Gestalt Characters in a non-gestalt game

[Grey Paladin]

I was thinking of allowing a Gestalt character into my non-gestalt campaign as a sort of 3.5 Dual classing, What EXP penalty do you think would balance such a character when compared to regular characters?

[Charlie Kemek]

I personally think that the XP should be the normal XP*1.5 to advance each level, since you are less than 2 levels at once, and more than 1 level at once.

[Zincorium]

Honestly, I'm not sure that it's a good idea, or that an alteration of experience accurately balances the class.

The fact is, with all the additional base classes and prestige classes in existence, it is entirely possible to create a near-gestalt character who uses the normal progression. I'm not aware of any reasonable combination that isn't represented in some way.

The issue is that gestalt doesn't only introduce a new element by which power increases, it introduces an entirely new range of power. A barbarian//sorceror and a warblade//wizard fill the same role but are radically different in ability.


My general rule is that all characters should be made by essentially the same rules. If experience penalties for gestalt characters does work, I'd be interested in learning how well.

[Grey Paladin]

Honestly, I'm not sure that it's a good idea, or that an alteration of experience accurately balances the class.

The fact is, with all the additional base classes and prestige classes in existence, it is entirely possible to create a near-gestalt character who uses the normal progression. I'm not aware of any reasonable combination that isn't represented in some way.

The issue is that gestalt doesn't only introduce a new element by which power increases, it introduces an entirely new range of power. A barbarian//sorceror and a warblade//wizard fill the same role but are radically different in ability.


My general rule is that all characters should be made by essentially the same rules. If experience penalties for gestalt characters does work, I'd be interested in learning how well.

A) There is hardly any way to make an effective gestalt Fighter/Wizard and stay competitive with either a pure fighter or a pure wizard.

B) a Druid5/Cleric5 sucks horrifically when compared to Druid 10 or Cleric 10, but is slightly more playable, and likely still balanced, if played as a gestalt character 2-3 levels lower, there are stuff PRCs cannot fix.

[Zincorium]

A) There is hardly any way to make an effective gestalt Fighter/Wizard and stay competitive with either a pure fighter or a pure wizard.

Eldritch knight, abjurant champion, knight phantom, etc. I did includ PrCs in my argument. And while they do take a significant power hit over a gestalt character...

That was my point. If your regular characters are as powerful as gestalt, you're allowing something you probably shouldn't.

B) a Druid5/Cleric5 sucks horrifically when compared to Druid 10 or Cleric 10, but is slightly more playable, and likely still balanced, if played as a gestalt character 2-3 levels lower, there are stuff PRCs cannot fix.

I can't justify an RP reason to play that character... and I think that's the reason that no PrCs exist to allow you to play one well. It's not even particularly spectacular in gestalt compared to what else you can pull off.

If the OP EVER runs into a situation where such a hopeless character exists and the player is too stubborn to realize that there's no in-character reason for building your PC like that (and there isn't) then he's free to go wild.

[Squash Monster]

I once saw a generic Gestalt prestige-class that works really well. They even ran it by Char Opt and failed to break it.

Very simply, it's a prestige class for which you need three levels each in two base classes to qualify. The prestige class is ten levels long, and each level is a gestalt of the two base classes.

It doesn't work if you want to allow gestalting of prestige classes though, so if that's what you're into, no dice.


And as for the comment that you can't make an effective Fighter/Wizard without Gestalt: the build Fighter 2 / Wizard 5 / Spellsword 1 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Eldritch Knight 7 is about as good as straight wizard (not as good as certain prestige classes) and kicks the tar out of straight fighter. Of course, it's no good at levels 3 to 7.

On the other hand, to the best of my knowledge Cleric/Druid is impossible without some form of Gestalt.

[Grey Paladin]

Zincorium: A priest of a nature deity? the only reason not to play such a character is the fear of being underpowered

And I am looking for a way to weaken gestalt characters so they are on the same level as non-gestalt characters, if you have somehow failed to notice that (as your comment indicates)

Squash: A Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight is an Eldritch Knight, not a Fighter/Wizard, but yes, an Eldritch Knight can stay competitive.

But as you have also pointed out, not all combinations are viable.

[Zincorium]

Zincorium: A priest of a nature deity? the only reason not to play such a character is the fear of being underpowered

Why exactly is a straight druid or straight cleric not perfectly suited to that concept? That's the druid's entire concept.

And I am looking for a way to weaken gestalt characters so they are on the same level as non-gestalt characters, if you have somehow failed to notice that (as your comment indicates)

I noticed, I simply think it's a bad idea and I'm advising you against it with reasoned arguments. The system is designed to cope with most combinations without gestalt.

If you're certain that you want to do this, an experience modifier is justifiable. Others have already posted that, and I've expressed my reserved agreement. But I think it's entirely reasonable to express my disagreement and suggest what I believe are highly reasonable alternatives. Like making all the players gestalt.

