Help Me Gestalt this Crusader

[MadBear]

I'm going to be playing my first game of gestalt ever. I really want to play that Crusader from the tome of battle, but I'm not quite sure where to take it from there, and what to combine it with.

I was thinking maybe 4 levels of Knight to grab "test of Mettle", since we'll be playing in a war-like setting and this could make me a tank, and force enemies to focus on me.

However, I'm not super familiar with classes outside the core rule book, and the DM has opened the floodgates and everything's pretty much available. This means all those juicy prestige classes I've never heard of, but are awesome are completely playable.

The one exception is no Full Progression Spell casters (basically tier 1/2 classes are out).

Objective:

I want my character to be a bad @55 in shining armor. He should be able to take hits like no other, and keep on trucking. Having some social skills would be nice but not necessary.

So come on playgrounders, I know you guys have some crazy combos out there that would be just what I'm looking for. :smallbiggrin:

[AnonymousPepper]

Well, you're not wrong in grabbing a couple Knight levels if you're going hard tank, I'll say that.

[Nightraiderx]

Incarnate from Magic of Inarnum is a really good fit with crusader, they have con synergy and some of the soulmelds enhance some of your stances.
Paladrons of Health I believe they are called can augment the healing on yourself from martial spirit.
There are some that can increase your health, and some that help to add accuracy do you can power attack a bit more with a few points.
Crusaders come with social skills, so just put some of your points into diplomacy and you should be good to go.
And with soulmelds there may be a few that help augment your social skills.

Another fun thing to build is duskblade along with Crusader. It's slightly mad, but you don't need a high int score (14 at most). And Con and Str are your main focus
for both classes. The spell Blade of Blood along with the martial spirit stance can increase weapon damage and the to-hit.

Or you can mix and match those three classes for an effective tank that deals some nasty damage.

[Metahuman1]

My suggestions in no particular order:

Knight: PHB2: Aggro mechanic, attribute synergy, boost to hit dice, good will save.

Barbarian: PHB1: Boost hit die, several potentially very potent feats, PrC's and AFC's opened up such as the well know spirit lion totem, wolf totem, whirling frenzy and trap smasher options.

Dragonfire Adept: Dragon Magic: Good will save, lot's of help on class skills being opened up, and breath weapon can be a killer lock down option, oh, and all day buffs or neat utility options form invocations.

Warlock: Complete Arcane: Neat tricks with invocations, and you can pick up Item Familiar and item crafting feats and make your own cool magic gear at a steep discount, and I think reflex and/or will are good saves for them.

Wilder: Expanded Psionics Handbook: I think they have a good will save, and the option to use Cha based Psionic Manifesting is potentially very useful.

Incarnate or Totemist: Both form Magic of Incarnum: The soulmelds are hard to use with gear, but they give you a lot of neat tricks and options. Incarnate also helps with skills. Con Synergy, options for both active and passive help in and out of combat.

Bard: PHB 1: lots of skills, particularly with the Jack of All Trades feat and the Bardic Knack AFC, cha synergy, spells, and inspire courage is a great way to pay for stone power/power attack and dragonfire inspiration can offer a big damage boost, synergieses with white raven. Oh, and good reflex and will saves.

Binder: Tome of Magic: Lots of tricks, boosts options that let you customize yourself in a lot of ways, and even let you change out our ability's day to day. Good Will save, Cha synergy, includes a fair number of active none combat options and passive combat one's that you can use while using maneuvers.

Fighter: PHB 1: Couple of potentially neat AFC's, but truth be told, I'd steer clear unless you specifically want some/all of those AFC's for something very specific.

Rogue: PHB 1/UA: Sneak Attacks useful. But really, your here for the skills, saves, and a couple of tricks like Evasion/improved evasion, spell reflection and defensive roll. If possible, maybe see if you can find a variant that gives up something you don't care too much about like trap sense or trap finding for a good will save to go with that good reflex save, and then grab the unearthed arcana martial rogue variant so that you have the fighters feat progression on top of the skills and good saves and nice passive ability's.

