Having trouble with Gestalt Save Progression [Archive] - Wizards Community

Having trouble with Gestalt Save Progression [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
mstrand
03-08-04, 03:23 PM I'm building a Gestalt that starts off Rogue/Wizard at level 1, goes Fighter/Wizard at level 2, and then alternates between the two.

How should I calculate the base save bonuses by level for the combination?

Thanks in advance for any help!
NorthSaber
03-08-04, 04:54 PM Keep track of each class separately, and don't look at the actual bonus of a given level, but instead figure out which saves increase at level X.
Greyman
03-08-04, 06:59 PM Rogue/Wizard: All good saves.
Fighter/Wizard: Good Fort and Will, Poor Reflex

Fortitude and Will use the Good save progression throughout.

That's: +2, +3, +3, +4, +4, +5, +5 ...

Reflex alternates each level.

+2, +2, +3, +3, +3, +4, +5, +5, +5, +5, +10, +11, ...

Slightly different numbers will result if you use the fractional increment option (given in the sidebar).
Kaardomos
03-08-04, 07:37 PM Originally posted by Greyman
Rogue/Wizard: All good saves.
Shouldn't that be good ref and will, poor fort?
Greyman
03-08-04, 07:47 PM Ugh. Yes. Yes, it should.

Which means do the same for reflex, but with the reverse
stone_dog
03-08-04, 08:00 PM Let me see, taking the character up to tenth level it sounds like we are looking at Wiz10/Rogue5/Fighter5. Is that right?

You have five levels of good fort save on the even levels. That would be +4 since good saves start at two and go up every other level. So the increases would hit on levels 2, 4 and 8. Keeping this progression up you would get the +5 at level 12. You also get a +1 poor progression at level 3 from wizard.

LVL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
F + 0 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5
W + 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4
tot 0 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 7 7 9

You don't get anything from the rogue levels since rogue uses the poor progression table and that is already underway with the wizard.

Reflex is the same except the progression would take place on the odd levels from rogue.

LVL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
w + 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4
R + 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 6
tot 0 2 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 7 8 10

Again fighter doesn't give you anything because it uses the poor progression which is already in play.

Will is smooth all the way up from wizard with a base save of +7 at tenth level. Since both Rogue and Fighter have will as poor saves the gestalt bonus comes in with the rogue levels since they are first. I'm not making another damn chart. You would get an increase of plus one at the third and sixth level of rogue making will a +8 at tenth level too.

So. At tenth level we are looking at Fort-7, Ref-7 and Will-8.

Is this more complicated than other methods? Yes. It most certainly is, but it is my way of keeping everything under some sort of control.

Lets take fort as an example of the other simple way.

At 10th level you would have a grand total of +1 from rogue, +3 from wizard and +.. um.. 4 from fighter. Thats seven. Just like my way.

Reflex would be +4 from rogue, +3 from wiz and +1 from fighter. that is eight. Aha. We are seeing a difference, but +1 at 10th level isn't so bad.

Will would be +7 from wizard and +1 from fighter and rogue. +9.

OKAY so I might have wasted everybody's time with all that jabber.

My way may not be worth all that trouble for saves, but for BAB it keeps the fighter1/wiz19/sor20 from having a +20 BAB at 20th level. You would have +11. +1 from the one level of good BAB fighter gives and +10 from the poor progression of sorcerer.

Ah forget it, I gave myself a headache. Time for advil.
NorthSaber
03-09-04, 04:47 PM Personally, I think it might be easier for everyone if (when making gestalt characters) the save progressions were written like this:

LEVEL............GOOD............POOR
1...................+2 (2)...........+0 (0)
2...................+1 (3)...........+0 (0)
3...................+0 (3)...........+1 (1)
4...................+1 (4)...........+0 (1)
5...................+0 (4)...........+0 (1)
6...................+1 (5)...........+1 (2)

...and so on. This way you can just look up the line of the class and level you're currently taking and see which saves would go up. For example, if your next gestalt level is Sorcerer (3) and Wizard (2), you would easily see that all of your saves go up (3rd Sorc level only gives +1 to the poor saves - Ref and Fort - while 2nd Wiz level only gives +1 to the good save - Will).
stone_dog
03-09-04, 05:36 PM Okay Sabor, let me see if I am following you here (Nice chart by the way). Taking the original example...

