Gestalt Cleric advice.

[Cranthis]

So, like the title says, I am looking for some advice on a gestalt cleric build. The main thing I'm not sure about is what to slap on the other side of the build.

My rolled stats are 11, 10, 16, 10, 15, 11, in order.

Houserule: all skills are in class.
No flaws.

Feats are pretty easy to decide, depending on the build, although reccomendations are welcome. Like I said, I'm just not sure what to put on the other side of the build.

Edit: also, its at level four. This is my first gestalt game.

[Xerxus]

Hm. Rogue would be pretty weird and flavorful. Shores up your reflex, gives you uncanny dodge and evasion as well as lots of skill points and... sneak attack! Really sets you in the support/flank role.

[Waker]

The rule of thumb for gestalt characters is to choose one active and one passive class. Cleric is a pretty decent active class, what with all the spells. That being said, your choice is also influenced by the rest of the party. Do you know what everyone else is playing?
Anyways, some decent choices for your passive class include:
Incarnate- Lots of all-day passive buffs. Gives a little bit of skillmonkey options and saves the need for certain spells.
Rogue- All the skill points you would need, evasion, uncanny dodge and sneak attack are all useful. You would need to wear light armor to take advantage of certain abilities.
Monk- While by itself a monk is underwhelming, when used in gestalt it can really shine. Add your Wisdom to AC, all high saves, evasion, unarmed damage and mobility thrown on top of the sheer power of Clericzilla is indeed impressive.
Knight- Some nice defensive abilities, a boost to offense and the built-in taunt and difficult terrain are all handy. Using this you could become a fair Paladin stand-in.
Crusader- Similar to the Knight, you get some massive defensive abilities and good combat potential. You would want to focus on using long-term cleric spells for buffs while in combat focus on maneuvers.

[Quorothorn]

So, like the title says, I am looking for some advice on a gestalt cleric build. The main thing I'm not sure about is what to slap on the other side of the build.

My rolled stats are 11, 10, 16, 10, 15, 11, in order.

Houserule: all skills are in class.
No flaws.

Feats are pretty easy to decide, depending on the build, although reccomendations are welcome. Like I said, I'm just not sure what to put on the other side of the build.

Edit: also, its at level four. This is my first gestalt game.

I'd suggest Factotum, but the lack of INT bonus and the fact that all skills will be in-class anyway reduces its effectiveness to almost nothing--Rogue, as mentioned, would be a better choice from the perspective of gaining skill points and a good Reflex save progression. Plus all the other abilities of the class. (Those stats you listed mean adding another spellcasting class is pretty pointless, so going melee/skillmonkey is the best bet.)

The Cloistered Cleric variant isn't available, is it? Because if it is, and this will sound a bit odd, but if you're not Lawful, then going Cloistered Cleric and Barbarian as your other "half" could be entertaining/amusing/useful due to beefing up your HP/BAB and 'feeding' off your good CON.

And as Waker said, if you know what the rest of the party is thinking of doing, that can obviously inform your own decision.

[HunterOfJello]

I would do Cloistered Cleric instead of Cleric and then pick something decent at melee for the other half.

Rogue/Fighter (+ some good PrCs for rogue)
Fighter (Zentarim and Dungeoncrasher are good)
Psychic Warrior
Swordsage (invest in lots of swift action maneuvers)
Crusader
Wildshape Ranger

are all good.


If you want to max out all of your character's different abilities, start with cloistered cleric. You'll have d6 HD, high skill points, simple and light armor prof, Lore(*), and good fort and will saves.

To improve your character in general you'd want to get a better HD, some slightly better proficiencies, and a good reflex save. Those can be some good places to start looking for options from.

~

I think Swordsage is a better choice than Crusader due to action economy. Swordsages can get lots of nice Swift actions, where Crusaders are far more Standard Action oriented. This could be a good thing though, if you're the type of person who wants to use Crusader maneuvers in combat along with a mix of Cleric pre-combat buffs, utility spells, and the occasional combat spell.

Dungeoncrasher Fighter + Blackguard PrC could also be a fun combination. This would require you to be evil and spend some of your fighter feats quite specifically, but would leave you still handy in combat. Either 2 or 3 levels in Blackguard could be great.

[DMVerdandi]

So, like the title says, I am looking for some advice on a gestalt cleric build. The main thing I'm not sure about is what to slap on the other side of the build.

My rolled stats are 11, 10, 16, 10, 15, 11, in order.

Houserule: all skills are in class.
No flaws.

Feats are pretty easy to decide, depending on the build, although reccomendations are welcome. Like I said, I'm just not sure what to put on the other side of the build.

Edit: also, its at level four. This is my first gestalt game.


