Gestalt One Shot Advice

[Zaydos]

I'm planning on running a one shot adventure (3.5) with gestalt characters in about a month or so and I wanted to give my players some advice on how to build gestalt characters and some example builds so I was wondering if anybody here would want to help.

They are agents of a wizards' college and any alignment is open but I'm guessing at least 1 will be good and another probably evil (she wants to play an assassin of some type and has proven incapable of RPing the good alignment).

They will Lv 13 and they must have full wizard casting; 1 prestige at a time; no dual class prestiges (theurges etc). No Focused Specialist, no Forgotten Realms, no Precocious Apprentice, and no Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. LA and Racial HD go on one side of the progression.

One player wants to be a wizard//binder of some sort or maybe a werewolf, and another wants to be an assassin style character and always goes for blasts (I was thinking max sneak attack + conjurer with metamagiced orb of fire as a signature weapon to roast enemies with searing spell to get past most anything).

So any example builds?

P.S.: I also just enjoy seeing examples of gestalt builds since I've never played gestalt or realized just how much fun rule juggling it could involve.

[oxinabox]

I'm planning on running a one shot adventure (3.5) with gestalt characters in about a month or so and I wanted to give my players some advice on how to build gestalt characters and some example builds so I was wondering if anybody here would want to help.

They are agents of a wizards' college and any alignment is open but I'm guessing at least 1 will be good and another probably evil (she wants to play an assassin of some type and has proven incapable of RPing the good alignment).

They will Lv 13 and they must have full wizard casting; 1 prestige at a time; no dual class prestiges (theurges etc). No Focused Specialist, no Forgotten Realms, no Precocious Apprentice, and no Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. LA and Racial HD go on one side of the progression.

One player wants to be a wizard//binder of some sort or maybe a werewolf, and another wants to be an assassin style character and always goes for blasts (I was thinking max sneak attack + conjurer with metamagiced orb of fire as a signature weapon to roast enemies with searing spell to get past most anything).

So any example builds?

P.S.: I also just enjoy seeing examples of gestalt builds since I've never played gestalt or realized just how much fun rule juggling it could involve.

Why full wizard casting? why not full arcane casting?
I can easily see a wizards college, having Duskblades esp for agents.
I can imagine Wu jen, who came as visters from far of lands and stayed.
Warlocks and Sorcorers, who never really belonged there, but when they showed magical talent were sent off there (by misunderstanding townfolk, say)
Even a Cleric/Archivist with the Magic and fire/force domains, who looks more the the spiritual side of magic

[Tackyhillbillu]

I got nothing. I don't like playing Caster's in 3.5, so you aren't really asking me.

I'm really just here to compliment Oxina on his signature. I'm actually listening to that song at the moment.

[Zaydos]

Why full wizard casting? why not full arcane casting?
Four reasons.

Fluff (and initial reason): They're the elite agents of the college, quite probably the apprentices of the heads and teachers of the school themselves. In addition I think almost everyone in the world is a wizard of some level of skill.

Game Mechanically: It makes sure that everybody at least has a tier 1 (even if badly played) class; while play level and style will make their power vary it will hopefully not be too bad... why do I think it will be (actually I see one person optimizing their wizard levels with another class in an intelligent fashion, another going for "stealth" and then just blasting stuff, another playing a wizard//bard, and the fourth getting me to make their character entirely but...)

Three: Because I want to see a party of wizards and what kind of challenges it presents to me as a DM.

Four: Because I didn't really think much further than "WORLD OF WIZARDS"

[oxinabox]

Four reasons.
Four:
But, but, but, but, they're wizards! to play a wizard right (and not gimp yourself into with a sorcour with less spell slots) you need to spend a significan't portion of you WBL on spells known.
The advantage of a wizard is they can prepare new spells everyday, in a oneshot this may not matter.

Your taking the Funnest Part of Gestalt away: combining classes, since one said has to be straight Wizard, or Wizard and wizard PrC's.

Your world makes me think of Darksword (IIRC the title)





I'm really just here to compliment Oxina on his signature. I'm actually listening to that song at the moment.
Thanks, just Ox will do fin thougjh :smallwink:

[Zaydos]

I'm intending it to be a multi-day adventure with some plane hopping so they will get the chance to change spells once or twice.

