Need ideas for Gestalt Campaign

[Wacky89]

So basically we are allowed to play savage species monster classes.

I really want to do a Djinni / Something. Djinni seems sweet, flyspeed 30 perfect and telepathy 100ft (mindsight) from level 1.

Do you guys have any great ideas? I was thinking Psion or Wizard

I was also looking at a Ghaele / Incarnate

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Djinni gets decent Str, Dex, and Wis early on, with a lot of skill points, in addition to the things you mentioned. It also gets +1 BAB at every odd-numbered level, and 1/2 BAB classes like Cloistered Cleric get +1 BAB at every even-numbered level, so you'll get a +13 BAB at level 13 if you stay single-classed regardless of what you pick. My advice would be to go Cloistered Cleric, or maybe Swordsage, and pick up a tasty prestige class after you finish the racial class.

A Ghaele at 5th level gets Cleric 5 casting, Fighter 5 BAB, Monk 5 saves and hp, and Rogue 5 skill points. You can take anything you want with it for the first five levels, and then take nearly any prestige class that can be taken at 6th level after that.

[Wacky89]

A Djinni gets decent Str, Dex, and Wis early on, with a lot of skill points, in addition to the things you mentioned. It also gets +1 BAB at every odd-numbered level, and 1/2 BAB classes like Cloistered Cleric get +1 BAB at every even-numbered level, so you'll get a +13 BAB at level 13 if you stay single-classed regardless of what you pick. My advice would be to go Cloistered Cleric, or maybe Swordsage, and pick up a tasty prestige class after you finish the racial class.

A Ghaele at 5th level gets Cleric 5 casting, Fighter 5 BAB, Monk 5 saves and hp, and Rogue 5 skill points. You can take anything you want with it for the first five levels, and then take nearly any prestige class that can be taken at 6th level after that.

Do you got any suggestions for prestige classes? I'm open to all ideas as of right now :)
I was thinking of waiting with a prestige class for the Ghaele to after level 14 so I can progress the casting further.
Thanks for the suggestions tho

[Jack_Simth]

Do you got any suggestions for prestige classes? I'm open to all ideas as of right now :)
I was thinking of waiting with a prestige class for the Ghaele to after level 14 so I can progress the casting further.
Thanks for the suggestions tho
Well, when working with Gestalt, and especially with the Savage Progressions in Savage Species, one of the first things to ask your DM is how the table feels about 'staggering'. Take the Ghaele... actually, no, that one gives full casting up to 14th, oddly. Take the Rakshaka, instead. That gets Sorcerer casting equal to it's hit dice from class levels (contextually, class levels usually means 'in this class', and I'm going with that interpretation for the example - this may or may not be true at your gaming table) - so the Rakshaka gives Sorcerer casting at 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th. What happens if you pair that with Sorcerer at 1st, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, and 14th+, pairing with some other class at 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th (like, two levels in Monk [making sure to pick up the Ascetic Mage feat for Charisma to AC] for Evasion, three levels in Hexblade for Charisma to most saves and Mettle, and... two levels in a variant Paladin for Charisma to saves again)? Are you casting as a Sorcerer-14 at 14th level, or do you have two separate progressions?

One of the next things to sort out is: "How optimized do you want the character?" - a character that is significantly more or less powerful than the characters the other players bring to the table is disruptive to the game. I'm in no position to judge that; you know the people you've played with. It is very much something to keep in mind, however.

Another thing to watch is your ability scores: You don't want to get MAD (Multiple Attribute Dependant). A Sorcerer//Monk might look good at first glance (all those spells and class features!) but without a hefty amount of work, it's got a real problem: Needs Strength to deal damage, Dexterity and Wisdom to avoid getting hit, Con to soak what hits get through, and Charisma to power spells. That's five high scores you need... if you're going to play it as both a Sorcerer and a Monk, anyway. A Druid//Monk, on the other hand, needs... Wisdom (AC, Spells) and Con (hit points): Just two high scores (Strength and Dex become irrelevant after Wildshape comes online, and there's no dependancy on Int or Cha). It makes for a stronger combination because of the better ability focus.

