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Gestalt characters supported?

Toby mentioned earlier that most DM's don't allow multiple gestalt classes like this because it becomes too powerful. I say go ahead. Just as long as they know we DM's get to play by the same rules. :)

True, but in my experience, it only works if ALL the PCs are equally powerful. Thats the biggest problem. So when im allowing one character to be overpowered, i have to make sure all characters are so that when I amp up the opponents, nobody is screwed. (or everyone is :cool:)
 
True, but in my experience, it only works if ALL the PCs are equally powerful. Thats the biggest problem. So when im allowing one character to be overpowered, i have to make sure all characters are so that when I amp up the opponents, nobody is screwed. (or everyone is :cool:)
This would be similar to Mythic rules in Pathfinder. Either all PCs are Mythic or none of them are. Half and half would suck! :eek:
 
Heh. In my current Mythic Game one of the characters rolled really Crap stats, so he decided his personal mission is to outlive every single other party member by taking all the mythic powers that let him tank damage and anything else which might harm him.
 
Heh. In my current Mythic Game one of the characters rolled really Crap stats, so he decided his personal mission is to outlive every single other party member by taking all the mythic powers that let him tank damage and anything else which might harm him.

Weakest character I had in a PC party was a Magic-user that rolled crappy stats aside from Int, and kept rolling 1s on hit dice (and this was back before 1st level was auto maxed). He made it to 5th level before dying with his meager 5 hit points.
 
its worse as a DM when your fighter of the group rolls 1 for hit points three times in a row. fourth level fighter had (con of a 15 that became a 16 at 4th level):
25 hp. without the con bonus he would have had 13 (and i shutter to think if not the max at first level)

Meanwhile the mage (con 14) had 20. it was just wrong.
 
its worse as a DM when your fighter of the group rolls 1 for hit points three times in a row. fourth level fighter had (con of a 15 that became a 16 at 4th level):
25 hp. without the con bonus he would have had 13 (and i shutter to think if not the max at first level)

Meanwhile the mage (con 14) had 20. it was just wrong.

That's the main reason why my group ended up house ruling a re-roll under half for hit points. While yes, it makes for sturdier PC's, I usually set my monsters and Villainous NPC's to max hp to balance things a little more.

If the mage still has more hp than the front line fighters after that.... He's probably my husband's fire mage.
 
Take the best from each... so Good Base Save and Good Base Attack as Monk. Just wanting to point out, 99.9% of all GM's are not going to let you take more than one gestalt. They are just too powerful.

For more information on gestalts I highly recommend reading the section on gestalting in Arcana Unearthed.

TobyFox,

If you read the text on the option, it specifically says the option is for small group games. It was put in there as a means of giving a group of 2-3 players a way to balance out the party structure. Most adventures you purchase are wrotten under an assumption of 4 PCs (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Rogue are the assumed classes). When you have 2 PCs you have about half the bases covered you need. Gestalt wasn't meant for large party games 4+ PCs. This is why most DMs, myself included, do not allow it.
 
I understand that, and I know many DM's do not allow gestalts, however it is my opinion that they add a lot of depth to the games. I have been in games where they have been allowed and in games where they have been disallowed.

I generally allow them in any game I'm running regardless of the number of persons playing. Yes its more work for me, (sometimes a lot more work), and I can understand why they are not allowed. However, that is not the issue here, the issue is that there are HL users that want them. I'm doing my best with a temporary measure for the non-caster classes which will hopefully be ready soon.

But I don't have the skill to do ones that use two caster classes.
 
The way my DM has explained it to me is when Gestalting the first two classes act as one class option vs experience and leveling, meaning if I used my Sorcerer/Warmage gestalt then any other class added is considered multiclassing I.E. Sorcerer/Warmage 1, Cleric 1.
With this in consideration he did rule that at level I needed to choose between the gestalt class option or the cleric to level when I had enough XP to level.

As others have said both the gestalt class leveraging they are on par with it. Essentially treat the gestalted classes as one class.
 
