Why is Gestalt so popular?

[atemu1234]

I just read through Unearthed Arcana and seen the variants for it, but have a bit of trouble grasping why it shows up so often. Why is it so popular?

[A Tad Insane]

It's the ultimate theurge, the ultimate gish, or the ultimate skill monkey.
Although I've never seen or played a game with it

[sideswipe]

gestalt is fun, and its good if you want to have 2 concepts for character. you can have both

[Daishain]

Because all too often, whenever people make a character, they're agonizing over all the stuff they miss out on because of the choices they have to make.

Gestalt lets them cherry pick the best features from whatever sources they want.

Personally, its too much. It might be interesting to play a few very specialized campaigns like that (IE, a pair of gestalt characters taking on challenges made for a normal 3-5 man party), but for the vast majority of situations, it is simply too powerful to remain interesting for long.

[AvatarVecna]

Gestalt is popular because it gives any build a significant power boost, it gives flexibility to casual optimizers, and it allows true cheese lovers to reach new heights of optimization.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

It's the ultimate theurge, the ultimate gish, or the ultimate skill monkey.
Although I've never seen or played a game with it

Basically this. While I love playing two-in-one characters without gestalt, the variant adds an extra degree of freedom and flexibility not otherwise possible. Although I am not a huge fan of the variant simply due to how much stronger a given PC may be (both in terms of passive defensive abilities - typically, better HP and saves - and more active ability options - more skills, skill points, "attack" options), if given the option I'll take it. If I was going to play a typical arcane gish or psionic/arcane theurge before gestalt was added, with gestalt, I may be able to toss all three of those things into the blender!

Then there's this mess made possible by lax gestalt rules. Sadly, the table is borked due to the site changes.

[Theomniadept]

Gestalt is basically what they invented to allow for parties too small to function effectively. A Fighter and a Rogue are a good pair, but it's too small to do most campaign stuff, like fighting groups of enemies. Gestalt is nice but can lead to some SERIOUS power gaps.

The idea is something like a Fighter/Barbarian can have enough feats for defensive stuff (like Improved Toughness, Improves Trip, etc.) with Barbarian strength for damage output, or a Rogue/Swashbuckler for full skillmonker + full BAB power.

However if you factor in the tier list, playing a Fighter/Knight would not be as powerful as straight Barbarian, while a Wizard/Druid would arbitrarily win the game.

[Kaje]

Because suddenly I can make a gish who's a gish from level 1, instead of a squishy wizard who suddenly picks up a sword or a dumb fighter who suddenly can make a magic missile.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Because suddenly I can make a gish who's a gish from level 1, instead of a squishy wizard who suddenly picks up a sword or a dumb fighter who suddenly can make a magic missile.

To be fair, both the Bard and Duskblade can do that from level one, too.

[eggynack]

However if you factor in the tier list, playing a Fighter/Knight would not be as powerful as straight Barbarian, while a Wizard/Druid would arbitrarily win the game.

That's really mostly because a wizard or druid would arbitrarily win the game, more than because a wizard and druid combo is somehow insane. I'd probably rather have something with serious synergy, like a wizard//factotum, or a druid//swordsage, or even a druid//factotum, just cause actions are good. Ya gotta get that passive//active mix in, or otherwise just have so many actions that you can fit all the active you want. Something with psionics can pull that off, and I suppose druids and wizards can kinda do some of it.

[Der_DWSage]

I like to think that it's not really the power addition, nor the fact that you can make abominations that cast EVERYTHING. I think it's more the fact that you suddenly have so many options that you would otherwise have to painfully multiclass for, or hope a class does exactly what you want. And while two Barbarian Uberchargers will look and play very similarly to each other, a Barbarian/Fighter gestalt and a Barbarian/Knight gestalt will be rather different, despite Fighter and Knight being fairly similar to each other. Similarly, two Wizards who focus on playing God will also play and act similarly-but a Wizard/Archivist might have fun being a god, while a Wizard/Factotum will enjoy solving everything ever.

It's the flexibility and customization, rather than the power, that's such a draw. (Or at least it is to me.)

[Anlashok]

Flexibility. It gives a ton of it, allowing you to create characters that would otherwise be difficult to realize or take too long to come online.

but for the vast majority of situations, it is simply too powerful to remain interesting for long.

Meh. That's user error. Either the DM is failing to come up with appropriate encounters or the players are abusing stupid ****, and frankly neither is specific to gestalt.

[Necroticplague]

One thing that hasn't been brought up is being a monster. The RHD and LA system makes it very hard to play anything that isn't a baseline humanoid, because you give up a lot of class levels. If you're playing gestalt, you can shove that LA/RHD to one side, and still have an actual class of the other.

