Hey all, I'm running my first ever gestalt game, planning on doing council of thieves as a basis for the game, I'm in need of advice on how to modify encounters to factor in for the power increase the pc's will have. Do I make the npc's gestalt as well and up the CR of monster encounters? Or is there more to do than that?
I wouldnt make the pcs gestalt, that will just get too complicated to run.
The reality is that you will need to feel things out as you proceed. With gestalt the potential difference between parties depending on their makeup is even greater then it is normally. The difference between a fully optimized druid/sommoner compared to an unoptimized monk/rogue is massive. So it will really depend on your party. CR is already a hazy sort of guideline, a gestalt party means you have to be prepared to figure it out for yourself.
A rule of thumb is that for each 5 character levels assume that the party is one level higher then normal when determining the CR of encounters. (so from levels 1-5 treat them as levels 5-6, from levels 6-10 treat them as level 8-12 etc).
As for what to do with encounters, increase the number of badguys. Maybe apply a few templates or add in a few additional monsters/enemies. I recommend highly against making any of your npcs gestalt as it will just mean a more complex game for you to manage.
Thanks for the advice, I knew from the get go I would be in for more work with a gestalt party. I am fairly confident that my party will be highly optimized as they tend to be.
This is purely an experiment on my part as I've never been in or ran a gestalt game before and wanted to see how it plays. I don't think that encounters should be massively bumped up as the parties HP and to hit shouldn't be massively affected by the power boost. It's more they have a higher pool of resources to play with. So maybe add in a few encounters to manage that aspect.
I agree about not adding gestalt to npc's as I believe it may become an exercise in optimization between me and the players, which neither of us would enjoy.
Gestalt isn't just more resources for the party, though, it's more...everything (except actions). More hps, more good saves, more BAB, more skills, more spells, etc.
At the very least I would most likely throw a +1 CR template on your monsters (or add another class level to those npc's). If you consider that two monsters of the same HD are CR+2 then a PC with synergized classes could be APL+2, right? No, because of action economy. But they could be considered APL+1.
You could always throw more monsters at them, too, but bear in mind that the PC's aren't twice as powerful when adjusting your numbers of enemies. Good luck!
P.S. I found playing a gestalt character pretty fun (halfling fighter/rogue dual wielding kukris with improved critical) but combats were over quickly and often weren't as challenging as I would have liked as a player.
I think it will be interesting to see it in action, I have my first characters decided upon and I'm looking forward to seeing how they have been mixed. I have a gnome druid/cavalier and a possibly human ninja/sorcerer which will be interesting.
It'll be one more thing you'll have to do, but you might consider making any NPCs with class levels Gestalt as well. If the low level fighter types can suddenly heal and buff themselves because they have cleric casting, the encounters should even out a bit.
You can also Gestalt the NPCs with an(other?) NPC class(es).
I'm thinking a lot of npc's may have the advanced template whacked onto the and gestalt'd on the fly as the encounters play out
Adding a simple template is a good idea, but I am going to offer an alternative. My suggestion would be to just run the module as is, don't add templates or gestalt the npcs. At early levels it doesn't take much time, but later...wow. Unless you have the time and inclination to do the work, then by all means, go for it.
If, on the other hand, you don't have the time to do all that work, just run the pcs through the module at 1 level lower than the module suggests. If the modlue says "The pcs should be 7th level by the time they encounter X", have them encounter X at 6/6.
It looks like if you switch to slow xp advancement that should put your PCs in the right ballpark.
(Pathfinder APs normally assume medium xp advancement.)