Plot-based Gestalt Games? Secondary Class DM controlled?

[Kaihaku]

I was wondering if I'm the only Dungeon Master who has ever run a Gestalt campaign where the second class is controlled by the DM not the player?

Here are three gestalt campaign models that I've tried (1 and 2) or want to try (3).

1. High Fantasy: The group gains secondary class levels in response to blessings, curses, and interactions with powerful beings and artifacts. It was used as a way to give them additional abilities(one was an alternative form, another some elemental magic) without messing up their original build.
2. Science Fiction(d20 Future + Psionics): The group is unfrozen from suspended animation with no memory of their past lives. Thrown into conflict, they discover that in addition to the 'd20 Future' class abilities they choose they also have a secondary Psion class with manifestation limited to a single Discipline based on their answer to a few seemingly random questions during sign-up. (E.G.: What power do you desire? Power over self, Power over Others, Power over the Environment, etc.)
3. Birth of Magic: Arcane magic is unknown to humans, the player characters were bathed in the blood of a dying archmage dragon as children (he was killed by giants and they just happened to be cowering there). Years later, each member of the group starts with a secondary class of "specialist" sorcerer, however that class can only cast spells from one school of magic. The chosen schools could not overlap. So, it would promote teamwork in that only one character can cast arcane transmutation spells, only one can cast evocation, etc.

In each case, the primary class would be left to the players, perhaps with some minor restrictions.

Another Gestalt campaign I wanted to try was a 'dream' campaign split into three parts.

Part 1: The real world heroes try to save the world. It ends as they reach a potent artifact which the BBEG is using to threaten the world.
Part 2: The dream world heroes, different characters played by the same players, find themselves in the 'same' world with some major differences. After traveling for a bit, they begin to suspect that things are not quite what they seem and eventually find the same artifact that the Part 1 heroes found. There, they remember their 'real' lives as the Part 1 heroes.
Part 3: The artifact is the bridge between the real world and the dream world, finding it the players are able to combine their two selves (part 1 real world hero + part 2 dream world hero = part 3 gestalt hero) and thus have the power to confront the BBEG by traveling freely between the real and dream worlds.

Anyone else ever try something like this?

[Gralamin]

I'm in a game like this. Plot wise, the characters are continually reborn, and almost always participate in a fight to change the world, or to keep it as it is. Each character is plagued by memories of their previous lives, much of the time such memories are their own horrific death, sometimes killing the previous lives of other player characters, or similar. As they find out more about themselves, some memories become more clear, and they gain a single level on the gestalt side. (So a character might be Swordsage 4//Rogue 1)

[Kaihaku]

Interesting, glad I'm not the only one.

I'm often disappointed that Gestalt campaigns seem to gravitate towards the "Crunch" when it has a good amount of potential for the "Fluff".

[MeklorIlavator]

Interesting, glad I'm not the only one.

I'm often disappointed that Gestalt campaigns seem to gravitate towards the "Crunch" when it has a good amount of potential for the "Fluff".

What do you mean by the second part?

[Kaihaku]

I've mostly seen the Gestalt variant used purely as a matter of system mechanics ("CRUNCH"). I've run but never been in a campaign where the Gestalt variant, which could be viewed as super multi-classing, was addressed in the plot and story ("FLUFF") as something important and unique to the PCs.

[TiaC]

I am debating a campaign where the characters have a monster class on the other side of the gestalt. The idea involves a shattering of the wall between the material plane and the plane of magic, this causes "mage-touched" to be born with one side classed and one side monstrous.

[Kaihaku]

That's a handy way of allowing players to field monstrous characters without being crippled by level adjustment. Would the secondary class take racial levels in monstrous humanoid after fulfilling the racial requirement or be allowed to take class levels?

[Magnor Criol]

I played in a "Birth of Magic" theme about a year ago. It was in the future (Not too far future,and we just used normal DnD rules, not d20 Modern or anything). No magic, only humans. Along the way we unlocked magic and re-released magic, magical creatures, and all sorts of other related things out into the world. My character was elected to be the lucky duck who got to place the keys in the whole and do the actual unlocking, and got bathed in the raw magical energy as it poured out. From then on, my character was a 1/2 sorcerer gestalt, gaining another sorc level every other character level. We didn't know what was going on, just all of a sudden I started discovering that I could fire strange energies from my fingertips. =p Not powerful, but flavorful, and it was a lot of fun.

[Kaihaku]

That campaign sounds a lot like Terranimga... Which reminds me that I was once wanting to run an Actraiser-ish campaign but that's off topic.

Interesting, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's thought of it. I think it's a great way to surprise the players with something nice without it being off the record or messing with their build. The surprise of finding yourself with magical powers sounds grand, I'm a bit envious.