The way my DM has explained it to me is when Gestalting the first two classes act as one class option vs experience and leveling, meaning if I used my Sorcerer/Warmage gestalt then any other class added is considered multiclassing I.E. Sorcerer/Warmage 1, Cleric 1.
With this in consideration he did rule that at level I needed to choose between the gestalt class option or the cleric to level when I had enough XP to level.

As others have said both the gestalt class leveraging they are on par with it. Essentially treat the gestalted classes as one class.
Pretty much sums up what I found about gestalt. Everyone group uses a houserule to figure things out. Multiple ways to see RAW and each group uses a different method. So for the Pathfinder version of things I put in adjustments for BAB and Base Save Values. This way groups can easily re-adjust the values to what their particular group uses.
 
Honestly the only reason I don't use the pathfinder side of Herolab for this is by the fact Warmage isn't available to me. Lone Wolf doesn't do a very good job describing whats available to me when I purchase data packs, thus many purchases I have made already are rather useless to me. If I had better info back then surely I would have chosen better packages for my personal odd creations. Since I don't think the 3.5 books will ever be converted over due to copyrights and etc, etc. This area stands as my only option atm.
 
Honestly the only reason I don't use the pathfinder side of Herolab for this is by the fact Warmage isn't available to me. Lone Wolf doesn't do a very good job describing whats available to me when I purchase data packs, thus many purchases I have made already are rather useless to me. If I had better info back then surely I would have chosen better packages for my personal odd creations. Since I don't think the 3.5 books will ever be converted over due to copyrights and etc, etc. This area stands as my only option atm.

LW can't add Warmage to its 3.5 set because of licensing issues. That said, you could create the class in the editor for Pathfinder if you wanted to. It's available for 3.5 in the community set, though obviously the whole gestalt support thing is problematic.
 
Honestly the only reason I don't use the pathfinder side of Herolab for this is by the fact Warmage isn't available to me. Lone Wolf doesn't do a very good job describing whats available to me when I purchase data packs, thus many purchases I have made already are rather useless to me. If I had better info back then surely I would have chosen better packages for my personal odd creations. Since I don't think the 3.5 books will ever be converted over due to copyrights and etc, etc. This area stands as my only option atm.

LW cannot add/convert classes that are not licensed. Warmage has not been converted to pathfinder officially as a class. Pathfinder releases variant classes as Archetypes, which is likely what Paizo would classify the class as if they did do it. Many of the 3.5 classes were just variants of an existing base class, they just swapped out class features and altered spell lists.

LW also has too many releases from Catalyst Game Labs and Paizo to actually input data for as it is. That is why they rely on the community to deal with it.
 
With Gestalt, I've always used the sidebar for 'Fractional BAB' and 'Fractional Saves'.

That is the only way to really keep a Gestalt character in line with a normal character, in terms of their attacks and defenses.

You can then bring in mostly the correct Encounter Level / Challenge Level creatures and have the game run fairly smoothly, with minimal modifications required on your part.
If a monster relies heavily on 'save or nasty effect' abilities, each character is very likely to have all good defenses, meaning either bring in something two levels beyond what you normally would or reduce the CR/EL by two.

In my games, I've found that bringing in +1 EL/CR for 'doesn't rely on attacking a specific save' or +2 EL/CR for 'relies on targeting a specific save', to be a happy fix.
As in, my group is level 4 and I'd like a challenging encounter, that isn't likely to kill anyone if they play smart. Normally I'd throw an EL 6-8 (depending on their overall optimization level) encounter at them, but instead I throw 7-9 or 8-10 (again weighted by their level of optimization).

One simple fix, and the system works for Gestalt characters.



Sure you could go with additive saves, such as:
LV 01 - Fighter 1 | Wizard 1 ........ +2 Fort
LV 02 - Barbarian 1 | Wizard 2 ..... +2 Fort
LV 03 - Cleric 1 | Wizard 3 ........... +2 Fort
Then be a level 3 wizard, with +6 to Fortitude...

If you choose to go with additive saves, rather than fractional saves, that breaks the game system.
An even moderately optimized character is going to be almost immune to any game effect that allows a saving throw.

