Needing help building a gestalt necro cleric build. was reffered here by shadowseve.

[adriana]

One of my guild mates shadowseve suggested that I come here for advice. he stated he really got great advice for his druid from some dude named eggynack.(at least I think that's right) He also stated he got great advice for his gestalt druid as well from the same eggy dude and jeff the green and a few others? So I'm hoping to get the same advice with my gestalt class. I'm going as a necro cleric on one end and half shadow on the other side.

I'm thinking of going

cloistered cleric10/contemplative 1/ruby knight vindicator 9//half shadow dragon human 3/crusader 17

The theme of this character is one highly religious and devoted to a non-evil concept of death. She reveres death and believes it to be a natural progression of life and is fascinated with the after life.
She believes that murder is a violation of life's natural progression so she's not a murder seeking maniac raising everything she kills.

I chose cleric and crusader for the religious aspect, tanking, and DMM cheese. I wanted her to be beefy and be able to take a good hit in melee, do some great tanking and also have some great undead to fight with. I figured ruby would be a great fit for the theme of this character as well with divine impetus giving me one extra swift action a round if I burn my turn undead.

I think it's a solid build but I'm curious if anyone has anything better.

I'm also curious on the dragon's breath weapon.

the MM states A successful Reflex
save (DC 10 + 1/2 half-dragon’s racial HD + half-dragon’s Con modifier)
reduces damage by half. or in the case of the shadow dragon negates the negative level. My confusion is the racial hit die. I'm a human so is it just simply DC 10+ half my con modifier?

[Agamemmnoth]

One of my guild mates shadowseve suggested that I come here for advice. he stated he really got great advice for his druid from some dude named eggynack.(at least I think that's right) He also stated he got great advice for his gestalt druid as well from the same eggy dude and jeff the green and a few others? So I'm hoping to get the same advice with my gestalt class. I'm going as a necro cleric on one end and half shadow on the other side.

I'm thinking of going

cloistered cleric10/contemplative 1/ruby knight vindicator 9//half shadow dragon human 3/crusader 17

The theme of this character is one highly religious and devoted to a non-evil concept of death. She reveres death and believes it to be a natural progression of life and is fascinated with the after life.
She believes that murder is a violation of life's natural progression so she's not a murder seeking maniac raising everything she kills.

I chose cleric and crusader for the religious aspect, tanking, and DMM cheese. I wanted her to be beefy and be able to take a good hit in melee, do some great tanking and also have some great undead to fight with. I figured ruby would be a great fit for the theme of this character as well with divine impetus giving me one extra swift action a round if I burn my turn undead.

I think it's a solid build but I'm curious if anyone has anything better.

I'm also curious on the dragon's breath weapon.

the MM states A successful Reflex
save (DC 10 + 1/2 half-dragon’s racial HD + half-dragon’s Con modifier)
reduces damage by half. or in the case of the shadow dragon negates the negative level. My confusion is the racial hit die. I'm a human so is it just simply DC 10+ half my con modifier?


If possible I would add on the necropolitan template and get spellstitched. You would be hard as hell to kill.

[adriana]

If possible I would add on the necropolitan template and get spellstitched. You would be hard as hell to kill.


Yeah I had planned on fully taking advantange of also being a necropolitan who is spellstiched.

Any other advice on the build or some clarification on the breath weapon DC?

[Chambers]

You've got Ruby Knight and Crusader on opposite sides of the Gestalt at the same levels. They both advance the same thing (Initiator level and maneuvers) and in Gestalt you can't advance the same thing on both sides at the same level (i.e. no Wizard 10 // Fighter 5 / Wizard PrC 5). Some DM's make exceptions and will allow it if you want to get some feature of the PrC without taking the caster level advancement of the PrC but in general you shouldn't double up like that.

Ruby Knight and Crusader both have useful class features other than maneuvers at higher levels so it's not entirely a waste to double them up like that, but check with your DM how he/she wants to handle it.

If I were making this build I'd probably go Cleric 3/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10/Contemplative 6 // Half Dragon 3 / Dragonfire Adept 17. This plays up the Draconic aspect of the character giving you more options with a breath weapon while still retaining the Cleric/Crusader core abilities. You get less spellcasting and maneuvers in exchange for more Draconic abilities.

