Gestalt/Tristalt/Quadristalt

[Thrormathan]

Hello everyone,
I was wondering about these weird things. If you play with only 2 characters using gestalt (2 class progression at once), it could be fun and balanced with a good DM because you are only with 2. But if you play with 2 characters using tristalt (3 class progression at the same time), would it be fun and balanced as well? and with 4 classes mixed? Maybe add some HP or so so you don't have the glass canon effect, or grant an extra action.

[Chronos]

I think the biggest thing is that the rules just get weird. Things won't work like you intend, pretty much no matter what you intend.

[JackPhoenix]

Gestalt does nothing to solve the main issue with a small party, which is the lack in action economy. It doesn't matter how much different abilities you have when you're still limited to a single action and a bonus action per round.

[Amnestic]

How strong/weak a gestalt character will be will depend on the rules you choose for how they work (what stacks, what doesn't) but ultimately yeah, action economy is the big issue. It's all well and good having a gazillion spell slots but ultimately you still only get one action each turn to use them. Gestalt helps shore up some weaknesses and adds flexibility/sustainability but output isn't as drastically affected.

Which is fine, a party of two still an be played okay with the appropriate DM accommodations - it can be fun! But a gestalt party of two is still going to be weaker than a non-gestalt party of four (and that's fine).

[Anymage]

Never mind how gestalt characters don't have the same HP, ability to take up space, or action economy as multiple independent characters. There's also a point where multiple options are too hard to reasonably keep in mind, and Nstalt characters could easily reach that for many players. If you really want to pad out a small table, letting the players have extra supporting characters might be easier.

[Thrormathan]

Yeah, i think the same as you guys but has anyone some experience?

[Luccan]

I played Gestalt in 3.X. It was helpful for our small party because we covered more saves, most PCs had more HP on at least one side of their Gestalt, and one or two of us got more skill points. It allowed some punching above our weight class for a party our size, but was most useful for covering non-combat roles. I'm of the opinion that tri- and quad- stalting (and above) lead to diminishing returns and overcomplicates things. Most of what Gestalting does for you can be achieved in 5e without it and while I hate to be that guy, at the point you're seriously considering quadstalting for "balance" you should either be adjusting your campaigns or playing something else.

[animewatcha]

And what about allowing (assuming single-classed-sides) 1 round of actions per class per player turn?

[PhoenixPhyre]

And what about allowing (assuming single-classed-sides) 1 round of actions per class per player turn?

At that point... Just have each player run multiple characters. Way fewer issues overall, same amount of work for the players.

[Theodoxus]

Yeah, i think the same as you guys but has anyone some experience?


And what about allowing (assuming single-classed-sides) 1 round of actions per class per player turn?


At that point... Just have each player run multiple characters. Way fewer issues overall, same amount of work for the players.

I dabbled with a tri-stalt game once for 2 players, mostly to see what ramifications it would have, as well as a potential as an alternate for multiclassing.

In my most recent campaign, I allowed each player to have a sidekick.

The sidekick campaign was far and away less confusing, better action economy, and allowed the players to diversify, basically shoring up their primary characters weaknesses with the sidekicks in a way the felt a lot more organic than just slapping another class or two onto one PC.

I'm open to player requests in the gestalt vs sidekick dichotomy, but as a DM, highly recommend the sidekick route - for a selfish reason, I have no qualms killing sidekicks when things inevitably go south... and the players have less of an issue in bringing in a new henchman than they do over a new PC.

Just food for thought :)

[Kane0]

Last time i played a gestalt game here are the rules we used:

Gestalt Characters (Dual-Classing)

At level 1 a dual-class character chooses two classes to level up in simultaneously.
The character must meet the minimum ability scores for both classes as per the multiclassing rules.
The Hit Die of the character is the average of the two classes, rounded down.
The number of skill and tool proficiencies is the average of the two classes (rounded down), chosen from both lists combined.
The character gains starting equipment and proficiency in Saving Throws as per one of the chosen classes.
The weapon and armor proficiencies of the two classes are added together.
The character gains the class features of both chosen classes.
Duplicates of identical class features such as Spellcasting, ASIs and Extra Attack are ignored.
Dual-class characters suffer a -1 to their proficiency bonus, number of attunement slits and all ability scores (after generation and adjustments).
Dual-class characters cannot multiclass.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yeah, i think the same as you guys but has anyone some experience?
We played a level 4 one shot with gestalt: two classes, one class worth of HP, one feat or ASI, all else was mostly "combine two classes" ... and it worked OK. (I'll get the outline from the DM who ran it).

