Three-Class Gestalt: Let the Insanity Begin [Archive] - Wizards Community

Three-Class Gestalt: Let the Insanity Begin [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Lord_Varos
09-23-06, 09:15 PM I will am developing an evil master villain for my campaign, and I plan to have my PCs do battle with him about the time they are all near 20th level. The problem is that this BBEG is going to take them all on (5 PCs) by himself. This is the point of the fight: all against one and one against all.
But a 20th-level gestalt still isn't *that* much of a challenge for a group of 20th-level characters, so I thought about making him be a three-class gestalt.

Now, I'm doing this for sure. But my next campaign will be *very* high-powered, and I'm wondering what sort of balance issues will come into play with 3-class gestalt rules.

Aside from the obvious one of the PCs being three-class gestalt.
Seerow
09-23-06, 09:23 PM 3 Class Gestalt Huh?

Lots of interesting possibilities, but outside of the obvious insanity ensuing, I'm not sure what to tell you.

I will say that a Fighter/Crusader/Cleric sounds like great fun though. Maybe your BBEG could be a Ruby Knight Vindicator (prestiging out from the Fighter)
Lord_Varos
09-23-06, 09:34 PM Oh, yeah, and the BBEG is a Fighter/Monk/Favored Soul or Fighter/Monk/Sorcerer.
archerpwr
09-23-06, 09:38 PM you could make a rediculusly powerful wildshaper

dwarf
druid 20/ ranger 2/ monk 3/ deepwarden 2/ momf ?/ warshaper ?/ natures warior ?/ fighter 20

if you really wanted to cheese it up you could use the divine minion template and get 3 more lvls of wildshape prc by using wizard for the feat and dropping 2 lvls of fighter and add 10 HD to your max wildshape as well

full casting, wildshaped con to ac instead of dex, wis to ac, imune to crits, full bab, animal companion at full power, wild shape into just about anything, wildshape 35 hours a day, wildshape as a swift action, etc.

plz disregard my inability to spell or lack of caps or bad grammer as my fingers are stupid.

from there its just up to you for what feats and how many lvls of each wildshape prc.
TheDarkLord
09-23-06, 09:42 PM Class 1: Warrior (UA) 20
Class 2: Cloister Cleric (UA) 20
Class 3: Druid 20

That w/o prestige classes and whatever is nasty, full bab, full save progression in each save and a buttload of feats from the warrior. Not to mention Wildshape, Clerical Domains and spontaineous healing. Nasty indeed.
dog45
09-24-06, 12:41 PM Balance issues?

Expect nearly all the characters to have full saves, full bab, and plentiful skillpoints.

For characters that choose 3 primary casters, expect for them to pretty much walk over anything you throw at them.

Expect lots of synergy bonuses (i.e. Paladains CHA to saves / Hexblades CHA to saves / Swashbucklers INT to dmg, etc), and lots of special abilities and immunities. With three classes to choose from, they can cherry pick from the X stat to Y bonus (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=4584975) thread to get what they need.

The PC's should be able to use any magic item they come across, and be able to create any magic item they need.

Basically you are opening the floor for greatly enhanced versatility, protection and offense. Anything a Cleric can do, a Cleric//Artificer can do better, and anything a Cleric//Artificer can do, a Cleric//Artificer//Druid can do best.
Crimson_Concerto
09-24-06, 12:49 PM Wizard // Archivist // Psion

Game Over

... Or for lots of fun with WIS and pretty much pwning everythign else ever, Druid // Cleric // Monk is fun too.
Adam Smite
09-24-06, 01:52 PM Balance wise, as long as the players and every NPC they fight against is a triple-Gestalt it will balance on it's own.
Icewraith
09-25-06, 04:40 PM Druid+MoMF/Rogue/Monk would be nothing short of horrific.

Consider the ambush scenario:

Wild shape (or shapechange for even more fun!) into something small with a huge hide bonus, augmented by rogue class hide skill.

BBEG changes form into something really big and nasty as a free action, and gets his surprise round on the PCs. So we have:

Flurry
Stunning
Monk improved damage on top of the
Size increase and
Sneak Attack

Even better, this magnificent beastie has Imp. Uncanny Dodge, good SR, Imp. Evasion, (good DR with Shapechange), three good saves, AND since he's a bbeg...

hordes of gestalt or tristalt (because typing "tiple-gestalt" will annoy me to no end) minions waiting to complement his devastating onslaught.

