https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rybkMlXY44

I've always loved the gestalt rules, and I've mainly been playing 5e lately.  I've seen a few different rule sets, but decided to make one to my preferences.  I also am interested in getting back in DMing, which I haven't done in a fair while.

So I am curious if anyone would be interested in testing out my rules while helping me dust off my DM hat.  I was thinking that I would start off with a module, like Sunless Citadel or something else easy.  If things go well, we could branch out from there to the larger world.

Starting level would be 1-3, and I would allow the single class gestalt option, but not the multi-class one (for now).

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Also, I would also welcome any feedback on the state of the rule set.  If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to speak up.  And if you like them, feel free to use my rules (or any part thereof) for your own campaigns!

I'd be interested.

Some of the wording is a bit vague, and the sidebar is mostly redundant, but on the whole the rules are a lot less broken than most homebrew rules, let alone the Gestalt problem.

Part of that is 5e's inherent reliance on character level for many things that simplifies the Gestalt process, but it is also a more reasonable interpretation than most.  The dual subclass option is probably stronger in some cases simply because it builds everything in a more focused direction but there are probably some gestalt combos that top the list.

The most helpful thing in there is likely to be the feat minimum levels, something that I have been pondering for a while now in the case of Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter in particular although the order of some of those feats seems off.

I'd give it a go....:)

Which parts are vague?  I'd like to make the rules as polished as possible for ease of use.




To be honest, I wasn't sure how to figure out good minimum levels for the feats.  What I wound up doing was taking the three top sites I found online for ranking feats.  I gave each feat 3 points for top tier, 2 points for 2nd tier, and 1 point for 3rd tier.  I added the points together from the three sites, and based minimum level on scores:


Which feats did you think were off, out of curiosity?

Seems to be making the feat system very complicated when it is supposed to be pretty simple.  I would suggest just nixing the "variant human" race and then leaving feats alone.

I don't want to deter people from playing humans, because unless you roll/choose a lot of odd ability scores, humans don't really have much going for them.  The feats give you a little something extra to balance out against the abilities that all of the non-human races receive.  It's just that certain feats are a little to overpowered to be taken at level 1.  I would be perfectly happy having a Variant Human with Observant, or Dungeon Delver, or even Toughness.  Humans also allow you to pick the ability scores for whatever classes you want, instead of trying to pick the race to fit the class.

from what I have seen feats are pretty much the most powerful class feature in the game.  Your game though, I just think the variant human changes it so that everybody plays humans, so they broke it the other way.

You feat levels are a bit of a problem, I'd say. Going by the popular zeitgeist was your first mistake, I think. Lucky is about 10% as good as most people seem to think it is, for example. It's a good feat, but it's just not nearly as good as people make it out to be. And blocking the Vhuman from getting Heavy Armor Master? Honestly, not giving everyone a feat at first level was a design mistake from day one, since a lot of character concepts literally can't even work without a feat, but aside from that, Heavy Armor Master gets more and more useless the higher level you are. Blocking Vhumans from getting at first level is very nearly the same as erasing it from the game.

Also, GWM and SS are nearly as overrated as Lucky. People that follow the common wisdom and use it on every single attack to try to squeak out the best dpr tend to spend a lot of time hitting nothing but air and not even contributing to fights at all sometimes. And even if it worked as well as advertised, what's advertised is literally fractional points of damage per attack against many enemies. If you're already playing a gestalt game, a little bit of extra damage isn't going to be the thing that breaks it or makes a character OP.

I'd be interested in trying/testing this concept out with you.

re: Feats Think DM has some good look at feat. The Top feats as seen by players are GWM, Lucky, and Sharpshooter. I agree with the zeitgeist that they are powerful feats. The -5 of GMW and Sharpshooter are often easy to mitigate (advantage on an attack is statstically = +5 to hit, so that effectively washes out the -5 from MWM/SS to be giving a free +10 damage).

