Trying to up the power level [3.5]

[kulosle]

So I'm starting a gestalt campaign level 1-7. This is the first time this group, excluding me, has done a gestalt character. I want them to be powerful characters that the players enjoy playing but a lot of my players are having some issues.

So one player is doing the sneak attack fighter variant and rogue. He took his first level in fighter//monk for the flurry and the rest will be in fighter//rogue and he's dual wielding. He's excited about all of his attacks and SA dice. But he's currently got a 1 to hit with all of them. I've tried to help the build out some but I don't know of a good way to boost his to hit.

Then there is the unarmed swordsage//monk. I'm really worried that this build won't get to do much.

There's an artificer that hasn't decided what the other side is going to be yet.

One player only has a vague idea of what he's doing. Right now he's thinking swashbuckler//scout that goes into dervish. But he only plans on taking 3 levels of swashbuckler and doesn't know what he's doing after that.

The only player who I'm not worried about is the dragon shaman//beguiler. Don't know what it's going to do yet but it should be interesting.

If you have any suggestions or advice I would love to hear them. Thank you.

[Mithril Leaf]

Not sure about the first two, but artificer pairs up pretty well with warblade surprisingly enough. Some bonuses from good intelligence and a ton of combat competence. Alternatively, mixing artificer with factotum is a good way to break everything ever, due to the whole action economy abuse on the factotum side and full casting for dirt cheap on the artificer side.

[TuggyNE]

Generally, in gestalt, the idea is to have one side that's active, and one side that's passive. Fighter/rogue kinda sorta works for that, but eh. Mostly, they'll need to focus on hitting (total of +1? ow), flanking, and bypassing crit immunities etc.

UAS/monk ... really gets very little, the classes overlap way too much. A better idea would be to either focus on UAS maneuvers and find a good passive boosting class, or focus on UAS boosts and stances and find a good active class.

The artificer is likely to do fine with a bit of careful prep. The swash might not turn out too badly either, although they'll have to watch synergy closely, and pull some of the same precision-damage tricks as the rogue.

[sonofzeal]

Swordsage//Monk pretty much resembles the Unarmed Swordsage in the adaptation section, without even using gestalt.

Monk can make a great passive side, but Swordsage wants something full-BAB. Honestly, Fighter might be a better bet. Unarmed Swordsage // Fighter probably does everything they want... but is tougher, more accurate, and has an enormous number of feats to dump into every combat form under the sun.

As for the Swashbuckler... what about going Daring Outlaw? Daring Outlaw up one side, then Warblade on the other (Diamond Mind focus, of course), for massive pwnage?

[hoverfrog]

Artificer\Druid works well. There is a lot of versatility and power in that combo and you don't lose too much for skills or combat ability.

Another combo that might be fun is a Scout that fits well with Monk.

[Prime32]

So one player is doing the sneak attack fighter variant and rogue. He took his first level in fighter//monk for the flurry and the rest will be in fighter//rogue and he's dual wielding. He's excited about all of his attacks and SA dice. But he's currently got a 1 to hit with all of them. I've tried to help the build out some but I don't know of a good way to boost his to hit.There's a weapon in Dragon (a ring with a spike, intended for use with poisons) which deals 1 base damage but strikes as a touch attack. Have him wear one on each hand.
Also, consider swapping the fighter half for Rokugan ninja; the resulting character will be squishier but have more abilities.
In any case, take the Penetrating Strike ACF on the rogue half so that you don't suddenly become useless against undead.


Then there is the unarmed swordsage//monk. I'm really worried that this build won't get to do much.Yeah, the monk side gives you basically nothing that you don't already have. Try swapping it for druid, maybe with the Shapeshift variant. Or warlock using the Eldritch Claws + Beast Strike feats (nice synergy with Tiger Claw).


One player only has a vague idea of what he's doing. Right now he's thinking swashbuckler//scout that goes into dervish. But he only plans on taking 3 levels of swashbuckler and doesn't know what he's doing after that.Factotum. Factotum all the way.

[Telonius]

So one player is doing the sneak attack fighter variant and rogue. He took his first level in fighter//monk for the flurry and the rest will be in fighter//rogue and he's dual wielding. He's excited about all of his attacks and SA dice. But he's currently got a 1 to hit with all of them. I've tried to help the build out some but I don't know of a good way to boost his to hit.


Just off the bat - the player realizes that he can only flurry while unarmored, and with the special Monk weapons?

Since he'll be dual-wielding, Power Attack is probably going to be (more or less) out of the question. He's got loads of Sneak dice, so that's where his damage is going to come from, not from stacking on the strength.

Given all that, I'd say he should pump Dexterity as high as he can get it, and take Weapon Finesse ASAP.

[Golden Ladybug]

An interesting thing to keep in mind that may help with the first players accuracy issues, when you want to use two classes that have medium BAB-progression in Gestalt, is that by off-setting one of the classes with a Full BAB class, you can get "full" BAB at every level.

For example, rather than SA-Fighter 20//Monk 1/Rogue 19, you could take Fighter 1/Rogue 19//Monk 20 (not at all optimal, but will serve to illustrate this example)

At Fighter 1//Monk 1 it gains +1 BAB from Fighter
At Fighter1/Rogue 1//Monk 2 it gains +1 BAB from Monk

When Monk loses a point of BAB at Monk 5, you're also at Rogue 4, which conveniently grants a point of BAB. This'll give you better skills, Rogue Abilities, and all the benefits of Monk (surprisingly, Monk is quite a good class in Gestalt) and still gain full BAB

EDIT: Durr, just realised that by Gestalting SA Fighter/Rogue and off setting by a level, you gain an extra Sneak Attack dice at every level. Ignore my ramblings.

[danzibr]

Something really powerful would be this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13097678&postcount=4), thanks to Biffoniacus_Furiou in response to a thread I made a while back.

[Randomguy]

Well, if you like stunning fist, then Unarmed Swordsage Swordsage//Monk 2/Fighter 5 (since the campaign ends at level 7) wouldn't be bad, since that's the only way to get Stunning Fist by level 7. It also gets you evasion. You also get full BAB from fighter, which means you actually get your first iterative attack before the campaign ends.

Knowledge devotion might be a good way to boost your fighter's to-hit, since he's got a bunch of skill points from rogue. Another thing that could help would be to wield a quarterstaff in 2 hands and TWF with the quarterstaff and unarmed strike, so he can get a bit more damage. The artificer could also possibly help by making magic weapons or a wand of Magic weapon for another +1. There's also weapon focus, but there's probably a better way to get a to hit bonus.

[Hiro Protagonest]

When Monk loses a point of BAB at Monk 5, you're also at Rogue 4, which conveniently grants a point of BAB. This'll give you better skills, Rogue Abilities, and all the benefits of Monk (surprisingly, Monk is quite a good class in Gestalt) and still gain full BAB

Don't go there. That's in "wizard//sorc with a level of fighter gets full BAB" territory.

[Tyndmyr]

Don't go there. That's in "wizard//sorc with a level of fighter gets full BAB" territory.

The Gestalt BAB exploit, while fixable by fractional BaB, is actually RAW correct.

[Urpriest]

You should talk to the player who's planning Unarmed Swordsage//Monk. Either they think they can double-advance unarmed damage that way, or they're planning to only take a few levels of Monk and then multiclass to something else, and we could be much more helpful if we knew what that something else was. Any other possibility would involve the player choosing regular Swordsage.

[kulosle]

the monk//UAS is really set on doing that all the way so i let the damage stack. It's still not that great in my opinion.

edit: and the sneak attack fighter is using a monk weapon, i forget which one.