It sounds like great fun, until it's the PCs turn, and you have to gestalt or tristalt the vast majority of opponents just to keep them around for more than one round.

Personally, I wouldn't do it, just to keep the whole thing from devolving into a series of ever-skyrocketing numbers and combat at high level taking even longer than it does already.
scienceman47
09-25-06, 10:10 PM Actually, three gestalt at once would not be as fun as you think. Everyone has perfect saves, good HP, and magic. What seems like great power is a great snooze, because you characters lack foibles and specialization.

Your welcome to do as you like, but I would recommend against.
jagggar
09-26-06, 01:03 PM Sounds great, but I don't think that a Threestalt character would be too much more powerful than a normal gestalt. You're still limited to 1 standard action per round. I almost wonder if a normal gestalt with two standard actions per round would be more powerful than a threestalt.
Darth Sephiroth
09-26-06, 01:24 PM You could go with a Dragon for one of the portions with the other two granting other abilities. It can even grant you the ability to have the players think they've won when it changes forms for a second round if you want to do something along those lines.
Mkire
09-26-06, 08:54 PM I wonder what the people on the CO boards would do with a pentastalt
dog45
09-26-06, 09:56 PM I wonder what the people on the CO boards would do with a pentastalt

pentastalt? that would be 5 classes? whats the point? it would be easier (less paperwork) to get an easy button, press it and say I win. either way it amounts to the same thing.
Darth Sephiroth
09-26-06, 11:56 PM Not really, 5 characters of the same level built with the same ability system (Such as the same number of points) would probably come out ahead. The reason is that while the pentastault would have a lot of options, it still leaves a 5 on 1 situation, sheer number win in this case especially since the pentastault wouldn't be able to utilize everything at the same time and would be forced to be subpar in most or even all of his abilities, but be on heck of a generalist.
Seerow
09-27-06, 12:00 AM Well, it does open up to have a straight 20 levels of Psion and Wizard. Between the two you can Celerity, Temporal Accelaration, Schism, etc, to get yourself enough actions in a round to decimate the 5.

But you have to beat all 5 of them in innitiative. That's the hard thing.
dog45
09-27-06, 05:23 PM Not really, 5 characters of the same level built with the same ability system (Such as the same number of points) would probably come out ahead. The reason is that while the pentastault would have a lot of options, it still leaves a 5 on 1 situation, sheer number win in this case especially since the pentastault wouldn't be able to utilize everything at the same time and would be forced to be subpar in most or even all of his abilities, but be on heck of a generalist.

no way. look at some of the builds on the CO board that ''own'' with just regular progression. [ Twice-Betrayer of Shar (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=478716) / Nanobots (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=458721&page=1&pp=30) / Diplomacy Specialists (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=371519) / and the Synchronicity Shuffle (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=7031931&postcount=27)

Now, given the feat limitation, you wouldnt be able to fully replicate each of the different builds, but i'd imagine you could get pretty damn close.

-----

Even if you didn't try and use some uber CO build, you would still be prepared for anything. Check it out: Wizard//Archivist//Warblade//Psion//Monk (w/ Kung Fu Genius). Full Arcane/Divine/Psionics/Maneuvers/BAB/Saves/ and good skills. All your "magic" and monk abilities run off INT, btw. doesnt sound subpar to me.

Given prep time, this guy will walk over anything (of comparable CR, and probably higher). Even without prep time, he can pull a Celerity out of his ass and escape/buff/attack, whatever.
makeshiftwings
09-28-06, 12:03 AM Balance wise, as long as the players and every NPC they fight against is a triple-Gestalt it will balance on it's own.

I'm not so sure... most battles will probably be the same number of rounds or shorter than in a normal campaign even with threestalt enemies, but the PC's will have three times as many spells or per-day abilities. So, they'll be able to go three times as long without resting. It will be much harder to wear them down by attrition through multiple encounters. The only way to really challenge them will be to have every encounter be a potentially deadly one.

