[3.5e] New Player Gestalt Suggestions

[HunterOfJello]

Hey guys. I'm DMing an Eberron Gestalt campaign right now that a friend would like to join. There have been 2 players in the group so far and this will put the total at 3. The party is at level 3, and I would love to hear some suggestions on a gestalt combination that would be useful to the party, while also being relatively simple and fun to play. I completely understand that how fun a character is depends on the player, but hope to at least get a few suggestions.

Basic Info:
40 point buy
gestalt
2 flaws, 2 traits


The current party consists of

Sorcerer//Wizard - Super Caster Player
Monk//Warblade - Super Punching Melee Player
Cleric - Easily Replaceable DMPC

????//???? - New Player


The party could use a cleric-type healing character for full-time divine magic since the current cleric is chaotic good and the PCs are both evil. (The cleric isn't very smart.) The party could also use a skill monkey, type character.

The books the group has on hand (but are not limited to) include:

Tome of Battle
Expanded Psionics Handbook
PHB
DMG
Savage Species
Magic of Incarnum
Eberron Campaign Setting
Races of Eberron
Unearthed Arcana


~

So far I've been scanning the Tier System list for ideas (although I understand that the Tiers are quite different at levels below 6).

Favored Soul//Bard seems like a good combination to fit both of those group roles, although i don't know if the player would enjoy that sort of character or not.

What do you guys suggest for a simple gestalt character that could be fun and fill, at least, the skill monkey or cleric party role?

[Amphetryon]

Crusader//Bard seems like it would fit both sides really well, and is flexible enough to accommodate a fairly large range of play styles. If the player wants to emphasize the beatstick, he can still heal with his Crusader stances and buff all allies through DFI. Bard can be emphasized into Sublime Chord if casting is more his speed, with better HD and options available through the Crusader class and maneuvers.

[SwanyUSD]

I've played a Crusader//Favored Soul before, and they are quite fantastic tanks! It looks like you don't have any armored party members. The heavy armor/shield combo, along with the healing stance, healing strikes, and healing spells, makes this character tough, and very deep in healing (and can keep healing the party in combat, too).

Add Stone Power for continuously refreshing temporary hit points, and you've got a true meat shield.

[Fouredged Sword]

I second the crusader // bard, but I also suggest that you take at least one level in war weaver to turn all of your buffing and healing bard spells into mass spells that effec tthe whole party. This dosn't prevent you from also entering sublime chord as well and will effect that spellcasting also.

Notes on crusader, focus on Devoted Spirit, as whitre raven works best whith a team that does a lot of melee. Stone dragon is nice for mountain hammer, but if your party warblade fails to grab that he is doing it wrong.

Though leading the attack could be useful to set up a power attack from your friend though.

Also, other options

Wizard // cleric. This is two of the most powerful casters in one. It is not to be shruged at. Book keeping is bad, but oh, well. Take the geomancer class from complete divine to turn all your wizard spells into divine spells. Other options are archivest // wizard or druid // wizard. Druid wizard will always have to cast in no metal armor though, but all others can make thier spells act as divine or arcane as they wish.

For the uber healer, consider a healer // archivest, or better yet cleric // archivest. This gets silly though.

I would like to point out that healing is less than vital in a DnD game. If that is the way you want to go, then fine, but don't feel the need to lock yourself in. You will get bored if that is all you are doing, so make sure that you use gestalt to give you lots of options.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Druid//Swordsage. Feats should be Adaptive Style, Companion Spellbond, Natural Bond, Natural Spell, and then whatever else you think he'd like. His maneuvers and stances will be a pretty easy list of what-you-can-do. Spells will be a bit more complicated, but stick to long duration buffs, start-of-combat AoE crowd controls, cures/fixes/noncombat problem solvers, and spontaneous summons and he should hopefully catch on quickly. For his animal companion give him a Fleshraker dinosaur (MM3) or a Dire Eagle (RoS), he'll get to count his entire Druid level for its benefits due to Natural Bond. Str 8, Dex 10, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 10.

[Shpadoinkle]

Any combination of Dragon Shaman, Dragonfire Adept, and Warlock. Lots of interesting, flashy abilities (which aren't bad for drawing in a new player) and they can all be used without limit, so there's no keep track of spell slots or maneuvers or having to fiddle with recovery mechanics of any sort. They're all fairly simple to understand- "You get these abilites and can use them whenever you want."

[Greenish]

Barbarian/Warforged Juggernaut//Law Incarnate.

Skillmonkey could be a rogue//evil incarnate.