Sticking closer to the original build might be something like: Cleric 5/Divine Oracle 2/Ruby Knight 10/Contemplative 3 // Half Dragon 3 / Crusader 17. This build gets Mettle and Evasion in Heavy Armor plus Slippery Mind from Contemplative. You're still doubling up on Crusader and Ruby Knight, though it doesn't really hamper you. End up with 18th level Cleric casting and 17th level Crusader initiating.

Your Half-Dragon Breath Weapon DC is based on racial hit die and you don't have any, so you can only increase the DC by raising your Con mod. I recommend the feat Dragon Breath from Races of the Dragon. It let's you use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds instead of 1/day and qualifies you to add Metabreath feats to it from the Draconomicon. The Ability Focus feat (MM) will also raise your breath weapon DC by 2.

[adriana]

You've got Ruby Knight and Crusader on opposite sides of the Gestalt at the same levels. They both advance the same thing (Initiator level and maneuvers) and in Gestalt you can't advance the same thing on both sides at the same level (i.e. no Wizard 10 // Fighter 5 / Wizard PrC 5). Some DM's make exceptions and will allow it if you want to get some feature of the PrC without taking the caster level advancement of the PrC but in general you shouldn't double up like that.

Ruby Knight and Crusader both have useful class features other than maneuvers at higher levels so it's not entirely a waste to double them up like that, but check with your DM how he/she wants to handle it.

If I were making this build I'd probably go Cleric 3/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10/Contemplative 6 // Half Dragon 3 / Dragonfire Adept 17. This plays up the Draconic aspect of the character giving you more options with a breath weapon while still retaining the Cleric/Crusader core abilities. You get less spellcasting and maneuvers in exchange for more Draconic abilities.

Sticking closer to the original build might be something like: Cleric 5/Divine Oracle 2/Ruby Knight 10/Contemplative 3 // Half Dragon 3 / Crusader 17. This build gets Mettle and Evasion in Heavy Armor plus Slippery Mind from Contemplative. You're still doubling up on Crusader and Ruby Knight, though it doesn't really hamper you. End up with 18th level Cleric casting and 17th level Crusader initiating.

Your Half-Dragon Breath Weapon DC is based on racial hit die and you don't have any, so you can only increase the DC by raising your Con mod. I recommend the feat Dragon Breath from Races of the Dragon. It let's you use your breath weapon every 1d4 rounds instead of 1/day and qualifies you to add Metabreath feats to it from the Draconomicon. The Ability Focus feat (MM) will also raise your breath weapon DC by 2.

I don't see the rule about about doubling the classes. All I found was this


A gestalt character follows a similar procedure when he attains 2nd and subsequent levels. Each time he gains a new level, he chooses two classes, takes the best aspects of each, and applies them to his characteristics. A few caveats apply, however.

Class features that two classes share (such as uncanny dodge) accrue at the rate of the faster class.
Gestalt characters with more than one spellcasting class keep track of their spells per day separately.
A gestalt character can’t combine two prestige classes at any level, although it’s okay to combine a prestige class and a regular class. Prestige classes that are essentially class combinations-such as the arcane trickster, mystic theurge, and eldritch knight-should be prohibited if you’re using gestalt classes, because they unduly complicate the game balance of what’s already a high-powered variant. Because it’s possible for gestalt characters to qualify for prestige classes earlier than normal, the game master is entirely justified in toughening the prerequisites of a prestige class so it’s available only after 5th level, even for gestalt characters.

I didn't think the initiator level would stack but I do see your point that it would almost be a waste. I just figured some of the class features would be nice. Though two flaws are allowed and we're doing path finder feat progression there are too many good feats on both sides. Hard to build a DMM Necro cleric and a lock down crusader at the same time.
The dragon aspect very interesting. I do really love some of the dragon meta breath options like heighten breath and quicken breath.

I may go for your dragon aspect route. So if I'm correct I would have lv17 casting so I could still get 9th lv spells and my caster level would be high enough I could still get some dang nice skeletal and zombie dragons that don't have the 20 hd limit per skelly. Awesome advice.

Both present me with very nice options. Now which one too choose.... So many choices.

Thanks!!!