Greetings and salutations one and all. I've come to this board seeking advice for a situation thats gotten a bit.. tricksy. Let me provide you with some background. When I decided to run the AP, i first ran a few smaller 1st lvl adventures for my players to besome aquainted with their pcs and how each of them worked. At this point I was running everything as normal. Shortly thereafter I lost two of my players and was down to a paladin and a rogue. Since I didn't want to stop playing, but realized my players would have a tough time with it, i decided to switch to the Gestalt system detailed in Unearthed Arcana. I follwed it's advice and gestalted every major npc and villain but shied off gestalting any monster hit dice. Since then I've picked up 3 more regulars and now have a party with the right tool for most any job. My players will be facing Adimarchus, and i need some opinions. Should I gestalt him? I realize his CR will be higher than the parties, but i don't want to underpower him. 30 hd worth of sorceror, fighter or cleric abilities could make a incredable difference in this battle.
My first inclination is to Gestalt him with...himself. Give him access to all the abilities inherent in each of his forms at the same time, and simply allow one form or the other to be "dominant" at a time, determining appearance and personality, rather than have it be a complete transformation.
I'd also consider allowing him to have both forms' weapons and equipment, in addition to abilities.
Gestalt PCs versus a Gestalt-MPD-Adimarchus...seems oddly appropriate in a way.
Hmmm...interesting. My only contention would be the ammount of overlap. Adimarchus can only use one set of weapons at a time and most of his spell like abilities are shared in both forms. However if i added say 30 levels of sorceror (32 cha) to his Angelic form ( no need for spellbook or int) and 30 levels of Fighter (+16 bonus feats and 30 hp) or Barbarian (+60 hp and bn tree) to his demonic form, he won't have any overlap and becomes deadly without deviating much from intent. Sound like a plan, or flawed poor glass?
I think you *might* be underestimating the power of my suggestion. Being able to forego the whip in favor of wielding the Ashen Blade in one hand, the Clawed Gauntlet in the other, and lash out with the tentacles at the same time, while able to fly and protected all the time by Golden Tattoos?
I'd not go with the sorceror option...as it is, he's likely to not be casting spells much. I'd also not go with the fighter option, as he already has most every feat he needs to make what he does quite effective and deadly (and if there's any non-overlap between his forms, he has access to them all).
And don't forget that they have to kill him twice!
Point made. I'm still not sure that gesltalting with one or more pc classes wouldn't prove more effective, but thats a moot point. My pcs still have to survive long enough to get there, and if nothing else your advice Andorax has simply convinced me that I should geslalt Adimarchus. Thanks for the help.
I follwed it's advice and gestalted every major npc and villain but shied off gestalting any monster hit dice.
Would you mind sharing what characters got what levels added to them? I'm about to undertake the same process and would love someone else's notes to compare to.
thanks,
-c
So you have 5 gestalted PCs in your group? Did that make running the NPCs (the gestalted ones) more difficult for you, trying to juggle all those abilities? Was the campaign outside of major boss battles easy for your group?