Ethergaunts are bad doodz, yo.

[visigani]

I'm thinking of making a black ethergaunt be the "Big Bad" of my campaign world. All evil roads lead to him in a manner of speaking.

I don't want to make him epic (and Black Ethergaunts are ridiculous as is...) but I do want to make him Gestalt.

The question is, should I go Factotum, Psion, or something else.

Any suggestions?

[Demonic_Spoon]

I'm thinking of making a black ethergaunt be the "Big Bad" of my campaign world. All evil roads lead to him in a manner of speaking.

I don't want to make him epic (and Black Ethergaunts are ridiculous as is...) but I do want to make him Gestalt.

The question is, should I go Factotum, Psion, or something else.

Any suggestions?

Psion would fit in best with the flavour imo.

[Ortesk]

{Scrubbed}

[visigani]

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[Demonic_Spoon]

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...what? Just what.

[CRtwenty]

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It's funny in the main thread, but we don't really need to bring this into other threads. :smallannoyed:

Anyway Psion would work best for this imo.

[Demonic_Spoon]

{Scrubbed}

[visigani]

It's funny in the main thread, but we don't really need to bring this into other threads. :smallannoyed:

Anyway Psion would work best for this imo.

Part of me wants to agree but the wizard side can already duplicate most psi on effects. A factotum on the other hand would give the character much more flexibility.

And another part of me is considering swashbuckler 10/Duelist 10.

[Eldan]

If you want to make him a fighter, consider Warblade for the intelligence synergy. Or Factotum, as you mentioned. That said, anything other than psion will probably pale in comparison to his incredible magic might.

I don't really know what that is such a problem, really, but Vow of Poverty is actually a pretty interesting idea. Just refluff it: Ethergaunts have their nonmagical supertechnology such as their railguns. VoP could be a mechanical way to represent that.

Oh, or how about Incarnum? That more or less manifests items with various interesting effects.

[Ziegander]

I think Factotum 8/Warblade 12 would be a solid choice.

[Brookshw]

They've always seemed like interesting creatures. I'm curious what you're thinking for your campaign set up, motivations, goals etc.

[Chronos]

I don't know ethergaunts very well, but I do know gestalt. As a rule of thumb in gestalt, you want your two sides to be different but complementary. Both wizard (which the 'gaunt already is) and psion are basically "spend a standard action to do something really cool, limited by a per-day resource", and with a great deal of overlap on what the "really cool" is. By contrast, a factotum also uses Int, but most of the factotum's abilities are either passive (and so don't interfere with the wizard's standard actions), or actually give you more actions, and they're almost all limited per-encounter rather than per-day. So a wizard//factotum will be much stronger mechanically than a wizard//psion.

[Waker]

Chronos has the right of it. My rule for gestalt is to have an active and a passive class. Wizard would be an example of an active class, what with the spellcasting and all. Passive classes are their to reinforce weak points in the chassis and potentially provide synergy. Monk is a somewhat popular passive class in gestalt since it has all good saves, decent HP and skills and medium BAB, along with several other abilities.
If you went with a Wizard//Psion you wouldn't really be any stronger than a Wizard or Psion since you are still limited by action economy and your saves/Hp/etc are still the same. Some of the better passive classes to consider would be Monk, Warblade (Counters/Boosts), Incarnate, and Factotum. Artificer could also be used, since their infusions don't tend to see much use during combat itself.
The other question to ask is, what do you see your villain doing? How is he a threat to the party? Are their any particular abilities you would like to see him display?

[Karnith]

If you went with a Wizard//Psion you wouldn't really be any stronger than a Wizard or Psion since you are still limited by action economy and your saves/Hp/etc are still the same.
On the other hand, Psions have access to some of the best action economy abilities/abuses in the game, so there's that. Wizard//Psion is entirely respectable, even though it doesn't conform to the standard active-passive pairing paradigm.

[Red Fel]

A lot of the ToB classes can give you some great passive abilities (such as Stances and class features) or abilities which take Swift or Immediate Actions (Boosts, Counters) which don't take away from your standard or full-round actions (Spells).

I would second Warblade for the Int synergy, especially given that your players are likely to want to get up close and personal with this guy. Admittedly, Ethergaunts aren't known for being physically imposing (just freaky-looking), so this might actually come as quite a shock to your players.

Alas, he's really probably quite evil, which means JPM wouldn't work well for him. Still, having a beefy physical side would be an unexpected and powerful advantage.