I also think this will lead to a boring game. Normal gestalt already gets rid of a lot of specialization; threestalt almost garuantees that every character will have no weaknesses and be able to do most things well. There won't be much interparty reliance anymore, since each single player can do everything just as well as the next guy.
Bill Bisco: Average Adventurer
10-06-06, 12:31 PM I would give the Triple Gesalt Character one feat every level. I think triple gesalt can work for a main character, but an enemy if played right could just obliterate everyone else.

I'd probably do Warblade/ Wizard/Psion/ Cebremancer / Archivist
starfire311
10-06-06, 02:48 PM how about a sniping, warlock/ninja/rogue

personally if given the oppurtunity I would play a crusader/knight/fighter-psi-war

there is always psion/archivist/wizard
Telemon_Ajax
10-06-06, 03:26 PM Wizard // Archivist // Psion

Game Over

... Or for lots of fun with WIS and pretty much pwning everythign else ever, Druid // Cleric // Monk is fun too.

Seconded FOR GREAT JUSTICE! :D
Darkuwa
10-06-06, 07:46 PM Wizard/Cleric/Fighter
Lina_Inverse
10-07-06, 01:18 AM I will am developing an evil master villain for my campaign, and I plan to have my PCs do battle with him about the time they are all near 20th level. The problem is that this BBEG is going to take them all on (5 PCs) by himself. This is the point of the fight: all against one and one against all.
But a 20th-level gestalt still isn't *that* much of a challenge for a group of 20th-level characters, so I thought about making him be a three-class gestalt.

Now, I'm doing this for sure. But my next campaign will be *very* high-powered, and I'm wondering what sort of balance issues will come into play with 3-class gestalt rules.

Aside from the obvious one of the PCs being three-class gestalt.

From the dming perspective, the BBEG still wont survive one round. He just wont have the defenses to survive your players attacks for even a single action. BBEGs never work as a single human type, there will be nothing climatic. if he wins initive and isnt a wizard, one party member dies then he does, if he is a wizard half the party dies(wail) then he does, if he loses initive he just dies.
DarkThoughts24
10-07-06, 12:22 PM From the dming perspective, the BBEG still wont survive one round. He just wont have the defenses to survive your players attacks for even a single action. BBEGs never work as a single human type, there will be nothing climatic. if he wins initive and isnt a wizard, one party member dies then he does, if he is a wizard half the party dies(wail) then he does, if he loses initive he just dies.

