Beguiler gestalt

[hymer]

Suppose you're gong to play a beguiler about levels 2 to 18, and you get to gestalt it. You hang on to pure beguiler on one side. What would you couple it with for amusement? For sheer power (I guess I know the answer to that, but feel free to surpsrise me)? For versatility?
Any and all thoughts on gestalting a beguiler are welcome. Thanks!

[thompur]

For added versatility, the Binder is fun. For extra skillmonkeyshines, Factotum. For more offense without overpowering it, Warlock or Warmage.

[Kornaki]

:vaarsuvius: "I'm a wizard specializing in evocation banning conjuration"
:nale: "I'm a gestalt beguiler warmage"
:vaarsuvius: "And that didn't strike you as needlessly complicated?"

If you want to try something a little different....
Paladin. Go with some shpiel about how the eyes of the wicked always deceive themselves, right before the flesh of the wicked gets smacked with a sword. Kind of a stretch but could work.

[oldkingkoal]

Personally, I think hex blade works well for the other side of a beguilers gestalt. I'm sure alot of people disagree but I like it.

[Fouredged Sword]

Wizard is nice as more casting.

Rogue will give you some nice kick for damage.

Spellthief will give you a little kick of damage and some really cool abilities vs casters.

Factotum is good.

Swashbuckler or rogue 3/swashbuckler is cool.

Ranger could be interesting.

Assassin?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Factotum is great for skillmonkeying. Warmage and Warblade might work well for offense, and both make good use of the Beguiler's Int.

[Karnith]

Warblade and Duskblade are pretty good for Intelligence-synergy, and make fairly good gishes.

[hymer]

Thanks all for the thoughts. :smallsmile:

@ Kornaki: Some of the variant paladins might well suit the beguiler better, but definitely interesting. The chassis also match up fairly well, with only a poor reflex save to pull down there.

@ Fouredged Sword: Wizard and ranger were some of the first things to occur to me to. Ranger for chassis and armour reasons (average hp is the only drawback), and wizard because, well, ban illusion and enchantment and you've basically got a wizard with a lot of fun little additions (not to mention skills points and skill list).

@ Karnith: My main problem with Duskblade is that both classes are very active. On the other hand, you'd have an outright unreasonable amount of spells to burn with Arcane Strike.

[RFLS]

Carmendine Monk!

[ksbsnowowl]

I am the DM of a long-running Gestalt game; they are now 13th level. One of my players has a Barbarian//Beguiler. He has one level of Mindbender, and just added his second level of Duskblade (each to the appropriate "side," naturally).

He's had a lot of fun, and has been very effective. If his spell aren't working, he displaces and mirror images himself, rages and goes into beat-down mode.

The only drawback is the fact that raging turns off his ability to cast spells, so in that respect it might be better to go with something like Fighter (a chain tripper?) or Warblade (LOTS of intelligence synergy).

Heck, Sneak Attack Fighter (UA) wouldn't be bad. By 6th level you can feint as a free action once per round.

On the caster front, what about Archivist from Heroes of Horror? Intelligence based caster that can get access to any divine spell. The only down side would be your mediocre hit points.

[Zweisteine]

Well, for versatility, I would suggest Factotum (or wizard).

For power, artificer is an amazing gestalt (I've seen this... it's scary, especially at low levels when you make 80 scrolls so you never run out of spells). Wizard is good too.

If you want people to think you're crazy, commoner works (or wizard, if you ban conjuration and transmutation to specialize in evocation).

Wizard is always a good thing, unless you're bad at wizarding, or ban enchantment or illusion. Be a focused illusionist or enchanter if you want to be a "super-beguiler."

If you want to double as a melee combatant, duskblade is nice, but, as you said, both are rather active classes (and Beguiler spells aren't too good with arcane strike, I think). FIghter might work too, if you don't mind the suckiness, (and there's a variant in complete mage (I think) that might let you cast in heavier armor, but you already get some of that...).

Incarnum is interesting in gestalt, because it can be completely passive, and is pretty cool, but there are some annoying restrictions, and it isn't too powerful.


If you really want to go overboard with optimization, there's always this:
Basketweaver i.e. Warforged or Elan Commoner with Skill focus (basketweaving)

[Emperor Tippy]

Factotum or Psion.

Both will give you significantly more power and versatility.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'll agree that Psion (or Erudite) sounds extremely good all-around. Grab Anarchic Initiate and probably Paragnostic Apostle to advance it. Be sure to get a psicrystal, keep Share Pain on it, keep it in a compartment on your person so opponents will never have line of sight/effect to it, don't forget it has Hardness 8 and all damage it takes from Share Pain is untyped and doesn't ignore hardness, give it a Healing Belt, and share Vigor with it.

With Beguiler you want to dip one level in a casting prestige class as early as possible, ideally before Beguiler 6. You can take one level in Mindbender at character level 6 quite easily, and from then on your Advanced Learning falls on an even-numbered character level, thus allowing you to pick a spell one level higher with it.

