Best choices for gestalting a class with itself?

[deuxhero]

A strange hypothetical question: What classes work best in a gestalt with the same class on the otherside?

Each side can pick separate feature choices or ACFs (Rangers can have 2 styles), same features (like "spells" or "spells known") overlap, not stack and multiclassing is allowed, but they follow the same rules.

[Tebryn]

Isn't that kinda a waste?

[deuxhero]

I know, but again, hypothetical.

It's not legal anyways.

[Gavinfoxx]

Cleric/Cloistered Cleric, I suppose? There are plenty of Wizard options, you could go one of the Generalist wizard options with Conjurer? There are several 'nerf' options for Druid, but if you have full Druid on one side, you could easily go those and have some interesting stuff? Maybe Ranger, that class has so many ACF's it's not funny!

[Aegis013]

Isn't that kinda a waste?

Could be for a joke character or something? If it is, Wizard with double focused specialization, ban 5 schools (since it can't be divination), super specialize in two.

If it's not a joke character, I'm really not sure.

[erikun]

Probably Psion. Twice the PP, twice as many powers, and everything goes into the same pool.

Basically any spellcaster should work out well also, especially a Druid//Planar Shepard getting twice the spells and twice the wildshape.

[sonofzeal]

Generic Warrior // Generic Warrior would gain a truly obscene number of feats. The two halves could also choose different class skills and Good saves. But mostly it's the sheer number of unrestricted feat choices that make this combination awesome.

Sorcerer // Sorcerer for doubled spell slots and spells known would also be sweet, but mostly just because Sor/Wiz casting is awesome. Personally I'd go with the Generic Warrior one as a better use of autogestalting.

[Hirax]

Focused specialist wizard/focused specialist wizard

[elonin]

cleric for different domains. maybe better would be wizard taking focused specialist on each side with different prohibited schools.

Also dual psion gestalt would have 2 pools of pp. Since each side of the build would have to qualify for prc's etc independantly. That is if this were allowed.

[Quietus]

Barbarian//Barbarian would give you Spirit Lion/Wolf Totem on one side for Pounce and Trip, and trade out Rage for favored enemy and archer combat style. The other side can give you standard Barbarian features.
Bard//Bard.. Savage Divine Bard with the fey benefits on one side gets you an animal companion, minor druidy bits, all good saves, a slight change in spellcasting on one side, and then all the usual Bard options on the other. Lots of Bardic Music uses, too.
Cleric//Cleric - if you can use different deities you can get a lot of domains this way. Cloistered Cleric gets you more skill points and Lore. If you want, you can give up one side's Turning for Smite Good/Evil and Aura of Courage, or keep it for additional Divine Metamagic uses.
Druid//Druid - Giving up one of your animal companions gets you all the Rage and Fast Movement powers of a Barbarian. Tossing your proficiencies and Wild Shape on one side also picks up Monk AC/Movement boosts and Ranger's Favored Enemy, Swift Tracker, and Track bonus feat.
Fighter//Fighter would get you sneak attack, a larger skill list and more skills to spend on it, and feats.
Monk//Monk - Trade speed and the +1/5 levels AC bonus for Barbarian DR, Evasion for occasional Invisibility on one side, and pick up two combat styles. Congratulations, you're still not exactly crazy fantastic.
Paladin//Paladin - Prepare to be underwhelmed. Giving up Lay On Hands, Remove Disease, and Turn Undead gets you a limited Favored Enemy list. Your other SRD options are to try and combat different alignment paladins, which doesn't work. You could drop one of your mounts for Charging Smite, but I can't remember if that works when mounted anyway. I almost think this is worse than the Monk.
Ranger//Ranger - drop combat style on one side for fast movement and limited wild shape, or get multiple combat styles. Urban Ranger lets you limit the size of your animal companion for some slight alterations, but nothing groundbreaking - Urban Tracking, a couple lost class features that you'd get on the other side, a broader Hide In Plain Sight, and a slight spellcasting alteration.
Rogue//Rogue - Take the Wilderness Rogue option for a broader skill list, the addition of Camouflage and Hide In Plain Sight as special ability options, and drop sneak attack for feats on one side. Similar to the Fighter above, but far more versatile in exchange for being squishier and 3/4 BAB.
Sorcerer//Sorcerer - Stalwart Battle Sorcerer drops a lot of spell ability on one side for a much improved chassis, with more HP, 3/4 BAB, and a Martial Weapon Proficiency, alongside light armor use. If you like, you can swap a familiar for an animal companion, at 1/2 Sorc level = effective Druid level.
Wizard//Wizard - extra bonus feats, trade out Scribe Scroll for a Fighter feat at level 1 (improved initiative is recommended). The same Familiar option as above, all kinds of specialization options, or trade specialization for Wizard Domains.