[Jack_Simth]

What do you guys suggest for a simple gestalt character that could be fun and fill, at least, the skill monkey or cleric party role?Rogue//Cleric. It'll fit with your party's current level of optimization, and fills both missing roles.

[Eldariel]

I'd go Crusader//Bard/Wyrm Wizard (with Sublime Chord at 10-11 to gain access to higher level spells). By just taking the dead levels of Wyrm Wizard on the Crusader-side, you end up with almost full Crusader maneuvers and full casting from Wyrm Wizard.

This leads you to getting many Cleric-exclusives to your Bard-list as free bonus spells which means you get to cover the Divine casting fully while also providing the party with Bardic support and being a good, healing frontline asskicker. Snowflake Wardance, TWF with Martial Spirit and Presto. As an example. THF or even S&B with something like a Kusari-Gama to cover more area and act as a tank would work too.


But overall, spell slots to cover the buffs Wizard can't access alongside Heal, Revivify and other essentials, bardic music to buff at least Warblade and himself and he should be quite well off. Needs Arcane Preparation to enter Wyrm Wizard but that's all it takes. Wyrm Wizard is in Dragon Magic.

[Galdor]

Rogue/Ranger focusing on bows would fit nicely. That way you have a trap finder, and someone who can hang back and deal damage from behind.

[dspeyer]

While bard might be a good choice for the party, it's a hard thing for a new player to take on. I'd suggest cleric//ninja.

[TooManyBadgers]

Rogue//Cleric. It'll fit with your party's current level of optimization, and fills both missing roles.
^What he said.

It's a solid framework (all good saves, decent HP, fantastic skills) with abilities that are always useful (cleric casting, rogue skills), that augment one another (cleric buffs meld nicely with rogue sneak attacks) and that encourage the player to start thinking tactically (the action economy of buffs, positioning and circumstances for sneak attack).

And he only needs to open one book and learn the core rules. (As opposed to learning the layered systems involved in a Psychic Warrior/Swordsage or something.)

[gallagher]

what about a crusader//spellthief build? you wouldnt need too much spellthief, thanks to the master spellthief feat. i would actually take 2 levels of spellthief, so you could steal buffs off of the guys you are hitting that arent casters. round out that side with sorcerer and then unseen seer, and you will have a guy who not only hits hard, but also has the skills and resources to get around the shortcomings of a martial character.

to put it plainly, you would be a powerful warrior as a straight crusader, that can heal himself, with lots of skillpoints, good saves, spells to get you out of sticky situations, the ability to steal spells and buffs, sneak attack die and can avoid all the traps.

you could probably solo with that build

[Prime32]

If you can convince the other PCs to take Tomb-Tainted Soul (http://www.realmshelps.org/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Tomb-tainted_Soul) you could go dread necromancer - they can deal minor negative energy damage at will, for infinite healing. Oh, and skeletons can walk ahead and trigger traps for you, I suppose.

EDIT: I forget, can you keep stealing SLAs indefinitely? If you can, spellthief + Mark of Healing could take care of your healing needs.

The Kobold domain grants trapfinding, IIRC.


The definitive "skill monkey" class is factotum, who becomes quite powerful in gestalt. Maybe a psion//factotum who knows the psionic power to absorb wounds and has fast healing from some source?

[Wings of Peace]

I saw you're using Unearthed Arcana so I'll list off my favorite combo in Gestalt of X//Generic Warrior 20. The upside to this setup is that for players with simple tastes it's an incredibly basic setup but also one that allows them an immense amount of freedom to flush out the X class' power.

For more experienced players it's equally good as one of the major limiting factors at least for me when building is that I never have enough feats to pull off all of the tricks I would like to.

In Gestalt this also allows them a better chance of having all perfect saves since the Generic Warrior side while only possessing one good saving throw gets to choose which saving throw that is. And of course, perfect base attack bonus progression is always nice no matter what class you are if only for prestige class qualifications that in a regular game would be achieved much later or with complex amounts of multi-classing.

[HunterOfJello]

Thanks for all the suggestions.


I can't believe I forgot about Bard//Crusaders, that could be a good option for the player.

Rogue//Cleric also sounds like a great idea. It is a bit MAD though.


I think i'm going to try and gauge the player's reaction to trying out a swordsage. I think a swordsage//druid or swordsage//cleric could be really excellent, if a bit complex.

It's hard for me to think of simple classes that can fulfill the two roles. Ideally an Archivist//Factotum would be amazing, but those are two complex classes that require lots of understanding to use properly.

~

I'm definitely leaning towards suggesting Rogue for half of the gestalt build right now. It will still largely be based on what the player wants to play though. If he wants to play a melee character or arcane caster, I won't stop him.