Shugenja: Complete Divine: It's probably the only Tier 3 proper divine caster, runs off Cha. Potentially thematic and the divine spells have some nice goodies. More so if you could land some turn undead usage. Good Will Save. I think Good Reflex but i'd need to double check.

Swordsage: Tome of Battle: Good reflex and will saves, evasion and improved evasion but late start, weird identifying magic items ability, more skills, and some Wis/discipline centric ability's. Get Ascetic Mage to switch Wis to Cha and snag force of personality to dump wis and this is a lot more useful, but mainly, your here for the extra progression of maneuvers that give you access to 5 schools you couldn't use before, braining you up to access to 8 schools out of 9.

Warblade: Tome of Battle: Access to five schools and some tricks like Uncanny dodge, improved version and being able to retrain weapon feats in a matter of hours as a class feature. Boost to hit die size, couple of new class skills unlocked and some Int focus ability's if you happen to have Int. Again, big draw here is an extra progression of maneuvers from 3 new schools. Of the three, Tiger Claw has one or two minor tricks that might interest you (Hunters Sense: Mongoose Line, Pouncing Charge.) but your probably much more interested in the more powerful/versatile Diamond Mind and Iron Heart Maneuvers, including the Concentration in Place of Save counters from Diamond Mind, the attack roll to parry an attack counter, disarming attack, attack multiple enemy's as a standard action strikes and the "I'm awesome your thing doesn't work" move known as Iron Heart Surge form Iron Heart.

[Red Fel]

Objective:

I want my character to be a bad @55 in shining armor. He should be able to take hits like no other, and keep on trucking. Having some social skills would be nice but not necessary.

So come on playgrounders, I know you guys have some crazy combos out there that would be just what I'm looking for. :smallbiggrin:

Welcome to gestalt. Prepare to be overwhelmed.

The first order of business is your objective. Sorry to say, it's not specific enough. Being able to take hits is a relatively useless thing in D&D, for two reasons. First, if you can take damage but not deal it, most enemies will ignore you (unless you can force them, see Tanking below), rendering your ability to take damage moot. Second, in the later game, your massive pile of AC and HP means nothing against a well-placed save-or-die.

So, let's look at more specific objectives. Option the first, damage dealer. I know people think of Crusader as a meatshield and not a beatstick, but it has potential. Furious Counterstrike boosts your damage. You get a non-specific Smite, which makes the Paladins drool. And Stone Dragon maneuvers let you crunch all sorts of things. With the right build, you could be the best melee DPS in the party.

Option the second, spot healer. Devoted Spirit gives you the most efficient healing mechanism in the game. You can heal the party while dealing damage, a thing even Clerics envy. Don't be afraid to employ that like crazy.

Option the third, tanking. This, I think, is what you were planning for, and this is something at which the Crusader excels. Others have suggested Knight, and don't get me wrong, Knight is good. Crusader is better, and I recommend it over Knight, but if you're gestalting and have nothing better to do, you can do Knight. That said, remember the disclaimer - D&D isn't an MMO, and tanking is less about forcing enemies to attack you, and more about incentivizing it. Let's go into the how.

Thicket of Blades stance is your "None shall pass" strategy. When combined with Combat Reflexes, Stand Still and a reach weapon, anything that comes through your zone will get completely immobilized. Alternatively, lose Stand Still and use Knock Down and Improved Trip; anything coming through your zone will get knocked prone, and you'll get a free bonus attack against them.

Iron Guard's Glare stance is your "I'm over here, jerkwad" strategy. This is what you use when the enemy has reached your squishies, and you want to discourage that. Again, Combat Reflexes, but this time use Robilar's Gambit and Knock Down/Improved Trip. It incentivizes enemies to attack you instead of your allies, gives them a bonus to hit you, and then grants you an AoO which you can use to trip them and take an attack against them while they're prone. Bam.

