling is a common issue for you (as it is for me)

[Kane0]

I was thinking about how it would work to run or play a 2 PC gestalt adventure. When I searched for summaries/ reviews I came up empty handed.

There's a wealth of threads on the internet about rules on building gestalt characters. But comments on how they actually play out in a campaign are scarce.

For those of you that have tried it, specifically 2-3 players, how did it pan out? Is combat more drawn out or about the same? More swingy? Is action economy an issue? Anything else to note?

I've tried it and the PCs have a lot more options but still limited action economy and players often forget things they pick up or how they work together.

If you're thinking about this because the party is small I recommend adding some sidekicks, it's worked out better for my table doing that instead of Gestalting to make up the difference.

[Meichrob7]

The two main issues with gestalt are the action economy and health system thats usually used.

Most gestalt rules I've seen give the PC the higher of the two hit dice and let them roll like normal. This results in your PC only having the health pool of a normal character in whatever class they have that they're using for hit dice. 5E is also designed to minimize how effectively different defenses can stack up together so while there are some powerful combinations like rage and wild shape, you really have to go looking for them and a "basic" gestalt character probably wont be optimized in a way that their defenses can benefit from a lot of different features.

That generally results in very "Glass Cannon" characters. Your players are going to either oneshot a monster or get oneshot by a monster, at least if you're using standard balance and official monsters.

The second issue is one a lot of people mentioned and its the action economy. A well thought out gestalt build is probably gonna have some good bonus action options, but that certainly isn't as strong as a full action, so you really can't count a gestalt character as "Two players" in most cases.

I think gestalt characters should be balanced as 1.5 times their level for the most part, and you should try to downgrade your monster's damage and upgrade their defenses or utility.

If you can get balancing stuff right then there are two main ways to do gestalt. One is to have smaller parties with gestalt there to let them take on full group challenges, and the other is to just have a more "overpowered game" where you have a full party of 5 players fighting tweaked dragons at level 3 or 4.

I find gestalt tends to work better for the former than the latter, which is good because thats what it sounds like you're planning on doing.

Large gestalt parties tend to just have far too much to do and it slows everything down as every player looks over the pages of abilities they have access to and often has a relevant one that requires a roll or some other interaction. Don't get me wrong, players should use their abilities whenever they're applicable, but the one thing gestalt does probably double is the amount of utility features the players have, so your 5 man group now takes as long to get through an obstacle as a 10 person party.

[TyGuy]

Thank you all for the info and anecdotes!

I'm not at all surprised to hear the action economy can be an issue.

If one gestalt is roughly 1.3-1.5 normal PCs in combat, I'm wondering how bad it would be to max HP on the highest hp dice and give the PCs two turns per round. Would that effectively put the PCs at or maybe a little over 2 power of a normal PC? 🤔

Followers and minions could be an option instead of gestalt, does that feel like too much managing a side piece though? Does it take away the spotlight a little or possibly add the stress of keeping a weaker character alive?

I like your heroic actions and resistance Greywander, I feel like the resistance is straight forward, but the actions might be a bit much for a lot of non-veteran players to keep track of. Then again, gestalt alone is probably a bit much for them...

[heavyfuel]

If you've only got two players, consider having each of them roll a PC and a sidekick from Tasha's chapter 4.

My issue with Tasha's sidekicks is that - outside of some broken for their CR monsters tat most DMs would not pick to be the sidekick - they are completely gimped compared to base classes, and yet the book tells DMs to consider them as a full-fledged character.

Honesly, I'd take 2 gestalt characters over 2 regular character + 1 sidekick any day, even with the Action Economy disadvantage

[Kane0]

My issue with Tasha's sidekicks is that - outside of some broken for their CR monsters tat most DMs would not pick to be the sidekick - they are completely gimped compared to base classes, and yet the book tells DMs to consider them as a full-fledged character.

Honesly, I'd take 2 gestalt characters over 2 regular character + 1 sidekick any day, even with the Action Economy disadvantage

I wouldn’t go that far. Sure they aren’t as fully effective as a normal PC but they aren’t useless and are fine for the baseline that most adventures tend to assume (cantrips scale as normal, extra attack plus a ‘fighting style’, ‘sneak attack’ and expertise, etc).