[list=1]
Rog1/Wiz1
Rog1/Ftr1/wiz2
rog2/fighter1/wiz3
rog2/ftr2/wiz4
rog3/ftr2/wiz5
[/list=1]

At (1) we have one level on the good save list for REF and WIL giving a +2 to each.
Fort+0
Refl+2
Will+2

At (2) the good save is put on hold for Ref, but starts in on fort and continues with Will
Fort +2
Refl+2
Will +3

At (3) is where I am starting to go cross eyed, but lets see if I can get it. Fort goes up +1 because of the advance for the 3rd level of rogue. Ref goes up +1 because of the 3rd level of Wizard and Will goes up +1 because of the 3rd level of rogue.
Fort +3
Refl +3
Will +4

At (4) you have an increase in fighter level and wizard level giving you +1 to fort from fighter and +1 to will from wizard.
Fort +4
Refl +3
Will +5

At (5) Rogue goes up again as does wizard. 3rd level rogue is a +1 bonus to will and 5th level of wizard is nothing.
Fort +4
Refl +3
Will +6

Is that basically how your set up works? Personally I am looking at finding a way so that your base saves are still capped at the level you are at. a 5th level character can't have more than a +4 to a base save since that is the highest the good progression will allow. Maybe that should just be a rule for gestalt saves because I really do like your chart.

Then again I am only putting the cap on it because I am thinking of using them in a group of four players and I don't want things exploding out of proportion.
mstrand
03-10-04, 03:17 PM With fractional rates for this specific build.

Level........Class...................... .Fort..........Ref...........Will
1..............Rog1/Wiz1...............0.333.......2.5...... .....2.5
2..............Ftr1/Wiz2.................2.5...........0.333 .......0.5
3..............Rog2/Wiz2...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5
4..............Ftr2/Wiz4.................0.5...........0.333 .......0.5
5..............Rog3/Wiz5...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5
6..............Ftr3/Wiz6.................0.5...........0.333 .......0.5
7..............Rog4/Wiz7...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5
8..............Ftr4/Wiz8.................0.5...........0.333 .......0.5
9..............Rog5/Wiz9...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5
10............Ftr5/Wiz10...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5
11............Rog6/Wiz11.............0.333.......0.5....... ....0.5
12............Ftr6/Wiz12...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5
13............Rog7/Wiz13.............0.5...........0.333... ....0.5
14............Ftr7/Wiz14...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5
15............Rog8/Wiz15.............0.333.......0.5....... ....0.5
16............Ftr8/Wiz16...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5
17............Rog9/Wiz17.............0.333.......0.5....... ....0.5
18............Ftr9/Wiz18...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5
19............Rog10/Wiz19...........0.333.......0.5......... ..0.5
20............Ftr10/Wiz20.............0.5...........0.333... ....0.5
Total................................... .....10.33.......10.33.......12

So get get a grand total of +10 Fort, +10 Ref, and +12 Will.
Is that what I'm looking for?
NorthSaber
03-10-04, 05:00 PM Originally posted by stone_dog
Personally I am looking at finding a way so that your base saves are still capped at the level you are at. a 5th level character can't have more than a +4 to a base save since that is the highest the good progression will allow. Maybe that should just be a rule for gestalt saves because I really do like your chart.

Then again I am only putting the cap on it because I am thinking of using them in a group of four players and I don't want things exploding out of proportion.

Well, by the rules you could start off with a Wizard/Sorcerer, then take some Druid/Cleric, then pick up some Monk/Bard (Bards get good Will saves, right?), and afterwards pick up prestige classes with good Will saves. The initial +2 to the good saves would legally stack (as they are a +2 increase from scratch for that class), and so you could easily reach ludicrous saves.

But then again, Gestalts were planned to be very high-powered...

If you want to limit the max saves, the easy way to do it is to only give the +2 to good saves at first character level, and afterwards simply give a +1 instead.

PS: In our gestalt testing adventure I made a half-dragon sorcerer with max Charisma, paragon half-dragon, and some other bonuses; his Cha is 30 and he took the Contemplative class and now has access to the Mysticism domain... Cha bonus (+10) now applies to all saves. If you think that's bad, there's at least two other classes that would give the same benefit, that stacks either completely or at least partially.

Trust me, giving the extra +1 because of multiple classes with the same good save is not your biggest problem. ;)
stone_dog
03-10-04, 10:08 PM Well, there is the sidebar in there regarding the +2 initial saves that would certainly go with. It basically says you can only get the second +2 once and after that the first level of any progression is +0.

If you didn't do that then yes you could just hop +2 to a stack of saves every level. You wouldn't get much else, but your saves would be insane. I am glad I am have until August or so to get all this stuff straightened out.

