Gesalt Build, Need Advice

[AaaronRZ]

I am creating a gestalt build we will be starting at level 1. I just want to map out my characters' classes feats so I know what to expect as I level up, assuming I live. My first interest is to stay as "monkish" as possible while maximizing defensive capabilities as well as the most powerful unarmed damage I can. We have no restrictions as far as materials go and running 2 PrC's at the same time are allowed. We asked the DM if he was sure multiple times and he said to go for it.

I realize there could be many many more powerful builds then this concept, but I think it can perform quite a bit of utility for our campaign. Here is what I have thus far any ideas, critiques or clarifying on rules I have potentially broken with this build will be very appreciated.

Race Dwarf
Monk 1/Ranger 1 - BAB 1/Favored Enemy, Track, IUS, Flurry of Blows, Stunning Fist
Monk 2/Ranger 2 - BAB 2/Combat Style (TWF), Evasion, Combat Reflexes
Monk 3/Ranger 3 - BAB 3/Still Mind, Power attack, Endurance
Monk 4/Dwarf Paragon 1 - BAB 4/Ki Strike, Slow Fall, Imp Stone Cutting, Craft Expertise
Monk 5/Dwarf Paragon 2 - BAB 5/Imp Dark Vision (+30ft), Purity of Body, SVs +1 vs poison & spell-like abilities
Monk 6/Dwarf Paragon 3 - BAB 6/Imp Trip, Con +2, Imp Natural Attack
Monk 7/Fist of the Forest 1 - BAB 7
Monk 8/Fist of the Forest 2 - BAB 8
Monk 9/Fist of the Forest 3 - BAB 9 Alertness
Monk 10/Deepwarden 1 - BAB 10
Monk 11/Deepwarden 2 - BAB 11
Monk 12/PsyWar 1 Undermined Feat
Monk 13/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 1 - BAB 12
Monk 14/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 2 - BAB 13
Monk 15/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 3 - BAB 14
Acolyte of the Fist 1/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 4/Unarmed Strike Die Increase, Iron Will
Acolyte of the Fist 2/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 5 - BAB 15
Acolyte of the Fist 3/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 6 - BAB 16/Undetermined Feat
Acolyte of the Fist 4/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 7 - BAB 17/Unarmed Strike Die Increase
Acolyte of the Fist 5/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 8/Unarmed Die Increase

Few notes before we open the discussion. Obviously the unarmed damage cap of 2d10 is reached and then some. I am still unsure if Improved Natural Attack is a size increase modifier or a die increase modifier, so I'll leave it till the end.

My intention is to have an item that gives greater mighty wallop +4, since you can only use the spell to increase your effective size to Colossal. That immediately puts us up to 12d8 damage. It is my understanding from information I have read on various posts across the web that my two PrCs at the end increase die size. If that is the case colossal +3 die sizes will bring me up to 32d8 damage. Now factoring in improved natural attack on either scale brings me up to 48d8 damage. With My Psychic Warrior effective level of 9 now I can easily cast Expansion (2) multiple times per day bringing my effective size to Collosal +++ if I'm not mistaken and this would push my damage to 96d8?

I have 1 undetermined level to fill in lets assume its a pure caster as to get the benefit of Initiate of the Draconic Mysteries spell progression this is totally up for suggestions, defensive capabilities or size/die size options also strongly wanted. (Put in Psychic Warrior for now)

Due to my class list I am looking at a BAB of 17 with greater flurry of blows adding 2 additional attacks at my highest BAB. +17/+17/+17/+12/+7/+2 in itself i find to be pretty ridiculous. Does two weapon fighting factor into this at all? Or are these the max attacks as per how I'm currently set up?

I have an array of defensive abilities, I also have DEX to AC as standard, WIS to AC per Monk class ability, CON to AC per Fist of the Forest class ability I also have CON to AC if CON is higher then DEX via Deepwarden. This basically makes DEX less of a priority and potentially makes CON and WIS my two most important stats especially if I choose a WIS caster in my class fill slot. I'm getting +4 CON for being a Dwarf and Deepwarden and -2 to CHA, which shouldn't effect me too much.

Even being a dwarf and not fully going down the monk progression I still end up with base 20ft +50ft Monk and +10ft Fist of the Forest for total of 80ft.

96d8 (x6) or an average of 2,592 damage in a full round of attacking on average and max of 4,608 with no STR modifier.

Again any help, corrections, advice, gripes with the build feel free to help me out here. Some low level items will probably be used like a monks belt until it outgrows its usefulness. I will assume 22+ con and 16+wis without gear. 22 = +6 (x2) 16 = +3. To me it looks like 25armor with no magical gear on yet.

[dyslexicfaser]

I wasn't aware you could get larger than Colossal+.

Personally I'd toss some of the monk levels for either a Tashalatora PsyWar or that Holy Fist class, to give you some more options (psionics or cleric casting, whichever is your flavor). If you're allowed to PrC on both halves, might as well make the best of it.

PsyWar would also let you increase your size by another two sizes, to some ungodly number.

[Faleldir]

In before Swordsage.

[Person_Man]

Let me rephrase what you wrote, for those who are too lazy to re-read it. You are looking for help on the following build:

Monk 15/Acolyte of the Fist 5//Ranger 3/Dwarf Paragon 3/Fist of the Forest 3/Deepwarden 2/PsyWar 1/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 8

Campaign starts at level 1. All books allowed. Build goals are to maximize unarmed damage and defense while staying as "monkish" as possible.


Is that correct?

