Before the Advanced Class Guide was talked about, I created a system for home games that lets you take two classes and "merge" them.
Unlike Gestalting, you don't gain everything from each class, and you have to "pay" for it with class levels that don't gain you any advancement but more hit points.
Level (HD) Hybrid Class Levels Benefits
1 1/1 Best HD, BAB, Saves, of Both Classes, merged special abilities
2 1/1 Alternate (Worst) HD, no level advancement in classes
3 2/2 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
4 3/3 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
5 4/4 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
6 4/4 Alternate (Worst) HD, no level advancement in classes
7 5/5 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
8 6/6 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
9 7/7 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
10 7/7 Alternate (Worst) HD, no level advancement in classes
11 8/8 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
12 9/9 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
13 10/10 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
14 10/10 Alternate (Worst) HD, no level advancement in classes
15 11/11 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
16 12/12 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
17 13/13 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
18 13/13 Alternate (Worst) HD, no level advancement in classes
19 14/14 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
20 15/15 Best HD, BAB, Saves of Both Classes, merged special abilities
In order to keep from creating overpowered combinations, you can only hybrid two classes together from different groups.
Group A Group B Group C
Fighter Wizard Druid
Paladin Sorcerer Cleric
Monk Bard
Level Hybrid Benefit
1 1/1 Best HD, BAB, Saves, special abilities from both classes
2 1/1 Gain HD of other class, but no other level increases
I'd be really interested in feedback, especially from Math whizzes that can Min/Max this and tell me if its broken
:)
It should be noted that this was an attempt to balance out "gestalt" type characters with normal single classes.
this bears some number crunching. loss of 9th level spells is huge, so this could possibly work, but things could get more complicated when the other classes are added in.
I'd be interested for people to try it out. At low levels it seems to balance out fine, but I'm wondering if it balances out against high level "normal" classes