Gestalt - Community Package....

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by repair

Did you ever fix the skill points?

I did and then broke the BAB calculation. Sigh...

I have tried to find a few minutes to reset to a working stage for non-multiclassed gestalt to release. Then give a BAB and base save adjustment so gamers could adjust the values manually when they multiclassed.

I am just a little busy as my AC system went out this week and having that installed today as its summer in Chicago and its HOT! Then I go to basement to show the AC guy and find my water heater is leaking.

So may not get to this still for a little bit....

[Dianae]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

I did and then broke the BAB calculation. Sigh...

I have tried to find a few minutes to reset to a working stage for non-multiclassed gestalt to release. Then give a BAB and base save adjustment so gamers could adjust the values manually when they multiclassed.

I'm still using v0.50 so the Multiclassing BAB break I reported was in there from the get go, unless you broke it further with fixing skill points.

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

I am just a little busy as my AC system went out this week and having that installed today as its summer in Chicago and its HOT! Then I go to basement to show the AC guy and find my water heater is leaking.

So may not get to this still for a little bit....

Ouch, and understandably so. I hope things go smoother for you soon.

[LazarX]

So if you're doing a 10th level gestalt you should have 10 gestalt levels and 10 levels each of class one and class two? You showed how to make a first level gestalt, but how do you advance beyond first level, and what if you change one of your classes at say, fifth, changing class one to class three for instance?

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by LazarX

So if you're doing a 10th level gestalt you should have 10 gestalt levels and 10 levels each of class one and class two?

Correct. Each time you level you add a Gestalt class and then the two classes you wish to combine. Then go to the Gestalt Class and at level 2 select the two classes from the drop down lists. Repeat at each level.

Originally Posted by LazarX

You showed how to make a first level gestalt, but how do you advance beyond first level, and what if you change one of your classes at say, fifth, changing class one to class three for instance?

When you say change I assume you mean you where a fighter/rogue and now going to be a fighter/sorcerer? In that case you are multiclassing and as discussed above the BAB and Base Saves are not generating correctly yet.

Otherwise on the Gestalt tab look for the 5th level ability and select Fighter/Sorcerer.

[ShadowChemosh]

Version
V0.6 July 27, 2014
-Fixed incorrect skill points when a Int score higher than 12.
-Added two new adjustments. These adjustments will make it easy to adjust the Base Attack Bonus and Base Save Value by showing you the adjusted value on the adjustments: "Gestalt, BAB"; "Gestalt, Saves". This will allow gamers to easily adjust their BAB and Save values based on their home games Multiclassing rules.

For now when you multiclass you will have to use the Adjustments to reset your BAB and Base Saves to what you need. In the future this will improve with allowing different options for calculations but that is going to be down the road.

[Dianae]

Thanks, SC!

I can't wait to start using this in my campaign.

/e rushes off to update and start playing with character gen.

[CorzatTheGray]

Sweet! Thanks Shadow!

[Ualaa]

With Gestalt, you basically have two decent options if you want the basic mathematical principles of the game to function.

You can allow any gestalt combination, but then restrict your players to that specific combination for every level advance.
As in, if you start out as a Fighter|Wizard, you must continue with Fighter|Wizard at every level up.

Or you can allow your characters to gestalt multiclass, but then you need to use the optional 'Fractional BAB' and 'Fractional Saves' for the system to work.
While the 'Fractional' rules are optional, the entire Unearthed Arcana book is also optional. The argument against the sidebar being an optional rule is kind of moot; if your group wants to use the optional Gestalt system, imposing the (also optional) fractional BAB/Saves -- which makes the system not break down -- is a very good idea.



Fractional BAB adds either 1.00, 0.75, or 0.50 to the current BAB, depending on whether the better of the two classes would have had +20 BAB at level 20 (full BAB), or +15 BAB at level 20 (3/4 BAB) or +10 BAB at level 20 (1/2 BAB).

Fractional Saves give you a value of either +2.00 or +0.33, at first level depending on whether the save is good (+2) from either of your classes or is poor (+0) from both of your classes.
Thereafter, you only add +0.50 (1/2) or +0.33 (1/3), depending on if either of the classes has that save as good or if both of those classes have the save as poor.
The decimal system can get kind of messy, you could use increments of 1/6 (with either 2/6 or 3/6 added).

This means that at 20th level, a character cannot have more than +20 BAB, nor better than +12 to a given saving thrown.
The math of the system assumes characters fall within this base range, and is then modified by items and buffs, etc.



As an example, here is a Druid who wants to focus on Wild Shape.

LV 01: Druid 1 | Rogue 1... BAB 0.75, Fort +2.00, Ref +2.00, Will +2.00
LV 02: Druid 2 | Rogue 2... BAB 1.50, Fort +2.50, Ref +2.50, Will +2.50
LV 03: Druid 3 | Fighter 1.. BAB +2.50, Fort +3.00, Ref +2.83, Will +3.00
LV 04: Druid 4 | Fighter 2.. BAB +3.50, Fort +3.50, Ref +3.16, Will +3.50

The character has all of the abilities of a Druid 4, Rogue 2 and Fighter 2... because they took the best features from each. The druid did not have Trap Finding at level 1, but the rogue did, so the Gestalt Character does too.

The BAB is +3 (but 0.50 closer to +4, that a straight Druid or Rogue would be).
The Druid provides a good Fort/Will at each level.

If the character had been optimized a little less, and say taken the Fighter levels before the Rogue levels, we have:

LV 01: Druid 1 | Fighter 1.. BAB +1.00, Fort +2.00, Ref +0.33, Will +2.00
LV 02: Druid 2 | Fighter 2.. BAB +2.00, Fort +2.50, Ref +0.66, Will +2.50
LV 03: Druid 3 | Rogue 1... BAB +2.75, Fort +3.00, Ref +1.16, Will +3.00
LV 04: Druid 4 | Rogue 2... BAB +3.50, Fort +3.50, Ref +1.66, Will +3.50

Note that the character level 3, including the first level of Rogue, only added 0.50 to Reflex, as that is a good (but not character level 1) saving throw for the character.

[Dianae]

While Fractional has the least amount of breakable rulings, the other side of the coding coin is how Herolab's hard coding works for character progression.

There is only so much that can or can't be done by the end users. There does come a point where a brick wall is met, the basic core of the compiler. If HeroLab does not support Fractional Progression, (I do not know) then this would be impossible to code as an end user.

[Ualaa]

Hero Lab is has been an extremely powerful tool in my experience.
I don't know what it's limitations are in this regard.

ShadowChemosh's adjustment tool, can effectively force base BAB or base Saves based on their correct 'Fractional' values, if those are tracked with paper or a spreadsheet.
If its possible for these to be calculated within Hero Lab, that would of course be better.

And while the Fractional system keeps closest to the basic mathematical assumptions of the system, that's not saying some groups wouldn't prefer to use additive values and have very broken characters for a one-shot, or perhaps that they enjoy playing demi-gods.

Ultimately, having the option to choose Fractional or Additive would be the best option, but if that's not possible then pick one or the other, and use the adjustments option if you need to adjust what Hero Lab calculates to what your group is using.