Solo campaign with a gestalt wizard/rogue?

[MonkeySage]

My friend and I are doing a solo campaign and I'm the player. I am going to be a wizard/rogue gestalt character with a home brewed race.

I'm wondering if there's any good advice for this, since this is actually the first gestalt character I've ever played. I understand the rules for a gestalt character enough... I think I'm starting at level 1.

[souridealist]

Sounds cool! What specific game have you got?

As for advice:

- I'm playing a gestalt wizard/rogue at the moment and promptly discovered that close-range, single-target wizard spells are only so useful, because I can usually do something fairly similar via a mundane dagger. Ranged spells and particularly AoE spells are what I needed most. (And I'd picked mostly touch spells for use with a particular prestige class, so... oops.)

- Pick stuff that boosts your AC. Especially if you're playing a solo campaign. You're going to have some trouble with arcane spell failure chances if you wear regular armor, so you'll probably be leaning on magical boosts and your dexterity. Mage Armor comes to mind.

- You may have come up with this already, but unless you're planning to be an archery rogue (which is a lot of feats, which in turn might be a problem if you wanna have metamagic available to you), weapon finesse may really help. It'll let you focus on Int for casting, Dex for a decent AC (and like half the rogue skills), and Con for staying alive, without having to worry about boosting your strength to let you hit things.

- It won't be relevant for a few levels, and it may not be the direction you want to take the character (which is fine) but I for one would think about taking the Leadership feat, maybe? It'd give you someone to drag you out of harm's way and patch you up a bit if you get knocked out, for example. On the other hand, that's a thing that will effect the storyline, so there's plenty of valid reasons not to do it.

- Get ahold of some cure potions as soon as you possibly can.

[MonkeySage]

The setting's completely his own design; it's a 3.5 game, set among the moons of a gas giant, which are all connected via ancient portals.

I admit i don't currently know much about it.

As for the race: it's a homebrew, a sort of elven race that's been blessed with the features of an animal of some sort(Vulpine in my case).

Kinda funny really, he plays a kitsune sorcerer in my journey to the west campaign, and i'm basically playing a fox in his game.

[gorfnab]

Factotum could give you the potential for more versatility than Rogue, which in a solo gestalt game could be useful. Here are two gestalt builds that use Factotum instead of Rogue.

Melee

1.Factotum // Spellthief (Spellthief Trickster ACF Dragon#353) - Craven
2.Factotum // Wizard (Wizard Abrupt Jaunt ACF PHBII, Wizard Simple Variant UA) - B: Weapon Finesse
3.Factotum // Wizard - Eschew Materials (or some other feat like Knowledge Devotion)
4.Factotum // Wizard
5.Factotum // Wizard
6.Factotum // Wizard (Wizard Spontaneous Divination ACF CC) - Master Spellthief
7.Factotum // Unseen Seer
8.Factotum // Unseen Seer
9.Factotum // Unseen Seer - Font of Inspiration, Knowledge Devotion, or a Reserve feat (like Acidic Splatter)
10.Factotum // Unseen Seer
11.Factotum // Unseen Seer
12.Factotum // Unseen Seer - Font of Inspiration
13.Factotum // Unseen Seer
14.Factotum // Unseen Seer
15.Factotum // Unseen Seer - Font of Inspiration
16.Factotum // Unseen Seer
17.Factotum // Arcane Trickster
18.Factotum // Arcane Trickster - Practiced Spellcaster or Font of Inspiration
19.Factotum // Arcane Trickster
20.Factotum // Arcane Trickster


Ranged

Ranged
1.Factotum // Spellthief (Spellthief Trickster ACF Dragon#353) - Craven
2.Factotum // Wizard (Wizard Abrupt Jaunt ACF PHBII, Wizard Simple Variant UA) - B: Point Blank Shot
3.Factotum // Wizard - Eschew Materials (or some other feat like Knowledge Devotion)
4.Factotum // Wizard
5.Factotum // Wizard
6.Factotum // Wizard (Wizard Spontaneous Divination ACF CC) - Master Spellthief
7.Factotum // Spellwarp Sniper
8.Factotum // Spellwarp Sniper
9.Factotum // Spellwarp Sniper - Font of Inspiration, Knowledge Devotion, or Acidic Splatter; B: Precise Shot
10.Factotum // Spellwarp Sniper
11.Factotum // Spellwarp Sniper
12.Factotum // Unseen Seer - Font of Inspiration
13.Factotum // Unseen Seer
14.Factotum // Unseen Seer
15.Factotum // Unseen Seer - Font of Inspiration
16.Factotum // Unseen Seer
17.Factotum // Unseen Seer
18.Factotum // Unseen Seer - Font of Inspiration
19.Factotum // Arcane Trickster
20.Factotum // Arcane Trickster


Factotum Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2720.0)
Sneak Attacking Spellcasters Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1240)

[Fouredged Sword]

I would do the following build, to fill in the weaknesses of a Rogue//wizard.

First, I would be a grey elf, and take Fairy Mysteries Initiate as your first feat. It makes your HP dependent on your Int, rather than Con.

Now, that frees up your point buy to invest in a natural 18 int (+2 racial on top).

Take the elven generalist ACF, giving a free spell slot at your highest spell level.

Then we go

Wizard 5 / Unseen Seer 2 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Something 1 (arcane trickster maybe? or mindbender for telepathy and mindsight)

//

Spellthief 1 / Factotum 3 / Rogue 16

Pick up hunter's eye with your Unseen Seer advanced learning to boost sneak attack die. Master spellthief will allow casting in light armor for all your spells. Factotum 3 grants Int to all str and dex checks.

Abjurant Champion will swift a ton of your spells and make your AC boosting through the roof. ISFV will make you untouchable.

All on top of 20/20 wizard casting.

[Falcon X]

I'm going to second the notion of using Factotum over Rogue. It'll do all the same stuff and more.

Whether to go Wizard, or some other spellcaster largely depends on the campaign setting and the flavor of your character. But Wizard would be a great choice.

You might consider prestiging into Chameleon on your Factotum side. Might be a good fit.

[MonkeySage]

So it looks like I"m no longer going gestalt. It seems i'm going to be playing a single class vulpine wizard. Vulpines are an anthrofox race of elven descent, -2 str, +2 Dex, +4 sense motive, +1 to all charisma based checks(representing their false charisma)...

[Fouredged Sword]

Spellthief 1 / Wizard 4 / Unseen Seer 3 / Abjurant Champion 5 / ISFV 7

Ok, this should be a wizard who can survive on his own. You will want to pick up master spell thief and beg your DM to let you get Able Learner as a non-human for skills. Your feats will be tight, but you can make it work.

Feats will be tight, so I suggest flaws to get skill focus and spell focus (abjuration), even though you don't have spells at level 1 (there are no prereqs).