A High Powered Campaign, Two Characters, and Balance. Help! [Archive] - Wizards Community

A High Powered Campaign, Two Characters, and Balance. Help! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Arthur_Pendragon
04-19-04, 06:59 PM Ok, I'm a DM working on an evil campaign. I've have a VERY small group (See Note in my sig). Since the group is small, and we're playing high powered, I decided to construct some high powered classes so we could play with only two characters.

What I'm needed help with is Balance. Now when I say Balance, I don't mean making the new classes Balance in normal D&D rules or Balanced in terms of in comparision to normal D&D classes.

In this case I want to make them both quite high powered, but balanced compared to each other, that is to say Balanced so that neither one is really more powerful than the other. Additionally I need help in determining (taking into account this classes, as well as the small number of characters, and that NPC's are going to have normal characters classes, not these high powered ones, what level should they be/or challege rating alterations should I make to make the combat balance (fun and challenging). For Reference we are using the Wound/Vitality points system from Arcana Unearthed (it's important to know that, or else one of the Necromancer's Abilities won't make sense). Another key change is that ALL wizards (the Necromancer class Included) fuction differently. They all get the sorcerers spells per day and cast like a sorcerer (except at one level lower, so they still get 3rd level spells at 5th level instead of 6th level), but instead of having a "spells per known" they simply learn new spells as the wizard does in normal D&D.

The following classes are the Huntress (my wife's character) the class is a mixture of Assassin, Rogue, and Ranger (based roughly off of images like the Huntsman in Snow White). The Necromancer is my character.

Huntress

BAB: As Fighter
Good Save: Fort, Ref
Poor Save: Will

*As per Rogue
**As per Ranger
***As per Assassin

1st – Track**, Sneak Attack +1d6*, “The Hunted”
2nd – Evasion*, Weapon Focus (Hunting Weapon)
3rd – Sneak Attack +2d6*, Poison Use***
4th – Uncanny Dodge*, Natural Insight
5th – Sneak Attack +3d6*
6th – Camouflage**, Death Attack***
7th – Sneak Attack +4d6*, Swift Tracker**
8th –Improved Uncanny Dodge*, +1 save vs. poison***
9th – Sneak Attack +5d6*
10th – Hide in Plain Sight**, +2 save vs. poison***
11th – Sneak Attack +6d6*
12th – Improved Evasion*, +3 save vs. poison***
13th – Sneak Attack +7d6*
14th – Weapons of the Hunt, +4 save vs. poison***
15th – Sneak Attack +8d6*
16th – +5 save vs. poison***
17th – Sneak Attack +9d6*
18th – Final Blow
19th – Sneak Attack +10d6*
20th – Cut out the Heart

“The Hunted” – The Huntress hunts for the pure joy of the hunt, but she is also deadly skilled at it. Treat all natural animals (not magical beasts) and their own race as if they were “Favored Enemies” (as per Ranger). This bonus increases automatically by +2 at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level (up to +10 to damage and skills at 20th level).
Weapon Focus (Hunting Weapon) – The Huntress chooses a favored weapon she hunts with (usually Shortbow), and gains Weapon Focus feat in that weapon automatically at 2nd level.
Natural Insight – At 4th level the Huntress is deeply in tune with her surroundings, she gains her Int bonus to her AC as a Dodge Bonus that always stacks on top of all other bonuses (except armor bonus which over laps it). If she would otherwise loose her Dodge Bonus she also looses this bonus as well.
Weapons of the Hunt – All weapons in the hands of the Huntress now act as if they were Bane weapons when used against “The Hunted” (this power does not stack with a weapon that is already Bane against “The Hunted”, however it will function separately if the weapon is Bane against something else. For example, if she is wielding a +1 Bane vs Good Outsiders, but uses it the blade against a normal wolf, the Oustider Bane effect would be ignored, but the Weapons of the Hunt would still make the weapon Bane against the wolf).
Final Blow – So skilled at hunting her foes and delivering the final blow, that she when she now performs a Coup de Grace as a Standard Action instead of having to take a Full Round Action.
Cut out the Heart - This bloody ability requires a full round action, during which the huntress kneels over her helpless or dead prey (the prey may be helpless and living or dead for the use of this ability) and violently cuts out its heart (if the victim has no heart this ability does not work), after doing this the victim can no longer be raised from the dead except by means of Wish, Miracle, True Resurrection, or Divine Intervention. This ability does not work on undead, nor does it prevent the soul being forced back into its body by means of Animate Dead, merely that the body can not be returned to normal life. The Huntress does not need to keep possession of the heart after cutting out the victim’s heart.