Frankly, one side of your gestalt could be Crusader 20. It's not a terrible choice. So let's move onto the other side of the gestalt.

First off, Crusader gives you full BAB and good Fort saves, so you don't need to worry about those on the other side of your gestalt. Second, Crusader gives you lots of "active" abilities, so a good gestalt will give you "passive" abilities you can have online while the Crusader provides improvised facial reconstructive surgery to your enemies.

Incarnate has been suggested. I agree with it and love it. Let me offer a second step - Ironsoul Forgemaster. (Check out my sig for a handbook.) Incarnate has low BAB, which doesn't matter, but a good Will save, which helps. Best of all, you gain access to soulmelds. Soulmelds give you abundant versatility. Want to fly? Disrupt undead? Gain random bonuses to hit, saves, skills? Soulmelds do all that.

But Ironsoul Forgemaster? That's the jackpot for a melee, particularly for a tank. First off, craft your own weapons and armor - as well as that of the party. Since you're a Dwarf (required for the PrC) your movement won't suffer from wearing heavy armor. Which is fine, because you'll be crafting the very best armor you can make.

You can also use your essentia from Incarnate and Ironsoul Forgemaster to inflate your armor, your shield (if you choose to use one), and even your weapon. More than that, your weapon will gain the ability to daze enemies. Daze is one of the best "No you don't" debuffs around, and given how a good Crusader-tank build smacks any enemy nearby, you'll be dealing out a lot of it. It takes your lockdown and turns it up to 11. Basically, the build would be Crusader 20// Incarnate 5/ Ironsoul Forgemaster 10/ Incarnate +5. It's simple and highly functional.

[Aegis013]

Binder: Tome of Magic: Lots of tricks, boosts options that let you customize yourself in a lot of ways, and even let you change out our ability's day to day. Good Will save, Cha synergy, includes a fair number of active none combat options and passive combat one's that you can use while using maneuvers.


I had a player do this combo. Straight Crusader//Binder, no PrCs. His combat style was simply funny.
He'd bind Dahlver-Nar from his Binder ability, use the Shield Self ability against his opponent, and once they had failed, he would begin to attack himself with his greatsword. Having piled up DR and having the DR effect twice due to Steeley Resolve, he frequently was able to kill monsters while both he and the monster both attacked him.

It actually saved the party's butts against flying enemies a couple times.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Dragonborn (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20060105b&page=1) (Heart or Wings), Water Orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#racesOfWater), Mineral Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e)
Dragonborn is gained before Mineral Warrior, so nothing that Mineral Warrior gives you is lost. That gets Str +6, Dex -2, Con +8, Int -4, Wis -4, Cha -4, +3 natural armor, DR, the breath attack or wings, etc. The only thing you keep from Water Orc is your size, creature type, movement modes, and ability scores. You only have a +1 LA from Mineral Warrior, and it's an acquired template so that doesn't even have to be taken at 1st level, unless you're starting play at 1st level.
Take two flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) (more here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258440-The-quot-Best-quot-Flaws#30)) for two extra feats, I'd pick No Time For Book Learning and Murky-Eyed. I'd also get the Quick trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm#quick), you can spend a feat later on Improved Toughness to negate its drawback, it's well worth it considering your burrow, swim, and possibly fly speeds. Dragonborn with wings can fly in any kind of armor as long as your total carried weight including the armor is within your light load.

I'd include five levels of Hellreaver from FC2, along with one level of Binder. Hellreaver can heal someone for 20 points every round as a swift action, but you take Con damage to keep doing it, plus tons of other useful abilities. Bind Naberius for Fast Ability Healing 1 and you'll be able to use that as many times as you want. A fairly standard non-gestalt build is Crusader 5/ Binder 1/ Hellreaver 5/ Crusader 9, which still gets 9th level maneuvers at 20th level. With a gestalt character you don't need to lose any initiator levels at all, but it really depends on what other class(es) you take.

