The Gaming Den

Almost all of the ideas I'm thinking of involve primary spellcasters of some sort, though I'm thinking that things could get really ugly for people you hate with a druid/rogue or a cleric/wizard with the vow of poverty--the real kind, not the crappy mystic theurge.

Best combos are either the pure spellcasting ones:

Cleric/Druid, Cleric/Wizard, or Druid/Wizard,

or if that's not allowed (I wouldn't allow it if I were running such a game), go for any combo that has one primary spellcaster and all good saves.

Cleric/Rogue, Druid/Rogue, or Ranger/Wizard are all really good.

Never ever combine two classes which grant good BAB anyway together. Never settle for getting less than 6 skill points a level.

-Username17

I wondered about playing a cleric/monk - mainly for rp reasons.

It certainly would be fun, although Frank, feel free to point out all the mechanical reasons not to......

1. Same Hit Die.
2. Two of the same saves.
3. Most of the same skill list.
4. Same BAB.
5. Monk bonuses do not synergize with armor or weapons even in Gestalt.

The Cleric gains a grand total of 2 skill points per level and a good reflex save out of the deal.

In general, a Gestalt Character gains fundamentally more from different classes than it gets from similar classes. In the hypothetical example of a class which performs task A at level 3 and task B at level 1 - gestalting into a class which performed A at level 1 and B at level 3 would gain you 2 levels of B. Gestalting into a class which performed A and B at level 2 would only get you 1 level in B, and Gestalting into another class that performed A at 3 and B at 1 would get you precisely nothing.

That's the fundamental inbalance of Gestalt - and playing a Monk/Cleric is kind of jacking right into it the worng way - while for example the Cleric Rogue is doing it in very much the right way.

Of course, on top of their many other problems - Monks make crappy Gestalt characters for several reasons:

1. The way Gestalt works, Monks actually lose one or two of their good saves relative to whatever other choice you had (that is, at first level taking Monk as your Gestalt class only adds to one or two saves instead of three).

2. Monk weapon and armor restriction is not about proficiency, it's a class restriction, so taking a Monk as your gestalt class starts in the hole because the proficiencies you already have from your other class are going away.

3. Monk has a middling BAB, which is the least impressive in Gestalt (replacing another BAB with it isn't a huge improvement, nor is replacing it with a Good BAB).

Monk/Wizard actually isn't bad, although the low skill points make me cry. You can get a more generally pleasing effect from Ranger/Wizard. Note that the Saves are the same.

-Username17

Ranger and druid look to be the best two classes to pick. They synergise the best with most classes. Druid/wizard strikes me as particularly effective.

Druid/monk for non-double casters, I'd say. That BAB thing is a gigantic kick in the ass, since you're an exalted character. But.

Works great with dire wolf fu (you get the necessary feats without paying one bit for it) or octopus fu if you have the stunning fist feat and the rapid stunning, and druids running around with spell resistance and VoP druids slapping on an extra Wis + 4 bonus to AC is just stark raving madness.

Ranger/Wizard: Full BAB, All good saves, 6 SP/level, d8 HD...

Oh ya, and those minor things like slight divine and full arcane spellcasting, Evasion, Favored enemies, Metamagic/item creation feats, and some archery feats (for rays/energy missiles).

Say, why are BAB, Hit Die Saves and skill points sacred? Why not just go up as two full characters every time you level?

-Desdan

Because that would be broken.

I think claiming anything is broken in conjunction with Gestalt is laughable anyway. Isn't the point to be alot more powerful than a normal character of your level anyway?

-Desdan

For a non-spellcaster, a Rogue-Fighter might do the trick. It just might be the one way to make TWF work. Rogue-Ranger could do the same for you, but they overlap a lot and I'm not sure if HiPS is worth the lower HP.

I was thinking that a Paladin of Freedom/Divine Bard might be interesting to combine.

I originally went for regular bard, but Divine bard is just better than regular bard.

As written, the Rogue can use one of their special abilties to take the feat "Perfect Multiweapon Fighting" cold at 10th level. It's a bonus feat which can be anything, which means you don't need the prereqs.

So if you are willing to hold out, a non-gestalt Rogue can have 10 attacks at 10th level. 2 with the primary hand, one with an off-hand short sword, 2 with each boot blade, and 2 with armor spikes. Since most of your damage is popping out of sneak attack, that's even a vaguely playable character.

It's a long walk to tenth level, though, when you have Boot Blade Proficiency and don't have MWF.

-Username17

It's all about the octopus druid-rogue Girallon's Blessing 14-handed Sneak Attack abuse.

It occurs to me that someone familiar with 2e can just about rule out gestalt comos based on the old multiclassing rules. If it was a permitted multiclass or dual-class in 2e, it's probably a decent gestalt combo; if not, it'll probably be either sub-par or sucky.

The obvious exception to this rule is anything involving the monk, since the monk introduced into 2e in Player's Option: Spells and Magic bore little resemblence to the 3e monk.

Naw, in a Gestalt campaign, everyone would be Gestalting. I don't think anyone would really be silly enough to use Gestalt as a patch for the (Actually pretty good) 3e multiclassing rules.

-Des

Desdan_Mervolam at [unixtime wrote:1081489508[/unixtime]]I think claiming anything is broken in conjunction with Gestalt is laughable anyway. Isn't the point to be alot more powerful than a normal character of your level anyway?

-Desdan

That was a joke.