Necromancer

BAB: As Wizard
Good Save: Will
Poor Save: Fort, Ref

The Necromancer gains spell as per Wizard mentioned earlier in the post.

1st – Bind Familiar, Life Draining Ability, At Will – Animate Dead

Life Draining Ability (gained at first level)

The ability is useable as much as the necromancer wants (unlimited usage per day) but only once per round and it takes a standard action to use (done in the place of casting a spell or attacking). Once put into use on a victim the necromancer must continue using the ability to keep its affect going (spending his actions doing nothing but moving and continuing the affect, no casting spells). Breaking the necromancer’s line of sight to his victim ends the effect. If damaged the Necromancer requires a Concentration check DC 10 + damage dealt to continue the effect.

The Necromancer must first make a ranged touch attack (using this ability is a standard action), if the Necromancer hits, the victim must make an opposed will save to the Necromancer's will save (they both make will saves the higher wins). If successful the victim breaks free of the effect, if failed the victim takes 1d6 damage (first from vitality, and then when those are gone, wound points). The victim and necromancer must continue to make opposed will saves every round for the effect to continue.

If the victim looses vitality points due to this ability, he or she merely feels a cold weakening sensation as their life forces is draining away, but no other real effects (no game mechanic effects, the vitality points lost don't even cause the normally required Concentration check for spell casters!). If the victim looses wound points due to this ability, they suffer the normal penalties for loosing wound points, but instead of making a save to see if they are stunned for 1d4 rounds (as per the normal rules) they automatically fail their save and are stunned for that round only (that it to say, they loose their next action/turn in initiative due to being stunned, and this stunning effect can't be broken by an ally just snapping them out of it) as the effect drains away their life force. The next round they must make opposed will saves again (as usual due the power's rules) (if successful the victim breaks the effect and they may then attempt the normal save as if having lost wound points (to see if they are stunned for 1d4 rounds, from which they can be awakened by allies), if failed the victim is automatically stunned again and take another 1d6 damage).

Necromancers are immune to the ability as their tampering with life force energy (and learning this ability itself) has reconfigured their life energies binding their soul to their body in such a way so that they are immune to the effect. Likewise Undead’s life energies are configured differently from those of living things and therefore are also immune.

Animated Dead at Will (gained at first level)

The ability is useable as much as the necromancer wants (unlimited usage per day) but only once per round and it takes a standard action to use (done in the place of casting a spell or attacking). It is otherwise exactly like the Animate Undead spell except, it only takes a standard action to cast, and there is no material component cost, focus, or XP cost.
Nick Soapdish
04-19-04, 11:42 PM Have you looked at the rules in Unearthed Arcana for gestalt classes? They definitely qualify as high-powered classes that would help a party with fewer members. Basically, you combine two classes, taking the best of each. So a fighter/rogue gestalt would have a d10, full BAB, fighter feats, rogue skills and SA and other stuff, and two good saves. After a few levels, one could switch the fighter side to a ranger to get favored enemies (or maybe allow FA as a feat). The other one could be a wizard/sorcerer gestalt w/ two "pools" of spells - arsenal/utility and variety.

It's tough for me to tell if your two classes are balanced with each other or not. Yeah, the huntress is very high powered, getting abilities from rogue, ranger, and fighter, plus some special stuff. (How many skill points BTW?)

But the necromancer looks even better. Learning spells as a wizard, but casting as a sorcerer is huge to begin with - almost enough to balance the class alone. And his two special abilities are pretty tough, too.

Life draining is pretty over the top for the low levels, but at higher levels, the 1d6 a round isn't going to mean squat. It's kind of like getting unlimited Magic Missiles at 1/round (although it's not an auto-hit and the target doesn't know who hit him).

Animate Dead scales a little better. (I assume that there's still the normal max of 4x caster level?) But after a while, it's not going to matter how many 20 HD zombie ettins you have running around.
MoogleEmpMog
04-20-04, 02:02 AM Originally posted by Nick Soapdish
Animate Dead scales a little better. (I assume that there's still the normal max of 4x caster level?) But after a while, it's not going to matter how many 20 HD zombie ettins you have running around.

True. The skeletal pit fiends, however, will seriously mess up anyone's day. Gate to Baator, pop a pit fiend and animate his infernal corpse on its home plane, and you have a skeletal guardian vastly beyond its CR.