If this were my character, he would be a Crusader 4/ Binder 1/ Hellreaver 1/ Crusader 14// LA +1/ Incarnate 5/ Hellreaver 4/ Incarnate 10, with the Heart aspect. Get Entangling Exhalation (RotD), Extra Granted Maneuver, and Stone Power, probably Shield Specialization and then Shield Ward from PH2, and most likely some Incarnum feats after that (Incarnum Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=hmvr078vg3j4khami04t6m6i92&topic=551.0)). The soulmelds from Incarnate allow you to do pretty much anything (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1041916), though you'll mostly want to look at the second post there.

[torrasque666]

So, let's look at more specific objectives. Option the first, damage dealer. I know people think of Crusader as a meatshield and not a beatstick, but it has potential. Furious Counterstrike boosts your damage. You get a non-specific Smite, which makes the Paladins drool. And Stone Dragon maneuvers let you crunch all sorts of things. With the right build, you could be the best melee DPS in the party.

Wouldn't another good idea be, since the Crusader is a meatshield, gestalting with a beatstick class so you can (more) easily get both?

[Essence_of_War]

In gestalt, you really want your gestalt classes to cover completely different bases. Remember, unless you're an action-economy breaker, you still ONLY get a single standard action every round. To mitigate "option paralysis", it's often useful to break a build into an active part, and a passive part.

Crusader is a VERY active class. It really wants to be using its standard actions for strikes, or full attacks basically every round. It gets full BAB and a generous hit die, and good Fort Saves. So a few obvious choices are classes that can covers its weak will/ref saves, that don't provide full BAB (since you already have it) and that can provide some decent buffs.

I think Incarnate from MoI is a fantastic choice here. Almost all of the Incarnate's abilities are passive buffs, and you'll likely have enough swift actions that you won't mind burning them every now and then to reallocate your essentia. Crusader effectively offsets the Incarnate's low BAB and hit die.

Swordsage could actually be fun also. It has a bunch of boosts, counters, and mobility related maneuvers that can pair well with the Crusader's std action strikes, and full-attacks.

Others have covered the Binder, so I'll just 2nd what has been said :)

I would probably stay away from the Knight since it brings so little extra to the table.

[Metahuman1]

That's hilarious and awesome, but I'm not sure it's rules legal. It totally should be and if you house ruled it to work you were totally right to do so, but, thought I should mention it.

[Red Fel]

Wouldn't another good idea be, since the Crusader is a meatshield, gestalting with a beatstick class so you can (more) easily get both?

Well... No. See this one:


In gestalt, you really want your gestalt classes to cover completely different bases.

And that's the point. If you decide to gestalt with more of the same, you lose the advantage of gestalt. Part of the point is to shore up your weaknesses and give yourself more strengths. I'll let Essence continue:


Remember, unless you're an action-economy breaker, you still ONLY get a single standard action every round. To mitigate "option paralysis", it's often useful to break a build into an active part, and a passive part.

Crusader is a VERY active class. It really wants to be using its standard actions for strikes, or full attacks basically every round. It gets full BAB and a generous hit die, and good Fort Saves. So a few obvious choices are classes that can covers its weak will/ref saves, that don't provide full BAB (since you already have it) and that can provide some decent buffs.

I think Incarnate from MoI is a fantastic choice here. Almost all of the Incarnate's abilities are passive buffs, and you'll likely have enough swift actions that you won't mind burning them every now and then to reallocate your essentia. Crusader effectively offsets the Incarnate's low BAB and hit die.

Swordsage could actually be fun also. It has a bunch of boosts, counters, and mobility related maneuvers that can pair well with the Crusader's std action strikes, and full-attacks.

Others have covered the Binder, so I'll just 2nd what has been said :)

I would probably stay away from the Knight since it brings so little extra to the table.