If I were to let you have an NPC spell caster (for an encounter), who is restricted to spells that allow saving throws... the challenge rating system isn't going to work against 'additive saves' PCs, who will essentially be immune to your effects, especially if they have Rogue2 or Monk2 somewhere in their build for Evasion.



Fractional BAB and Saves accomplishes this.

Full BAB classes (those with +20 BAB at 20th level) gain +1.00 BAB per level.
3/4 BAB classes (those with +15 BAB at 20th level) gain +0.75 BAB per level.
1/2 BAB classes (those with +10 BAB at 20th level) gain +0.50 BAB per level.
Until it's a whole number BAB rounds downwards.
But you take the better value, from your combined two classes, for each level.
So Wizard|Fighter and then Wizard|Barbarian, would take +1.00 (twice) as Fighter and Barbarian are both full BAB classes and therefore the better of the two values (Wizard being a 1/2 BAB class both times).

The fractional saves is a little more complicated.
If either of your (two classes) has a good save, that value begins at 2.00; if neither of your (two classes) has a good save, that value begins at 1/3 (or 0.33).
The Fighter | Wizard would then have:
Fort 2.00 Ref 0.33 Will 2.00

After the first level, you now only add the fractional value.
Going Barbarian | Wizard, you add:
Fort +0.50 Ref +0.33 Will +0.50
Giving you: Fort +2.50 (+2), Ref +0.66 (+0), Will +2.50 (+2).
Which is in line for any single classed level 2 character who received good Fort/Will and poor Ref saves.

You'd have to round 0.99 to 1, because we're actually adding 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3, not 0.33 + 0.33 + 0.33.



It's really up to you (or whoever is running the game), if you (they) want a working mathematical assumption on savings/attacks/ac or if you (they) want to either modify each encounter depending on the defense attacked/save required (sometimes for each PC in the group... if one has stacked FORT to +12 at 6th level, while the others are closer to a normal +1 to +4) or just accept that the values don't work and that your (their) level 12 monster should be worthless, or worth very little (in terms of experience) for a group that has +12 to a saving thrown, when the system anticipates +3 to +5 for the saving throw.
 
I don't fractional in my games nor allow them because I don't feel confident in my mathematical ability. (And if I can't, I can't make sure its being added right especially when prestige classes or multi-classing comes into play later in the game.) However, with hero labs doing all the calculations it might be worth considering because it is more accurate.

But the real issue, the real hurdle with making Gestalt classes work in HL is not blending classes. But blending two caster classes.

I don't know about fractional and CR/ECL. I've always gone by the rule of reduce the CR of monsters by 1/3rd in my head and that produces a fairly good match for most things. When it doesn't work, I tweak things while we are playing. But then, my play style is LESS hack and slash and more role-play. If combat is going poorly, and isn't balanced I'm just as likely to turn it into free-form rp combat as I am to pause the game and hit the books for added help.

Some people may not like this, but those I play with don't seem to mind much.
 
I'm getting the following error when trying to load after importing the gestalt files:

Syntax error in 'eval' script for Thing 'cPUDevaTou" (Eval Script '#1") on line 9 -> Error in right-side expression of assignment

Anyone know what's going on?
 
I'm getting the following error when trying to load after importing the gestalt files:

Syntax error in 'eval' script for Thing 'cPUDevaTou" (Eval Script '#1") on line 9 -> Error in right-side expression of assignment

Anyone know what's going on?

We would need to see the actual script to have an idea of what the problem is.

Also, what gestalt files did you import? Are you sure they aren't for Pathfinder? That thing (cPUDevaTou) doesn't exist in the d20 community set.
 
We would need to see the actual script to have an idea of what the problem is.

Also, what gestalt files did you import? Are you sure they aren't for Pathfinder? That thing (cPUDevaTou) doesn't exist in the d20 community set.
That is from Ultimate Psionics from the Pathfinder Community Pack. So either a) wrong forum or b) he tried to load Pathfinder stuff into d20....
 
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