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View Full Version : Help with a Gestalt build..(uses homebrew)



Maho-Tsukai
2010-05-16, 08:47 PM
I am going to be playing in a level 20, pbp Gestalt game soon and I need help with a certain aspect of character building...optimization.

The character in question is the following...

[Pit Fiend 20]///[Cleric 20]

The pit fiend is a homebrew monster class that has no LA but rather gains all of it's abilities slowly like a standard class would instead of all at once. The links to the class and monster class info are placed below..

Monster Class homebrew info:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142724&highlight=Monster

Pit Fiend Monster Class:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7976670&postcount=80

NOTE: If you don't care about fluff and me ranting on this character's roll in the party, skip down to build guidelines.

Character info:

The idea behind the build is to create character wise a "tyrant" type who was exiled from hell(In this campaign setting hell/the outer planes are Handel very differently...it's actually possible to get to the outer planes from the material plane by boat.) for staging a failed coup and now he has taken over a section of the material plane and uses it as his base of operations to complete his plan of making himself a god. He is a powerful tyrant who can smite people with divine magic or even engage in combat if it came down to that.

He also has an army of minions(which includes his followers who where exiled with him and monsters from the material plane which have been rallied to serve him. However, they are will not be a factor since the DM dose not want use of leadership beyond maybe a single cohort in the game and in fact this build had to be changed to accommodate that(Originally the cleric side of the gestalt was 10 cleric/10 dreadmaster(refluffed).)

Also, a note on divine magic, a pit fiend/cleric may seam kinda odd, but in this setting Divine Magic dose not come from the gods but rather introspection and channeling the power within you.(Sounds kinda like a sorcerer..XD) Arcane magic comes from good old fashion academic study and using the power around you.

As for the game mechanics, this guy is a potent spellcaster and and a good meleer. He has full cleric spellcasting plus Pit Fiend spell-like abilities which include some of the most powerful wizard/sorcerer spells such as greater teleport and wish. As for his melee, he gets heavy armor from cleric and the same BAB as a fighter from Pit Fiend. He also gets +7 to strength from pit fiend and all the cleric buffs from full cleric spellcasting, making him a good gish. Also, as far as melee goes he gets some natural weapons and his large size has nice synergy with things like Knockdown.

As for what my roll will be with this character gameplay wise? Well, I can be a tank and will most likely get into melee with persisted cleric buffs and other such things. However, I am also am also one of the parties's only full divine casters, the other being a [spirit shaman]//[Outsider/Hexblade] .The necromancer only gets divine spells of 0-8 since the lich template LA makes cloistered cleric end at level 16 instead of 9 and the other party members are either arcanists meleers or psionists, with almost all of them being arcane casters of some kind. In fact, the only two characters without arcane casting are myself and the chimera monk I mentioned earlier and only one character has spellcasting on neither side of his gestalt(The monk.) Everybody else has casting on both sides of their gestalt(including myself if you count the fiend SLAs as "casting"). So my party roll? Full divine caster, melee fighter. I can even be the party face in a pinch with a good charisma and get 6+int modifier skill points from Pit Fiend.

So, now, the important part...

Build guidelines

"Mechanics Guidelines:

Level 20 Gestalt
No multiclassing penalties
You must qualify for dual progression classes on one side of the gestalt

Ability scores: 32 point buy, except all abilities start at 10 (44 buy equivalency). Don't forget the 5 extra points from leveling.

Hit points: Max HP

Alignment: Any (Evil is definitely okay, and so is good- but keep in mind I want the party to be able to work together, so I might have to lean towards one or the other overall)

Flaws and Traits: You may have a maximum of 2 flaws and 4 traits. You may take the Pathetic flaw, but only with my approval (you must have a good reason for wanting a below average ability score).

Level Adjustment: You may take races with LA, but there is no buyoff. LA is on one side of the gestalt.

Wealth and Magic items:
-800,000 starting gold
-Magic Armor and Weapon costs works somewhat differently. The enhancement bonus and special abilities track separately in terms of price, and you add the two to determine the price. For example, a +3 keen, flaming sword would have +3 enhancement, and +2 special abilities, costing 18,000 and 8,000 respectively, giving a total price of 26,000.
-A weapon or suit of armor may not have more than a +5 enhancement bonus. A weapon or suit of armor is also limited to +10 in special abilities (though enhancement bonuses do not count against your +10 special ability total).
-Weapon or armor with a +5 enhancement bonus can carry two augment crystals.
-Masterwork and base weapon/armor cost is now considered to be included in the enchanting price. Special materials still cost the same to add.
-I encourage item combination. Feel free to utilize the combining magic items rules on page 233-234 of the MIC. For most items, I will allow combining at no extra cost (exceptions being things like Augment Crystals). In general, I heavily prefer characters to have a few powerful and interesting artifacts, as opposed to being decorated like a Christmas tree with little magic items.

