Gestalting a dragon

[Elvensilver]

In a recent game, all my player characters play white wyrmlings https://aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Young%20White%20Drago nwith class levels. It's been a lot of fun, but this combination of 3 class levels and 3 racial dragon HD leads to a kind of reverse glass cannon situation: the characters are incredible resilient, have great saves, HP and mobility, but can't do much damage due to tiny size and little options to stack anything. To make combat more deadly and exiting - for both sides really - I was considering Gestalt. One one side, the racial HD (D12), saves(all good), skills(6+int) and GAB (full) of a dragon, on the other side whatever class they chose. Only - compared to a dragon, few classes offer anything. Only caster types would really add new abilities, while any full GAB class offers little, as most of the advantages of those are already inherent to dragons.
But I don't want to discourage playing martial types - especially as they have one 14 as the highest mental stat between them - so I wanted to know how I could somewhat balance different classes in this setup. What would be a good penalty/bonus for having chosen a D10 or D12 class, having full, 3/4 or half GAB, or having 6 or 8 skillpoints per level -as these numbers are somewhat balanced against other classes, and most of the opportunity costs of choosing a (half-)caster would be completely negated by the dragon part of the gestalt?
How to make this fair, without making these monsters even more tough?

EDIT: The classes of the wyrmlings right now (3 racial hd + 3 class levels) are Kineticist and Gunslinger.

[Gnaeus]

A 14 isn't impossibly low for a caster base, especially if they are avoiding things that need saves, which isn't hard. A bigger problem is that Gunslinger and Kineticist are both tier 5 classes, which don't offer a tremendous lot to a dragon. Most good classes will blow them out of the icy water.

[Maat Mons]

So, what happens when these gestalt Dragon HD 3 // class levels 3 characters get enough xp to advance to 4th level? Do they become Dragon HD 4 // class levels 4? Or do they become Dragon HD 3 / class level 1 // class levels 4?

How does a dragon wield guns?

[Efrate]

Initiators if you are okay with DSP. Akashic as well but stats matter more there. Things like harbinger and mystic would love full BaB. It's better than ToB because there are more options other than xd6 damage, though there is a lot of that. Primal fury discipline with the natural attacks of dragon fits very well thematically. Mystic in particular would be even more of a house, being arguable the best Initiator for utility but suffering from sub par combat stats, which full bab, bigger hit die and all good saves skyrocket them.

Radiant games pactmaker might work as well, but charisma is very important there so ymmv.

Not much in 1st party that is not mostly sublimated into a dragon chasis already thats noncasting, unless you are doing something like stacking cavalier tactical feats or doing something with mounts. Magus doesn't care about DC as much and would be even better with full bab. War priest as well, any of the 6th level max casters functions fine as long as they get to 16 casting stat eventually.

Buffs don't care about DC, nor do no save touch attack spells. BaB and resilience being covered by the dragon side mean you actual have a lot of options, just not the big save or suck or big damage spells because saves will be low. Even then as long as you get to 19 eventually for 9th you are still in a very much good to go. And you have until 17 to get there.

[AvatarVecna]

It's probably worth mentioning (although this only makes a single level of difference): PF has rules for playing as monsters. (https://legacy.aonprd.com/bestiary/monstersAsPcs.html)


For monsters with racial Hit Dice, the best way to allow monster PCs is to pick a CR and allow all of the players to make characters using monsters of that CR. Treat the monster's CR as its total class levels and allow the characters to multiclass into the core classes. Do not advance such monsters by adding Hit Dice. Monster PCs should only advance through classes.

A white dragon wyrmling has 3 dragon HD, but is CR 2. It should only be taking up 2 levels in their Effective Character Level, not 3. Obviously, this is only a small difference; even if they were playing a full caster, being two levels behind instead of three is technically an improvement but still wouldn't be solving all their problems. And they're not exactly playing full casters.

Kineticist is one of those classes that pretty much everybody knows sucks. Gunslinger is ranked Tier 5 but it's also one of the most dependable damage deliverers in the game once you get the feats necessary to overcome the problems with firearms. The problem is, Gunslinger really prefers high Dex, and dragons are almost universally not very dexterous. A more appropriate monster gunslinger could probably be very scary at this level, but a dragon gunslinger...not so much.

[Elvensilver]

So, what happens when these gestalt Dragon HD 3 // class levels 3 characters get enough xp to advance to 4th level? Do they become Dragon HD 4 // class levels 4? Or do they become Dragon HD 3 / class level 1 // class levels 4?


As of right now, leveling up is done normally, without Gestalt. On hitting their sixt hatching-day, the characters would gain an additional age category with the corresponding HD-increase, whereas any XP gained through adventuring counts towards class-levels.

"You essentialy gain two levels just by waking up today" is a bit clunky both narratively as well as mechanically, so that is one of the reasons for Gestalt.

Dragon HD 4//class levels 4


How does a dragon wield guns?

... With more limbs than a human would, feesible through flying.:smallamused: Dragon claws should be able to manipulate objects, if not as good as humanoid hands, so I'm ruling it that way.


Kineticist is one of those classes that pretty much everybody knows sucks. Gunslinger is ranked Tier 5 but it's also one of the most dependable damage deliverers in the game once you get the feats necessary to overcome the problems with firearms. The problem is, Gunslinger really prefers high Dex, and dragons are almost universally not very dexterous. A more appropriate monster gunslinger could probably be very scary at this level, but a dragon gunslinger...not so much.

At least they are balanced to each other on their low Tier... The thing is, as tiny sized creatures (where the players rolled stats and favored Dexterity) they are not most dragons - they are really dextrous and since both kinetic blasts as well as bullets target touch AC, they pretty much always hit... only not for a lot of damage. As they get older and bigger, surely that would change.


What I'm most looking for are ideas how I can balance the lack of opportunity cost in the choice of class if the other side of the Gestalt is dragon- like the gunslinger dragon only gains gun use, grit etc. through class levels. Both dragon and gunslinger have full GAB, and D12 vs. D10 is no big difference. Whereas the kineticist gains full GAB, the HD is D12 instead of D8, and in addition, she can not only breath ice, but instead also blast it! Essentially, I'm worried about the balance between the characters if all the things they would naturally be bad at would get counter-acted by being a dragon.

(Storywise, the classes are pretty much set, although cleric or magus would be certainly stronger...)

[Efrate]

That's kind of the point of gestalt. You use best of 2 classes, with dragon being a class. Kiniticist is still bad even if dragon fixes some issues, because class and features are bad. Gunslinger does pretty solid touch attack damage, and dragons shoring up weaknesses matters a bit more, but it will pretty much always outperform a kiniticist because that class is trash. It's honestly not much different.

Classes that are bad are still going to be bad. Classes that are good are going to be good. Dragon just means some base mechanical stuff is always top or near top, but features which is what defines a class and its power mostly still carry more weight.

There are probably fewer of would this class be good if full bab and saves and decent skills but all else the same than there are cases of it not. More hp saves and bab on a unchained rogue for example is not going to suddenly make the class a sorcerer. Yes it helps, but it's just a tankier/better hitting unchained rogue.

Flight is good for anyone, but it doesn't suddenly make some classes phenominal except very early where flight is more or less full immunity to attacks. Flight in an open field with goblins without ranged attacks is awesome early, doesn't matter which class.