And if you can find Paragons of ANYTHING and kill them, you'll get dominating skeletons and zombies.
pokemaniacbill
04-20-04, 02:12 AM I was gonna say, which was already said, Gestalt... but DON'T, please lord, DON'T ALLOW PALADIN/MONK. You will cry.
Arthur_Pendragon
04-20-04, 05:12 AM I've actually had discussion with my wife about whether or not to use the Gestalt character setup. But it assumes that everyone else in the world is Gestalt too. And I felt like as a DM it would be a REAL pain in the arse to create all the NPC's that way. That was why I went out of the way to be creative and whip up the Huntress class.

As for the Life Draining Ability, yeah, it's really meant more to be a threat to commoners (strike fear into the popluations), normal natural non-magical animals (got to get food in the woods), and cenematic death blows (bring that dragon down to it's wound points, then suck its life force out of its body!)

Otherwise the vitality points kick in, and the creature really isn't phased by it.

As for the undead, actually I was planning to have unlimited HD worth of Undead. However, I personally as a DM and as a character find the idea of giant skeletons and zombies (as in like animating Godzilla or an enttin) a bit weird. So almost exclusivley the character would stick to animating human undead (or that kind of general size). The only time I could see a variation on that is maybe an ogre zombie guard, but I don't think I'd do anything bigger than that. Though little fairy zomibes could be creepy. :D

Mostly the ability is for: a) creating servants, b) creating genearl guards for a castle, c) weakening enemy morale, d) other reasons (since IMC animating the dead is dragging their soul back from the afterlife and making it your slave (all undead are sentient), which messes with their mind (you could set their emotional mindset to "fawning love" or "obident servant" or "terrified victim while your order their body to obey you against their will!" etc. so their useful for things like companions (well leave it at that as this is not the mature boards!) and good conversation.)

As for the demon or paragon bit. There are no demons/devils/etc in my setting, nor are there "paragon" anything.
pokemaniacbill
04-20-04, 05:16 AM ... you mean Gestalt isn't an RP tool used to show great inner strength and character, spiritual force that allows a greater understanding of concepts such as character classes with greater ability then most?

Silly me... thinking it was for special people like the PCs and major villians.
Arthur_Pendragon
04-20-04, 01:03 PM Interesting point.

I was just refering to what it actually said in Arcana Unearthed, that PC's aren't just getting a special class, rather everyone gets to be gestalt. A feel I wasn't fond of as it seemed it would be such a pain to create PC's.

However any other comments since I went out and already constructed the class?

Do they seemed balanced compared to each other?

What do CR do you think they could handle? (taking into account there are only 2 PCs. Then again, the Huntress is pretty close to having a Rouge/Ranger Gestalt, so I guess since there are only 2 of us, it would be roughly equal to taking on CR as if we have a full 4 characters????)

Side Note: The wizard class does have access to healing spells (as I dropped the negative/postive energy deal, and just placed healing magic as it's own unique Restoration schoo of magic).
Nick Soapdish
04-20-04, 02:05 PM Originally posted by Arthur_Pendragon
I've actually had discussion with my wife about whether or not to use the Gestalt character setup. But it assumes that everyone else in the world is Gestalt too. And I felt like as a DM it would be a REAL pain in the arse to create all the NPC's that way. That was why I went out of the way to be creative and whip up the Huntress class.

Not exactly.

It assumes that everyone in the party is a gestalt class. NPCs can (and should in most cases) remain normal as it puts more of a distinction between the PC and NPC classes. Although the BBEGs (or BBGGs in your case?) could be gestalts.

Otherwise, the party is getting less punch for its buck. It's got fewer members ... which are more powerful to compensate ... but so is everyone else. No gain.

I've heard the recommendations of treating gestalt characters as though they're 1.5 times a normal character at most.