Ultimately, you play it like that because you play it like that. It's kinda like asking why skills per level are even numbers, or why you get x4 skill points at level 1 instead of x5 or x3, or why nonproficiency is a -4 penalty instead of -8 or -5.

It just is.

If you want to fully apply all benefits of both classes, go ahead. but it will be even more difficult to balance. Then you might as well play normal and just run to epic levels, because the only difference is wealth-by-level.

Desdan_Mervolam at [unixtime wrote:1081592811[/unixtime]]Naw, in a Gestalt campaign, everyone would be Gestalting. I don't think anyone would really be silly enough to use Gestalt as a patch for the (Actually pretty good) 3e multiclassing rules.

-Des

That wasn't the point. My point was that most of the decent gestalt combinations are things that would have been permitted under 2nd Edition multiclassing/dual classing rules, because those rules only allowed you to combine classes with radically different roles--the same kind of combinations that make more effective gestalt characters.

The gestalt rules do need some gestalt classes (that is they take up two class slots), to handle a full out fighter, and they need to let you take caster levels twice, and add the spell slots.

Another idea for casters I had was a gestalt caster that allowed you to cast stuff spontaneously with the versatility of a prepared caster. Basically a wizard who could cast any spell he knew, or a cleric who could cast any spell on his list.

I'm not sure what to do with the rogue, you could go rogue/expert, but the problem isnt' so much you're running out of skill points, it's that you hit the skill cap. Lifting the skill cap seems like it'd be a bad idea, so I have no idea where to go with a gestalt rogue type.

The gestalt rules do need some gestalt classes (that is they take up two class slots), to handle a full out fighter,

What?

It's a class based system, why does anything need to support a character who is "just hitting things"? The whole purpose of a class based system is that you pay for your ability to hit things, and then all your other character breadth stuff is free, and set to your ability to hit things.

The Gestalt concept is essentially to give people even more character breadth - for free - which is still set to their ability to hit things.

So why should people be able to trade their breadth abilitiies for "more hitting things"? People aren't paying anything for their character breadth in the first place, why should they get anything for trading it in?

-Username17

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1082227892[/unixtime]]

The gestalt rules do need some gestalt classes (that is they take up two class slots), to handle a full out fighter,

So why should people be able to trade their breadth abilitiies for "more hitting things"? People aren't paying anything for their character breadth in the first place, why should they get anything for trading it in?

Because you can take a barbarian/ranger, it just sucks. So you need something that's comparable to a fighter/sorcerer or a fighter/cleric in power that is a fighter type.

The thing is that not everyone wants to be a caster. Some people would just prefer to be a barbarian/fighter and have it not suck. The thing is that combining the two are totally redundant for the most part, where as combining cleric and wizard or even cleric and druid, give you a huge number of useful abilities.

Unfortunately if you want to be a heavily armored fighter, you're pretty much limited to fighter/cleric unless you voluntarily choose to suck.

Because you can take a barbarian/ranger, it just sucks.

Wouldn't an easier solution be to forbid the bardbarian/ranger?

If the problem is that "people who try to take only physical combat abilities suck compared to people who take physical combat abilities and anything else" - shouldn't you just forbid taking only physical combat abilities?

The whole point of gestalt is to make people good at lots of different stuff - you shouldn't even have the option of just being good at one thing.

-Username17

Why make a rule that only prevents people from doing something extremely stupid? Why not just hand them a finished character sheet?

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1082229006[/unixtime]]

The whole point of gestalt is to make people good at lots of different stuff - you shouldn't even have the option of just being good at one thing.

Because heavily armored warriors are pretty much mutually exclusive, unless you want to be a cleric, and really, not many people want to be clerics from a roleplaying point of view.

If you wanna play a lightly armored swashbuckler type, then fighter/rogue, fighter/monk, fighter/mage or fighter/bard is fine, awesome and all... but if you want to wear plate mail you're pretty much pidgeonholed into being a cleric of some kind, and in my experience not everyone wants to make a cleric.

Basically the gestalt combat master gives the tank character another choice beyond figther/cleric. Basically he would be the other side of the cleric/mage. While the cleric mage is essentially the master caster, this guy would be the master warrior.

Really, the need for this class is mainly because the fighter and barbarian are both weak classes past the first few levels. The high level barbarian gets nothing adamantine full plate can't give someone and the high level fighter is just a bunch of feats.

Gestalt underlines the fact that classes which don't give you an actual new and interesting ability every single level are craptastic.

However, a Gestalt game does not need to allow people to be "more wizardly" or "more fighterly". Gestalt doesn't work all that well, but the concept is to allow people to do more different things for free - which is what a class system is for.

Essentially, if you spend all of your time fighting with Hold Monster, it doesn't really matter if you have a decent BAB or not - but for some people it's more fun if you do. Throwing in Warrior/Warrior gestalts don't really do anything different - they are just better at their schtick. And that's not what gestalt is for.

There is seriously no reason whatsoever to support people who want to trade their bonus diversity for increased specialization. They don't pay anything for the bonus diversity and they shouldn't get anything for selling it.

Gestalt doesn't work well. Just compare the Barbarian/Rogue vs. the Monk/Rogue to see what I mean. But the answer is retooling the concept so that your selections from different columns are less proscribed by the choices made by single classed character designed and more balanced. For example, everyone should just get all good saves, you shouldn't end up in a position where some people get all good saves and others have only one good save. You should just select your spellcasting schtick from a balanced list - probably everyone should cast like a Shugenja. Etc. etc.

-Username17