In my home games I have altered GWM and Sharpshooter to be tied to Proficiency. So it's not as hard to hit earlier in levels, but also not as big a bump in damage either. So instead of -5/+10 it's -Proficiency Bonus/+2x Proficiency Bonus (i.e. -2/+4 to start the game).

https://thinkdm.org/2018/01/13/feat-strength-tiers/

There are other statistical looks at the feats on this site that are neat as well. Specifically GWM.

The wording that caught me as vague was the skills, it could be only skills that exist on both lists, or any skill from either list.  Single suggests you can only have distinct subclasses but offers no explanation of why some subclasses would be insufficiently distinct to count.  All spell slot progression is the same, no need to offer the ability to pick one.

The Class specific notes seems to just be a list of class features, as against subclass features, making it very nearly redundant with the rules.  A reiteration of the typical Multiclassing rule that two features that do the same thing from different sources do not stack would work.

The Feat list does look like it is done by popularity, not by power, I suggest reordering the list and shrinking it down to just the important ones.  If you are willing to modify rules the proficiency limited version of GWF and Sharpshooter works too, or at least limit it until 8th level after that the non casters can use all the help they can get.

Level 4
Crossbow Expert
Inspiring Leader
Lucky
Sentinel
Shield Master
War Caster
Level 6
Elven Accuracy (XGtE)
Polearm Master
Level 8
Great Weapon Master
Sharpshooter

In reply to Hendell (msg # 11):

When coming up with something like this, I would prefer to be a little redundant, rather than vague.  I figured that I would mention all of the class features and say whether each would stack or not.  This leaves no question about any of them.

As for the spell slot progression, I wanted to say it because I was talking about using multiclass rules in the same paragraph.  I didn't want someone to think that I meant for a Level 8 Bard/Wizard gestalt to be getting the Level 16 spell slots like a Bard 8/Wizard 8 multiclass character.

I can see what you are saying about the wording on the skills.  And for the single class gestalt, I could use the word different instead of distinct?  Basically I just wanted to say that you couldn't use the same subclass twice.

As for the feats, it might not be a bad idea to shrink it down a bit.  But the sites I went to were ranking by power, not popularity.  It's just that different people have different opinions of what it powerful.  The ones I listed were all the ones thought to be more powerful than the rest.  If a feat made the list, it means that it was considered at least by some to be tier 2 or better.

Most feats do not have a static power level, or even power ratio to other feats.  They are modifiers for situations or other build aspects and thus their apparent or net power differs per user.

The ones I left in the list are more powerful and versatile enough to be the sort of thing 'everyone needs' which is where you start getting problems.  When something is so good that having it or not having it changes the whole scale of play.

The wording points are minor, and probably mostly subjective anyways.

Stacking the same feature never works, so taking the same subclass twice is very rarely going to do anything, unless the feature comes with choices you can take differently and I don't think there are any subclasses that only add choices so there will always be redundancy.

I think the more important distinction is where you're two sides of the gestalt have different types. I.e. full caster on one side, and 1/2 or 1/3 caster on the other. There are some spells that are balanced for the 1/2 casters to not get access to until much higher levels (Circle of Power, Swift Quiver among others). I guess the question would be... would 1/2 casters on that side be capable of learning or preparing spells EARLY in level progression? That seems more power skewing to me than any of the feats you've listed. A level 9 Ranger/Sorcerer could twin spell a Swift Quiver spell which would allow him to be making 4 arrow attacks/round (instead of 2 normally) and also let someone else make 3-4 arrow attacks as well depending on if they have Extra Attack. Normally a Ranger has to be 17th level to learn a 5th level spell, same with Paladin. So would those restrictions apply or not?

I'd just say "unique subclasses", or just add a note that says "can't select the same subclass twice"

Personally I don't see how any of the feats really unbalance the game outside of Variant Humans. So either don't allow them and give regular humans something else to make them attractive, maybe 2 skills like Half-elves get, or +1 to 5 stats and +2 to 1. Or give everyone a feat (and still get rid of V. Humans) and then it's fairly balanced.

I had thought that I mentioned it, but I guess not.  Each caster class follows its own spell progression for gaining spells, but the spells slots follow the better class.  That is definitely something I'll need to fix.

I know that it's been a while, but I have made some changes and the game is now up requesting players.

link to another game