[Vortenger]

{Scrubbed}

On topic, I suggest giving psionics to the Black Ethergaunt, it complements their existing powers and gives a fun creepy factor for players less familiar with psionics. If its telepathy based, then its a small wonder that the creature was in charge of so many subplots, eh? (This is especially true if deciding to gestalt the ethergaunt, which if it's truly the BBEG, I strongly suggest)

[PersonMan]

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Eh, not really. Most of the time, warning/infractions are invisible to all but the recipient, so someone may have been punished without you noticing it.

The issue isn't "speaking out against a forum favorite"*, it's the use of personal attacks. Often, people who come here and disagree with everyone lose their cool and end up flaming.

*These don't really exist, by the way. The response you saw was one of the biggest outpourings of "this is awesome" I've seen in ages.

---

Anyways, on-topic:

I think, if you can find/use that one feat which IIRC makes Monk abilities Int-based (Kung Fu Genius? Think that's US based though), then Monk is a good idea. Good saves, AC bonus, fast movement, some self-healing, etc.

One idea, if you go Psion, is to "stretch" the Ethergaunt. Don't have him be the opponent, but have him show up to aid several of his lackeys in several fights. That way his huge store of PP and spells will matter, instead of him using 10% of it then dying or escaping. He can feel like several different kinds of caster if he has enough spells/powers known.

Something like

Room 1: Mobile ranged thing with Ethergaunt (I'll call him WiPi for short) behind/on him, throwing out buffs and debuffs to make the fight harder. At the end, WiPi 'ports out or just leaves with a few mooks coming in to cover his retreat.

Room 2: Low-mobility melee threat, normally not a problem...until WiPi starts to use spells, powers and traps to force the party into melee with it.

Room 3: Some kind of normally nonthreatening terrain thing (like a few squares that get a blast of flame every 3-4 rounds), turned into a problem by normally weak enemies, supported by summons from WiPi.

Room 4: WiPi alone, with perhaps a few mooks to shield it.

[Coidzor]

I think Factotum 8/Warblade 12 would be a solid choice.

That's where I went initially as well, I can't remember if Warblade gets all of the maneuvers that let one substitute a concentration check in place of a save, but that's one area where maneuvers would be of help to a primarily casting character.

[Story]

Chronos has the right of it. My rule for gestalt is to have an active and a passive class. Wizard would be an example of an active class, what with the spellcasting and all. Passive classes are their to reinforce weak points in the chassis and potentially provide synergy. Monk is a somewhat popular passive class in gestalt since it has all good saves, decent HP and skills and medium BAB, along with several other abilities.
If you went with a Wizard//Psion you wouldn't really be any stronger than a Wizard or Psion since you are still limited by action economy and your saves/Hp/etc are still the same. Some of the better passive classes to consider would be Monk, Warblade (Counters/Boosts), Incarnate, and Factotum. Artificer could also be used, since their infusions don't tend to see much use during combat itself.
The other question to ask is, what do you see your villain doing? How is he a threat to the party? Are their any particular abilities you would like to see him display?

Wizard could make a decent passive side too though if you use it for long term buffs and utility. And if you have access to persist spell, you don't even have to try.

[Waker]

Karnith and Story are both correct concerning other potential uses of both the Wizard and Psion combo, I was mostly generalizing so that visigani wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking "Moar spells=Better" and then come against the action economy issue. After all, that's one reason why Mystic Theurge isn't that popular of a class here.
PersonMan, Kung Fu Genius replaces Wis with Int for all Monk related abilities that rely on it.

[mabriss lethe]

A better way to gauge this might be to ask yourself how you want to present the eventual encounter to your players. When you know the answer, you'll better know how you'll want to tune up your BBEG.

If you plan on it being a solo encounter, where the whole party gangs up on the lone BBEG, Feel free to break the action economy in half with Factotum or a well tuned psion. You'll need it just to keep a moderately optimized party from steamrolling the encounter. Even then, still be smart about it. It would be a terrible let down to the players if they made it all the way to the BBEG and then got obliterated by a string of 9th level spells before they could even act.

If you plan on throwing other obstacles and minions into the fray, tread carefully. Tone down the action economy shenanigans. You could still use the same sorts of tactics as you'd use in a solo encounter, but use them more sparingly. They become "last resort" maneuvers for when your players back him into a corner. If there's going to be a lot of other action going on from your side of the screen, ditch the action economy shenanigans entirely and gestalt with a different sort of class.

Optimization for a DM is a much different animal than it is for a player, your job is to tune the entire encounter, but never beyond the upper threshold of the party's abilities.