That half dragon though is gnarly. It needs evasion badly. Or a Paladin/Rogue with fighter feats instead of sneak attack, but that is a seperate thread all together.
Trachmyr
03-11-04, 05:42 PM Originally posted by stone_dog
Well, there is the sidebar in there regarding the +2 initial saves that would certainly go with. It basically says you can only get the second +2 once and after that the first level of any progression is +0.
::SNIP::

Please tell me what page (book? I'm guessing UA) that sidebar is located on, I've been going nut trying to find it...

Thanx
stone_dog
03-11-04, 06:49 PM Page 114 of UA. Behind the Curtain: Injury.

It talks about keeping fortitude saves in check in a system that relies heavily on fortitude saves to avoid damage. It could work well with balancing gestalt saves too I think.
TheQuietOne
03-12-04, 01:03 AM I've been thinking about how to handle the gestalt save progression, and I think I have a simple way of doing it.

Let's take a Gestalt 20 Fighter/10 Rogue/10 Wizard as an example.

Now in one method of determining saves, you would have to keep track of all your different level progressions, as gaining a level in Fighter/Rogue, Rouge/Wizard, and Fighter/Wizard would each have a different set of Good Saves and thus have a different progression.

So the first three levels of a Gestalt Ftr/Rog/Wiz could look something like this:
Fighter/Rogue: +2 Fort/Ref +0 Will
Rogue/Wizard: +2 Ref/Will +0 Fort
Fighter/Wizard: +2 Fort/Will +0 Ref

Ending in a total of +4 Fort/Ref/Will in only three levels.

So our example character would have saves of +14 Fort +10 Will/Ref if he alternated between Fighter/Rogue and Fighter/Wizard.

Besides giving a character high saves (which aren't too extreme really, a regular 10 Ranger/10 Rogue would have saves of +10 Fort +14 Ref + 6 Will) it could get really complicated if you start having a lot of different classes, and even prestige classes, as those would count as "different" gestalt levels. And the notes detailing what gestalt levels you got when could quickly get out of hand.

So instead of trying that method, I instead seperate the save progression from the class level.

I count how many levels along a Good save progression I have, and how many levels along a Bad save progression.

So my example character would have a 20th level Good Fort save(+12) and 10th level Good Ref/Will saves plus 10th level Bad Ref/Will saves (+10).