And that's precisely the point. At this point, your Crusader is a Crusader. He's as Crusader-y as he can get. Why would you want to make him more Crusader-y? Start looking at what he can't do. He can't fly. He's rubbish at range. He has virtually non-existent out-of-combat utility. He's basically very good at taking and dealing damage, and spot-healing, and that's it.

So give him something else. Give him Warlock levels and a bunch of passive invocations. Give him Binder and the passive benefits of vestiges. Give him Incarnate and the passive benefits of soulmelds. Heck, give him Cleric and buff your way to glory.

But making him more Crusader-y isn't going to help you at all. Taking Fighter levels, for instance, does nothing for your BAB and Fort saves; they're already awesome. And taking Warblade for more maneuvers won't help, since you can only use so many at a time. What you need to be looking at is your weaknesses - mobility, Ref and Will saves, out-of-combat utility. Build those up.

[Metahuman1]

I agree with everything Red Fell said, except that he can't take cleric cause it and pretty much all tier 1-2 classes are banned. That's why I said Warlock with item familiar and craft feats in my first post instead of artificer, and didn't suggest DMM: Persist cleric myself.

[torrasque666]

Well... No. See this one:

And that's the point. If you decide to gestalt with more of the same, you lose the advantage of gestalt. Part of the point is to shore up your weaknesses and give yourself more strengths.

The idea I was going for was more since Crusader is kinda Ultimate Shield-y also go with a Ultimate Spear-y class to shore up his lacking offensive abilities.

[aleucard]

I had a player do this combo. Straight Crusader//Binder, no PrCs. His combat style was simply funny.
He'd bind Dahlver-Nar from his Binder ability, use the Shield Self ability against his opponent, and once they had failed, he would begin to attack himself with his greatsword. Having piled up DR and having the DR effect twice due to Steeley Resolve, he frequently was able to kill monsters while both he and the monster both attacked him.

It actually saved the party's butts against flying enemies a couple times.

Sounds to me like he's a Hidan the Jashinist cosplayer. XD

Really, Crusaders have all the Melee Powerhouse that you could want. If you want more, then I suggest you get something that gives always-on or easily-applied buffs to whatever you're wanting to do (Rogue for Sneak Attack and various stealth-related bonuses as well as moderate skill-moneyness, Factotum for damn near anything you could ask for and uber-skillmonkeyness (Iaijutsu Focus in particular), (Cloistered if possible) Cleric for various buffs and other things, and access to RKV for Action Economy if you want, etc.).

[Jeff the Green]

I've only skimmed the previous posts, so I imagine some of what I'm going to suggest has been discussed.

Bard is an interesting choice. A desert dwarf could go Bard 5/Runesmith 5/Other PrC 10. Add in Song of the White Raven to sing as a swift action and get Inspire Courage progressed even when you're not taking Bard levels.

Suel Arcanamach would get you some very nice spells based on your Charisma. Maybe Something 6/Suel Arcanamach 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sand Shaper 1/Suel Arcanamach +2 (3)/Other PrC(s) 5. The last PrC(s) should probably progress casting, but needn't do so more than two levels to get full AS casting.

A race or monster class with LA could be a good choice.

[aleucard]

I've only skimmed the previous posts, so I imagine some of what I'm going to suggest has been discussed.

Bard is an interesting choice. A desert dwarf could go Bard 5/Runesmith 5/Other PrC 10. Add in Song of the White Raven to sing as a swift action and get Inspire Courage progressed even when you're not taking Bard levels.

Suel Arcanamach would get you some very nice spells based on your Charisma. Maybe Something 6/Suel Arcanamach 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sand Shaper 1/Suel Arcanamach +2 (3)/Other PrC(s) 5. The last PrC(s) should probably progress casting, but needn't do so more than two levels to get full AS casting.

A race or monster class with LA could be a good choice.