[Chronos]

I was thinking of allowing a Gestalt character into my non-gestalt campaign as a sort of 3.5 Dual classing

Please don't. Dual classing (and its 2nd-edition brother, multi-classing) didn't even work well with rules specifically designed for it. Now that third edition has given us a sane multiclassing mechanic, let's just let bygones be bygones.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Squash: A Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight is an Eldritch Knight, not a Fighter/Wizard, but yes, an Eldritch Knight can stay competitive.

How is an Eldrich Knight different to a Fighter/Wizard?

[AmberVael]

How is an Eldrich Knight different to a Fighter/Wizard?

Eldritch Knight combines the two progressions into one class. A Fighter/Wizard would have half of the abilities of each class. A Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight would be behind a straight wizard or straight fighter, but would not be as far behind as a Fighter/Wizard.

Example:

10 Fighter / 10 Wizard
Bab: +15
Highest Spell Level: 5
Caster Level: 10

5 Fighter / 5 Wizard / 10 Eldritch Knight
Bab: +17
Highest Spell Level: 7
Caster Level: 14

Not that anyone would use that many levels in fighter with Eldritch Knight, but I just wanted to show you with an even split. A more common build (excluding any other prestige classes, which is kind of a silly exclusion, but whatever) would look something like this:

1 Fighter / 9 Wizard / 10 Eldritch Knight
Bab: +15
Highest Spell Level: 9
Caster Level 18

[Gaiwecoor]

On a similar topic, I started a thread a while ago on the topic of having gestalt characters be characters with a level adjustment [Thread Here]

While I think calling a gestalt character a character with a +2 LA would be fine (and no, I haven't tried it yet), most disagreed. There were one or two people there, however, that thought they had pulled it off some way or another.

[valadil]

The real question is how the players with single class characters feel. You don't want to shaft any players and if anyone in the group objects, I just wouldn't do it at all.

You might want to look into second edition multiclassed characters. Essentially they split their experience between classes and leveled each class separately. I'm not sure if the XP requirements were different or if they just got more by being lower level overall, but they usually stayed within a couple levels of the PCs. So a level 6 mage could be in the same party as a 5wiz/5fighter. It worked out pretty well, especially for gish types, without breaking anything too badly.

[ASCIISkull]

Experience penalties tend to balance out over many levels- for racial templates that might be good, but for a gestalt, their 'catching up' would always be overly beneficial unless the penalty was absolutely crushing.

[Aquillion]

I can't justify an RP reason to play that character... and I think that's the reason that no PrCs exist to allow you to play one well. It's not even particularly spectacular in gestalt compared to what else you can pull off.

A priest of an urban, fast-track oriented deity (with the City domain) has a sudden awakening and abandons their faith to revere nature instead?

Or a hermit druid who had always scorned his humanity and revered nature has an epiphany and decides to serve humanity instead, entering the worship of a healing-oriented deity and abandoning his wild ways?

Or a druid decides to bring the word of nature to the city, adopting the worship of a city deity in unison with their natural abilities? Or a city-priest travels to the countryside to learn about nature, and comes to revere it slightly alongside their deity?

D&D just doesn't support very many ways of changing your overall outlook, outside of one or two (like Blackguard.) No matter what you do, without retraining, you either keep your old abilities (and, generally, the implied outlook that comes with them) or you abandon them and cripple yourself mechanically just to play your character better.

There's lots of reasons a druid might stop keeping animal companions and turning into bears. But there aren't so many ways (absent retraining) you can do that per RAW...

[The_Snark]

Both of those involve abandoning the old way, not continuing to progress in it. That character would either end up less powerful, or retrain, I imagine.

Edit- Aha, sneaky! Those new examples are better justified, but it's really not that hard to simply use the Mystic Theurge and modify it to apply to two divine classes rather than an arcane or a divine. Still not perfect, but it really will probably come out better than trying to work gestalt characters into a partly non-gestalt party. The power of gestalt characters varies so wildly depending on the combinations that it's impossible to assign a set level adjustment or experience penalty for them.

If you find that your players really, really have characters that are absolutely not approximable by making fluff changes and minor mechanical tweaks to existing classes and prestige classes, it's probably better to just let everyone be gestalt.

[Noble Savant]

If you want to use Gestalt character in your campaign feel free to do so, and making them require 1.5 as much EXP to level up is pretty fair.

But you need to remember one thing. Their level ups will be far more "Dynamic" then those of the other players. They will gain a lot of power in a short time, and then not gain any more for a while.

This will make it so that their usefulness functions at a curve. After their level up, they will be more powerful than the other characters in the party (If they aren't then you have made them too weak), and will become less effective compared to the party as it progresses, (If this doesn't happen then they are too powerful), until they level up again, and the vicious cycle continues.

If you are fine with this happening then feel free to introduce Gestalt characters into your campaign.