Most of these options are strictly from the SRD; There are many, many more in other splatbooks.

[Godskook]

It entirely comes down to how 'same features stack' is ruled, cause that's quite arbitrary. And I'm not just talking about things like PP pools and spell slots, but also to odder things, like how do you rule specializations Can a FS ban the same two schools on both sides? Does banning a school on one side but not the other even do anything? I think the easiest way is to do this is to rule it the same way it comes out in normal gestalt.

Cleric comes out really strong, regardless. Wizards can survive just fine as well, with the added hilarity that is Master Specialist. Fighters can now classify themselves as having too many feats, while Bard and Sorcerer really enjoy the added spells known.

[Fax Celestis]

Goliath Barbarian//Barbarian, with trading one rage for ferocity (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), one fast movement for pounce, one damage reduction for streetfighter (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), one trap sense for spell sense (CMage, same bonus, but against spells and SLAs), and one uncanny dodge and the other rage for the goliath barbarian racial subs (mountain rage and fortification).

Barbarians get some terrific ACFs.

Whisper Gnome Rogue//Rogue, trading one sneak attack for fighter feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue), some skills for other skills (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogueVariantWilderness Rogue), one evasion for spell reflection (CMage), one uncanny dodge/improved uncanny dodge for disrupting attack (PHB-II), one trap sense for penetrating strike (Dungeonscape), and one trapfinding for mimic (EoE).

[gomipile]

Generic Spellcaster//Generic Spellcaster, choose divine on one side, arcane on the other. Sure, it's MAD, but still interesting.

[Psyren]

If stacking was allowed, Incarnum classes would be great (piles of essentia.) Binders would have up to 8 vestiges pre-epic for massive shenanigans.

I'd say Cloistered Cleric//Cleric takes the cake though, for 5 domains and lore-monkeyism.



This would be way more interesting in Pathfinder with its archetypes.

[Mantarni]

Fighters can now classify themselves as having too many feats

You can never have too many feats. If you can't think of something awesome or at least good to put in for your role, you're either not using enough imagination or not scouring the feat bible enough. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Idea for normal gestalt: fighter // generic warrior.

[Curmudgeon]

Ranger, I think, is well-suited to this exercise.

Mystic Ranger variant (improved spellcasting; Dragon # 336, page 105)//Ranger with Champion of the Wild ACF (no spellcasting; Complete Champion, page 50). Mystic Ranger gets some class features a level later, so there won't be any conflict in gestalt. For instance, combat style (Ranger 2) and combat style (Mystic Ranger 3) lets you pick up both archery and TWF. Those that would overlap (2nd favored enemy is pretty specific) can generally be replaced on one side via ACFs:

Trap Expert gives trapfinding instead of Track
Voice of the City trades wild empathy to communicate with people who speak languages you do not know
favored enemy (arcanists) replaces 1st favored enemy
Heat Endurance instead of Endurance
Fangshields ranger substitution level 5: Lion and the Unicorn replaces 2nd favored enemy; gives a sacred AC bonus either in day or night
Crowd-Walker instead of woodland stride
Planar Ranger substitution level 8: Portal Intuition replaces swift tracker
Spell Reflection instead of evasion
Elf Ranger substitution level 10: Strongheart Slayer replaces 3rd favored enemy; bonuses to saves
Urban Hide in Plain Sight

[sonofzeal]

You can never have too many feats. If you can't think of something awesome or at least good to put in for your role, you're either not using enough imagination or not scouring the feat bible enough. :smalltongue:

EDIT: Idea for normal gestalt: fighter // generic warrior.
Agreed. Add Elf with Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle for extra lulz.

