Gestalt Ideas & Help

[icthenue]

I have an upcoming Gestalt campaign and two players have ideas that they are looking to flesh out. I am allowing content from Core books, d20SRD.org, and the set of skinny books Sword & Fist, Song & Silence, Masters of the Wild, Defenders of the Faith, and Tome & Blood.

1. A gnome Druid/Rogue - Wildshape into cheetah (or other cat with Pounce) and full attack with SA when possible. This one seems pretty locked down, but if you have any suggestions for possible prestige classes or useful feats/combat tactics I would appreciate it.

2. A Fighter/??? - I let everyone get some kind of unique thing about their character, like a backwards flaw (takes up a feat or two, but gives them something else cool in return) and he wants to have 4 arms. I am cool with him doing this (as I can use it for DM storytelling purposes and am not concerned about his character exploding in power), but I don't know what to mix him with for the best bonuses in that regard. He doesn't want to cast spells, so no caster classes would really work well alongside the levels he will have in Fighter, but he wants Fighter for the ton of feats and was thinking Barbarian as the second class (though I felt this would be too much toe stepping as far as shared stats and a bit of a waste of gestalt)

Starting level is 10. Campaign is going to be Neutral-Evil and involve lots of dark spirits, possession, night time combat, and indiscriminate deal making with evil creatures.

Thanks a bunch!

[Vaz]

Slap that player who wants the Fighter//Barbarian. Mae sure he understands that bonus feats are still fighter bonus feats, and taking all of them for free PA and +2 to hit and +4 to damage is a waste.

Instead, show him the value of dipping a bit more.

Perhaps Saint template +2/Paladin 2 (Serenity)/Monk 2 (Invisi-Fist)/Ninja 2/Shiba Protector 1/Fist of the Forest; gets you Con+Wisx2 to AC, Wis to Saves, Wis to Attack and Damage, Invisibility 1/3 turns, and with Enduring Ki and Extra Ki feats, he can Ghost step from Ninja 4+Wis times per day for 2 turns at a time. That does require hefty feat involvement however - 9 total, with 2 provided by class levels. Fighter 2 on the other side helps negate the feat starved nature of the build, perhaps Fighter 4 for the extra BAB and Weapon Finesse. A dip in Crusader 2 for Cha to saves (not sure if that works even with Serenity), and Maneuvres helping out with Tanking Swordsage as well (eventually get Swift Action 50ft Teleport. Touch of Golden Ice and Intuitive Attack for Wis to Attack, and Dex damage on unarmed... Good fun.

With Int and Charisma Dumped (i mentioned it in the build for Crusader because extra saves are awesome, but you can easily pick up your cloak of +6 to help out), Strength average, Dex, Con and Wis pumped, to hit, you have yourself Dex+Wisx2 to attack, Con+Wisx2(+Cha) to saves, Invisibility that is not as the spell for up to 22 rounds continuously.

[avr]

A Fighter with 4 arms is just asking to be gestalted with Rogue for all the sneak attack damage. If he keeps talking about barbarians remind him that people trying to describe Conan in D&D terms often resort to Fighter/Rogue for the class levels.

[Metahuman1]

I second fighter//rouge. Do twf with a greatsword and a girusame. Or just duel wield girusame since that could theoretically cover your need to threaten extra squares.

Grab PA, the twf line, a couple of better PA line feats, combat reflexes, improved trip, and if you can get them knock down and double strike.



Other good options, Monk//Fighter, you have the feats and the hit dice and the BAB to actually fight in melee now.

Cleric Fighter. If he can get Persist spell and DMM, do it. More so if he can get the fighter variants that give a good reflex save, tumble as a class skill, d12 hit die, and good reflex save and 4 a level skill points.

[ksbsnowowl]

I have an upcoming Gestalt campaign and two players have ideas that they are looking to flesh out. I am allowing content from Core books, d20SRD.org, and the set of skinny books Sword & Fist, Song & Silence, Masters of the Wild, Defenders of the Faith, and Tome & Blood.The responses thus far seem to be disregarding these book restrictions in their suggestions...


1. A gnome Druid/Rogue - Wildshape into cheetah (or other cat with Pounce) and full attack with SA when possible. This one seems pretty locked down, but if you have any suggestions for possible prestige classes or useful feats/combat tactics I would appreciate it.
Most of the 3.0 rogue sneak attack feats were dependent upon wielding weapons, which this guy won't really be doing in wildshape forms. But, he'll have a built-in flanking buddy in his animal companion. He's also got a few good touch attack spells, such as Produce Flame, to make those sneak attacks into touch attacks. Make sure he maxes out UMD, so he can use wands of Greater Invisibility.


2. A Fighter/??? - I let everyone get some kind of unique thing about their character, like a backwards flaw (takes up a feat or two, but gives them something else cool in return) and he wants to have 4 arms. I am cool with him doing this (as I can use it for DM storytelling purposes and am not concerned about his character exploding in power), but I don't know what to mix him with for the best bonuses in that regard. He doesn't want to cast spells, so no caster classes would really work well alongside the levels he will have in Fighter, but he wants Fighter for the ton of feats and was thinking Barbarian as the second class (though I felt this would be too much toe stepping as far as shared stats and a bit of a waste of gestalt)

Barbarian would be a terrible option to gestalt with fighter. He'll still be the BSF, who will fail his Will save and attack his party mate.

Rogue would be decent, as others have pointed out. He could even do something like take Multiweapon Fighting (the TWF for four armed folks), then use a polearm and TWF with some shortswords.
(Double-check the rules and penalties on that, but I think it works).

If it weren't for the four-armed human form, I would have suggested Shifter from Masters of the Wild. It would take 5 levels of Druid to get in, IIRC, but being able to wildshape into almost anything would be good for a Fighter.

Note, putting them up against Barbarians and Rogues will completely shut down their sneak attack. Same with undead, etc.

[Pilo]

You can change your first option to Druid//Sneak Attack Fighter (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighter)

You will get full Bab, sneak attack and druid things.

[icthenue]

@ Vas - The slapping will happen, but unfortunately that is a lot of dip from books we don't have access to (if we don't have the books, we don't use the content, except d20srd.org) - Thanks for the suggestion though! It looks brutally efficient! What books is that content from, so I could look into acquiring it for next time? :smallsmile:

@ Avr - I will see what he thinks of going fighter/rogue, he may not be adverse to it. I foresee some undead and/or constructs making appearances depending on how many rogues we end up gestalting :smallwink:

@ Metahuman1 - How does TWF work with 2h weapons? Do they get a bigger negative or is it even available to match that feat with 2 handers?
He might be interested in the Monk side... are there any rules about lifting up grappled enemies? Would it just be a pin? I suspect he would want to go all Goro on them and grapple with 2 arms and unload on them with the other 2... If that worked, could he Coup de Grace an opponent he was pinning?

@ ksbsnowowl - I think the druid is going to forgo the sneak attack feats and use combat expertise, improved feint based on what he has told me thus far. For the Fighter, I will probably highly suggest he not go barbarian at this point,based on yours and others feedback. Would something like Weapon Master from Sword & Fist work well for him?

@ Pilo - That is a good call, atleast that way he gets full BAB progression. Will talk to him about it. Thanks! :smallsmile:

Thanks everyone! I will discuss these options with them in a few days and come back here with what they have decided.