I'm running Runelords for one group, with five PCs and the campaign is going good so far. I was planning on DM'ing it with another group, which was a family where I've been friends with the father for a long time. This chap has played for years, and the rest have played a little.
However, the family unit has split up (on very mutual terms) and I still want to run this for my friend. Even though the break up is good, playing with the whole family isn't really an option. As we're in the UK, and there are very few players in our neck of the woods, I'm thinking of running it with just the two of us.
So, I'm tempted by using Gestalt rules, and would like anyones opinion who has used it before. I've read up on it a lot, but never actually played with the rules.
Would it be safe to assume that three gestalt PCs would be roughly equal to four regular PCs? (That way he can run two major PCs, and I'll run a third minor PC)
How does other GM's experience fare? Thanks in advance!
I suggest that you take a look at both the Campaign Journals sub-forum and the Rise of the Runelords sub-forum. IIRC, some people have run games with Gestalt rules, and lived to post about it. :)
Gestalt can be very fun. My Savage Tide game is currently being run Gestalt - there's a link to the journal in my profile.
There are two caveats:
1. Players will be -very- powerful. If they know anything of optimization and make good choices on their Gestalts so that one side covers the other's weaknesses and vice versa, they will have high HP, high saves, and lots of complimentary abilities. They will be able to do far more than the average PC of their level, and have many more options for handling a given situation. The only real limitation will be that they can still only do one or two things a round, and in my experience that's not much deterrent. ;)
2. If you are going to be throwing NPCs with character levels at them, they will need to be Gestalt as well. Otherwise the PCs will literally mow them over. So you will either need to be ready to spend a lot of time doing prep work or fully intend on never having them face other humanoids/creatures with class levels through the entire campaign. If you're doing a prewritten campaign like I am with Savage Tide, you will likely need to sit down and re-stat every classed NPC in the story, and you'll want to try to stay about 3-4 estimated sessions ahead of your party, just to avoid them catching up to a point where you haven't had time to do prep work. (I did this once. We had a two-hour session that week and I was nowhere near ready to move on.)
That said, if you like higher-powered games Gestalt can be an absolute blast.
That said, if you like higher-powered games Gestalt can be an absolute blast.
Thanks for the advice. I'll have to go through the adventures and take a look at what NPCs I'd need to alter. What was was trying to determine that if I used three Gestalt PCs in Runelords as written (no changes to NPCs) then will it work?
I think its try it and see, I'm going to use the level up points method suggested in the Runelords forum instead of XP, so that they don't get even more powerful than I'd like. Also, I'll definitely 'gestalt-ify' some of the key NPCs. E.g. the last foe in Burnt Offerings was nailed very easily in my other more regular campaign, so making her more powerful will make a more suitable ending.
My experience with Gestalt is that the PC's are super-powerful, but can sort of teeter on the brink of self-destruction. They get the best of both classes, to be sure, but all that power can be very illusionary in the face of an opponent who could beat either of their classes.
When we played gestalt, it was a crazy balancing act, we were either utterly annihilating our opponents, or we were getting annihilated ourselves. It's honestly pretty exciting, but expect some casualties as you balance things out.
One thing I think you should do is make sure the players keep their levels equal. If they've been playing a gestalt fighter/rogue and want to start taking levels in wizard, then they have to select another class to gain alongside wizard instead of increasing their fighter or rogue level.
Yeah, my group's higher power level may be due to the fact that I don't make them do this. I basically let them level as they desire on their two tracks, and just require that they have the prerequisites for any PrCs they take on one side on that side alone (unless it's something that merges, such as BAB, saves, or feats).
Example: A Fighter|Wizard gestalt wants to go into a spellcasting prestige class, he has to do it on his Wizard side as his Fighter side doesn't have the prerequisite spells.
One of my players is Warblade/Barbarian/Hellreaver on one side and Incarnate/Sanctified One on the other, and the levels are nowhere near even :P So yeah, a bit higher powered than most.
|
My group played Age of Worms with gestalt characters, and it was never a problem. I played a half/orc fighter/cleric of Kord. I'd buff up myself and the party with clerical spells, then go kick some ass.
IMHO, it's but nothing to overbalancing. A players still only has so many actions that can be performed in a round. With gestalt, you get just get more options.