Incarnum feats would be a good place to start. Then there's self-stacking feats like Roll With It; DR is usually difficult to get in sufficient quantities, but DR 30/- or higher is pretty awesome.

[Mantarni]

My personal favorite feat train that works really well with gestalt and its feat screwery is Underfoot Combat + Confound the Big Folk + Giantbane + Close-Quarters Fighting + Improved Trip + Goad.

Only works for small or smaller beings, but it's so much fun to do. Turns you into the single greatest annoyance ever seen on a battlefield. Especially with PrCs like blade bravo (which also grants bonus feats!). :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Bloody ctrl enter keys. Yeah, Generic X // Generic X while swapping out a few feats for different class features seems like it could replicate any other self-gestalting class around, and possibly improve on them.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Archaeologist//Magician is pretty tasty. If you can Prestige out, Wyrm Wizard/Sublime Chord on the Magician side for extra... Magician-ness.

[Coidzor]

Let's see...

Wildshape Mystic Ranger/Moonwarded-Ranger Champion of the Wild

That gets 0-5th level casting(with Sword of the Arcane Order it grabs sorcerer and wizard spells too), some fighter bonus feats, wisdom to AC(Moon-warded Ranger Substitution level, trades out 1st combat style, DR 340), small and medium animal forms, a combat style(probably Bear-wrestling from DR 326 for improved unarmed strike and improved grapple), trade out one of the evasions for spell deflection from Dungeonscape(IIRC), favored enemy arcanist... Could even trade out the animal companion for either solitary hunter or distracting attack and just grab wild cohort instead... Or get an urban companion ala cityscape's web enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a). Use skilled citydweller to net a couple more class skills at no loss for easy tumble access.

Fairly nice-ish.

Thug Sneak Attack Fighter/Dungeoncrasher Zhentarim Soldier Fighter

Some skills, a bonus source of damage, fear, and movement of foes, so the Fighter is almost well-rounded. I'm sure there's one or two things I'm forgetting which would make the fighter gestalt-being rather nifty until it was left at 11th level. Might grab the ACF from complete champion, might conflict, or might just be completely useless, I forget offhand.

Could also do something interesting with all of the variant base classes like targetteers and exoticists, but nothing springs to mind. Exoticist would be nice on one end since it'd give spiked chain and great bow and two other potentially useful things.

The aforementioned bard with music/bard with animal companion combo is pretty nice. Add in familiar>improved familiar and wild cohort and you could be like a summoner bard combo but without the the summoning part being quite so necessary. A spell-less bard variant that gave some extra feats in exchange for the casting would be nice, but at least using eberron you can trade out a couple of the leftover doubled up songs for some minor feats (at least two of which are useful to having animals being buffed by one's music)...

[Cespenar]

Swordsage/Arcane Swordsage.

*Shadow Jaunts away*

[hushblade]

Arcane Swordsage is tier 0 as described anyway xP

[grarrrg]

An entry for Pathfinder:

Summoner (plain or archetype)//Summoner (archetype)

Discuss.

[Vangor]

Lightbringer Cleric/Cloistered Cleric

Two distinct TU sources with the 3/4 BAB, d8 hit die, heavy armor, shields, 6+int skills, expanded skill list, lore, and 5 domains. Have domains be knowledge (exchange for knowledge devotion), planning, undeath, madness, and another knowledge (you lose knowledge skills otherwise). Be a human and take extra turning and persistent spell.

This isn't exactly necessary because either would be powerful enough, but first level with a 16 cha you may persist 4 spells and have a +1 to DC and a second bonus 1st level spell with 18 wis.

[Psyren]

Artificer//Psionic Artificer would probably be the most powerful 3.5 combination (assuming WBL.)

Savage Bard//Wild Bard would have all good saves and a greatly expanded skill list, in addition to fantastic flavor.

[Keegan__D]

Elvish paladin//paladin

racial substitution from races of the wild gives you ranged smite evil. the regular one gives you normal smite evil. Complete Champion gives you a variant for feats instead of spells. pretty much just extra smiting is worth it from the list. and you can replace one of your mounts with underdark knight from the same book. you get more perception capabilities underground, and walking through walls. Why not walk through walls?
you also get a better mount with the elf variant. A unicorn! :D

[jaybird]

An entry for Pathfinder:

Summoner (plain or archetype)//Summoner (archetype)

Discuss.