We enjoyed it.

[starwolf]

My wife and I like using Gestalt. She DMs, I play a PC with sidekick.
So far we've done a shorter adventure, two full campaigns, and are now in a third campaign.
(Phandelver, Tyranny of dragons, SW5e homebrew, and now the Essentials Kit (Icespire complete and currently in Storm Lord's Wrath)
PC starts at +2 levels.
Using Gestalt she doesn't have to re-calculate every fight and runs the encounters as written.
(For the one SW5e we treated the PC as 1.5x for encounter calculations)
We've varied the Gestalt with each.
Phandelver was standard Gestalt.
Tyranny was Gestalt allowed full multi-classing between each side. (Doable, but became a bit much to remember all the abilities/options)
SW5e we did Gestalt with Dichotomous. (Two class gestalt and each side chose two sub-classes)
Essentials were trying Gestalt/Dichotomous again.

I figure Tri/Quad would be similar to Gestalt/MC.

Anyway, that's a quick overview of our experience.

[DammitVictor]

In 3.X, "vanilla" Gestalt ran into a problem that more focused or "pure" character concepts just couldn't be represented as a combination of two classes, and you ended up with a lot of extraneous off-concept abilities. PF1 largely mitigated this by having just... so many more base classes you could use, especially if you made judicious use of archetypes; most "just fighter" concepts could work fairly well as a Fighter|Brawler or Fighter|Cavalier or whatever.

There's what... 11 classes in the PHB, and one more official class in Tasha? Two characters with three classes each would represent half of all available classes. While I could probably imagine some character concepts that fit four-class gestalt... honestly even most of my whackadoo ideas would be overegging the pudding with three.

[Greywander]

Gestalt does nothing to solve the main issue with a small party, which is the lack in action economy. It doesn't matter how much different abilities you have when you're still limited to a single action and a bonus action per round.
This. If you really want to shore up an undersized party, then it's the action economy you need to fiddle with. That, and saving throws. Consider Heroic Actions and Heroic Resistance (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?596581-Solo-small-party-Try-Heroic-Resistance-Actions), which are obviously modeled after legendary actions and resistance, which is given to "boss" monsters for much the same reasons you'd want them on a small party.

That said, playing gestalt characters can also help with a small party, just in a different way. I'd say a gestalt character is about 50% stronger than a non-gestalt; it's no where near double the power, but the way some class features interact can give a definite boost to power, e.g. a fighter/paladin getting up to four attacks and adding 1d8 damage from Improved Divine Smite to each of them. Or a monk/rogue that gets to add Sneak Attack damage while getting four attacks with Flurry. Perhaps more importantly, gestalts are a good way to fill out utility features, allowing a small party to have access to wizard spells or rogue skills while also being able to be something other than a wizard or rogue. The main benefit of a gestalt is versatility, not raw power.


Yeah, i think the same as you guys but has anyone some experience?
A while back I played in a game with my sister where we played gestalt characters. The campaign fell apart around 5th level, but even then I felt like I was gaining too many abilities too fast and was forgetting I had an ability until after it would be useful. This prompted me to write up a new set of homebrew rules that sort of hybridize gestalts and multiclassing. The end result is a sort of "flexible gestalt", where you can take as many extra class levels as you want, provided you're willing to pay the XP for them. If you stay single-classed then it essentially plays the same as vanilla, while someone who multiclasses will have more class levels overall, but their character level will lag behind (less HP and smaller proficiency bonus).

My sister and I are gearing up to start another campaign soon, and we're going to be testing these new rules. You can give them a gander (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XkpH63RskT5akra8IpHP2STak2LeeDi7lpc91fc0mXg/edit?usp=sharing) if you like, maybe you'll find them more appealing than a standard gestalt. There are a few other things in that doc, the specific one I'm talking about is the Gestalt-Multiclass rules, though you'll also need to read the section on Gestalt Levels. The section on epic levels was never finished, so ignore that (but do use epic boon class levels).