It can make a difference in saves, as you pick the best of each of your two composite classes. And it does give you more options in skills, as you pick the best of the ranks per level, but have all the class skills of both classes.
I disagree with requiring them to pair it up like that. It doesn't make any sense to me beyond messing up a character concept that might be interesting. That being said one rule to remember is that you can only take 1 prestige class at a time. I also recommend not allowing the Ur-Priest prestige class.
|
I have to strongly disagree with the assertion that Gestalt only messes up character concepts that may be interesting, implying that the only function is to create powergaming PCs.
The one time I got a chance to run a gestalt PC I ran a LG Hellbred Paladin/ Warlock. I considered his Warlock levels as "racial" while his Paladin levels were XP earned. The flavor of the character was great.
For my games, Players have created Dwarf Fighter/ Clerics of Moradin, Ranger/ Druids, Monk/ Wizards, Favored Soul/ Scouts and even, on one really novel characterization, a Rogue/ Barbarian who worshipped Fharlanghn.
I assert that making Gestalt PCs is no different than making uniclass PCs -- some Players are gonna try to come up with something that breaks the game and powergame their PC to the best of their ability (see "Gish"), while other Players are gonna keep to the spirit of fun, game-balanced and interesting characters.
I have to strongly disagree with the assertion that Gestalt only messes up character concepts that may be interesting, implying that the only function is to create powergaming PCs.
The one time I got a chance to run a gestalt PC I ran a LG Hellbred Paladin/ Warlock. I considered his Warlock levels as "racial" while his Paladin levels were XP earned. The flavor of the character was great.
For my games, Players have created Dwarf Fighter/ Clerics of Moradin, Ranger/ Druids, Monk/ Wizards, Favored Soul/ Scouts and even, on one really novel characterization, a Rogue/ Barbarian who worshipped Fharlanghn.
I assert that making Gestalt PCs is no different than making uniclass PCs -- some Players are gonna try to come up with something that breaks the game and powergame their PC to the best of their ability (see "Gish"), while other Players are gonna keep to the spirit of fun, game-balanced and interesting characters.
I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said spoke of messing up a character concept. I was refering to Justin Sluder's house rule of where if a character is class A/class B and then wants to get a few levels of class C he cannot get more levels of class A or B along with it, he has to pick a fourth class.
One of the concepts I would love to do in gestalt is that of a "spy" type character. For one half of the gestalt I'd go a streight 20 levels of rogue. But on the other side I'd mix in a few levels of fighter (so I can wear all types of armor and use lots of weapons), monk (so I go do well unarmed or armored) and then mix in a few levels of different classes so I can pretend to be any alias I need. You can't do something like that with the house rule mentioned above.
I personally like the idea of gestalt and have toyed with running a gestalt game from time to time.
There are two caveats:
1. Players will be -very- powerful. If they know anything of optimization and make good choices on their Gestalts so that one side covers the other's weaknesses and vice versa, they will have high HP, high saves, and lots of complimentary abilities. They will be able to do far more than the average PC of their level, and have many more options for handling a given situation. The only real limitation will be that they can still only do one or two things a round, and in my experience that's not much deterrent. ;)
2. If you are going to be throwing NPCs with character levels at them, they will need to be Gestalt as well. Otherwise the PCs will literally mow them over. So you will either need to be ready to spend a lot of time doing prep work or fully intend on never having them face other humanoids/creatures with class levels through the entire campaign. If you're doing a prewritten campaign like I am with Savage Tide, you will likely need to sit down and re-stat every classed NPC in the story, and you'll want to try to stay about 3-4 estimated sessions ahead of your party, just to avoid them catching up to a point where you haven't had time to do prep work. (I did this once. We had a two-hour session that week and I was nowhere near ready to move on.)
As someone who plays Gestalt exclusively (and has for four or five years now), neither of those two caveats is true.
1. Gestalt doesn't really increase the power level of the party very much, because it doesn't give you any more actions, and actions are the primary limiter of power. What Gestalt does is give you more flexibility and more staying power. There are far fewer 15 minute days when you play Gestalt, because everyone has more resources to draw on and more potential solutions for any given problem.
