Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zorr77 03-05-06, 12:21 PM	I'm sure this has been covered before, but I can't find it....How exactly do multiclass penalties apply to Gestalt characters? The Unearthed Arcana does not even touch on this. For example: (half-Orc, so the Barb levels don't count) Lvl........."Side A"............"Side B" 1............Barb 1..............Clr 1 2............Barb 2..............Clr 2 3*..........Ftr 1................Clr 3 4*..........Ftr 2................Clr 4 5*..........Ftr 3................Clr 5 6*..........Ftr 4................Clr 6 7*..........Prestige 1.........Clr 7 8*..........Ftr 5................Prestige 1(different from other P class taken) 9............Ftr 6................Prestige 2 All the levels with an asterick (*) incur muiticlass penalties for the difference in Fighter/Clereic levels. Is this correct? Has anyone else come up with different multiclass rules for this that is less limiting?
Delfedd 03-05-06, 07:07 PM	I don't think you can multiclass as a gestalt character. It seems very unbalanced.
Morwen 03-05-06, 10:02 PM	You can multiclass as gestalt. In our group we tend to not care about multiclassing penalties anyway, so I can't really help you with that :)
Dnjscott 03-06-06, 12:11 AM	I don't think you can multiclass as a gestalt character. It seems very unbalanced. That... would make gestalt less flexible than single class characters. Probably not the idea, and seems like they would've mentioned something that important... We just ignore the penalties in gestalt in our group. Tried balancing it, but it was a pain...
Shwepie 03-06-06, 04:35 AM	I always kept each half seperate when determaning if there is any penalty, and then stick both sides together at the very end. Kinda like each side is a subpenalty and then those two become a total penalty. Am I making any sense?
lostone 03-06-06, 08:07 AM	Keep each side seperate, if one side has the multi-class penalty then the character has the multi-class penalty. But don't penalize them if both sides have it, just apply the multi-class penalty once if one side has it. Basically apply the worse side. Our group doesn't use the multi-class penalty, we don't tend to go nuts with multi-classing and the few times we do we don't feel it is necessary to penalize creative character building and good character design with an XP penalty. We only care about if the character build makes sense from a roleplaying perspective.
Millennium 03-06-06, 08:34 AM	There is nothing in the Gestalt rules explicitly forbidding multiclassing. However, there is no mention of removing the standard multiclass penalty either. It doesn't apply to two-class gestalts anyway, because their classes will always be at the same level, and that doesn't trigger the penalty. Therefore, if you want to penalize multiclassing for gestalts, just use the standard rules: if you don't keep all of your class levels (except your race's favored class and your PrCs) within two levels of one another, you incur a 20% XP penalty.
Tyler Do'Urden 03-06-06, 11:08 AM	That's within one level there, buddy. If your nonfavored classes are at 3/4/5, you're getting a 20% penalty because one of your classes is not within one level of the others. If you were at 3/4/4, then you'd be fine. Gestalt multiclassing penalties (if you use them; I don't) work the same as normal multiclassing penalties. If your nonfavored, nonprestige classes are not within one level of eachother, you get a 20% XP penalty for each class that isn't.
Zorr77 03-06-06, 05:45 PM	Thanks for all the feedback, if anyone else has any more input, keep it coming. I think we are leaning toward eliminating the xp penalty altogether, mostly because there are only 2 PC's (occasionally 3) in this campagin. On a side note my usual group has 8 PC's and I'm really liking the "duo" campagin alot better. Nobody is ever bored, and every combat feels like it might be our last, dispite our "super" characters.
Templar_Prime 03-12-06, 02:25 PM	Thanks for all the feedback, if anyone else has any more input, keep it coming. I think we are leaning toward eliminating the xp penalty altogether, mostly because there are only 2 PC's (occasionally 3) in this campagin. On a side note my usual group has 8 PC's and I'm really liking the "duo" campagin alot better. Nobody is ever bored, and every combat feels like it might be our last, dispite our "super" characters. Wait... People actually use the multi-classing penalty? Wow.
Dnjscott 03-14-06, 03:30 PM	We don't use it... it's a pain, and the division between two 'sides' of a gestalt character seemed sort of, well, unnecessary? Imaginary? Something like that.
AT-AT Assault 03-14-06, 03:46 PM	Wait... People actually use the multi-classing penalty? Wow.As far as I can tell the multiclass penalty exists only as a deterrant to munchkinism(so you have to decide if you really want to take that 2 level fighter dip). But to keep this post on topic here's my idea. For each level treat each of your 2 classes as one. For example if you're an elf and for your first 2 levels you went Paladin+Rogue you have 2 levels of Paladin+Rogue. Then for your next 4 levels you went Paladin+Sorcerror you have 4 levels of Paladin+Sorcerror. So you are a 2 Paladin+Rogue/4 Paladin+Sorcerror. You suffer the XP penalty since you dont have wizard in your combos and your combos are more than 1 level apart.
Soulburn84 03-15-06, 08:29 AM	What our group did to make it easy was this. You get one additional [Any] class added to your racial preferred class. So your Half-Orc would have, Barbarian plus your highest level non-Barbarian class as favored classes. Hope that helps.