you never dm, do you?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lord_Varos 09-23-06, 09:15 PM	I will am developing an evil master villain for my campaign, and I plan to have my PCs do battle with him about the time they are all near 20th level. The problem is that this BBEG is going to take them all on (5 PCs) by himself. This is the point of the fight: all against one and one against all. But a 20th-level gestalt still isn't that much of a challenge for a group of 20th-level characters, so I thought about making him be a three-class gestalt. Now, I'm doing this for sure. But my next campaign will be very high-powered, and I'm wondering what sort of balance issues will come into play with 3-class gestalt rules. Aside from the obvious one of the PCs being three-class gestalt.
Seerow 09-23-06, 09:23 PM	3 Class Gestalt Huh? Lots of interesting possibilities, but outside of the obvious insanity ensuing, I'm not sure what to tell you. I will say that a Fighter/Crusader/Cleric sounds like great fun though. Maybe your BBEG could be a Ruby Knight Vindicator (prestiging out from the Fighter)
Lord_Varos 09-23-06, 09:34 PM	Oh, yeah, and the BBEG is a Fighter/Monk/Favored Soul or Fighter/Monk/Sorcerer.
archerpwr 09-23-06, 09:38 PM	you could make a rediculusly powerful wildshaper dwarf druid 20/ ranger 2/ monk 3/ deepwarden 2/ momf ?/ warshaper ?/ natures warior ?/ fighter 20 if you really wanted to cheese it up you could use the divine minion template and get 3 more lvls of wildshape prc by using wizard for the feat and dropping 2 lvls of fighter and add 10 HD to your max wildshape as well full casting, wildshaped con to ac instead of dex, wis to ac, imune to crits, full bab, animal companion at full power, wild shape into just about anything, wildshape 35 hours a day, wildshape as a swift action, etc. plz disregard my inability to spell or lack of caps or bad grammer as my fingers are stupid. from there its just up to you for what feats and how many lvls of each wildshape prc.
TheDarkLord 09-23-06, 09:42 PM	Class 1: Warrior (UA) 20 Class 2: Cloister Cleric (UA) 20 Class 3: Druid 20 That w/o prestige classes and whatever is nasty, full bab, full save progression in each save and a buttload of feats from the warrior. Not to mention Wildshape, Clerical Domains and spontaineous healing. Nasty indeed.
dog45 09-24-06, 12:41 PM	Balance issues? Expect nearly all the characters to have full saves, full bab, and plentiful skillpoints. For characters that choose 3 primary casters, expect for them to pretty much walk over anything you throw at them. Expect lots of synergy bonuses (i.e. Paladains CHA to saves / Hexblades CHA to saves / Swashbucklers INT to dmg, etc), and lots of special abilities and immunities. With three classes to choose from, they can cherry pick from the X stat to Y bonus (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=4584975) thread to get what they need. The PC's should be able to use any magic item they come across, and be able to create any magic item they need. Basically you are opening the floor for greatly enhanced versatility, protection and offense. Anything a Cleric can do, a Cleric//Artificer can do better, and anything a Cleric//Artificer can do, a Cleric//Artificer//Druid can do best.
Crimson_Concerto 09-24-06, 12:49 PM	Wizard // Archivist // Psion Game Over ... Or for lots of fun with WIS and pretty much pwning everythign else ever, Druid // Cleric // Monk is fun too.
Adam Smite 09-24-06, 01:52 PM	Balance wise, as long as the players and every NPC they fight against is a triple-Gestalt it will balance on it's own.
Icewraith 09-25-06, 04:40 PM	Druid+MoMF/Rogue/Monk would be nothing short of horrific. Consider the ambush scenario: Wild shape (or shapechange for even more fun!) into something small with a huge hide bonus, augmented by rogue class hide skill. BBEG changes form into something really big and nasty as a free action, and gets his surprise round on the PCs. So we have: Flurry Stunning Monk improved damage on top of the Size increase and Sneak Attack Even better, this magnificent beastie has Imp. Uncanny Dodge, good SR, Imp. Evasion, (good DR with Shapechange), three good saves, AND since he's a bbeg... hordes of gestalt or tristalt (because typing "tiple-gestalt" will annoy me to no end) minions waiting to complement his devastating onslaught. It sounds like great fun, until it's the PCs turn, and you have to gestalt or tristalt the vast majority of opponents just to keep them around for more than one round. Personally, I wouldn't do it, just to keep the whole thing from devolving into a series of ever-skyrocketing numbers and combat at high level taking even longer than it does already.
scienceman47 09-25-06, 10:10 PM	Actually, three gestalt at once would not be as fun as you think. Everyone has perfect saves, good HP, and magic. What seems like great power is a great snooze, because you characters lack foibles and specialization. Your welcome to do as you like, but I would recommend against.
jagggar 09-26-06, 01:03 PM	Sounds great, but I don't think that a Threestalt character would be too much more powerful than a normal gestalt. You're still limited to 1 standard action per round. I almost wonder if a normal gestalt with two standard actions per round would be more powerful than a threestalt.
Darth Sephiroth 09-26-06, 01:24 PM	You could go with a Dragon for one of the portions with the other two granting other abilities. It can even grant you the ability to have the players think they've won when it changes forms for a second round if you want to do something along those lines.
Mkire 09-26-06, 08:54 PM	I wonder what the people on the CO boards would do with a pentastalt
