please help with Gestalt idea - build

[amalthia]

so What I would like to do is build a gestalt character
need to fill the role of healer, offensive caster, defensive caster, secondary combatant (aka cleric type) and should also fill the role of rogue, scout and ranger. - problem is I don't want to go the atypical straight cleric with one of the others to fill the role, so I am looking for ideas that are alternative ways to fill them as best as possible...

here is what the DM has said is allowed source wise.
phb 1 & 2, dmg, mic, deities and demigods, rod, drac, mm1-5, fr_underdark, ua, mof, a&e, hoh, elh, any of the completes...

no evil or chaotic alignments, and is allowing upto +5 level buy-off
this will be a level 1 character so any help here would be great.

[Azoth]

I would like to point out that trying to be the one man party is going to either spoil everyone's fun or make you a useless 5th wheel all depending on how well you pull it off.

That being said, you can cover alot a lot of those roles by being a conjuration focused wizard. Summons cover many roles depending on what you summon. (Unicorns for healing, beat sticks for secondary mele, ect, ect.) and defensive casting as in BFC (web, grease, ect).

Transmutation is where the buffs are at and that is some of the best offense in the game. Secondary offense would be debuffs...necromancy is strong in this front.

Healing is best left for out of combat via wands of CLW/Vigor

Being a skill monkey is somewhat harder to do as a wizard. Great int bonus, ****e for skills. This can be fixed with skill boosting items/spells.

I generally don't advocate blastomancy, so I will leave that for the fans of "Kill it with FIRE!"

So Wizard on one side is definitely a safe bet to have the flexibility to fill most of your roles except healing/skill monkey.

[Fax Celestis]

Bard can do a lot of those things, especially with the right ACFs. I'd put that on one side and put, say, factotum, warblade, duskblade, or beguiler (depending on your feelings) on the other.

[Krazzman]

Add Incarnate to the Wizard. To get the Skillmonkeying side.

Or a Wizard//Factotum. Pick a healing spell with the Factotum to be the healer, go into Chameleon maybe.

So Human Wizard//Factotum would have:
3/4 BaB.
d8 HD.
7+int skill points.
Inspiration Points.
Spells.
Familiar.

Feats on first level:
Able Learner (as requirement for Chameleon if you want to get into it)
Spellcasting Prodigy (or Spell Focus Conjuration).

Bonuspoints:
Int is your mainstat = many skill points.

[Feilith]

So, ummmm I noticed that you're doing almost everything in the party (short of being the front line fighter and the face). Druid/Incarnate should be able to touch on everything. Druid's casting can provide serious crowd control and you get all the buff spells as 2nd lv spells, Your animal companion can be solid for secondary combatant and you can be a bear wading through melee. Then Wildshape into something inconspicuous for the area and be the rogue. Plus Soulmelds from incarnate let you be a skill monkey.

[DMVerdandi]

Archivist/factotum would be cool :smallcool: Full of flavor too.
You could totally Indiana Jones hard with it, or if not, any type of historian/badass... But with spells. Like uncle from jackie chan adventures, or John Constantine... Wicked.


Anyhow, it gets cleric spells for free, and can research spells from any other divine class. Rightly, you get most of the spells that matter. For this to work without any hitch, the best thing to do is to start off correctly. Since factotum//archivist is not two classes, but one, you have all skills as class skills from the start. this means that you don't have to waste anything on able learner.

Instead the level 1 feat you should get is Academic Priest, from the dragonlance campaign setting. This is like natural spell for a druid, always get it if you are playing an archivist. It is because they get bonus spells from wisdom. If it is not available, the only way to become truly SAD is to be an illumian (which is a pretty sweet race in itself, especially for INT casters.)

If you NEED turning, the class set-up:
[factotum 20//cleric 1/archivist 19]
is decent.
Archivist levels can be replaced with other prestige classes if you see neccessary. I think Thaumaturgist is pretty sick if you are a summoning sort of caster. As an earlier poster explained, the Summoning/calling types of casters have MASSIVE variety, on top of being cool as hell, so focusing on such is not a bad thing at all. Thaumaturgist only requires one feat to get in as well, so it's kind of an easy choice. Use that cleric 1 to get the summoning domain, and you are a pokemon master without compare.

Not only that, but as said, you have access to ALL divine spells, All skills, Archivist and factotum class features (I.E INT TO EVERYTHING).
All casting needs met, all skill needs met. It is good.