What would a Bard want with any amount of Runesmith, let alone the full class? It doesn't have the spell list to take full advantage of the lv. 3 ability OR the lv. 5 ability, and it already has a method of bypassing ASF. You'd be much better served by getting into one of the more dedicated-bard PrC's.

[Aegis013]

That's hilarious and awesome, but I'm not sure it's rules legal. It totally should be and if you house ruled it to work you were totally right to do so, but, thought I should mention it.

Do you have any rules that suggest it isn't? I am (and was) unaware of any, but yeah, I would've ruled it to work because it was really fun.

Dahlver-Nar's Shield Self power is explicitly "all effects that deal hit point damage" it makes no mention of sources, so to the best of my knowledge you can damage an affected enemy by attacking yourself.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Dragonborn (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20060105b&page=1) (Heart or Wings), Water Orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#racesOfWater), Mineral Warrior (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e)
Dragonborn is gained before Mineral Warrior, so nothing that Mineral Warrior gives you is lost. That gets Str +6, Dex -2, Con +8, Int -4, Wis -4, Cha -4, +3 natural armor, DR, the breath attack or wings, etc. The only thing you keep from Water Orc is your size, creature type, movement modes, and ability scores. You only have a +1 LA from Mineral Warrior, and it's an acquired template so that doesn't even have to be taken at 1st level, unless you're starting play at 1st level.
Take two flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) (more here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258440-The-quot-Best-quot-Flaws#30)) for two extra feats, I'd pick No Time For Book Learning and Murky-Eyed. I'd also get the Quick trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm#quick), you can spend a feat later on Improved Toughness to negate its drawback, it's well worth it considering your burrow, swim, and possibly fly speeds. Dragonborn with wings can fly in any kind of armor as long as your total carried weight including the armor is within your light load.

I'd include five levels of Hellreaver from FC2, along with one level of Binder. Hellreaver can heal someone for 20 points every round as a swift action, but you take Con damage to keep doing it, plus tons of other useful abilities. Bind Naberius for Fast Ability Healing 1 and you'll be able to use that as many times as you want. A fairly standard non-gestalt build is Crusader 5/ Binder 1/ Hellreaver 5/ Crusader 9, which still gets 9th level maneuvers at 20th level. With a gestalt character you don't need to lose any initiator levels at all, but it really depends on what other class(es) you take.

If this were my character, he would be a Crusader 4/ Binder 1/ Hellreaver 1/ Crusader 14// LA +1/ Incarnate 5/ Hellreaver 4/ Incarnate 10, with the Heart aspect. Get Entangling Exhalation (RotD), Extra Granted Maneuver, and Stone Power, probably Shield Specialization and then Shield Ward from PH2, and most likely some Incarnum feats after that (Incarnum Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=hmvr078vg3j4khami04t6m6i92&topic=551.0)). The soulmelds from Incarnate allow you to do pretty much anything (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1041916), though you'll mostly want to look at the second post there.

After further consideration, you can gradually gain an inherited template (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/sp) so you could get Half-Goristro (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630x&page=1) (level progression adaptation here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?234089-Getting-to-large-size-on-a-human#4)) after Dragonborn, go with the following instead:

Crusader 5/ Binder 1/ Hellreaver 1/ Crusader 13// Mineral Warrior LA +1/ Half-Goristro LA +4/ Incarnate 2/ Hellreaver 4/ Incarnate 9. Possibly move one or both of those early Incarnate levels prior to completing Half-Goristro, if you need more levels with Kn: Planes as a class skill to qualify for Hellreaver.

[Jeff the Green]

What would a Bard want with any amount of Runesmith, let alone the full class? It doesn't have the spell list to take full advantage of the lv. 3 ability OR the lv. 5 ability, and it already has a method of bypassing ASF. You'd be much better served by getting into one of the more dedicated-bard PrC's.

First, yes, they can bypass ASF other ways, but this is easy and cheap. Second, they absolutely do have spells worth sharing. Off the top of my head, sirine's grace, alter self, and glibness. Finally, it effectively works like Arcane Preparation, allowing you to use metamagic without increasing casting time.