I think they’re just right when you set them up as statblocks rather than full character sheets, it keeps them easy to use for a player already concentrating on their normal character and still contribute just fine in combat without taking the spotlight (barring godlike rolls)

[dmhelp]

Does anyone that runs all gestalt groups have rules for balancing class selection? The rules I’ve seen posted are usually an attempt to balance standard vs gestalt characters?

Specifically, just as with standard multiclassing, Sorcerers give a lot more juice per squeeze with quicken.

And if you are martial optimizing you are much better combining Rogue with Extra Attack than taking two Extra Attack classes.

[x3n0n]

My issue with Tasha's sidekicks is that - outside of some broken for their CR monsters tat most DMs would not pick to be the sidekick - they are completely gimped compared to base classes, and yet the book tells DMs to consider them as a full-fledged character.

Honesly, I'd take 2 gestalt characters over 2 regular character + 1 sidekick any day, even with the Action Economy disadvantage

I'm surprised that the Warrior didn't work for you in play. They seem pretty good at being fit for purpose: they're quick to run in combat, decent HP sacks, and they're good at hitting things (+2 to hit on every attack is a lot), especially if you start with a fun stat block (e.g. something with Pack Tactics).

[HPisBS]

I've never done a gestalt character / game. Is this (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule)) the ruleset?

They can multiclass within their 2 character tracks, right? So for instance, instead of having to do Druid 6 // Barbarian 6, could a player do Druid 6 // Barbarian 3 / Ranger 3.

Each track's standard ASI levels only grant a half-ASI? So Druid 4 // Barb 4 only gets a total of +2 to their stats? Sounds like that'd keep some pain on MAD classes / combos....

But to make up for ^, you'd get all starting skill/weapon/armor/saving throw proficiencies?


Either way, if I had the opportunity, I think I'd finally try the True Ninja build (Shadow-Stalker Assassin) in my signature. Be the ultimate silent track-and-kill character without being any more MAD than your typical Monk.

[TyGuy]

I've never done a gestalt character / game. Is this (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Gestalt_(5e_Variant_Rule)) the ruleset?

They can multiclass within their 2 character tracks, right? So for instance, instead of having to do Druid 6 // Barbarian 6, could a player do Druid 6 // Barbarian 3 / Ranger 3.

Each track's standard ASI levels only grant a half-ASI? So Druid 4 // Barb 4 only gets a total of +2 to their stats? Sounds like that'd keep some pain on MAD classes / combos....

But to make up for ^, you'd get all starting skill/weapon/armor/saving throw proficiencies?


Either way, if I had the opportunity, I think I'd finally try the True Ninja build (Shadow-Stalker Assassin) in my signature. Be the ultimate silent track-and-kill character without being any more MAD than your typical Monk.
I've seen the MC rules vary. From disallowed, pick two classes and that's it. To like you described with MCing within the two tracks in any way that satisfies the MC rules. And in between, one track must solo class while the second track can MC.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Does anyone that runs all gestalt groups have rules for balancing class selection? The rules I’ve seen posted are usually an attempt to balance standard vs gestalt characters?
This can be a tricky one, because there's not really a cut-and-dried answer. Gestalting two classes can give you one of three results:
If you combine two classes that do similar things in similar ways, or who do different things in different ways, you can wind up with a character who's more versatile but not that much stronger. Cleric//Wizard is the classic example-- you've got a huge spell list, but on any given turn you're just using one class' features.
On the other hand, if you combine two classes that do similar things in different ways, you can get something greater than the sum of its parts. You probably know a lot of the examples already; if a build like Sorcerer/Paladin is good as a multiclass, it's only going to get better as a gestalt.
Conversely, you'll also find combinations with anti-synergy, where features work against each other. Barbarian//spellcaster, for instance-- using one class' feature (spells/rage) shuts off the other. 5e isn't as bad for this as 3.5 could be, thankfully, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Ultimatly, you can't impose character balance with a set of rigid rules. Session-0-group-character-building is even more important in a gestalt game, so everyone can pick combinations with similar levels of synergy.

