Gestalt classes to even things out a little for combatants (thoughts?)


3.5/d20/OGL


With martial class power waning at later levels I was considering allowing martial classes as gestalt characters with certain other less popular classes. This would also mean a ban on multiclass... this was before PRPG came around.

What do you think about these combinations?

Barbarian/Ranger
Not so interesting at first, but with additional combat styles available and some additional tweaks (something to replace animal companion) here and there it may provide the savage warrior worth taking even when compared to the other classes. Medium armour wouldn't interfere with any abilities.

Bard/Paladin
Still a holy warrior with the ability to inspire and lead. Additional skill points and social skills would nicely transform the paladin to the gallant knight loved by gods and... well, everyone. Bard's spellcasting, Pally gets to be the crappy nonspellcaster variant from Complete warior. Of course that armour wouldn't interfewre with spellcasting.

Fighter/Monk
This is intended to be the ultimate martial artist. again the armour doesn't interfere with monk abilities and perhaps the fighter would chose one weapon group as special monk weapons (more attacks, perhaps allowing him to perform special maneuvers with them or giving bonuses). Even more athletic, built in additional speed, magic weapons (transfering the ki provided abilities to chosen weapon group) and other crunch needed.

Any thoughts? The rogue would need some more love probably, but aside from that?

Liberty's Edge

Unless the whole thing is a gestalt campaign, I'd stay away from Gestalt characters.

For example, the Monk needs very little aside from his class features. If you ignore feats aside from those granted as bonus, you can make a Monk that should last you to 20th level. Granted, you're almost limited to Blugeoning damage(if you want to keep your damage range up), but you still have your special Monk weapons and other abilities to keep yourself alive. Gestalting a Monk with Fighter leaves you with a character that is capable of way too much. Part of the limitations that are placed on the Monk are a balance issue.

If you give the Monk the Fighter's BAB, access to an entire weapon group outside his normal Monk weapons, the numerous Feats Fighters gain, a Fighter's skill points, the use of the Fighter only feats(the Weapon Specialization chain), and probably a few things I'm not thinking of at the moment; you come out with a combat monster who the DM has to put down like a sick kitten.

Seriously, I don't want to know how much damage a higher-level character would do per round using a +3 Flaming Burst Falchion in a Flurry of Blows(capable of 6 attacks per round, since the two additional attacks from the Monk's Flurry are on top of the Fighter's +1 per level BAB); who picked up the full weapon specialization chain for the Falchion, Improved Critical for the Falchion, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, and the full Two Weapon Fighting chain(using his unarmed attack as his "offhand" weapon, since the Falchion is Two Handed). As a side note, that's a total of 9 attacks per round as a Full Attack, more if Cleave gets activated.

But that would be an awesome(if possibly unfair) bad guy for the party to face. :P


Gestalt Characters are at least 1.5x their level in power, but having only a few of the characters be Gestalt while the others are not is unfair to the rest.

Even if the other characters were at the (Gestalt x 1.5) level and Multiclassed, they'd fall behind the curve without careful GM control-settings enabled.

The only solution I'd suggest is have the Bard/Ranger, etc., be Multiclassed, and have the non-multiclassed characters in the party be +1 Level over them.

Gestalt-only games are perfectly wonderful, if high powered, but like oil and water, they don't mix well with non-Gestalts.


Well, I'm considering this for play around level 15, with no other restrictions placed on wizard or CoDzilla. I'd like the combatants to be way more powerful on their own, being able to contribute even without spellcasters watching over them. The creatures would of course be also buffed.

Oh and to fighter/monk. I'd leave the flurry of blows at monk's attack bonus, so that it would lag behind.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I'm DMing a relatively high level campaign (16th) and the martial classes are consistently and significantly dishing out more damage than the spell chuckers.

One reason is that high level NPCs (especially Monsters with non-associated class levels added on) have great saving throws compared to the Save DCs of the casters. Another reason is SR. If a martial character misses, they still get additional iterative and/or 2-weapon fighting attacks. Spellchuckers can only get an additional attack off if they use Quicken Spell, which are usually lower level, even less effective spells (and save DCs).


SmiloDan wrote:

I'm DMing a relatively high level campaign (16th) and the martial classes are consistently and significantly dishing out more damage than the spell chuckers.

One reason is that high level NPCs (especially Monsters with non-associated class levels added on) have great saving throws compared to the Save DCs of the casters. Another reason is SR. If a martial character misses, they still get additional iterative and/or 2-weapon fighting attacks. Spellchuckers can only get an additional attack off if they use Quicken Spell, which are usually lower level, even less effective spells (and save DCs).

Well, I intened to let the player play broken builds, that's why I'd like the combatants to have more opportunities.


I basically decided that the gestalt was not much different than multiclassing in 2nd ed., which xp was divided between the classes of a character evenly, so gestalts in my campaigns have a 50% xp penalty, which consistantly keeps them 2 levels behind single class characters. Its not really that unbalanced. Most players opt to go with a single class char., but a few have gone gestalt, and it has worked out pretty well.

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