Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Magrus 01-17-07, 07:46 PM	I have been reading through the Gestalts Most Broken Combo's thread and saw people using racial progressions with classes in the gestalt method of character creation. I am starting up a gestalt campaign soon and was thinking of using an NPC with a racial progression/class. However, I am lost on how I should go about things with using the mixing of the class on one side and the racial progression on the other? For example, lets say I wanted to make a....Psion/Pixie. Pixie progression has 1d6 HD at first and then 4 levels after that without gaining any HD or skills, just racial abilities. Would I not get any HD, BAB, Feats or skills from my Psion classes from 2-5th levels and simply get PP, Powers Known, Manifester Level increase and then a bonus feat at 5th level? :confused:
ZombieDragon 01-18-07, 12:49 AM	First gestalt is the better of the two classes. You are looking at monstrous progression and/or a racial paragon. By your example I’m going with monstrous progression, this is found in savage species. What you are looking to do is transform the monster, with its racial hit dice and level adjustment into a class. The example of a Pixie would be a 5 level class (7 with otto’s). It would get a hit dice and skill points on only one of it’s levels. It’s physical abilities would start small and best case balanced, and then get better slowly over the 5 levels. The spell like abilities and special qualities would be spaced out over the levels, either getting better over time or all at one level. Create the class so that the best abilities come at the highest levels (back end loaded). Now on to its progression as a gestalt, at each level it will get the better of the two classes HD, BaB, and skills. Now seeing as the Pixie has no bab, hd, or skill on 4 of it’s levels you would use the Psions. Then just add on both classes special abilities. If those abilities duplicate themselves then you take the better one or just one. Hope this helps. Personally I usually don’t allow this as racial HD and LA are meant to be independent of gestating. Another trick they love trying to pull is LA as one side of the progression, including the +2 LA for gestating. The only time I might allow gestating a monster progression would be a party of one or two players. Unearthed Arcana is to be interpreted by the individual DM and not by a player as they are a collection of potential house rules and nothing more.
Neutronium_Dragon 01-18-07, 04:29 AM	The problem with racial hit die and LA is that they're calibrated against a standard character's effectiveness. A gestalt character is (let's say) 50% more effective per character level, so if they aren't able to incorporate the racial hit dice and LA into that progression, the racial HD and LA should probably only be partially counted (such as LA +3 being reduced to LA +2.) Otherwise they're effectively getting overcharged for the value of their abilities relative to those of a gestalt character.
Magrus 01-22-07, 10:03 AM	Thanks for the replies, I caught them a while back, but have been busy with work. As far as my situation, I am running a game with 2 players, and wanted to round things out with gestalt. They picked easy classes and races to deal with. However, I was thinking of using a third DM controlled NPC in the party. Something new to test out as a plot device, and I can go a little strange and potentially balanced when testing it out. If it ends up crazy broken, I can fudge rolls or kill him off or something. However, I don't want it to start off crazy broken, so I am seeking advice from folks with a better grasp of things. I know how gestalt works, but the rules don't clarify anything beyond PHB races and classes, which causes problems when incorporating races with LA and Racial HD. The campaign changed, yet again, and I believe I am bumping this up to a ECL 5 start. So, I shall pose a specific example here and see how folks would equate this to a campaign based on gestalt. As the example, for simplicity sake in it, lets take the standard Ogre with 4 HD and +2 LA. Now, fitted with ECL 6 equipment for a character and with the same stat setup as a character, lets say 28 point buy, the ogre should be about even with a 6th level human fighter. This isn't true with a Gestalt Fighter/Cleric though. How should I end up going about incorporating the 4 HD and 2 LA without unbalancing things do you think? Making the character play through the ECL 6 before gaining class levels would put him sorely behind as a 1st level Fighter/Monk (or whatever mix you want) when beside a 6th level Fighter/Cleric. Would knocking off 1/3 of the total ECL work? Meaning, My 4 HD and +2 LA example ending up with an equivalent of ECL 4 in a gestalt campaign, and allowing for class levels starting at 5th instead of 7th? Or would there be a better suggestion?
FoxmanFX 01-22-07, 12:29 PM	When gestalting, I usually drop racial levels. For an ogre Fighter/Cleric (STARTING AT 5th LEVEL!) I would do the following: (Class 1 = Fighter, Class 2 = cleric - you can reverse them to taste) Ftr 1/LA 1 Ftr 2/LA 2 Ftr 3/Clr 1 Ftr 4/Clr 2 Ftr 5/Clr 3 but thats just me YMMV ;) I'm currently setting up a campaign where the primary/focus character is a Mindflayer that has broken away from the mindflayer community (Lords of Madness). IIRC a Mindflayer has a LA of +7 He is going to start as a Wiz 7/LA 7 character with gestulting.