(I recommend going for the maximum-synergy options, incidentally. Having overpowered characters with crazy combos is the whole point of gestalt. I'd encourage GMs to allow things like altered casting stats, spell-based sneak attacks, and "you can totally use martial arts as a bear." Let the Sorcerer//Monk cast off Wisdom and stack sorcery and ki points; give the Rogue//Barbarian free rein to sneak attack with a greataxe. Among other things, generous rulings can help level the playing field between flavor- and mechanically-based combinations.)

[Greywander]

I have my own set of rules for gestalt that I try to keep simple. The thing I like is that it allows you to freely multiclass as a gestalt, and the order in which you take your class levels mostly doesn't matter.

The only things we really need to worry about are HP/hit dice and spell slots. For HP, you only roll for one class, not both. You likewise only take the larger hit die, while the unused hit die goes into a "bank". If you have a smaller hit die than one in your bank, you can swap them and gain +1 HP per step increase. For example, if you started as a barbarian/fighter, you'd only have a d12 hit die, while the d10 goes in your bank. If you then level as a sorcerer/wizard, you'd roll the d6 for HP, then swap it with the d10 in your bank and gain +2 HP.

For spell slots, I let everything stack, but caster level caps at 20. Optionally, you can cap your caster level at your character level. In this case, for example, a cleric 10/wizard 10 would be capped at being a 10th level caster, but even if they took nothing but non-caster classes for their remaining levels they would still get spell slots as their caster level cap increased up to 20. For half caster, e.g. a paladin/ranger, you'd get the spell slots of a full caster, since your caster level would still be less than or equal to your character level.

Otherwise, everything works exactly like multiclassing, including getting ASIs from both classes.

There is also a question of how to handle your class choices at 1st level. The easy way is to pick one class as your "first" one and then use the multiclass rules to determine what you get from your other class. If we want things to be more in the spirit of a gestalt, then we can do something like the following:

Use the larger hit die for starting HP.
Gain the full weapon/armor/tool proficiencies from both classes.
Combine the class skills from both classes into a single list, and gain the skill proficiencies of both classes, minus two (most classes only give two, but e.g. a rogue/bard would start with 5 instead of 4).
Pick one strong save proficiency (DEX, CON, or WIS) and one weak save proficiency (STR, INT, or CHA) from those available to either class.
Pick one class to gain starting equipment from.

Using these rules, it's like both classes are your "first" class, instead of having to pick just one, but you also don't end up with a lot extra. You always get the larger starting HP, which is nice (e.g. a barbarian/wizard who would normally take the wizard as their "first" class can now get that sweet 12 starting HP). For weapon/armor/tool proficiencies, it's not so much that you're getting extra as just automatically taking whichever gives you more, although in some cases you can start with extra (e.g. any martial/bard combo gets weapons/armor and three instruments). For skill proficiencies, it's mostly the same as the multiclass rules. You only end up with two save proficiencies, and it's always one weak and one strong save. TL;DR, you get pretty much the best of both classes without actually doubling up on anything.


Does anyone that runs all gestalt groups have rules for balancing class selection? The rules I’ve seen posted are usually an attempt to balance standard vs gestalt characters?
I don't worry about this. It's already an issue with multiclassing, though it is amplified since you can access higher level features on two different classes (e.g. a fighter with four attacks adding a paladin's Improved Divine Smite to each attack). Some combos will be better than others, but that's always been the case.

For Extra Attack, that's already an issue with normal multiclassing. I have a houserule that redundant Extra Attacks give you +1 to one ability score; that way it's not a total waste of a level. Technically a similar issue that you don't get in multiclassing but would get with a gestalt is redundant caster levels. Since the spell slots per caster level chart only goes up to 20th level, it's possible for a 10th level gestalt to already have 20 caster levels, in which case taking more levels in casters will "waste" those extra caster levels. I don't really worry about this because you're still getting access to higher level spells and extra spells known or prepared, and casters are pretty strong anyway.