2. You absolutely do not need to gestalt NPCs. In fact, I DM'd the entire Rise of the Runelords adventure path for a Gestalt party and I Gestalted precisely 3 NPCs (the final BBEG, one of his main henchbeings, and the BBEG of the first module). All of the characters in the party died at least three times, and I TPK'd them once (with a non Gestalt NPC-with-class-levels, at that). Most of the time, the only concession I made to their Gestalt nature was to maximize the hit points of every creature instead of taking the average (which is what the default statblocks give you). Actually, Gestalting the bad guys doesn't really do anything at all, because Gestalt doesn't give you a whole lot of help in the short term of a 4 round fight. Gestalt's main advantage is over the course of an adventuring day, as I mentioned above.
As long as you stick to the actual Gestalt rules (primarily "abilities advance at the rate of the fastest progression", meaning that you can't make a Rogue//Sneak Attack Fighter/Assassin and get 20d6 Sneak Attack) and don't allow gestalting of two full caster classes (ie, no Wizard//Clerics), maximizing hit points should even up the challenge.
I have play tested Gestault 3.5 characters before; is good for a more open ended system. Very powerful if played with regular classes as a gestault character can handle most situations themselves and have such a wide ability base they can make others jealous; except for lack of hps in battle against multiple opponents; they do well. In a group they can overshadow others; so for your idea; should work well. I also like to use them as champion classes for very old and powerful dieties whose champions have been around a long time or will be to denote long life learning; would be appropriate for npcs such as elves; vampires and and other long lived things as well.
I like to use the gestault characters for a simpler game also; like when running something for my kids that has more fluff and less rules as it makes a more open and fun game; for kids I dont bother having them memorize spells; they can just do as many a day as stated from any list.
I suggest that you take a look at both the Campaign Journals sub-forum and the Rise of the Runelords sub-forum. IIRC, some people have run games with Gestalt rules, and lived to post about it. :)
<Raises hand>
You can actually read the "Rise of the Runelords Obituaries" thread to see how my party did. I mentioned all of their deaths, I do believe, with some context for each. EDIT: Upon re-reading the thread, I actually didn't mention all of the deaths. We had a couple deaths in the first module and one or two in the third that weren't mentioned.
And for the record, yes, three gestalt PCs should roughly equal four non-gestalt PCs as far as challenge level. You might not even need to maximize hit points on the enemies (I didn't always need to do that when I only had three players at certain stretches of RotRL).
One of the reason I haven't run a Gestalt campaign is that my PF campaign currently has 8 players (with a waiting list). With 8 players it can be tough to find something challenging even without them being gestalted, still.....I think I may want to try it sometime.
I think other people have nailed it pretty well - run with max HP on the monsters and you should be okay. I had a party of gestalt characters for my RotRL game as well, and this worked out pretty well.
I ran Shackled City with 4 gestalt PCs and it ran just fine. I didn't ever need to adjust the encounters at all with the exception of turning the major villains into gestalt characters as well. This meant I had to convert seven NPCs into gestalt characters, so overall, very little was required.
Simultaneously I played in a game that employed gestalt characters and the DM was constantly scrambling to keep up with us. We were a 5 PC party but that wasn't the issue, so much.
In my experience gestalt is lots of fun and makes for some really unique characters and the party will function as if they are slightly more advanced. My group of 4 PC functioned as if they were about 1 level higher most of the time. The balancing factor was the limitation of splatbook material. In the game I played we were given access to anything published by Wizards and so I had a weretiger fighter/rogue/dervish doing something in the vicinity of 300 attacks per round with large scimitars for about 2000d10+500 per hit.
So a little prep-work on your end going through the books and deciding what you want to allow, or just limiting it to the core books, will go a long ways toward keeping the game fun as you play.
Thanks for all the responses! Thanks to Zurai for answering my question.
As for the game, we've started with three gestalted PCs (dwarven rogue//sorcerer, human cleric//dragon shaman and half-elf barbarian//druid) and we're safely through roughly half of the first adventure.
Not really amended anything yet, enemies tend to have 1 extra hp per hit die, but thats about all. I may gestalt the first BBEG, but yet to decide on that one
If I do run gestalt I will probably gestalt a LOT of the NPCs/mosnters. That's because I'm a firm believer in the rules of "what's good for the goose is good for the gander". I would have FUN with that.