All I have to do to determine my save bonuses is look at how many levels of each class I have and see what kind of save it gives me. (Note: a gestalt 10 Fighter/10 Ranger would not have a 20th level Good Fort save. Your save level for each type can only be equal to or less than your character level.)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mstrand 03-08-04, 03:23 PM	I'm building a Gestalt that starts off Rogue/Wizard at level 1, goes Fighter/Wizard at level 2, and then alternates between the two. How should I calculate the base save bonuses by level for the combination? Thanks in advance for any help!
NorthSaber 03-08-04, 04:54 PM	Keep track of each class separately, and don't look at the actual bonus of a given level, but instead figure out which saves increase at level X.
Greyman 03-08-04, 06:59 PM	Rogue/Wizard: All good saves. Fighter/Wizard: Good Fort and Will, Poor Reflex Fortitude and Will use the Good save progression throughout. That's: +2, +3, +3, +4, +4, +5, +5 ... Reflex alternates each level. +2, +2, +3, +3, +3, +4, +5, +5, +5, +5, +10, +11, ... Slightly different numbers will result if you use the fractional increment option (given in the sidebar).
Kaardomos 03-08-04, 07:37 PM	Originally posted by Greyman Rogue/Wizard: All good saves. Shouldn't that be good ref and will, poor fort?
Greyman 03-08-04, 07:47 PM	Ugh. Yes. Yes, it should. Which means do the same for reflex, but with the reverse
stone_dog 03-08-04, 08:00 PM	Let me see, taking the character up to tenth level it sounds like we are looking at Wiz10/Rogue5/Fighter5. Is that right? You have five levels of good fort save on the even levels. That would be +4 since good saves start at two and go up every other level. So the increases would hit on levels 2, 4 and 8. Keeping this progression up you would get the +5 at level 12. You also get a +1 poor progression at level 3 from wizard. LVL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 F + 0 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 W + 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 tot 0 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 7 7 9 You don't get anything from the rogue levels since rogue uses the poor progression table and that is already underway with the wizard. Reflex is the same except the progression would take place on the odd levels from rogue. LVL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 w + 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 4 R + 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 5 6 tot 0 2 3 4 4 5 6 6 7 7 8 10 Again fighter doesn't give you anything because it uses the poor progression which is already in play. Will is smooth all the way up from wizard with a base save of +7 at tenth level. Since both Rogue and Fighter have will as poor saves the gestalt bonus comes in with the rogue levels since they are first. I'm not making another damn chart. You would get an increase of plus one at the third and sixth level of rogue making will a +8 at tenth level too. So. At tenth level we are looking at Fort-7, Ref-7 and Will-8. Is this more complicated than other methods? Yes. It most certainly is, but it is my way of keeping everything under some sort of control. Lets take fort as an example of the other simple way. At 10th level you would have a grand total of +1 from rogue, +3 from wizard and +.. um.. 4 from fighter. Thats seven. Just like my way. Reflex would be +4 from rogue, +3 from wiz and +1 from fighter. that is eight. Aha. We are seeing a difference, but +1 at 10th level isn't so bad. Will would be +7 from wizard and +1 from fighter and rogue. +9. OKAY so I might have wasted everybody's time with all that jabber. My way may not be worth all that trouble for saves, but for BAB it keeps the fighter1/wiz19/sor20 from having a +20 BAB at 20th level. You would have +11. +1 from the one level of good BAB fighter gives and +10 from the poor progression of sorcerer. Ah forget it, I gave myself a headache. Time for advil.
NorthSaber 03-09-04, 04:47 PM	Personally, I think it might be easier for everyone if (when making gestalt characters) the save progressions were written like this: LEVEL............GOOD............POOR 1...................+2 (2)...........+0 (0) 2...................+1 (3)...........+0 (0) 3...................+0 (3)...........+1 (1) 4...................+1 (4)...........+0 (1) 5...................+0 (4)...........+0 (1) 6...................+1 (5)...........+1 (2) ...and so on. This way you can just look up the line of the class and level you're currently taking and see which saves would go up. For example, if your next gestalt level is Sorcerer (3) and Wizard (2), you would easily see that all of your saves go up (3rd Sorc level only gives +1 to the poor saves - Ref and Fort - while 2nd Wiz level only gives +1 to the good save - Will).
stone_dog 03-09-04, 05:36 PM	Okay Sabor, let me see if I am following you here (Nice chart by the way). Taking the original example... [list=1] Rog1/Wiz1 Rog1/Ftr1/wiz2 rog2/fighter1/wiz3 rog2/ftr2/wiz4 rog3/ftr2/wiz5 [/list=1] At (1) we have one level on the good save list for REF and WIL giving a +2 to each. Fort+0 Refl+2 Will+2 At (2) the good save is put on hold for Ref, but starts in on fort and continues with Will Fort +2 Refl+2 Will +3 At (3) is where I am starting to go cross eyed, but lets see if I can get it. Fort goes up +1 because of the advance for the 3rd level of rogue. Ref goes up +1 because of the 3rd level of Wizard and Will goes up +1 because of the 3rd level of rogue. Fort +3 Refl +3 Will +4 At (4) you have an increase in fighter level and wizard level giving you +1 to fort from fighter and +1 to will from wizard. Fort +4 Refl +3 Will +5 At (5) Rogue goes up again as does wizard. 3rd level rogue is a +1 bonus to will and 5th level of wizard is nothing. Fort +4 Refl +3 Will +6 Is that basically how your set up works? Personally I am looking at finding a way so that your base saves are still capped at the level you are at. a 5th level character can't have more than a +4 to a base save since that is the highest the good progression will allow. Maybe that should just be a rule for gestalt saves because I really do like your chart. Then again I am only putting the cap on it because I am thinking of using them in a group of four players and I don't want things exploding out of proportion.