Okay, so, lets see what is cleared up by cleric.
Will saves, spells, turn undead.
What is necessary? Depends on what you want to build.

If you want to be a quick skirmisher, monk.
If you want to be THE divine spells guy, Spirit Shaman.
If you want to hit harder and have more simple melee options, fighter.
If you want to hit harder than ANYTHING, druid.
If you want to be a skill monkey, factotum (And choose academic priest feat)
If you want to be a weaboo fightan wizard(aka awesome), choose crusader


What you really want to do is create skill synergy. Going around and picking classes that make you MAD won't make you happy.

[Randomguy]

If you want to be THE divine spells guy, Spirit Shaman.

If you want to hit harder than ANYTHING, druid.

Druid would probably be better than spirit shaman for Divine Spells because it's less MAD.

I suggest either Rogue or Cloistered Cleric//Totemist. Both get all good saves, d8 hp and medium BAB, but rogue gets evasion and Totemist gets all sorts of utility things.

It might depend on your group, though. If you play in a group where the clerics are healbots and rogues need to reroll characters often, then you'd be better off with a totemist.

[Andreaz]

My personal recommendation is crusader with cloistered cleric. Nearly all of the in-combat beating is handled by the crusader, wjhile cleric does long term buffs, the occasional emergency spell (not Cures, trust me). Don't worry about charisma any more than you already did just as cleric, it's entirely unnecessary.

[Cranthis]

So I think I will use Swordsage, to shore up Reflex, and give some more combat ability, as well as the skill points.

What maneuvers and stances do you guys reccomend?

[Jack_Simth]

So I think I will use Swordsage, to shore up Reflex, and give some more combat ability, as well as the skill points.

What maneuvers and stances do you guys reccomend?
Depends on which you want to be "active". Do you want to use long-running Cleric buffs to be more of a melee machine, or do you want to lay about with spells while using Swordsage to make yourself a hardened target?

[Cranthis]

Depends on which you want to be "active". Do you want to use long-running Cleric buffs to be more of a melee machine, or do you want to lay about with spells while using Swordsage to make yourself a hardened target?

Tough choice there. I will probably Dmm. Switch my con and charisma, and I think I could manage it.

[avr]

You want the Baffling Defence maneuver and the Reflex save replacer in Diamond Mind (I forget the name; both of these are 2nd level) on defence. For offence, you're not going to have the feats or ability scores to get full value from Setting Sun or Tiger Claw, so check out the Diamond Mind attacks.

[Gotterdammerung]

Um how broke are you trying to be?

You can play a heterodoxy cleric mixed with Binder. even if you just go 20 cleric/20 Binder you will end up with an effective Binding level of 40 and you will max out your binds by lvl 10.

With prestige classes and bloodline levels tacked in correctly it gets even worse.

I'd say the loss of your cleric domains is a great trade for some super advanced binding progression.

Alternatively, I second any incarnum classes. Incarnum can do a lot when it doesn't have to stand on its own. And cleric already has built in synergy with incarnum.

[Andreaz]

Alternatively, if you just want to hit things hard (and maybe abuse midnight metamagic, but I wouldn't recommend that :p), use the Esper Knight (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169532). Wis synergy, a new good save, full bab, hard hitting attacks, a few handy tricks and a plethora of feats.

[NotScaryBats]

This is my cleric, Katasha Fortune (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=491958)

She's level 5, and in a game right now, but you could use it for inspiration.

Cleric 5 // Gravetouched Ghoul LA2 / Fighter 2 / Barbarian (lion totem variant) 1

I pumped Charisma, got improved paralysis and multiattack, making +9/+7/+7 attacks, each doing piddly damage, but with a dc 23 paralysis attached.

I've been pleased with her performance so far.

At later levels / buffed with more spells / if i went human instead of strongheart halfling, she'll do more damage and be more optimized.

[Cranthis]

What Maneuvers and Stances and such do you reccomend? I intend to use the cleric side as passive.

[Jack_Simth]

What Maneuvers and Stances and such do you reccomend? I intend to use the cleric side as passive.
Then you want a few swift-action boosts and some of the direct-offense powers. Most of the manuevers of a given level are mostly equivalent in terms of offensive power.

[dspeyer]

I'll second swordsage. Reflex save and wis to ac are good passive defenses. Skills will give you a lot of versatility. You don't really want to fight with those stats, but there are a lot of maneuvers that are still useful:

1st: Wind Stride, Moment of Perfect Mind, Counter Charge, Sudden Leap, (two more that you hardly ever ready)
2nd: Hatchling's Flame, Baffling Defense, Shadow Jaunt
Stances: Child of Shadows, Hunter's Stance

And next level you'll be able to take Insightful Strike, so that you can hurt someone in battle if you have to.