3.P What to have Gestalt my magus with!

[Katana1515]

High all! looking for fun and interesting options with which to Gestalt the PF Magus.

However their is one minor hiccup. My groups Gestalt game runs under a slightly experimental rule where only players using T3 or lower classes can Gestalt. Players can play T1 or T2 characters but they play single classed. (for anyone who's curious we have been using this system for 2 years now and it works pretty well for us).

so I am looking for a class that works well with a dex based magus (tiefling with the blackblade archetype), that gives me interesting options but wont make me MAD as hell! pretty much all books or sources from PF or 3.5 are up for discussion, also Dream scarred presses stuff for Psionics is cool. General advice on how to play a magus (first time with the class) is welcome.

[Failed Phantasm]

Soulknife (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife), maybe? Full BAB, good Reflex save, d10 HP per level, 4 + Int modifier skills, some delicious Blade Skills, and no other attributes strictly required beyond what you use for Magus. And if you care to go that route, you can pick up TWF for free at level 1 should you want to dual-wield your blackblade and mind blade. Off the top of my head, I think you're explicitly allowed to use Spell Combat and Spellstrike with a weapon (e.g., a mind blade) in your off-hand, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

[Segev]

Maybe one of the martial adept classes? I'm not sure how you'd have to stack the focus on strikes vs. boosts with the actions required to power your Magus's fighting style; it depends what the Magus uses swift actions for and what's part of "full attacks." But if there's synergy there, it could be amazing.

[PsyBomb]

If Psionics are allowed, then you can't really go wrong there. Soulknife may not be the best for a Bladebound unless you get some house ruling from the DM, though.

Rogue is always a nice off-side on Gestalt, as are Monk and/or a Fighter dip. Depending on amounts of cheese you can get away with, and just what your stats look like, there are MANY ways to go here.

[Nihilarian]

I'd go anything with a full BAB and decent HD. Fighter is kinda boring, but good. Maybe a Lore Warden?

[stack]

Alchemist works well. Similar stat dependencies, mutagen boosts to stats are alchemical bonuses, so stack with everything. Bombs give a nice ranged rebuff option unless you go vivisectionist to get sneak attack.

Psionics-wise if a tactician is tier 3 it would be a fair option as well. Cryptic could too, maybe a brutal disruptor.

[Sayt]

I suggest the playtest Paizo Swashbuckler. It's Dex and Cha based, which means you do need three stats, but with Dervish Dance you can just ignore strength, and you can probably get away with like, 12 or so.

On the other hand, they both favour 1 hand/free hand weapon fighting, Swashbuckler provides a D10 hit dice, your bad save becomes a good one as well, full bab, and a source of static (Precision) damage, and an excellent defense mechanism in Opportune parry, especially if you pick up signiture deed.

[Katana1515]

Thanks for all the responses!

Soulknife is a good idea, I was considering it before, though I think it would mean dropping the Blackblade archetype. I get a cool free weapon either way I suppose. and some of the blade skills are funky. I was considering something like warblade since i would get manuverers , full bab/10hd/ and all those minor class abilities that have int synergy.
Though was wondering how people thought spell combat and Initiator stuff would work together?

The swashbuckler is a neat idea but its not my game, so i don't want to be bringing in play-test stuff that much. Never looked much at either cryptic or tactician, what are they good at?

[Psyren]

Cryptic is a psionic skillmonkey that works like a hybrid of warlock and rogue.

Tactician is like a psionic battle-focused cleric who focuses on buffing himself and allies rather than healing.

[frogman55]

I think it would be a blast to combine a magus with factotum. Forget dervish dance, you get Int to everything.

It would let you really focus on spell-casting without giving up on your combat ability, and you will rock out of combat, too.

I actually need to go dig up my 3.5 books and look at the synergy here. Might be some swift-action bottlenecking, but I still think it'd be fun.

Also, I think a beguiler could be.... interesting.

[pi4t]

If your DM is allowing third party classes, you might want to try a couple of levels in Scholar (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/tripod-machine/scholar). The first will let you add your Int modifier to AC, and the second - if you choose Smart Weapon - will let you replace Str with Int in your attack bonus (with light and martial weapons). Obviously there's a lot of synergy with the magus in there. Besides that, the class doesn't seem to be that good, so you could quite possibly pass it off as a T3 one. If not, you might decide it's worth taking a level or so even without the gestalt.

Another interesting third party int-based class - if perhaps rather harder to clear as T3 or less - is the Artisan (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/3rd-party-publisher---drop-dead-studios---classes/the-artisan). Inspired by the Artificer from 3.5, and obviously influenced by it, it's a well-balanced crafting class with several extra abilities and choices. Amusingly, he gets an ability akin to the magus's to temporarily buff enhancement bonuses as a swift action, and as far as I can tell the effects stack. The only issue is that he gains bonuses to craft skills (as opposed to spellcraft) for making magic items.

As you might be able to tell, I've been looking into something like this for myself recently, from the other end of the spectrum: I was investigating what melee classes would gestalt well with the artisan. Magus was a strong contender, although eventually I went with a bounty hunter (a third party class which is certainly higher than T3)