Heck, thinking through this, I REALLY want to play this build.:smallamused:

[eggynack]

Well, a druid can do all of those things at once, so maybe that. They can heal about as well as any non-cleric, they have the offensive and defensive casting thing down, they can be a primary, secondary, and tertiary combatant at the same time through some combination of the AC, wild shape, and summons, and their skill list can generally handle scouting stuff. So, that's pretty much all of it, even without gestalt. Maybe add some standard secondary class to that, and call it a day. Factotum doesn't work as well with a druid as it does with a wizard, but a druid certainly has the spare points to support some intelligence, and a druid can fulfill your list of roles better than a wizard can. Additionally, if there is any hole in a straight druid build, it's that the skill list may be unsatisfactory, and factotum obviously fixes that. Druids and factotums are pretty fantastic at doing everything with a high degree of competency, and that seems to be the heart of your desires, so a build like that should work out fine.

[John Longarrow]

Play a changling (Favored Class = Rogue).
Lvl 1: Rogue / Wizard. See if your DM will let you take able learner, since a changeling is basically half human/half doppleganger.
Lvl2+ Cloistered Cleric / Wizard.

This will get you a BAB of 19, CL 19 cleric and CL 20 wizard.

Mix in full caster pClasses to taste, but be mindful of when you take them so you can avoid taking a hit on BAB later. As an example, you can qualify to take spellswords as early as 5th, then abjurant champion and dragonslayer to beef up your "Wizard" side (gives armor/weapons and HPs), then dip into classes to beef up your cloistered cleric side with domains.

[amalthia]

well the thoughts are good - Archivist, Warblade are in use by other party members druid might work except limits on the armor, clostered cleric - still a cleric wanted to stay away from that - what about a non standard arcane user say like warlock, with the arcane disciple ( healing domain ) for one half and maybe factotum or scout as that comes closest to covering the most of what I am looking at.
thoughts ?

[eggynack]

What's the issue with druidic armor? At early levels, your capacity as "secondary combatant" is being filled by your friendly riding dog, and when you hit level six you can generally bypass the armor issue. If you can pick up the Book of Exalted Deeds for your book list, you can cast luminous armor, which is like regular armor except without a max dex bonus. Additionally, you can pick up a monk's belt, and leverage your high wisdom mod. Luminous armor also has the benefit of stacking with a monk's belt, while regular armor can not, and then you become a desmodu hunting bat (MM II, 65) and pick up a massive (+7) dexterity bonus to AC, and a reasonable (+3) natural armor bonus to AC, and those stack with the monk's belt and with the luminous armor. It's pretty sweet.

[Fax Celestis]

This will get you a BAB of 19, CL 19 cleric and CL 20 wizard.

No it will not. It will get you BAB +10. At each level, determine which progression has the better end result and use that.

[JaronK]

Pretty hard to beat Archivist//Factotum for doing what you want here. I mean, you could use Beguiler on the "sneaky" side, but the Factotum's cunning surge is just too good to pass up for a caster, and the Int to Str and Dex skills is huge as well.

But if you can't get access to Factotum (in Dungeonscape) then Beguiler's probably your best bet, though that doesn't really fill the "Ranger" idea if Archery was what was needed.

JaronK

[John Longarrow]

No it will not. It will get you BAB +10. At each level, determine which progression has the better end result and use that.

Depends on which way you compute BAB.

Level 1 Wizard1 gets +0 to BAB, Rogue1 gets +0 to BAB. Net, +0 BAB.
Level 2 Wizard2 gets +1 to BAB, Cloistered Cleric gets +0 to BAB. Net +1.
Level 3 Wizard3 gets +0 to BAB, Cloistered Cleric gets +1 to BAB. Net +1.

This does not hold for fractional BAB where both classes get +.5 at each level. This is also how I've seen the rules used.

[Fax Celestis]

Depends on which way you compute BAB.

Level 1 Wizard1 gets +0 to BAB, Rogue1 gets +0 to BAB. Net, +0 BAB.
Level 2 Wizard2 gets +1 to BAB, Cloistered Cleric gets +0 to BAB. Net +1.
Level 3 Wizard3 gets +0 to BAB, Cloistered Cleric gets +1 to BAB. Net +1.

This does not hold for fractional BAB where both classes get +.5 at each level. This is also how I've seen the rules used.

It is a ridiculous abuse of the system, garnered from misreading the gestalt rules in the most exploitative manner possible.

[amalthia]

thanks for the help all I think I have decided to go with the following
Ferral Grey Elf -Force Half Dragon -la +4
Ranger that will have substitution levels from Rotw, Ccham and CoV
Warlock - that will have Arcane Discipline ( Healing domain )
I think that covers the basis of offensive caster, defensive - in the form of healing, secondary combatant in the form of ranger, some scouting and rogue type abilities via ranger- so it should work out

[JaronK]

It is a ridiculous abuse of the system, garnered from misreading the gestalt rules in the most exploitative manner possible.

Actually, he's correct, but for a simple reason: Gestalt doesn't work properly without fractional BAB. Fractional BAB was introduced in part to fix this problem.

By RAW, if you play with Gestalt but not Fractional BAB, this abuse is perfectly legal... which is why you should never do so.

JaronK