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That sounds like something they're erroneously believing then. You get the class features from both classes, which includes bonus feats, and the entry about making a gestalt character even specifically mentions that you keep track of your spells separately if using two (or more) spellcasting classes.

You should ask them if they're read the rules on gestalt character building lately or if they're using house rules. Sometimes information gets remembered incorrectly.

I think you're thinking of multiclassing. Gestalt is a variant ruleset that works differently than multiclassing.

Me and someone I knew played 1 Gestalt character each one time. Despite them being poorly built due to our inexperience, both of them ran roughshod over a short 18th level generic adventure (both were lv20). They...also had the epic level paragon template added, which is also why they were poorly built besides the classes we chose. Mine was dragonfire adept/ranger/fighter and the other was fighter/wizard.

Yeah. OP. I regret making a character like that nowadays...

Ya, your fella needs to back and reread those small set of guidelines to Gestalt play. Firstly as to Bonus feats, there are two kinds of Bonus Feats you see. Character and Class, if you don't understand the difference you have 0 business playing Gestalt.

Your Character Level or Hit Dice (in the case of Monsters) determine Character bonus feats and stat increases. Character level also determines your Max Skill Rank.

Now things do get odd when it comes to Class Abilities



A Wizard Sorcerer would get the spell casting of both classes.



Keep in mind that Gestalt rules in total run about a page and a half minus class example combos. They really are less rules then guidelines and up to how a GM wants to implement them.



This one most people miss, especially with things like Uncanny Dodge. Mainly this guideline is aimed at stacking abilities off each other way sooner then they should. Uncanny Dodge stacking to Improved Uncanny Dodge. This may be where your buddy got the wrong idea about stacking Spell Caster classes. Yes, spell casting has the same name but they really aren't the same class features. I can't think of class that is identical spell casting, aside variants of a class, which aren't legal of multi-classing normally and aren't really legal for gestalt.


This one take the piss out of the guy saying that you'd only get the spell casting off One of your two gestalt classes.



One Prestige class at a time! Gestalt can already get crazy when you multi-class inside it but PrCs make it even nuttier to track. When it comes to prestige class that grant +1 Caster Level, these should flow established multi-classing guidelines. Each time you gain a "+1 Caster Level" you have to pick which qualifying class it applies to.

Now this is why Gestalt is more guidelines then rules. The rules don't explicitly prohibit you from taking a Prestige class with +1 Caster Level and a Level in the Spellcasters base class. However this goes partly in the face of "Two Classes sharing a Class Feature" guideline, also any GM or Player worth the bother can see very broken (even for gestalt) allowing that would be. Functionally it could allow Epic spell casting well before Epic. Like 6 levels too early.



This one a GMs gotta really watch. A great many PrCs out there are at base combo classes. Although in most cases these PrCs look far less attractive next to just staying in your Base class.


Personally IMO the bigger issue over all with Gestalt play are the Savings throws with Multi-classing. The "normal" method breaks very fast. My personal house rule to the house rule is to "stack" levels of Save types. I also "stack" BABs.

Savings throws are Good or Bad. If you get a +1 Good save you increase the "level" of your Good Save progression.

Example (// is Gestalt break): Wizard 15 / Archmage 5 / / Fighter 10 / Barbarian 5 / Ranger 5 /

For Fortitude you'd normally add both the Fighter Barbarian and Ranger values together for +15. In my system you'd have gotten to Fort Good 20, for +12.

The more PrC/Class you stack on the worse the saves start scaling.

One thing a GM can do is apply an XP penalty to Gestalts to keep them from leveling up as fast. Given their power, it should balance them out. Applying a level cap could be a good idea in its own right.

Alternatively, the NPC enemies could also be Gestalts with optimization backing them up.

Those are the only real ways I know of that can balance them out.

Super monsters aren't the way to go for obvious reasons, powerful liches have the same problems, even the gods, demon lords, and archdevils themselves might not be able to give a good enough challenge. It may as well be epic level without anyone being over 20th.

Hey, I'm trying to brainstorm options for a character in my friend's Pathfinder game but don't have the books handy for a few days. I'm playing a rogue and need to know what prestige class options I have that will maintain her sneak attack progression. Okay, "need" is an overstatement. Still, anyone know a good prestige class or two with a good sneak attack progression? He might allow D&D 3.5 prestige classes with some adjustments.

Edit: Few days just turned into two weeks without access to the books, so... still could use some insight if someone can suggest any goods prestige classes.

Going color blind in the astral plane sounds fun(ny).