Permanent Rune might not be all that useful; I just remembered it was a 5-level class and took it to the end.

[MadBear]

Thank you so much everyone. I knew, there was a book out there that I was missing.

Particularly Thanks Nightraiderx and Red Fel. The Incarnate seems like the absolute perfect mesh with what I was trying to build with the Crusader.

Also Red Fel, I hadn't mentioned, but a dwarf was exactly the race I wanted to play, and your ironsoul forgemaster creates the perfect synergy with the entire build.

The only downside to this whole build is, I now have a ton of homework to learn how to best take effect of the incarnate, and crusader.

[Nightraiderx]

Have fun with that build, seriously, it is pretty awesome, I am debating making a ironsoul forgemaster for a game
because it makes incarnate actually playable as a gish.

@Red Fel I was looking at your guide for ironsoul and I have one question for your suggested classes:

Dude, you could make an artificier/incarnate gish with this, you could literally make any weapon/armor with any property with a CL check.
I am without book but I think it's viable.

[Red Fel]

Have fun with that build, seriously, it is pretty awesome, I am debating making a ironsoul forgemaster for a game
because it makes incarnate actually playable as a gish.

@Red Fel I was looking at your guide for ironsoul and I have one question for your suggested classes:

Dude, you could make an artificier/incarnate gish with this, you could literally make any weapon/armor with any property with a CL check.
I am without book but I think it's viable.

It's viable, but a bit redundant. Let me be clear, because it hurts me to say this: an Artificer is a better craftsman than an IF. An Artificer can craft magic items with a CL equal to his Artificer level +2 in order to meet item prerequisites, and can craft items without meeting their spell prereqs by making a UMD check. An IF can craft weapons and armor - only weapons and armor - with a CL equal to his IF level x3, but he can't meet any spell prereqs without help. And, as has been pointed out to me, why do you need a CL 30 for crafting?

Now, in theory, you could take Artificer and IF levels, and they might stack with regard to arms and armor. IF says that its effective CL for crafting stacks "with any other caster levels that might apply." So, in theory, your CL for crafting would be (Artificer level +2) + (IF level x3). You could then UMD to get spells on your equipment.

This all assumes, of course, that "magic item" described in the Artificer's ability refers to any magic items, and not simply the consumable-style scrolls and potions, and rings and things, described in the entry.

[Segev]

If you want to shore up your weak points and also emphasize just a little more what the Crusader is doing as an unstoppable tank, I'd look to either Wilder or Psion. Wilder synergizes a touch more due to Cha being at least partially useful to Crusaders, but is overall a much weaker class. Either way, you want a Psicrystal, Vigor, and Share Pain. Vigor shared with your Psicrystal is 10 hp per pp spent, and as a Wilder, you can eke out an extra 10-40 hp depending on how high level you are, on top of those. Share Pain on your psicrystal ensures that the hp shared with it via Vigor actually benefit you.

Then use your remaining power picks for things which cover your gaps. Flight is a biggie.

And, of course, if you want to break the action economy, there's always Synchronicity and Linked Power: Synchronicity-linked Synchronicity gets you no actions lost in round 1, and an extra standard action in round 2. And that's just the beginning.

[Metahuman1]

Do you have any rules that suggest it isn't? I am (and was) unaware of any, but yeah, I would've ruled it to work because it was really fun.

Dahlver-Nar's Shield Self power is explicitly "all effects that deal hit point damage" it makes no mention of sources, so to the best of my knowledge you can damage an affected enemy by attacking yourself.

The problem is the Delayed Damage Pool damage is suppose to already be counted when you first get hit but before you move it to delayed damage. Not suppose to count it again for the Shield Self Power after it moves form delayed damage onto hit points.


And I know you can't apply DR to damage form Delayed Damage Pool moving to hit points, much as I wish you could.