dog45 09-26-06, 09:56 PM	I wonder what the people on the CO boards would do with a pentastalt pentastalt? that would be 5 classes? whats the point? it would be easier (less paperwork) to get an easy button, press it and say I win. either way it amounts to the same thing.
Darth Sephiroth 09-26-06, 11:56 PM	Not really, 5 characters of the same level built with the same ability system (Such as the same number of points) would probably come out ahead. The reason is that while the pentastault would have a lot of options, it still leaves a 5 on 1 situation, sheer number win in this case especially since the pentastault wouldn't be able to utilize everything at the same time and would be forced to be subpar in most or even all of his abilities, but be on heck of a generalist.
Seerow 09-27-06, 12:00 AM	Well, it does open up to have a straight 20 levels of Psion and Wizard. Between the two you can Celerity, Temporal Accelaration, Schism, etc, to get yourself enough actions in a round to decimate the 5. But you have to beat all 5 of them in innitiative. That's the hard thing.
dog45 09-27-06, 05:23 PM	Not really, 5 characters of the same level built with the same ability system (Such as the same number of points) would probably come out ahead. The reason is that while the pentastault would have a lot of options, it still leaves a 5 on 1 situation, sheer number win in this case especially since the pentastault wouldn't be able to utilize everything at the same time and would be forced to be subpar in most or even all of his abilities, but be on heck of a generalist. no way. look at some of the builds on the CO board that ''own'' with just regular progression. [ Twice-Betrayer of Shar (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=478716) / Nanobots (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=458721&page=1&pp=30) / Diplomacy Specialists (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=371519) / and the Synchronicity Shuffle (http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=7031931&postcount=27) Now, given the feat limitation, you wouldnt be able to fully replicate each of the different builds, but i'd imagine you could get pretty damn close. ----- Even if you didn't try and use some uber CO build, you would still be prepared for anything. Check it out: Wizard//Archivist//Warblade//Psion//Monk (w/ Kung Fu Genius). Full Arcane/Divine/Psionics/Maneuvers/BAB/Saves/ and good skills. All your "magic" and monk abilities run off INT, btw. doesnt sound subpar to me. Given prep time, this guy will walk over anything (of comparable CR, and probably higher). Even without prep time, he can pull a Celerity out of his ass and escape/buff/attack, whatever.
makeshiftwings 09-28-06, 12:03 AM	Balance wise, as long as the players and every NPC they fight against is a triple-Gestalt it will balance on it's own. I'm not so sure... most battles will probably be the same number of rounds or shorter than in a normal campaign even with threestalt enemies, but the PC's will have three times as many spells or per-day abilities. So, they'll be able to go three times as long without resting. It will be much harder to wear them down by attrition through multiple encounters. The only way to really challenge them will be to have every encounter be a potentially deadly one. I also think this will lead to a boring game. Normal gestalt already gets rid of a lot of specialization; threestalt almost garuantees that every character will have no weaknesses and be able to do most things well. There won't be much interparty reliance anymore, since each single player can do everything just as well as the next guy.
Bill Bisco: Average Adventurer 10-06-06, 12:31 PM	I would give the Triple Gesalt Character one feat every level. I think triple gesalt can work for a main character, but an enemy if played right could just obliterate everyone else. I'd probably do Warblade/ Wizard/Psion/ Cebremancer / Archivist
starfire311 10-06-06, 02:48 PM	how about a sniping, warlock/ninja/rogue personally if given the oppurtunity I would play a crusader/knight/fighter-psi-war there is always psion/archivist/wizard
Telemon_Ajax 10-06-06, 03:26 PM	Wizard // Archivist // Psion Game Over ... Or for lots of fun with WIS and pretty much pwning everythign else ever, Druid // Cleric // Monk is fun too. Seconded FOR GREAT JUSTICE! :D
Darkuwa 10-06-06, 07:46 PM	Wizard/Cleric/Fighter
Lina_Inverse 10-07-06, 01:18 AM	I will am developing an evil master villain for my campaign, and I plan to have my PCs do battle with him about the time they are all near 20th level. The problem is that this BBEG is going to take them all on (5 PCs) by himself. This is the point of the fight: all against one and one against all. But a 20th-level gestalt still isn't that much of a challenge for a group of 20th-level characters, so I thought about making him be a three-class gestalt. Now, I'm doing this for sure. But my next campaign will be very high-powered, and I'm wondering what sort of balance issues will come into play with 3-class gestalt rules. Aside from the obvious one of the PCs being three-class gestalt. From the dming perspective, the BBEG still wont survive one round. He just wont have the defenses to survive your players attacks for even a single action. BBEGs never work as a single human type, there will be nothing climatic. if he wins initive and isnt a wizard, one party member dies then he does, if he is a wizard half the party dies(wail) then he does, if he loses initive he just dies.
DarkThoughts24 10-07-06, 12:22 PM	From the dming perspective, the BBEG still wont survive one round. He just wont have the defenses to survive your players attacks for even a single action. BBEGs never work as a single human type, there will be nothing climatic. if he wins initive and isnt a wizard, one party member dies then he does, if he is a wizard half the party dies(wail) then he does, if he loses initive he just dies. you never dm, do you?