Would you be able to have your Eidolon out and Summons out at the same time? I suppose you could take Master Summoner//Broodmaster and really go to town, with yourself, three minor Eidolons, and your summons. At that point, though, you'd probably do better with Summoner//Master Summoner and trade two minor Eidolons for a full-on Eidolon.

Now, one idea I had...Wilder//Wilder. More powers (large limit on a Wilder's power) and double the PP pool.

[navar100]

Warblade/Warblade for versatile combat options. Can use one maneuver progression for counters and boosts with the other for strikes.

Swordsage/Swordsage for two discipline foci and maneuvers galore. Adaptive Style is no longer a feat tax since you will not run out of maneuvers unless combat takes a really, really long time. Still, it's also an option to use one progression for all counters and boosts with the other for all strikes and Adaptive Style would be a very attractive feat to take.

Crusader/Crusader isn't that good. Steely Resolve/Furious Counterstrike would not stack. You'll have more granted maneuvers at the start of combat but twice the randomness will not make things easier to plan tactics. With obvious bias by now, using one progression for boosts and counters with the other for strikes probably is the best thing for a Crusader/Crusader to do and beg the DM to allow Steely Resolve to stack.

Warlock/Warlock is good because a plain Warlock never has enough invocations.

[Helldog]

Fighter//ACFed Fighter. Feats galore and cool features!

[grarrrg]

Would you be able to have your Eidolon out and Summons out at the same time? I suppose you could take Master Summoner//Broodmaster and really go to town, with yourself, three minor Eidolons, and your summons. At that point, though, you'd probably do better with Summoner//Master Summoner and trade two minor Eidolons for a full-on Eidolon.

I'd think that as long as each "side" obeyed the "No Eidolon+Summons" restriction that you'd be fine.


Summoner (plain): I have an equivalent level melee character (hereafter referred to as "Beatstick") as a class feature!

Broodmaster: I have a lot of little Beatsticks!

Evolutionist: I have a Beatstick that I can change into a more different Beatstick each day!

First Worlder: Error 404 Beatstick not found.

Master Summoner: I have a one little Beatstick, but can summon more Beatsticks at the same time!

Synthesist: I am the Beatstick!

PICK TWO!!

[Kaje]

Binder // Binder would be awesomesauce for having so many vestiges.

Incarnum classes would suck, because you can still only bind one meld per chakra.

OMG. Warlock/Hellfire Warlock/Legacy Champion // Warlock/Hellfire Warlock/Legacy Champion, plus naberius or strongheart vest and eldritch glaive. droooool

[Cespenar]

Expert/Expert. You can choose twenty skills to be your class skills!!!

[grarrrg]

I vote that the best self-gestalt would be

Bearington Bearman the Bearbearian (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140757)

OMGBears

[Coidzor]

Savage Bard//Wild Bard would have all good saves and a greatly expanded skill list, in addition to fantastic flavor.

Wild Bard? Do you mean the UA one that gives an animal companion?

[sonofzeal]

Expert/Expert. You can choose twenty skills to be your class skills!!!
Generic!Expert//Generic!Expert and its twenty-four choices (plus Craft and Profession) scoff at you!

[hex0]

Stalwar Battle Sorcerer/Sorcerer :smallwink:

[Metahuman1]

The first two that jump out at me are Sorcerer//Sorcerer and Fighter//Fighter


Sorcerer//Sorcerer get's double the spells based on Cha, which can create some interesting effects. Fighter with feats and sneak attack could potentially get very nasty (Full BAB, Sneak attack, 4+Int skill points, D10 hit dice, bonus feats, other goodies form AFC's like Dungeoncrasher and the like, and Hide and Move Silently as class skills? Yeah, could mess the snot out of something in a hurry if the DM plays nice and keeps the list of encounters against things immune to sneak attack low and maybe let's you have a way of getting HiPS. )

[hex0]

Psionic classes are better for double stacking than Spellcasters, right?

Psychic Warrior/Psychic Warrior 7
Warmind 10/Psychic Warrior 10
Slayer 3/Psychic Warrior 3

[T.G. Oskar]

Paladin||Paladin might get some boost if the right ACFs are chosen. The idea is to go with each ability bit by bit:

Skills: Skilled City Dweller replaces Ride with Tumble, amongst other things. Since you'll be having the same skills, why not increase the amount of skills a Paladin might get? Humans, obviously, take better advantage of this, if only because they get the extra skill points.