Of course, similar ideas for other parts in the system is what makes gestalt appealing to me. There's a lot of nice little things I would like for my build, but can't actually do because it would detract too much from my main build. Gestalt means I can take that stuff, and make more rounded characters. Heck, with the way saves work, it even encourages it. Go ahead, dip that monk level for a backup weapon, it won't hurt your BAB. Why not add some Thayan Gladiator to your natural weapon user, now that you don't have to give up Soul Eater to get it?

[Divide by Zero]

Because having more options is more fun. Also, it gives classes that have really good synergy with other classes but are lackluster on their own a chance to shine. Marshal, Fighter, even Monk can all be strong choices in gestalt with the right partner class.

[Threadnaught]

I'd probably rather have something with serious synergy, like a wizard//factotum, or a druid//swordsage, or even a druid//factotum,

What about Druid//Monk? Come on, you know Monk has lots to add.



It's supposed to be about giving a smaller party more options so they can better mimic a larger party, but it can be used for other things. In the examples alone, which are kinda silly, there's benefits to all of them albeit mostly small benefits.

[eggynack]

What about Druid//Monk? Come on, you know Monk has lots to add.

Well, yeah. Definitely does, at least for a bit. Just less than factotum or unarmed swordsage, and probably also less than wizard. There's something to be said for using a druid's wild shape, animal companion, and long duration spells as the passive side for a wizard's crazy magic power. Actually sounds a bit better to me than something like wizard//cleric, despite the presence of DMM persist.

Edit: Kinda warming up on the whole druid//wizard thing, come to think of it, especially if you're running aberration wild shape. Casting double wizard spells each round or tossing spells from either the ethereal plane or from an anti-magic puff ball is neat stuff.

[Extra Anchovies]

What about Druid//Monk? Come on, you know Monk has lots to add.

Well, you're probably better off going Druid//Psion, nab Monastic Training (Psion) at 1st level, Tashalatora at 3rd, and focus your powers known list on action economy abuse.

ETA: A question. Shadowcasters can fill the divine half of Mystic Theurge. If you took Wizard//Shadowcaster for 3 levels, and maxed Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana), and Knowledge (Religion), you'd qualify for both Noctumancer and Mystic Theurge. If you then took Noctumancer//Mystic Theurge for 1 level, would you have 5th-level wizard and shadow casting as a 4th level character? If this works, you could potentially cast as a 19th-level wizard and a 19th-level shadowcaster by character level 11. And you'd be gaining a new spell level at every character level, too!

Of course, this probably would get books thrown at you even by your fellow players, but it's an interesting concept.

[Dalebert]

... a Wizard/Druid would arbitrarily win the game.

The one time I played it, I played a Sorcerer/Druid and I was effective but not the most obnoxious character. This was a game that started out with few players but gradually picked up some so that gestault was getting to be a bit much.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Well, yeah. Definitely does, at least for a bit. Just less than factotum or unarmed swordsage, and probably also less than wizard. There's something to be said for using a druid's wild shape, animal companion, and long duration spells as the passive side for a wizard's crazy magic power. Actually sounds a bit better to me than something like wizard//cleric, despite the presence of DMM persist.

Edit: Kinda warming up on the whole druid//wizard thing, come to think of it, especially if you're running aberration wild shape. Casting double wizard spells each round or tossing spells from either the ethereal plane or from an anti-magic puff ball is neat stuff.

DMM:Persist is kind of a waste on a wizard/divine gestalt anyway since you can just take 3 levels of Incantatrix. Not only less limited but you save at least one feat too. Or just take Sacred Exorcist if you absolutely need to have DMM.

You can also combine druid//wizard with stuff like Swiftblade for great defensive buffs and even more actions, more Incantatrix for even worse metamagic abuse, Hathran for Circle Magic and Rashemi Spirit Magic without losing druid progression... all those caster PrCs suddenly look a lot more attractive when you get them in addition to full druid progression.

MAD isn't much of an issue when you can get to base Int 30 by using PAO to Sarrukh form. It's not like anyone will notice under your wild shape form.

[Dr. Cliché]

Well, in my group it's quite popular because there's only 3 players (plus the DM) - so, it's a useful way to make up for the lack of a 4th player.

Other than that, it's a nice way to mess around with classes/options that might otherwise be too level-intensive to use.

Alternatively, if there's a class you'd like to use but are dubious about, you can mix them in with a better class - so you know you'll be good at something.