Sources: WotC material is approved, though if you use any setting specific material, please quote it, as I am less familiar with it.
Dragon Magazine material approved on case by case basis (though I may need references or write ups).
Homebrew: Material by Krimm Blackleaf, The Demented One and Fax Celestis are encouraged, and will most likely be approved (I do want you to ask, but mostly only so that I know what you're doing). Other homebrew on a case by case basis (and there is some great stuff out there).

Progression Past Level 20:
One feat per level.
You gain one virtual class level, which does not add to your HD or skill rank maximum.
You may never have more than +20 BAB, +12 base save, 184 base skill points (23 ranks), or 240 base HP. Most other abilities are capped at effective level of 20 for class benefits (you can have 20 caster level, or initiator level from classes, for example, but no higher).
(Base skill points are skill points from class total alone. It does not count intelligence modifier, feats, or the human bonus. Base HP is HP before feats, constitution modifier, and other such things).
(Constitution modifier and other level based HP bonuses only apply for the first 20 levels)."- Quoted from the campaign info written up by the DM, Vael.


Seeing those rules, what would be good ability scores, magic items and feats for this guy? I have already come up with some ability score lineups on my own, but I know there are some people out there who can be greatly efficient at ability score generation and squeeze high stats out of what seams like nothing. The most important thing however is magic items. I simply don't know all the magic items that exist and as such I am most likely to miss something good for this character.

So any ideas, help or advice?

The Rabbler
2010-05-16, 10:50 PM
well, you'll want an 18 in Cha, let's say a 17 in Con, probably a 16 in Str, maybe 14 in Int (because who's ever heard of a dumb pit fiend?), a 14 in Wis, and a 13 in Dex. put one level up point in Con, then throw the rest onto Cha.

I'd go with DMM, grabbing nice stuff like persist, heighten, empower (just in case you want to blast stuff).

you might want to grab two levels of a martial adept class (Crusader would work nicely) after level 18 on the cleric side, grabbing you (up to) level 6 maneuvers and only hurting your 9th level spells/day a little. or maybe paladin 2 for divine grace.

with this character, I'd go CoDzilla and be the best tank around.

as for items, nightsticks are your friend, a +5 keen flaming (devils have a reputation to protect and fire is scary) wrathful healing greatsword, a +5 buckler (with improved buckler defense), and +5 armor of heavy (or medium) fortification. get the necessary +6 items. belt of battle (of course). maybe a ring of blinking/evasion for fun. then the +5 nat/def AC items. and +5 resistance gear (unless you want to persist a resist every morning).
All of that shouldn't run you too much... maybe 3-4 hundred thousand GP (those weapon/armor pricing rules are amazing). from there you can do pretty much whatever you want.

rods are a fun way of doing stuff; particularly immovable rods.
get yourself a utility belt (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4400.0) combined with your belt of battle (multiply the cheaper one's cost by 1.5 and add them) for everything you could possibly need ever. shapesand is nice if you're creative. as are the magical pigments.

and that's all I got.

EDIT: what type of character are you shooting for? most of the stuff I suggested would go well for just about any type of player, but would work best with a tanking cleric.

alternatively, you could have your cohort be a tripping tank while you focus on hurting stuff however you like.

Godskook
2010-05-16, 11:11 PM
How twinked do you want to get?

Krimm_Blackleaf
2010-05-16, 11:27 PM
You could be a real monster and grab this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134137) prestige class of mine. All about a Pit Fiend's role as a controller and social titan in the eyes of lesser devils.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-05-17, 12:15 AM
That PRC is awesome, actually, just the kind if thing I was looking for after the DM said no to dreadmaster. Also, for cleric spellcasting I need wisdom and since Pit Fiend gets a bonus to cha and not wis, it's better to make cha lower then wis since you will end up getting +8 to cha which can make it on par with wisdom even if it dose not start out at 18.

It's important to have both a high cha for pit fiend SLAs but also a high wis for cleric spellcasting since I want this guy to be a divine spellcaster who has the option to go into melee with buffs but still can cast offensively as if he was a pure cleric.