Proficiencies: No change. Dragonscale Husk could be worth the first few levels, as you get an armor with an effective +6 bonus, but you'd sacrifice both proficiency slots for armor, so no go.

Detect Evil: If you favor Milil (remember From Smite to Song and Initiate of Milil), you can replace it for Inspire Courage. That's a nice trade, even if it doesn't scale, if only because you're effectively trading it for a redundant effect. Followers of Torm get to detect magic at will, so you get two different kinds of sensors (one more effective than the other!). Otherwise, you'll have two of these.

Smite Evil: A half-orc gets the best of both worlds with Smite Evil and Righteous Fury. Elves get the ranged Smite plus the normal Smite on different tracks, so that's basically double the smite for half the effort. Warforged get the ability to Smite Constructs as well as Evil, but you could get that with a non-gestalt Paladin. A 5th level Mystic Fire Knight gets a rider bonus when smiting for essentially NOTHING, so you can stack it up to both sides for a nice effect (a ranged smite that disrupts activation of spells and magic items? Pretty nice to annoy spellcasters.)

Divine Grace: Those that follow the Red Knight can get their Charisma to all saves and sometimes to AC as well. Bad trade if you're doing it alone, but great if you get both things. It's gonna eat your swift actions, though. Warforged get Con to Will saves if they replace this ability, so you add Con, Wis and Cha (all three necessary stats for Paladins) to Will saves.

Lay on Hands: nothing replaces it, so you get a single pool of healing. Warforged can heal constructs just as well as fleshies, so it's an odd replacement, but you get two pools of healing, one of which uses Constitution. Leave one for yourself and the other for your allies.

Aura of Courage: half-orc paladins get Aura of Awe, which imposes a penalty to fear saves, so it's not a bad idea. Since you also get Intimidate that way as a class skill... Followers of Ilmater grant a special form of Aid Another to AC, which is kinda meh unless you have Combat Expertise. If you for some reason follow Nobanion, you get a nice ability 1/day that allows you to respond with a Flame-Strike-ish aura of flames that deals damage equal to your class level. So that's basically 1-10 points of damage per hit that you receive that the enemy takes, no save, and a chance to double that damage based on the resistances or immunities to fire. Elves get the chaotic and lawful auras if they want to. Wayward Wardens (halflings that gain levels in paladin and belong to a specific organization) get the ability to impose a penalty to Listen and Spot checks...

Divine Health: For some reason, divine health is one of the things the devs like to replace a lot (maybe because they realize immunity to disease stops being fun after a while?). Warforged get immunity to disease already, so you can replace two things instead of one (and get immunity to stun, to boot!). Followers of Berronar (Moradin's wife, in case you were wondering) give you a free Everbright armor and resistance 5 to acid, which is semi-poor (considering Durable in Dungeonscape is far cheaper). Followers of Kelemvor (Eternal Order) get immunity to negative levels from undead creatures, which can be a blessing or a curse (for example, it is magnificent in Ravenloft, but lofty on other places). Followers of Ilmater (Noble Heart) get Track for free, a bonus on tracking followers of Loviatar and...you know what, aside from Track, it's pretty meh. Followers of Sune (Ruby Rose) become immune to all attacks that hit Charisma, so it's so-so. Followers of Helm get to use aid another for AC as a move action instead of standard actions, which is kinda meh. The lucky halfling followers of Arvoreen get to get treated as Medium creatures for purposes of bull rush, grapple, trip, swallow whole and a few others, and it stacks with size modifiers (so they're treated as Large with Enlarge Person).

