Gestalt Rules

**What is gestalting?:** In this high-powered campaign variant, characters essentially take two classes at every level, choosing the best aspects of each. The process is similar to multiclassing, except that characters gain the full benefits of each class at each level. if the two classes you choose have aspects that overlap (such as Hit Dice, attack progression, saves, and class features common to more than one class), you choose the better aspect. The gestalt character retains all aspects that don’t overlap. **Note: You can find all the relevant rules here, albeit with slight changes that will be mentioned in this page.**

## Changes

### **Saving Throws and BAB**

For Base Saving Throw Bonuses and BAB, we will use **Fractional Base Bonuses** ruleset. Here's an example:

 Wizard 2, [Gestalt] [Rogue 2]
 Wizard 3, [Gestalt] [Rogue 2, Fighter 1]

**Explanation:** Wizard has good will save, while rogue has good ref save. As such, both ref and will saves will be +2 at first level, while fort is +0.33. Next level, you increase both of them by +0.5 and fort by +0.33. Now, here's when it gets interesting. Since you're adding a fighter level (and thus losing the rogue level) your good saves become will (from wizard) and fort (from fighter). Thus you'll increase them by +0.5, while increasing reflex (your now bad save) by 0.33. It might sound slightly confusing, but it's easy once you get used to it.

Note: Always round down unless specified otherwise. +2.83 Bonus will round down to +2. Once you increase a save by +0.33 three times, it becomes +1 instead of +0.99.

### **Other Changes**

* You do not progress your gestalt class(es) each time you level, but instead gain them depending on your **Rank** or the purchases you've made using RP.

* You can only have a maximum number of different gestalt classes up to 1/6th (minimum 1) of your HD. So at level 6 or lower, you can only gestalt one class (not limited to levels). So you can be "Wizard 6, [Gestalt] [Rogue 4]" for example, but not "Wizard 6, [Gestalt] [Rogue 2, Fighter 2]."

Tip: If you're new to the game, or find our homebrew changes complicated, we suggest you stick to just one gestalt class.

* Mental stat to saves: Usually, there are some classes that give you X mental stat modifier to all of your saves. In order to keep the power-level manageable, we will be making the following changes:
	+ Whenever an ability would grant you a bonus equal to your X stat modifier to saves, you only receive a bonus up to the total level you have in that class. For example: 4 level gestalt in Paladin would only allow you to have a maximum of +4 bonus to saves due to Divine Grace, while 10 level gestalt would allow you to have a maximum bonus of +10. Note: This doesn't apply to classes that only give you a bonus to one save (such as Mesmerist), it only applies to gestalt (not your main classes), and the rule itself doesn't affect other attributes such as AC, INIT, etc.
* Prestige Classes: You cannot use a gestalt class to qualify for a prestige class. Prestige classes cannot affect your gestalt classes (such as Mystic Theurge for example) but will affect your main classes.

## Tiers

First and foremost, our gestalt system is divided into three tiers:

 Tier 2
 Tier 1

Example: Level 10 character with Tier 3 gestalting may have up to 2 gestalt levels (10/4=2.5 rounded down). But if a level 10 character has Tier 1 gestalting, they may have up to 10 gestalt levels.

Downtime Note: Characters can only retroactively gain gestalt levels if they spend 5 days of downtime per gestalt level. So a level 10 character who just purchased Tier 1 gestalting (without any previous gestalt levels) would need to spend 50 downtime days acquiring them. But if a level 1 character with Tier 1 gestalting leveled up, they would gain a free gestalt level.

## Purchasing Gestalt & Tiers

Note: Benefits bought with RP only apply to one character, cannot be transferred to others and are lost upon retirement or permanent death. **The cost is not iterative. If you had Rank 3 gestalting and wanted to purchase Rank 2 gestalting, it'd cost 1000 RP. The price would remain the same even if you didn't have a gestalt tier.**

### **Ranking System**

Depending on your rank, you receive a number of free gestalt tiers for some of your characters, according to the following table:

Explanation: The numbers represent how many characters may have the gestalt tier at any given point. Example: If you're Rank X, one of your characters may have Tier 3 gestalting. However, if you're rank 4, four of your characters may have Tier 3 gestalting, two of them may have Tier 2 gestalting, and one of them may have Tier 1 gestalting.