Gestalt characters in Traveller

[Shadowdancer]

Just curious -- has anyone tried using gestalt characters (as described for D&D d20 in Unearthed Arcana) in T20?

I thought of this last night while tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep but failing my DC check terribly.

I just couldn't get my mind to shut down.

But anyway, it occurred to me that gestalt characters might be a good way of creating characters that are in service careers, yet not engaged in combat-oriented jobs or assignments.

For example, say the character you are creating is in the Army, but you want him to be a doctor or medic rather than a combat-oriented character. Rather than alternating between Army and Professional character levels, you could build a gestalt character and take the best of each character class every time the character went up a level.

You could even do the same thing with non-service classes, say a Rogue/Merchant gestalt for a Smuggler.

So, has anyone tried this yet? If so, how did it work out?

 

[veltyen]

Hmmmm.

I don't know what the exact gestalt rules are. As most T20 characters are at minimum levle 4-6 I wouldn't see it as a big problem. Certainly there isn't a problem taking all levels of proffesional while serving in the army, or even just taking only basic training.

I allow character creation to be even more fuzzy then the rules would strictly allow. For example a technical Marine taking Navy levels, or shore patrol naval personel taking Marine levels. This tends to adequately describe most characters.

 

[Chaos]

I don´t think that, at least for those two examples, you´d need any additional rules.

After all, a Navy character can take a special Marine feat via Cross Training, and both Marine and Navy chars can take most of the other class´s feats as their regular feats (i.e. every third level) or class feats.

And the Merchant, I guess, is already rogueish enough for a smuggler; give him Carousing, Fast Talk and Narrow Escape as bonus feats, and you have a quintessential Han Solo.

 

[Flynn]

Gestalt characters aren't appropriate for the general power level of Traveller, but might have a place in an ATU inspired by the OTU.

My personal thoughts, anyway,
Flynn

 

[veltyen]

I don´t think that, at least for those two examples, you´d need any additional rules.

Not additional rules as such, just relaxation of the restriction that you have to be serving in $SERVICECLASS to take $SERVICECLASS levels. There is a continuum between navy (skill+ small arms-) and marine (skill- small arms+) and it is not always appropriate to have unskilled Marines or less combat capable Naval personel.

For example a Marine forward engineer would be skill heavy compared to the Marines in battledress, and would have a class list more like
Academic/Marine/Navy/Navy/Navy IMTU even though they have only ever served in the Marines.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Originally posted by Flynn:
Gestalt characters aren't appropriate for the general power level of Traveller, but might have a place in an ATU inspired by the OTU.

My personal thoughts, anyway,
Flynn

My initial reaction (after having the original thought, of course

) is that gestalt characters would be too powerful for traditional Traveller campaigns. I was curious if anyone had actually tested it.

For those not familiar with gestalt characters, they are multiclass characters using two classes which take the best aspects of each class every time they level up.

For example, say your character was a Rogue/Merchant as mentioned above. When you go up a level, you would get the better BAB and saving throw improvement from either class; the better Stamina die to roll; the better skill points pool, with skills selected from both class' lists; any new feats and special class abilities either class is entitled to at that level (this is the most unbalancing aspect of gestalt characters for T20, IMO); etc.

If I had my book here at work, I'd throw together a little example, but suffice it to say that each time a character levels up, he would get the best benefits of his two classes and few if any of the negatives. So if you take a combat-rich, skills-light class (say Mercenary) and combine it with a combat-poor, skills-heavy class (Professional), you would get a combat-rich, skills-heavy character.