Turn Undead: HOO BOY, this gets replaced a lot. For starters, you have Divine Counterspell, which allows you to...counter spells. Instead of powering divine feats. However, since you get both...you MIGHT get a good use out of it, though not much. Dragonborns and those born on Sigil get lofty replacements. Berronar Valkyries get pounce, which is hilariously good if you can combine it with divine feat goodness. Crescent Moon Knights replace Turn Undead with favored enemy, but only for lycanthropes; bad replacement. Golden Lions get crud for TU: you ignore miss chances against enemies of Bane and Cyric (whoop-dee-doo!). Holy Judges (worshippers of Tyr) get to censure demons, which is exactly the same as you'd get with Knight of the Chalice, except you get better stuff by going there. Lion Legionnaires (those who follow Nobanion) get an odd Flurry-esque ability limited by your Charisma (get extra attack, all attacks are done at a -2 penalty, activate as free action, apparently stacks with everything else), which works quite well. Followers of Ilmater (Golden Cup) get free uses of Shield Other before the spell comes online, and without the need for a focus (the rings), which is pretty nice (and otherwise fixes what would be a bad idea). Mystic Fire Knights win again because they get extra spells and a boost to their spellcasting ability: with Practiced Spellcaster (considering they get Spellcraft as a class skill) they can get a CL of 16 instead of 10, which makes many of their spells worthwhile; Red Falcon paladins get Deathwatch (you serious!?!?!?!??! Yes, even if it's an evil spell, they get it), Augury and Status, and you only get reduced uses of Turn Undead. Noble Heart paladins get...bonuses to sunder things (really? REALLY!?), while Vigilant Eyes of Helm replace their Turn Undead with the ability to use Awesome Blow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#awesomeBlow) regardless of prerequisites, which is hilariously odd. Finally, Wary Swordknights get Uncanny Dodge, which is a bad trade by any means.

Spellcasting: Right here, the winner is Holy Warrior from Complete Champion, if only because you'll still get your spellcasting from the other side of the gestalt and you get feats, which the Paladin DESPERATELY lacks. You get them at the same levels you'd get the spells and you only get four, but you get a decent choice of them. The CW replacement sucks beyond belief, so no-go that way. A minor replacement you could use with your remaining spellcasting is replacing one 2nd level spell slot for a 1/day Inspire Courage that stacks (unlike the one from Harmonious Knight), which is a pretty decent replacement if you want to become a semi-buffer. Followers of Horus-Re gain Daylight at will instead of a 3rd level spell, which is a bad idea even if you're not an aasimar. Finally, Red Falcon Knights get one less 1st level spell, but they get to Extend one spell 1/day, which isn't really a bad trade (aside from Lesser Restoration most other 1st level spells are meh, but if you can extend something like Resist Energy or Righteous Aura or even Holy Sword, you're set).

Special Mount: This one gets replaced a lot as well, and for good reasons. For starters, you get the choice of either having a Charging Smite (if you follow Berronar then it's golden!), Underdark Knight (pretty decent) or Divine Spirit (from Dungeonscape, and my personal favorite because the spirits are pretty useful). Oh, and Lion Legionnaires get to fly. Why do replacing the special mount usually is better than getting one? You can still have your mount, though, and remember you can choose a different mount as per the DMG.

For those that are interested in special mounts, though, the options are either slim or good. Drakkensteed Mount is decent, the elven unicorn mount at an earlier level is nice as well, and most other options are kinda meh. Planar Paladins get celestial mounts, though, but you can get the same via a(n) (Exalted) feat.

Remove Disease: You'd think that anything that exchanges Remove Disease for something else would be good...and you'd be right. Most of the time, though.

Good choices: Cursebreaker, Mystic Fire Knights and their Spellshatter (targeted Greater Dispel Magic per day!!), Berronar Valkyries' touch of fatigue, Eternal Order knights' daily uses of Greater Turning, Wary Swordknights' daily use of Haste.

So-so choices: Noble Heart's Delay Poison (because it lasts for a long time), Ruby Rose's Heroism (it's a spell you lack, but it's per week so it's not the greatest choice), Inspire Competence/Inspire Greatness 1/day (if it stacked and had more uses per day it would have been much more useful)

Bad choices: anything else that replaces Remove Disease; except Restore the Weave.

WTH!?!? choices: Golden Lion's Restore the Weave. It's extremely situational, but it essentially allows you to pull off what no spellcaster actually can: allow you to permanently heal dead magic areas. Also grants order to wild magic zones. Probably the one sole reason to go Paladin 20 in a group of Tier 1s, and you get it at level 6. Even if it's per week. However, it's almost as useless as Remove Disease.