If not, please correct me. If so, I have a few more questions for you.

1) By "monkish" do you mean:

A. "I want to use as many levels of the core Monk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm) class" as possible.
B. "I want a guy who has great unarmed damage, Skills, and interesting special abilities."
C. Something else.

2) In general, how difficult are the encounters that your DM runs? I ask because it's quite easy to optimize unarmed damage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7081777) or optimize Power Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7165087) and/or add attacks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595). But the Tarrasque only has 858 hit points. Pushing your expected damage per round output beyond the point where it will reasonably kill all of the enemies your DM throws at you in 4ish rounds just forces the DM to add enemies and/or make the encounters more difficult.

3) You might want to re-read Initiate of Draconic Mysteries. Half of the class abilities, Evasion, Improved Evasion, ki strike, and SR, 3 strong Saves, overlap with your Monk class abilities. And oddly, you don't take the 10th level capstone ability to Polymorph into any dragon once a day for one hour. I assume you're taking it for the increases to unarmed damage, but there are better ways to do that. I suggest dropping it, or dropping most of your Monk levels, or dropping both.

4) Similarly, Ranger and Dwarf Paragon don't really synergize well with your build goals. It seems like you're taking them for entry into Deepwarden, but that's not really necessary for ECL 11 to get there.

5) Since it's Dragon material, I've never read Acolyte of the Fist. What does it do?

[Pluto]

Your character looks like a non-gestalt Monk with bigger numbers.
It still has many of the faults of the basic Monk (and non-casters in general):

It doesn't have access to level-appropriate abilities beyond damage. Things like teleportation, status effects, various immunities, the ability to move and full attack, the ability to shrug off effects that do pierce your defences, etc.

You might have moderately acceptable skills and one combat trick, but the Wizard//Adept is summoning demons to do his dirty work. And if the DM thinks his demon summoning is going too far, he still has a plethora of level-appropriate options to fall back on. (If the DM feels your 1-hitting fists of DOOM! are getting to be too much for his campaign and changes up the opposition, you aren't really built to have a backup plan.)


I recommend as much casting/initiating/manifesting/soulbinding/shadowcasting/meldshaping as you can fit into this thing. Or at least a source of UMD.


Also, just as a heads-up, there are some features of the build that might be opposed:
--It looks like you have two prestige classes simultaneously advancing at the end of your build.
--Size increases might not stack across the build (the way the "fastest rate of advancement" gestalt rule works is... hazy). Ask your DM.

[AaaronRZ]

Let me rephrase what you wrote, for those who are too lazy to re-read it. You are looking for help on the following build:

Monk 15/Acolyte of the Fist 5//Ranger 3/Dwarf Paragon 3/Fist of the Forest 3/Deepwarden 2/PsyWar 1/Initiate of Draconic Mysteries 8

Campaign starts at level 1. All books allowed. Build goals are to maximize unarmed damage and defense while staying as "monkish" as possible.


Is that correct?

If not, please correct me. If so, I have a few more questions for you.

1) By "monkish" do you mean:

A. "I want to use as many levels of the core Monk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm) class" as possible.
B. "I want a guy who has great unarmed damage, Skills, and interesting special abilities."
C. Something else.

2) In general, how difficult are the encounters that your DM runs? I ask because it's quite easy to optimize unarmed damage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7081777) or optimize Power Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7165087) and/or add attacks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595). But the Tarrasque only has 858 hit points. Pushing your expected damage per round output beyond the point where it will reasonably kill all of the enemies your DM throws at you in 4ish rounds just forces the DM to add enemies and/or make the encounters more difficult.

3) You might want to re-read Initiate of Draconic Mysteries. Half of the class abilities, Evasion, Improved Evasion, ki strike, and SR, 3 strong Saves, overlap with your Monk class abilities. And oddly, you don't take the 10th level capstone ability to Polymorph into any dragon once a day for one hour. I assume you're taking it for the increases to unarmed damage, but there are better ways to do that. I suggest dropping it, or dropping most of your Monk levels, or dropping both.

4) Similarly, Ranger and Dwarf Paragon don't really synergize well with your build goals. It seems like you're taking them for entry into Deepwarden, but that's not really necessary for ECL 11 to get there.

5) Since it's Dragon material, I've never read Acolyte of the Fist. What does it do?

Yes that was correct in a nutshell.

So that being said if I don't get to take any monk levels but still get a sufficient amount of damage, mobility and abilities to make me more then just a combat participant I would be open to that. Unarmed strike seemed like the way to go, but maybe I'm going about it all wrong?

The encounters will scale with our party capabilities if it ends up we can take ECL +4 from where we are at then thats what will get thrown at us.

I didn't realize the 10th level of IotDM allowed for the ability to polymorph into a dragon as I don't have the book myself. I knew it was roughly another version of monk with the ability to add caster levels to a previously know caster set as well as the die increases to unarmed strike at levels 4 and 8. To be honest I was gunning for 8th level in this PrC, but at epic levels I could cap out the class or maybe I should just rework it to get it earlier?

Taking Ranger and Dwarf Paragon were simple ways to join FoTF and Deepwarden, they also helped me maintain a very high BAB. The additional abilities Dwarf Paragon gave me made it that much easier to go after it, but again maybe its just going after too much? Extra darkvision, stone cutting, detecting of traps in dungeons and the natural resistsances. For that matter maybe skipping Deepwarden is a better choice altogether? Thus removing the need to even take dwarf as a race.

I would be looking for some other things to help increase my defensive capabilites then.