So your PCs would be a CR of 3 at 4th level. They still suffer from the biggest limitation of fewer members - fewer actions. And despite (presumably) better HD, they won't have as many HP as a 4 person party (although they might not lose HP as fast from area effect spells). So it's less likely for the damage to get distributed among party members so that no-one gets kakked (and when someone does go down, it's double the penalty).
pokemaniacbill
04-20-04, 07:39 PM Errrrr... well, to be honest, I don't know why I'd take this. It's good flavor, but in a two-person campaign, I'd seriously want to go with a Druid or a bow-wielding Fighter. Something to stay out of the dodge. The 20th level ability, however, is very cool... I REALLY like the flavor of the class though, but I admit, using Gestalt wouldn't be a bad idea... cause it is essentially alternate rules in Unearthed Arcana, in a game where there is no penalty for the DM changing the rules.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Arthur_Pendragon 04-19-04, 06:59 PM	Ok, I'm a DM working on an evil campaign. I've have a VERY small group (See Note in my sig). Since the group is small, and we're playing high powered, I decided to construct some high powered classes so we could play with only two characters. What I'm needed help with is Balance. Now when I say Balance, I don't mean making the new classes Balance in normal D&D rules or Balanced in terms of in comparision to normal D&D classes. In this case I want to make them both quite high powered, but balanced compared to each other, that is to say Balanced so that neither one is really more powerful than the other. Additionally I need help in determining (taking into account this classes, as well as the small number of characters, and that NPC's are going to have normal characters classes, not these high powered ones, what level should they be/or challege rating alterations should I make to make the combat balance (fun and challenging). For Reference we are using the Wound/Vitality points system from Arcana Unearthed (it's important to know that, or else one of the Necromancer's Abilities won't make sense). Another key change is that ALL wizards (the Necromancer class Included) fuction differently. They all get the sorcerers spells per day and cast like a sorcerer (except at one level lower, so they still get 3rd level spells at 5th level instead of 6th level), but instead of having a "spells per known" they simply learn new spells as the wizard does in normal D&D. The following classes are the Huntress (my wife's character) the class is a mixture of Assassin, Rogue, and Ranger (based roughly off of images like the Huntsman in Snow White). The Necromancer is my character. Huntress BAB: As Fighter Good Save: Fort, Ref Poor Save: Will As per Rogue As per Ranger As per Assassin 1st – Track, Sneak Attack +1d6, “The Hunted” 2nd – Evasion, Weapon Focus (Hunting Weapon) 3rd – Sneak Attack +2d6, Poison Use** 4th – Uncanny Dodge, Natural Insight 5th – Sneak Attack +3d6 6th – Camouflage, Death Attack* 7th – Sneak Attack +4d6, Swift Tracker* 8th –Improved Uncanny Dodge, +1 save vs. poison** 9th – Sneak Attack +5d6* 10th – Hide in Plain Sight, +2 save vs. poison* 11th – Sneak Attack +6d6* 12th – Improved Evasion, +3 save vs. poison** 13th – Sneak Attack +7d6* 14th – Weapons of the Hunt, +4 save vs. poison*** 15th – Sneak Attack +8d6* 16th – +5 save vs. poison*** 17th – Sneak Attack +9d6* 18th – Final Blow 19th – Sneak Attack +10d6* 20th – Cut out the Heart “The Hunted” – The Huntress hunts for the pure joy of the hunt, but she is also deadly skilled at it. Treat all natural animals (not magical beasts) and their own race as if they were “Favored Enemies” (as per Ranger). This bonus increases automatically by +2 at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level (up to +10 to damage and skills at 20th level). Weapon Focus (Hunting Weapon) – The Huntress chooses a favored weapon she hunts with (usually Shortbow), and gains Weapon Focus feat in that weapon automatically at 2nd level. Natural Insight – At 4th level the Huntress is deeply in tune with her surroundings, she gains her Int bonus to her AC as a Dodge Bonus that always stacks on top of all other bonuses (except armor bonus which over laps it). If she would otherwise loose her Dodge Bonus she also looses this bonus as well. Weapons of the Hunt – All weapons in the hands of the Huntress now act as if they were Bane weapons when used against “The Hunted” (this power does not stack with a weapon that is already Bane against “The Hunted”, however it will function separately if the weapon is Bane against something else. For example, if she is wielding a +1 Bane vs Good Outsiders, but uses it the blade against a normal wolf, the Oustider Bane effect would be ignored, but the Weapons of the Hunt would still make the weapon Bane against the wolf). Final Blow – So skilled at hunting her foes and delivering the final blow, that she when she now performs a Coup de Grace as a Standard Action instead of having to take a Full Round Action. Cut out the Heart - This bloody ability requires a full round action, during which the huntress kneels over her helpless or dead prey (the prey may be helpless and living or dead for the use of this ability) and violently cuts out its heart (if the victim has no heart this ability does not work), after doing this the victim can no longer be raised from the dead except by