--

That said, the best choices would be:
Vanilla: Paladin (Holy Warrior, Divine Spirit/Charging Smite/Cursebreaker) || Paladin (Spellcasting/Special Mount). Nets you two very nice abilities for the cost of one.
Mystic Fire Knight: Paladin (Turn Undead, Spellcasting, Cursebreaker) || Mystic Fire Knight (Extra spells, imp. Smite Evil, Spellshatter). With Sword of the Arcane Order you can work out a decent spellcasting-esque Paladin. Divine Counterspell instead of the bonus spells/improved spellcasting ability could make for a tough anti-caster. Too bad you can't combine this with Mage Slayer, because the loss of caster levels would hurt this.
Berronar Charger: Paladin (Divine Health, Turn Undead, Cursebreaker) || Berronar Valkyrie (Everbright Blessing, Valiant Rescue, Binding Oath/Touch of Fatigue). One of the sides gets Charging Smite, the other gets Special Mount. Also, one side gets Holy Warrior. With Power Attack, Pounce, Valiant Rescue, a Valorous Lance, and enough feats for Leap Attack, you dwarf the Ubercharger in damage. If you can do it while mounted, the sky's the limit.
Mageslayer: Paladin (Divine Counterspell, Holy Warrior, Cursebreaker) || Mystic Fire Knight (Turn Undead, Imp. Smite Evil, Spellshatter). With Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Protection and Pierce Magical Concealment, you can become a thorn to any spellcaster. Stuff like Darkstalker could also help so you're harder to detect, then you pull off your smite, then you start with the counterspells, the targeted Greater Dispel Magics and whatnot. It *almost* makes the spell-less variant from Complete Warrior useful.
Lion Legionnaire: Paladin || Lion Legionnaire. Really, the three abilities are very solid, giving stuff to them that they lack.

That's about 4-5 builds you could use with Paladin, slightly more than what you could get with Monk.

[Psyren]

Wild Bard? Do you mean the UA one that gives an animal companion?

Yep; (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bard) it's not officially named but that seemed to fit.



Incarnum classes would suck, because you can still only bind one meld per chakra.

Wrong wrong wrong. Incarnum would rock! Even at high levels they barely have enough essentia to go around; with this setup you could keep nearly all your soulmelds at capacity at all times.

Also, Double Chakra exists.

[Novawurmson]

In Pathfinder Monk/Monk is pretty sweet. Trade out all your useless features twice!

[Cespenar]

Generic!Expert//Generic!Expert and its twenty-four choices (plus Craft and Profession) scoff at you!

I bow before the master. :smalltongue:

[sonofzeal]

I bow before the master. :smalltongue:
And don't you forget it! :smallamused::smallamused::smallamused:

[HunterOfJello]

Spirit Shaman // Spirit Shaman
Erudite // Erudite

Both have the free range casting of a sorcerer-type character along with the diversity of spells characteristic of a wizard-type character. The problem with both is the limit of unique power/spells per day. This fixes it for both of them.



OR

Artificer//Psionic Artificer for God Tier

[Viktyr Gehrig]

In Pathfinder Monk/Monk is pretty sweet. Trade out all your useless features twice!

Monk//Zen Archer is actually pretty good.

[Novawurmson]

Monk//Zen Archer is actually pretty good.

I was thinking Qinggong Master of Many Styles Monk//Qinggong Hungry Ghost Monk, but even just Qinggong Monk//Qinggong Monk, for Slow Fall, High Jump, Wholeness of Body, Diamond Body, Abundant Step, Diamond Soul, Quivering Palm, Timeless Body, Tongue of the Sun and Moon, Empty Body, and Perfect Self, that's 11 x 2 = 22 class features to trade out for "spells." Even if you want some of them (Abundant Step), just trade it out on one side of the gestalt and keep it on the other. For ones you don't want (Slow Fall), trade it out twice!

[jaybird]

Generic!Expert//Generic!Expert and its twenty-four choices (plus Craft and Profession) scoff at you!

Are there even 24 skills plus Craft and Profession in the game? :smalltongue:

[FMArthur]

My vote's for Ranger. There are so many Ranger ACFs that you can basically discard every feature of your class for something. Hell you could probably form a triple gestalt with Ranger//Ranger//Ranger and have no overlapping class features.