@ Godsook. Give me whatever you got, I am more of an RPer then an optimizer but the rest of the party was fairly optimized with one guy being absurdly optimized, so whatever you can throw at me would be great.

Oh, and I considerd other divine caster classes that cast of cha but none of them seem to work as well for what I want as a cleric dose, despite MAD.
Favored soul dose not get heavy armor and is no better then taking cleric since it's already a MAD class itself. Spirit shaman suffers from the same issues as FS and the shugenja is too out of flavor and also gets a significantly weaker spell list then the other divine classes.

Godskook
2010-05-17, 01:42 AM
I reiterate, how twinked do you want to get?

For instance, going two levels of unarmed swordsage, talking your DM into a prestige paladin of tyranny(There's prestige paladins, and there's paladins of tyrrany, so this really shouldn't be a problem), and grabbing Ascetic Mage grants you Cha to saves and AC without sacrificing your 9ths as of right now. Or don't grab Ascetic Mage, and use wisdom.

Or you can go the mystic theurge-style route and find a way to get 9ths in both sorcerer and cleric(or maybe favored soul and sorcerer, if you want to reduce the MAD a little). Other combinations include cleric/ardent or favored/wilder. Even if you don't grab 9ths in the second class, squeaking in 10 levels of the dual-caster class would be quite powerful, since it sounds like epic is going to last a while, meaning that 10 levels will put you quite close to 9ths in the second class during epic play.

Also, are you allowed to advance prestige classes into epic levels?

The Rabbler
2010-05-17, 01:46 AM
Also, are you allowed to advance prestige classes into epic levels?


Progression Past Level 20:
One feat per level.
You gain one virtual class level, which does not add to your HD or skill rank maximum.
You may never have more than +20 BAB, +12 base save, 184 base skill points (23 ranks), or 240 base HP. Most other abilities are capped at effective level of 20 for class benefits (you can have 20 caster level, or initiator level from classes, for example, but no higher).
(Base skill points are skill points from class total alone. It does not count intelligence modifier, feats, or the human bonus. Base HP is HP before feats, constitution modifier, and other such things).
(Constitution modifier and other level based HP bonuses only apply for the first 20 levels)."- Quoted from the campaign info written up by the DM, Vael.


effectively, after you hit 20, you've gotten all of the class features you're going to get. at least, that's how I read it.

Godskook
2010-05-17, 02:10 AM
effectively, after you hit 20, you've gotten all of the class features you're going to get. at least, that's how I read it.

Now see, I read that quite differently. Far as I can tell, classes still advance, but there's a cap on literally every scaling feature. Why else would he restrict 'base hp' to 240(Literally 20d12).

The Rabbler
2010-05-17, 02:40 AM
yea, I could see that, but why bother putting limits on everything if the players won't be able to make any of the DCs that the ELH throws around?

maybe the players are permitted to advance class levels after 20 as long as they aren't exceeding the max level for those classes. That makes sense; and it would effectively cut off any ties to the messed up epic rules.

Divide by Zero
2010-05-17, 02:44 AM
Have you considered a salt merchant?

The Rabbler
2010-05-17, 02:50 AM
Have you considered a salt merchant?

you misread the title; this is a gestalt build, not a getsalt build.

and we both know that salt merchants are stupidly underpowered.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-05-17, 07:27 AM
I originally wanted to try the theurge idea and liked the thought of it, but I want to dumb dex(since every other stat is important in some way to the character.) which I can't do if I go theurge because of the lack of heavy armor, unless you have a way to gain armored caster?

Also, as for favored soul, if it used CHA for DCs and wisdom for spell level it can cast, then I would be more opt to use it, but as RAW, if I use favored soul it's DCs would be very stinky unless I devoted a lot to wis, and I am already doing that for my cleric levels, so it rely would be no different then what I am doing with my stats now. So unless you are using favored soul only for buffs/gaining greater melee presence and such I see no reason to take it over cleric since it too would lead to MAD unless you are ok with abysmal save DCs.

However, if I talk my DM into letting me use the pathfinder version of the favored soul(which is a SAD class instead of a MAD one.) then the idea actually becomes viable and I could possibly take theurge without worring about armor because I could dumb wisdom instead of dex.

Also, as for how tweaked I want to get, as tweaked as possible tweaked, since the rest of the group is getting quite tweaked.

EDIT: A SAD/ONE STAT FAVORED SOUL WAS APPROVED BY THE DM, SO FEEL FREE TO USE FS NOW.