Spirit Leader Gestalt Character Idea

[ScorpioRage]

I'm part of a playgroup who only ever has 3 PCs, and the DM, and as such we're moving towards creating all Gestalt characters, so no one feel pigeonholed into being, just the healer, or skill monkey, etc. Along this idea I was trying to come up with an interesting character concept.

What I have so far is a disciple of the spiritual leader of a barbarian tribe, who is sent away from his tribe in order to prove himself, and or connect with the tribe's spiritual ancestors, or something like that.

Main idea I've been thinking of would be Druid//Barbarian, using the Totem Variant for barbarian, which he would then have a natural affinity towards wild shaping into the totem animal totem of the Barbarian. Other than that I have no idea.

There is also the Nature Avenger from UA, which could be interesting, but is less what I'm looking for flavor wise. Any ideas would be wonderful.

[DMVerdandi]

I would suggest Spirit Shaman//Barbarian.

The spirit shaman is a class from complete divine. It is a full caster that gets all of the Druid spells. However it casts differently. The best way to explain it is it prepares the spells it spontaneously casts. Coolest casting mechanic IMO.
Think of it as a sorcerer that can change his spells known every day.
Just with druid spells.


Instead of getting all of the druid's wild shape shenanigans, it gets Class features that directly allows you to communicate, combat, and benefit from spirits.

It is probably one of the less powerful casters, but the druid list is pretty awesome. The fact that you have better casting ability than the druid steps it up some.




Gestalt that with barbarian. Makes for a pretty decent divine gish. Remember, even though you can't cast while you rage, you can buff before that. Go for the long buffs, rage and go wild.

Just for some flavor, you could characterize rages as divine inspirational fits of posession, not uncharacteristic of many religions (Namely some hindi, and african/afro-carribean).

Speak of the rages as the ancestors coming into you and bestowing justice on your behalf.

[ScorpioRage]

I actually really like that, and if I do Spirit Shaman, I could very well end up going Bear Warrior. It was something that I wanted to do, but seemed extremely wasteful combined with the shape changing ability of the Druid. Definitely something to consider.

Not sure if I'd wanna go bear totem though, losing the increased movement when not in bear, and uncanny dodge is pretty lame. Also curious, would the +10ft move still be effective while in bear form? (50ft effectively)

[DMVerdandi]

I actually really like that, and if I do Spirit Shaman, I could very well end up going Bear Warrior. It was something that I wanted to do, but seemed extremely wasteful combined with the shape changing ability of the Druid. Definitely something to consider.

Not sure if I'd wanna go bear totem though, losing the increased movement when not in bear, and uncanny dodge is pretty lame. Also curious, would the +10ft move still be effective while in bear form? (50ft effectively)

Yeah, well... It totally is. Druid is on the next level when it comes to power. Just being able to be an animal most of the time is crazy enough. Lycanthropes wish they could be druids, because druids can be ALL animals. and THEN they can cast all of those spells while being animals?!

Spirit shaman cannot. They can take aspect spells which transform them into low level forms, and can use higher level spells for some better forms, but other than that, they don't scratch it.

What they DO succeed in is interactions with creatures with the spirit subtype (Incorporeal undead, fae, magical animals,). They get class features that the druid spell list has nothing to do with.
The druid spell list is one of the natural sciences. biology,geology,oceanography,chemistry,meteorology . If it ain't related, it ain't up there.

The spirit world has to do with nature, but is in a way transcendent, even though it is imminent.