strenoth 01-22-07, 06:52 PM	When gestalting, I usually drop racial levels. For an ogre Fighter/Cleric (STARTING AT 5th LEVEL!) I would do the following: (Class 1 = Fighter, Class 2 = cleric - you can reverse them to taste) Ftr 1/LA 1 Ftr 2/LA 2 Ftr 3/Clr 1 Ftr 4/Clr 2 Ftr 5/Clr 3 but thats just me YMMV ;) I'm currently setting up a campaign where the primary/focus character is a Mindflayer that has broken away from the mindflayer community (Lords of Madness). IIRC a Mindflayer has a LA of +7 He is going to start as a Wiz 7/LA 7 character with gestulting. WOW.. um, i would strongly recommend AGAINST that idea. that gives them a very large boost to power. Try just leaving the racial HD in, so for the ogre, you would be, say.. Ogre HD1 // Cleric1 Ogre HD2 // Cleric 2 Ogre HD3 // Cleric3 Ogre HD4 // Cleric 4 Ogre LA1 // Cleric5 Ogre LA2 // Cleric 6 Fighter1 // Cleric 7 The ogre levels are rather fighter-ish already, so using cleric as the opposite part of the gestalt makes much more sense (and is more powerful, as you get your spells sooner)
Magrus 01-23-07, 01:50 AM	@ Strenoth, that seems like a decent idea. However, to defend FoxmanFX, I believe his intention in the way he posted was this: Ogre 1 Ogre 2 Ogre 3 Ogre 4 Ftr 1/LA 1 Ftr 2/LA 2 Ftr 3/Clr 1 Ftr 4/Clr 2 Ftr 5/Clr 3 I could be wrong however. Either way, they seem relatively similar. Personally, I prefer the method presented in the third post in this thread. Basically resulting in my removing 1/3 of the ECL of a race and using 2/3 of it as the ECL before gestalting. If I am not mistaking that one as well from Neutronium_Dragon. It seems the most logical given the nature of the gestalt process, however I am still open to suggestions if someone has other ideas.
FoxmanFX 01-23-07, 11:23 AM	Sorry Magrus, strenoth understood me correctly... Thank you though :D It is more powerful. I find the "racial HD" way underpowered compaired to a full on level. I use class levels to replace racial HD levels (IE if a creature has 4 HD, It needs to have 4 class levels to replace the "monster HD" levels before I allow it into play).... It does break down sometimes - like when it comes to giants, who have a low LA when compaired to thier stats. My system also allows my players to pick up and play monsters at lower levels of power (total levels)....
jagggar 01-23-07, 02:43 PM	Do you do that for normal play or just gestalt play? And does the charater still get all their racial traits and abilties?
FoxmanFX 01-23-07, 03:23 PM	I use it for both. For gestalting something like an ogre I would use my above example. For regular play I say you have to have as many class levels as the creature had racial hit dice and then you add the LA So an Ogre which has a LA of +2 and 4 HD of racial hit dice, minium level i would let it be played is 6 (EG: LA +2/Ftr 4) It breaks down a bit when there are a lot of LA to HD (IE a pixie +4 LA and 1HD). Or when the LA & the HD are very high (IE an Ogre Mage +7 LA and 4HD) I would also consider the dropping LA by 1/3. So an ogre mage Might look like LA +5/Ftr 5 (level 10) as a min starting level. If I was gestalting an Ogre mage to start: LA 1/Ftr 1 LA 2/Ftr 2 LA 3/Ftr 3 LA 4/Ftr 4 LA 5/Ftr 5 as a min starting level - but YMMV :) Depends on how powerful you want to go in your campaign.... If you still wanted to use LA & racial HD I would suggest the following patern for an Ogre Mage (7LA/4HD) as an example LA 1/HD 1 LA 2/HD 2 LA 3/HD 3 LA 4/HD 4 LA 5/[class x] 1 LA 6/[class x] 2 LA 7/[class x] 3 as a minium starting level and for Level 8 take: [class x] 4/[class y] 1
FoxmanFX 01-23-07, 04:51 PM	Oh and if I don't use racial HD I don't give anything that came from it. For example an Ogre (from the SRD): Things gained from LA: =================== — +10 Strength, –2 Dexterity, +4 Constitution, –4 Intelligence, –4 Charisma. —Large size. –1 penalty to Armor Class, –1 penalty on attack rolls, –4 penalty on Hide checks, +4 bonus on grapple checks, lifting and carrying limits double those of Medium characters. —Space/Reach: 10 feet/10 feet. —An ogre’s base land speed is 40 feet. —Darkvision out to 60 feet. — +5 natural armor bonus. —Automatic Languages: Common, Giant. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Orc, Goblin, Terran. —Favored Class: Barbarian. —Level adjustment +2. Things gained from Racial HD ====================== —Racial Hit Dice: An ogre begins with four levels of giant, which provide 4d8 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +3, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +4, Ref +1, and Will +1. —Racial Skills: An ogre’s giant levels give it skill points equal to 7 x (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1). Its class skills are Climb, Listen, and Spot. —Racial Feats: An ogre’s giant levels give it two feats. —Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An ogre is automatically proficient with simple weapons, martial weapons, light and medium armor, and shields.