Post/Author/DateTime	Post
M-bark 03-09-08, 08:30 AM	We're currently playing a Gestalt game and I was wondering about a certain thing. How are Racial HD handled in a Gestalt game? If they each would count for one level, then races with Racial HD would fall way behind. I know this could easily be solved by just not using races with Racial HD, but I'm still curious.
strenoth 03-09-08, 03:31 PM	racial HD are gestalted like class HD, it's with LA that you have an issue. personally, i gestalt LA against class levels, but that's the most powerful option. as you described above, some people decide to go with one LA = a whole level. Ick. Weakest option. Soem people take the LA and divide it by 2, and use it as the new LA taking up a full LA. So a Half celestial in a gestalt game wiht this rule would be LA +2, but that LA takes up two levels like you were describing above for racial HD
M-bark 03-09-08, 04:18 PM	Yes, that's the way we do it in our current Gestalt game, halving our LA. Since this is in a game in which just about every character has LA, so we decided to get rid of LA below 7 (half that makes 3 and can be bought off anyway in the first 20 levels). So Racial HD are Gestalted, too? Alright. Thanks, I'll take that into account when it comes up at our game.
JimProfit 03-09-08, 04:47 PM	I never liked racial hitdie level adjustment crap. Ogremage would take atleast level 11, i've always wanted to play an ogremage but can't cause the level is too high for most games. I've always ruled in my games to ignore level adjustmenet and racial hit die, the level reduction from your character is equal to the monster's hit die-1. Obviously this makes simplistic but not very fair for the goblins and kobolds. Sure thier ecl is 0 but they suck. So I've worked on buffing them up somewhat.
Magrus 03-09-08, 05:18 PM	I never liked racial hitdie level adjustment crap. Ogremage would take atleast level 11, i've always wanted to play an ogremage but can't cause the level is too high for most games. I've always ruled in my games to ignore level adjustmenet and racial hit die, the level reduction from your character is equal to the monster's hit die-1. Obviously this makes simplistic but not very fair for the goblins and kobolds. Sure thier ecl is 0 but they suck. So I've worked on buffing them up somewhat. You still haven't read the rules, have you?
Killy 03-12-08, 04:09 PM	In gestalt the racial HD are treated as a class and the level adjustment is treated as it is... a level adjustment, for example this would be a 10th level Minotaur: Level adjustment +2 Monstrous Humanoid 6 / Fighter 2 // Cleric 8 One good idea to use in gestalt games is to double the level adjustment but add it into the racial HD class tier, so this 10th level Minotaur would be something like: Monstrous Humanoid 6 / LA +4 // Cleric 10 Every level you take racial HD or LA, but you can play this monster from level 1 on. This minotaur has completed all of his racial HD and level adjustment (doubled for balance) so at 11th can take any class she wants to gestalt.
Selgard 03-12-08, 04:42 PM	The answer to your question is that there is no "official" answer. Most folk tend to pick one of two sides: either the PC eats the LA for both sides (or some derivation thereof) or they eat the LA for one side, and get class levels on the other. The Gestalt rules are entirely silent on the subject, so it's really just a matter of taste. Given that Gestalt is designed to increase power rather than decrease it, i tend to side with the "+la//class" half of the fence, but that's just me. -S
M-bark 03-12-08, 04:47 PM	Thanks for the replies. I've decided to go with Racial HD//Class level, since we halve LA for Gestalt anyway.