mstrand 03-10-04, 03:17 PM	With fractional rates for this specific build. Level........Class...................... .Fort..........Ref...........Will 1..............Rog1/Wiz1...............0.333.......2.5...... .....2.5 2..............Ftr1/Wiz2.................2.5...........0.333 .......0.5 3..............Rog2/Wiz2...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5 4..............Ftr2/Wiz4.................0.5...........0.333 .......0.5 5..............Rog3/Wiz5...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5 6..............Ftr3/Wiz6.................0.5...........0.333 .......0.5 7..............Rog4/Wiz7...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5 8..............Ftr4/Wiz8.................0.5...........0.333 .......0.5 9..............Rog5/Wiz9...............0.333.......0.5...... .....0.5 10............Ftr5/Wiz10...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5 11............Rog6/Wiz11.............0.333.......0.5....... ....0.5 12............Ftr6/Wiz12...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5 13............Rog7/Wiz13.............0.5...........0.333... ....0.5 14............Ftr7/Wiz14...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5 15............Rog8/Wiz15.............0.333.......0.5....... ....0.5 16............Ftr8/Wiz16...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5 17............Rog9/Wiz17.............0.333.......0.5....... ....0.5 18............Ftr9/Wiz18...............0.5...........0.333. ......0.5 19............Rog10/Wiz19...........0.333.......0.5......... ..0.5 20............Ftr10/Wiz20.............0.5...........0.333... ....0.5 Total................................... .....10.33.......10.33.......12 So get get a grand total of +10 Fort, +10 Ref, and +12 Will. Is that what I'm looking for?
NorthSaber 03-10-04, 05:00 PM	Originally posted by stone_dog Personally I am looking at finding a way so that your base saves are still capped at the level you are at. a 5th level character can't have more than a +4 to a base save since that is the highest the good progression will allow. Maybe that should just be a rule for gestalt saves because I really do like your chart. Then again I am only putting the cap on it because I am thinking of using them in a group of four players and I don't want things exploding out of proportion. Well, by the rules you could start off with a Wizard/Sorcerer, then take some Druid/Cleric, then pick up some Monk/Bard (Bards get good Will saves, right?), and afterwards pick up prestige classes with good Will saves. The initial +2 to the good saves would legally stack (as they are a +2 increase from scratch for that class), and so you could easily reach ludicrous saves. But then again, Gestalts were planned to be very high-powered... If you want to limit the max saves, the easy way to do it is to only give the +2 to good saves at first character level, and afterwards simply give a +1 instead. PS: In our gestalt testing adventure I made a half-dragon sorcerer with max Charisma, paragon half-dragon, and some other bonuses; his Cha is 30 and he took the Contemplative class and now has access to the Mysticism domain... Cha bonus (+10) now applies to all saves. If you think that's bad, there's at least two other classes that would give the same benefit, that stacks either completely or at least partially. Trust me, giving the extra +1 because of multiple classes with the same good save is not your biggest problem. ;)
stone_dog 03-10-04, 10:08 PM	Well, there is the sidebar in there regarding the +2 initial saves that would certainly go with. It basically says you can only get the second +2 once and after that the first level of any progression is +0. If you didn't do that then yes you could just hop +2 to a stack of saves every level. You wouldn't get much else, but your saves would be insane. I am glad I am have until August or so to get all this stuff straightened out. That half dragon though is gnarly. It needs evasion badly. Or a Paladin/Rogue with fighter feats instead of sneak attack, but that is a seperate thread all together.
Trachmyr 03-11-04, 05:42 PM	Originally posted by stone_dog Well, there is the sidebar in there regarding the +2 initial saves that would certainly go with. It basically says you can only get the second +2 once and after that the first level of any progression is +0. ::SNIP:: Please tell me what page (book? I'm guessing UA) that sidebar is located on, I've been going nut trying to find it... Thanx
stone_dog 03-11-04, 06:49 PM	Page 114 of UA. Behind the Curtain: Injury. It talks about keeping fortitude saves in check in a system that relies heavily on fortitude saves to avoid damage. It could work well with balancing gestalt saves too I think.
TheQuietOne 03-12-04, 01:03 AM	I've been thinking about how to handle the gestalt save progression, and I think I have a simple way of doing it. Let's take a Gestalt 20 Fighter/10 Rogue/10 Wizard as an example. Now in one method of determining saves, you would have to keep track of all your different level progressions, as gaining a level in Fighter/Rogue, Rouge/Wizard, and Fighter/Wizard would each have a different set of Good Saves and thus have a different progression. So the first three levels of a Gestalt Ftr/Rog/Wiz could look something like this: Fighter/Rogue: +2 Fort/Ref +0 Will Rogue/Wizard: +2 Ref/Will +0 Fort Fighter/Wizard: +2 Fort/Will +0 Ref Ending in a total of +4 Fort/Ref/Will in only three levels. So our example character would have saves of +14 Fort +10 Will/Ref if he alternated between Fighter/Rogue and Fighter/Wizard. Besides giving a character high saves (which aren't too extreme really, a regular 10 Ranger/10 Rogue would have saves of +10 Fort +14 Ref + 6 Will) it could get really complicated if you start having a lot of different classes, and even prestige classes, as those would count as "different" gestalt levels. And the notes detailing what gestalt levels you got when could quickly get out of hand. So instead of trying that method, I instead seperate the save progression from the class level. I count how many levels along a Good save progression I have, and how many levels along a Bad save progression. So my example character would have a 20th level Good Fort save(+12) and 10th level Good Ref/Will saves plus 10th level Bad Ref/Will saves (+10). All I have to do to determine my save bonuses is look at how many levels of each class I have and see what kind of save it gives me. (Note: a gestalt 10 Fighter/10 Ranger would not have a 20th level Good Fort save. Your save level for each type can only be equal to or less than your character level.)