For both power and versatility, get the feat Versatile Spellcaster and either a Wizard level or the feat Magical Training to get a spellbook. That allows you to learn as many Wizard spells as you want, and you can use Versatile Spellcaster because it enables you to cast 'any spell you know' of a given level. This has the added benefit of giving you early access to the next higher level of the Beguiler spell list, and makes your Advanced Learning choices yet one level higher.

The above combined allows you to pick a 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 9th level spell for Advanced Learning. My personal choices are Ray of Stupidity, Shadow Form, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Evocation, and Superior Invisibility.

[avr]

Psion has the advantage that it's possible to hide the manifestation of psionic powers with a concentration check, which gives you effectively stilled and silent powers. This is great for a social character who wants to use magic in social situations without being called on it.

The downside is that Beguiler//Psion will be pretty squishy as gestalt combos go. Psionic powers often aren't the best for defence either.

Warblade with a focus on White Raven maneuvers gives you an excuse to boss others around (goes well with beguiler doing battlefield control IMO) while keeping your character alive. Could be fun.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The downside is that Beguiler//Psion will be pretty squishy as gestalt combos go. Psionic powers often aren't the best for defence either.

I think you missed the first paragraph of my post completely, taking half damage from all sources and a 10 hp/level cushion of temporary hp is some of the best defenses in the game. Throw on Persistent Power (http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/msrd/ArcanaOccupationsandFeats.rtf) (3.0 Psionics Handbook, still valid) because it's got some of the best personal-range buffs in the game.

[avr]

Yeah, didn't see your post at all before I posted Biffoniacus. Having done so now tho' I'm far from sure that'd work the way you say - many would say hardness would not apply to psychically shared pain, fitting a healing belt on a psicrystal sounds ... challenging ... and I'm not sure keeping it in a compartment on your person would actually protect it from area effect spells.

[Waker]

Classes that can mix with beguiler?
Warlock- Adds a bit more in the way of combat choices, not to mention all day buffs to help shore up the beguilers weak spots. Sadly doesn't add to hp, saves and the like.
Incarnate- A good choice for just about any class to gestalt with. The variety of melds greatly expand on your skillmonkey and combat options while being mostly passive.
Monk- By itself a weak class, but can often shore up the weakness of another class with all good saves, d8hd, and a few decent abilities. Take Carmendine Monk or Kung Fu Genius to base your abilities off of Int.
Warblade- A very active class, gives great Int synergy and boosts to hp and attack.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Yeah, didn't see your post at all before I posted Biffoniacus. Having done so now tho' I'm far from sure that'd work the way you say - many would say hardness would not apply to psychically shared pain, fitting a healing belt on a psicrystal sounds ... challenging ... and I'm not sure keeping it in a compartment on your person would actually protect it from area effect spells.

That's exactly how hardness works (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#hardness), it always reduces all damage taken, with very few specific exceptions. Share Pain is not one of those specific exceptions, and even if the original attack would bypass hardness, Share Pain wipes it of any damage type.

Magical garments adjust themselves magically to fit the wearer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#sizeAndMagicItems), and nearly every type/shape of creature has all the same magic item spots, per Rules Compendium p84. Just hand the Healing Belt to the Psicrystal and it can put it on itself.

If you keep a psicrystal in a completely enclosed compartment against your person (an athletic cup, for example), how would you justify anyone but yourself having either line of sight or line of effect to it? It will effectively have total cover from anyone but yourself, which blocks pretty much everything. I don't see how an argument could be made that it can be affected by area effects in such a place.

[dspeyer]

Trying to say things that haven't been said...

Psion and Factotum both break the action economy. Psion fills in the gaps in your power list very nicely, though, and Factotum seems a little weak when you already have 6+int skills and a very nice skill list.

Warblade can be used as a passive class. D12 hit die, good fort save, counters for all readied maneuvers except Iron Heart Surge -- can be very hard to kill.

Wildshape Ranger / Master of Many Forms can make a fun passive side. At least once the wild shape kicks in (before that it's just a nice chassis). Nothing a trickster likes so much as turning into a mouse.

[Greenish]

I missed who said it (I know someone had to have said it by now), but I second Incarnate for hilarious skill shenanigans and overall versatility.

[sonofzeal]

Spellthief. So very Spellthief. Preferably with the Trickster variant, but that's optional.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would recommend spell-thief as well. It is a passive class in the sense that it adds effects that are riders on your attacks. It benefits from stealth as well, so both classes want you to be sneaking around.

The ability to pull immunities to energy damage off of targets is invaluable as a debuff. Steal personal range buffs from the party wizard and cleric after buying them a pearl of power. If there is a warlock in the party steal his all day buffs, as he has an unlimited number of uses he looses nothing.

Max out UMD and fill in spell selections you are missing with runestaves. Planer touchstone (CoE) for a nice domain power (I like air, as being a halfling carried about by a medium air elemental is cool. Luck or travel is also nice, magic opens a lot of ability to ignore UMD)