means of Wish, Miracle, True Resurrection, or Divine Intervention. This ability does not work on undead, nor does it prevent the soul being forced back into its body by means of Animate Dead, merely that the body can not be returned to normal life. The Huntress does not need to keep possession of the heart after cutting out the victim’s heart. Necromancer BAB: As Wizard Good Save: Will Poor Save: Fort, Ref The Necromancer gains spell as per Wizard mentioned earlier in the post. 1st – Bind Familiar, Life Draining Ability, At Will – Animate Dead Life Draining Ability (gained at first level) The ability is useable as much as the necromancer wants (unlimited usage per day) but only once per round and it takes a standard action to use (done in the place of casting a spell or attacking). Once put into use on a victim the necromancer must continue using the ability to keep its affect going (spending his actions doing nothing but moving and continuing the affect, no casting spells). Breaking the necromancer’s line of sight to his victim ends the effect. If damaged the Necromancer requires a Concentration check DC 10 + damage dealt to continue the effect. The Necromancer must first make a ranged touch attack (using this ability is a standard action), if the Necromancer hits, the victim must make an opposed will save to the Necromancer's will save (they both make will saves the higher wins). If successful the victim breaks free of the effect, if failed the victim takes 1d6 damage (first from vitality, and then when those are gone, wound points). The victim and necromancer must continue to make opposed will saves every round for the effect to continue. If the victim looses vitality points due to this ability, he or she merely feels a cold weakening sensation as their life forces is draining away, but no other real effects (no game mechanic effects, the vitality points lost don't even cause the normally required Concentration check for spell casters!). If the victim looses wound points due to this ability, they suffer the normal penalties for loosing wound points, but instead of making a save to see if they are stunned for 1d4 rounds (as per the normal rules) they automatically fail their save and are stunned for that round only (that it to say, they loose their next action/turn in initiative due to being stunned, and this stunning effect can't be broken by an ally just snapping them out of it) as the effect drains away their life force. The next round they must make opposed will saves again (as usual due the power's rules) (if successful the victim breaks the effect and they may then attempt the normal save as if having lost wound points (to see if they are stunned for 1d4 rounds, from which they can be awakened by allies), if failed the victim is automatically stunned again and take another 1d6 damage). Necromancers are immune to the ability as their tampering with life force energy (and learning this ability itself) has reconfigured their life energies binding their soul to their body in such a way so that they are immune to the effect. Likewise Undead’s life energies are configured differently from those of living things and therefore are also immune. Animated Dead at Will (gained at first level) The ability is useable as much as the necromancer wants (unlimited usage per day) but only once per round and it takes a standard action to use (done in the place of casting a spell or attacking). It is otherwise exactly like the Animate Undead spell except, it only takes a standard action to cast, and there is no material component cost, focus, or XP cost.
Nick Soapdish 04-19-04, 11:42 PM	Have you looked at the rules in Unearthed Arcana for gestalt classes? They definitely qualify as high-powered classes that would help a party with fewer members. Basically, you combine two classes, taking the best of each. So a fighter/rogue gestalt would have a d10, full BAB, fighter feats, rogue skills and SA and other stuff, and two good saves. After a few levels, one could switch the fighter side to a ranger to get favored enemies (or maybe allow FA as a feat). The other one could be a wizard/sorcerer gestalt w/ two "pools" of spells - arsenal/utility and variety. It's tough for me to tell if your two classes are balanced with each other or not. Yeah, the huntress is very high powered, getting abilities from rogue, ranger, and fighter, plus some special stuff. (How many skill points BTW?) But the necromancer looks even better. Learning spells as a wizard, but casting as a sorcerer is huge to begin with - almost enough to balance the class alone. And his two special abilities are pretty tough, too. Life draining is pretty over the top for the low levels, but at higher levels, the 1d6 a round isn't going to mean squat. It's kind of like getting unlimited Magic Missiles at 1/round (although it's not an auto-hit and the target doesn't know who hit him). Animate Dead scales a little better. (I assume that there's still the normal max of 4x caster level?) But after a while, it's not going to matter how many 20 HD zombie ettins you have running around.
MoogleEmpMog 04-20-04, 02:02 AM	Originally posted by Nick Soapdish Animate Dead scales a little better. (I assume that there's still the normal max of 4x caster level?) But after a while, it's not going to matter how many 20 HD zombie ettins you have running around. True. The skeletal pit fiends, however, will seriously mess up anyone's day. Gate to Baator, pop a pit fiend and animate his infernal corpse on its home plane, and you have a skeletal guardian vastly beyond its CR. And if you can find Paragons of ANYTHING and kill them, you'll get dominating skeletons and zombies.