Since this is testing out gestalts, and my roommate (the one who actually goes into making powerful characters) is having enough trouble with one side of the gestalt and even I find both sides difficult (and my friends think I have 5+ books memorized verbatim which I don't) I'm going to ease into it, test the waters, and see if I like it (which if I do I might run an actual gestalt campaign).

[oxinabox]

no dual class prestiges (theurges etc)
does this mean Spellsword, abjurant champion, eldritch knight, arcane trickerster are out?

I might make a character under your rules.

Just for intersest. and demonstration purposes.
I've never actually played Gestalt, but character making is fun.

[BooNL]

does this mean Spellsword, abjurant champion, eldritch knight, arcane trickerster are out?


You don't need those PrC's if you're Gestalting.

Zaydos: I expect your players will try to fill the other roles on their second Gestalt side. So you will probably have an even balance of fighters, rogues and divine characters, coupled with an insane amount of arcane.

That said, the best combo's with wizards are usually passive classes. Monks and fighters are surprisingly good in Gestalt. Warlocks, binders and Duskblades also give some nice synergies.
Factotum is obvious, but to be honest, that class has no business being in Gestalt in the first place.

[NotMe]

One issue you may have is that a classic wizard build prioritises INT then CON then DEX (sometime swapping con and dex). This means that there will be a substantial advantage to choosing second classes that benefit from the same stats, so Swashbuckler and warblade (for example) are likly to make better choices than fighters. Something like a paladin is likly to be just too stat intensive to work well (this may be what you're looking for).

Classes that work well with the int synergy include Warblade, Swashbuckler, invisible blade, assassin (if you care about death attack), factotum, monk (with the carmedine monk feat) and rogues always like the skillpoints. I suspect that you'll end up with more gish and skillmonkey type characters, probably being light on divine casting.

An option to allow wizards to choose from a range of primary casting stats may help give you a more even distribution of second classes.

[Medic]

Cleric + Anyspell = Stupidity

Cleric with wizard = Completely broken and painful to play.

I would advise against any caster/caster builds.

[Zovc]

Be a Wizard//Factotum, you won't be disappointed.

[Draz74]

Hmmm. Wizard//Duskblade, Wizard//Factotum, Wizard//Binder, and Wizard//Psion (Egoist) sounds like a fun party. :smallbiggrin:

The Factotum won't actually be all that broken, as long as its player isn't a crazy optimizer and as long as you ban Font of Inspiration. (Cunning Surge, the biggest offender, won't get used more than once an encounter until at least Level 11.)

The Psion gets a Psicrystal, Vigor, Share Pain, and Empathic Transfer (and at Level 15, Expanded Knowledge (Mend Wounds)) to be the party healer. The Binder is the jack-of-all-trades, who can help the Factotum out on stealth missions or help the Psion out at healing as required.

Various simple PrCs that progress the classes in a nice moderate way can be mixed in as you like: any of the Wizard sides can splash some Fatespinner or Archmage or Mindbender 1, or the Binder can go Knight of the Sacred Seal, that sort of thing.

EDIT: Either the Factotum or the Duskblade could function as the assassin type. The Psion player, even though they have to be the party healbot, gets the consolation that they're actually the most powerful character of the four.

[Zaydos]

Thanks for all the suggestions. My roommate who wanted to be a binder has decided to go shadow dragon on that side instead since this might be his only chance to play a decent dragon (and he always plays wizards anyway). Have to talk to the others and send them the link to this page.

Thanks again.

[oxinabox]

[QUOTE=BooNL;7058996]You don't need those PrC's if you're Gestalting. [QUOTE]

Need? no, you doin even need anything other than the 3 NPC classes.
want? Yes.
I Have magic, and the ability it to pick locks. what shall i do?
- Arcane tricker: I pick locks with mage hand.

Abjurant champ, well it's just plan and puire awesome claff features, I know of alot of people who advise taking it even if you arn't going gish, it's so easy to get into, and has full casting.


Jade Phonix Mage (even just lvl 1): I burn spell slots to do extra damage! (Abj. champ has one of these too)

[Zaydos]

does this mean Spellsword, abjurant champion, eldritch knight, arcane trickerster are out?

I originally intended no, but a part of me wants to say yes (mostly because abjurant champion works so well in so many builds). I'm still thinking no though (otherwise I expect I'd end up with a wizard/arcane trickster//rogue or something like that); if we really enjoy it I'm thinking of running another one-shot where I reduce restrictions a fair bit and possibly even a campaign (although I just started one and it seems to be off on a good foot so I'm hesitant on this option).