[Magnor Criol]

Yeah, it was nice. Because it was only every other level, and we got it when we were...I think level 3 or 4, it certainly didn't add much power. I think I used Magic Missile once or twice, at most; but my gun and newly-magical sword was both more reliable and, roleplay-wise, more familiar to my character.

The surprise was a fun part, too - when I first cast a spell (I think it was Color Spray) the DM had everyone in the party, including me, make Will saves to avoid being completely floored by the fact that magical energies had just burst out of me. We got to laugh at the fighter after he failed. :D

[TiaC]

That's a handy way of allowing players to field monstrous characters without being crippled by level adjustment. Would the secondary class take racial levels in monstrous humanoid after fulfilling the racial requirement or be allowed to take class levels?

I would allow some stacking of monstrous classes so you could be a demon/minotaur if you wanted to.

[Talanic]

I've done it twice; once in a campaign that ended early, once ongoing, and I have an idea for a third one.

The first time had the players in a heavily undead-infested world; one of the players (a marvelous roleplayer) was actually vampirically tainted (homebrew class that suffered drawbacks such as berserk frenzy at the smell of blood - plus augmented senses). All went well with the party, with no extreme complications until they slept overnight in the temple of the (deceased) sun god.

His remaining essence reacted poorly to a vampiric creature staying in his temple, and all of them got solo adventures--spirit journeys, essentially. The vampire faced the sun god's Aleax, the last bit of his essence, which threw in her face the facts of what she was and what she'd done.

She talked it down. Effectively and rationally. It ended with her swearing that she would try to learn the name of the dead god, effectively resurrecting him by providing him with new worship.

Two days later, they slept in the temple again. This time, the dead god talked with her again, and made her make it some promises about conduct. When she woke up, she was a barbarian instead of the homebrew class, and her hair had changed from white to reddish-gold. She also had max hit points per die, and gestalt levels in sorceress (which she hardly ever took advantage of). She was quite relieved to find that not only could she withstand its rays, the sun was comforting to her.

It wasn't for several sessions that she realized that the dead sun god had appointed her as a new avatar of the sun, divine rank 0 (which only grants max hit points per die, normally). Most of the pantheon was dead, and the party started hunting those quasi-deities who had slain them and absorbed their essences. On regaining the essence, they were given a gestalt class.

The game was far more fluff than crunch, and we had a ton of fun. We wound up breaking up when the players could no longer meet due to schedules.

The ongoing game follows the rules that you pick one class, and receive your race's favored class as your gestalt. Those whose favored class isn't fixed get to choose - though they can't change the favored class afterwards.

Another idea that I had was that I might ask some players to make me a group of level 20 adventurers, good-aligned, with a biography of what they'd done. I would take the biographies, interweave them and adapt them, and deliver them as a eulogy.

"That's what you did before you were murdered. That was around fifty years ago. You are now level 1 [savage species outsider of proper alignment]/[gestalt with old character class], and have been sent back to put things right."

[TiaC]

One thing I worried about for my idea was balance, thoughts?

[Kaihaku]

I am debating a campaign where the characters have a monster class on the other side of the gestalt. The idea involves a shattering of the wall between the material plane and the plane of magic, this causes "mage-touched" to be born with one side classed and one side monstrous.

I think it would be more balanced if you had the characters stick to taking racial levels on one side after finishing off the racial progression. It's weaker but it keeps one player from taking unbalancing player classes while another is still trying to finish off paying for those centaur levels. That's my first thought.

[Jack_Simth]

I am debating a campaign where the characters have a monster class on the other side of the gestalt. The idea involves a shattering of the wall between the material plane and the plane of magic, this causes "mage-touched" to be born with one side classed and one side monstrous.

I would allow some stacking of monstrous classes so you could be a demon/minotaur if you wanted to.

The trick to balancing "free" monstrous classes is to make sure everyone's got approximately the same CR addition (and yes, I said CR).

Normally, Gestalt characters are supposed to face off against about about +1 or +2 CR above what an equivalent regular group would face. The Fighter/Wizard-11, Cleric/Rogue-11, Paladin/Sorcerer-11, and the Druid/Ranger-11 face a "normal" difficulty encounter of 12 or 13. The Wizard-11/Wyrmling Silver Dragon, on the other hand, is much tougher (+2 Str, +2 Con, +4 Int/Wis/Cha, 7 d12 HD of Full BAB, all-good saves, and six base skill points/HD (and four d4 HD, good Will, +2 skill points/level), +6 Natural Armor, 100 foot Fly speed, 40-foot land speed, two elemental Immunities (Acid and Cold), Immunity to sleep and paralysis, Blindsense-60, Darkvision-120, low-light vision (*4, rather than the *2 most critters with it get), three natural weapons (although those usually won't matter much), increased overland speed, and Alternate Form (for any humanoid or animal of medium size or lower, 3/day, limitless duration).

If everyone puts a critter of the same CR on the other side, the boosts are generally going to be roughly equivalent, and matter much less.