pokemaniacbill 04-20-04, 02:12 AM	I was gonna say, which was already said, Gestalt... but DON'T, please lord, DON'T ALLOW PALADIN/MONK. You will cry.
Arthur_Pendragon 04-20-04, 05:12 AM	I've actually had discussion with my wife about whether or not to use the Gestalt character setup. But it assumes that everyone else in the world is Gestalt too. And I felt like as a DM it would be a REAL pain in the arse to create all the NPC's that way. That was why I went out of the way to be creative and whip up the Huntress class. As for the Life Draining Ability, yeah, it's really meant more to be a threat to commoners (strike fear into the popluations), normal natural non-magical animals (got to get food in the woods), and cenematic death blows (bring that dragon down to it's wound points, then suck its life force out of its body!) Otherwise the vitality points kick in, and the creature really isn't phased by it. As for the undead, actually I was planning to have unlimited HD worth of Undead. However, I personally as a DM and as a character find the idea of giant skeletons and zombies (as in like animating Godzilla or an enttin) a bit weird. So almost exclusivley the character would stick to animating human undead (or that kind of general size). The only time I could see a variation on that is maybe an ogre zombie guard, but I don't think I'd do anything bigger than that. Though little fairy zomibes could be creepy. :D Mostly the ability is for: a) creating servants, b) creating genearl guards for a castle, c) weakening enemy morale, d) other reasons (since IMC animating the dead is dragging their soul back from the afterlife and making it your slave (all undead are sentient), which messes with their mind (you could set their emotional mindset to "fawning love" or "obident servant" or "terrified victim while your order their body to obey you against their will!" etc. so their useful for things like companions (well leave it at that as this is not the mature boards!) and good conversation.) As for the demon or paragon bit. There are no demons/devils/etc in my setting, nor are there "paragon" anything.
pokemaniacbill 04-20-04, 05:16 AM	... you mean Gestalt isn't an RP tool used to show great inner strength and character, spiritual force that allows a greater understanding of concepts such as character classes with greater ability then most? Silly me... thinking it was for special people like the PCs and major villians.
Arthur_Pendragon 04-20-04, 01:03 PM	Interesting point. I was just refering to what it actually said in Arcana Unearthed, that PC's aren't just getting a special class, rather everyone gets to be gestalt. A feel I wasn't fond of as it seemed it would be such a pain to create PC's. However any other comments since I went out and already constructed the class? Do they seemed balanced compared to each other? What do CR do you think they could handle? (taking into account there are only 2 PCs. Then again, the Huntress is pretty close to having a Rouge/Ranger Gestalt, so I guess since there are only 2 of us, it would be roughly equal to taking on CR as if we have a full 4 characters????) Side Note: The wizard class does have access to healing spells (as I dropped the negative/postive energy deal, and just placed healing magic as it's own unique Restoration schoo of magic).
Nick Soapdish 04-20-04, 02:05 PM	Originally posted by Arthur_Pendragon I've actually had discussion with my wife about whether or not to use the Gestalt character setup. But it assumes that everyone else in the world is Gestalt too. And I felt like as a DM it would be a REAL pain in the arse to create all the NPC's that way. That was why I went out of the way to be creative and whip up the Huntress class. Not exactly. It assumes that everyone in the party is a gestalt class. NPCs can (and should in most cases) remain normal as it puts more of a distinction between the PC and NPC classes. Although the BBEGs (or BBGGs in your case?) could be gestalts. Otherwise, the party is getting less punch for its buck. It's got fewer members ... which are more powerful to compensate ... but so is everyone else. No gain. I've heard the recommendations of treating gestalt characters as though they're 1.5 times a normal character at most. So your PCs would be a CR of 3 at 4th level. They still suffer from the biggest limitation of fewer members - fewer actions. And despite (presumably) better HD, they won't have as many HP as a 4 person party (although they might not lose HP as fast from area effect spells). So it's less likely for the damage to get distributed among party members so that no-one gets kakked (and when someone does go down, it's double the penalty).
pokemaniacbill 04-20-04, 07:39 PM	Errrrr... well, to be honest, I don't know why I'd take this. It's good flavor, but in a two-person campaign, I'd seriously want to go with a Druid or a bow-wielding Fighter. Something to stay out of the dodge. The 20th level ability, however, is very cool... I REALLY like the flavor of the class though, but I admit, using Gestalt wouldn't be a bad idea... cause it is essentially alternate rules in Unearthed Arcana, in a game where there is no penalty for the DM changing the rules.