[deuxhero]

1: Outside of corner cases like gestalt actually being one class and if this means all of a Paladin//Healer's Healer slots are "Paladin spellslots" (which is caused by how badly defined X spell slots is in the first place), it's pretty easy to understand.
2: For its simplicity, it does what it was intended to do: Boost parties with less than 4 characters
3: It's, weirdly enough, not that much worse than single class tier 1s at the higher end. Outside of Factotum 8+//int based class.
3b: Gestalt means most characters have 2 good saves (if not all 3)
4: Makes the obnoxious "the party needs a skill monkey/healer/someone who won't die if the enemies breath on them/whatever" much less present so allows for more variety of builds.
5: It makes some weaker classes useful. Monk is actually very useful in gestalt. While the low tier gestalt rules suggestion in the tier lists doesn't fix the gap between tier 2 and 3 (except potentially something like gestalting Paladin and Healer then using the Healer's slots for Sword of the Arcane Order), it helps the gap between the lower tiers a lot. A Warblade gains little from a gestalt (He gets 2 good saves and either a few more skill points or some utility spells he can't cast in his armor), a Ranger getting actually relevant casting that can be used to cast Wizard spells does a good deal for it, and a Swashbuckler who is really good at holding the line have a much lower power gap than a Warblade, Ranger and Swashbuckler do.

[Chronos]

I don't think gestalt is actually all that popular at gaming tables. Where it is popular is forums like this one. This is, I think, because the sorts of people who hang out on D&D message boards like complicated things, and gestalt allows for a lot more complication.

[Jeff the Green]

I don't think gestalt is actually all that popular at gaming tables. Where it is popular is forums like this one. This is, I think, because the sorts of people who hang out on D&D message boards like complicated things, and gestalt allows for a lot more complication.

Also because it staves off boredom better. It basically squares the number of possible builds, and increases the number of viable builds by even more. As Necroticplague said, monsters suddenly become viable even with their atrocious LA and RHD if you can stick on something to give you HD, skills, BAB, etc.

[Milo v3]

I've used gestalt to give everyone superpowers, in addition to their normal classes. I would've used it when my group was only 3 people if they weren't new to 3.X's rules.

Currently at least one of my players has asked if we can do gestalt in our next campaign since it'd help him make his character concepts more accurately.

[Drelua]

I really like gestalt, mainly because it allows me to make a character with a broader set of skills. A lot of the time, when I make a character, I feel like I'm sacrificing some of the things that I'd like my character to be able to do because I can't fit all of them into one build. Whenever I try to make a build for a well developed character from a book or a TV show, I feel like I need gestalt to be able to build something that can do all the things that character can do without resorting to an unreasonably high level.

I do find that it breaks down a bit at higher levels with moderate optimization. I started a gestalt one-shot game at level 20 with both 3.5 and Pathfinder stuff, and either one of the party members could kill pretty much anything we saw in one round. My character was a TWFer, which is far from being an optimal choice, but he could easily do three or four hundred damage in a turn, and the DM didn't really have time to build all of our enemies, so he had to take monsters from the Epic Level Handbook with CRs into the thirties just to challenge us at all.

This is why I'd really like to try a gestalt E6 game sometime. It seems a bit weird combining a low-powered variant with a high-powered one, but I'd be interested to see how the two balance each other out.

[Threadnaught]

As Threadnaught said, monsters suddenly become viable even with their atrocious LA and RHD if you can stick on something to give you HD, skills, BAB, etc.

I haven't actually said that in this thread, but Thri-kreen and Domovoi in the same party as a Human, abusing everything they know how/are willing to, looks to be interesting.
MetaMyconid is still annoyed at you Jeff.

I really want to play one myself.

[kellbyb]

Well, you're probably better off going Druid//Psion, nab Monastic Training (Psion) at 1st level, Tashalatora at 3rd, and focus your powers known list on action economy abuse.

ETA: A question. Shadowcasters can fill the divine half of Mystic Theurge. If you took Wizard//Shadowcaster for 3 levels, and maxed Spellcraft, Knowledge (Arcana), and Knowledge (Religion), you'd qualify for both Noctumancer and Mystic Theurge. If you then took Noctumancer//Mystic Theurge for 1 level, would you have 5th-level wizard and shadow casting as a 4th level character? If this works, you could potentially cast as a 19th-level wizard and a 19th-level shadowcaster by character level 11. And you'd be gaining a new spell level at every character level, too!

Of course, this probably would get books thrown at you even by your fellow players, but it's an interesting concept.

Dual-progression classes are not allowed as per the SRD.

[Fax Celestis]

Also there are a lot of concepts that just don't work well outside of gestalt.

[Extra Anchovies]

Dual-progression classes are not allowed as per the SRD.

Ah, missed the suggested ban on dual-prestiging. Thanks for pointing it out.

[master4sword]

I like gestalt because it increases the versatility of any given character, giving them further things they can do to contribute and helps make them much less "one-note".

This is why I'd really like to try a gestalt E6 game sometime. It seems a bit weird combining a low-powered variant with a high-powered one, but I'd be interested to see how the two balance each other out.

I've seriously considered running such a thing, but I've got my plate full with my current game right now. Maybe someday.