Another thing to watch for is your action economy: You can spend your standard actions casting spells, or you can spend your full round actions hitting things, but you can't do both. If your classes don't work well together, that's going to detract from the character's ability to interact with the campaign. Generally speaking, you want things that work well with each other - something that passively adds to what you want (like how the Rouge's sneak attack takes no action to add to a spell with an attack roll) or does non-action defences (like how the Monk's AC bonus or the Paladin's Divine Grace are always on and take no action) while you take your actions based on the other class (usually spells, but not always). Do note that for this purpose, long-duration spells (and often, swift-action spells) count as passive. So a Cloistered Cleric//Monk might use the Monk side for passive defence while zapping merrily away with Cleric spells, or might use a little DMM(Persist) and inherently long-duration buffs to become a very powerful melee machine, smashing faces in battle. Which is the better option for a specific character depends on stat and feat distribution. It is, however, very much something to watch.

Another thing to check up on is how the table feels about dipping. A lot of classes - especially the more martial-oriented - are rather front-loaded: The Monk picks up a spare attack on a full attack at 1st, Evasion and the AC bonus at 2nd. It makes a GREAT 2-level dip for anything with a Wisdom focus (or a Charisma focus, or an Int focus, if you find the right feats for it). The Paladin picks up Heavy Armor proficiency, martial weapon proficiency, and shield proficiency at first; Divine Grace at second. The Paladin ALSO makes a great 2-level dip for anything with a Charisma focus. Similarly, Ninja is a great two-level dip for anything wis-focused (swift-action invisibility, AC bonus), Hexblade for Charisma (Arcane Resistance, Mettle), Fighter gives really useful bonus feats at 1st and 2nd, Barbarian gives you +10 foot move and (with the right alternate class feature) Pounce. And so on. You can make a much stronger character overall by doing a noticable dip-fest on one side and making the other relatively pure (usually a 'pure caster' - that is, a Full Casting class with PrC's that are also full casting). Figure out how your table feels about this sort of build.

Another thing to watch out for is losing focus. Pick a role, pick your primary based on that role, and pick your secondary as something that'll help that along. You've only got one set of feats, one set of equipment, and one set of ability scores. If you try to both be the Master Rogue and the Master Caster, you will most likely end up coming short on both. If you focus on the Master Rogue and use the casting to supplement that, or focus on the Master Caster and use the rogue to supplement that, you're going to do a lot better.

Finally: Pay attention to power curves. Full Casters tend to rule the roost starting at mid to high levels. Meatshields tend to rule the roost at low levels and fall away at mid to high levels. Skillmonkies tend to be middle-roaders the entire way. When you're starting at first, you'll want to make sure to pick something that'll be at least middle-road or better initially, and make sure you've got Full Casting for later.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Do you got any suggestions for prestige classes? I'm open to all ideas as of right now :)
I was thinking of waiting with a prestige class for the Ghaele to after level 14 so I can progress the casting further.
Thanks for the suggestions tho

It depends entirely on what you want the character to do.

For the Ghaele, you could go Ghaele 20// (fulfill prerequisites) 5/ PrC 9/ Divine Casting PrC 6. You can easily make that last six levels Contemplative to pick up two more domains, and even include a Cloistered Cleric level early on for three more domains, in addition to the two you automatically get from your racial spellcasting. You could also keep it simple with fourteen levels in a class that adds a lot of versatility, such as Incarnate or Binder, and finish with Contemplative, since the character is easily going to be extremely powerful without a lot of class level optimization.

Alternatively, since Ghaele gives you 14/20 spellcasting, you could see if gaining Cleric casting earlier via (Cloistered) Cleric levels and/or prestige classes would delay some of those 14 racial spellcaster levels to a later character level. That would add quite a bit of versatility in how you choose your earlier class levels. This can be particularly useful with something like Ardent into psionic prestige classes and Practiced Manifester. In this case you could take Cleric casting from class levels earlier to pick up 8th and 9th level Ardent powers later on while still gaining Cleric 9ths from your racial spellcasting.

[atemu1234]

Sha'ir, for flavor?

[Wacky89]

I'm leaning towards Djinni / Something, play it as a scout of sorts. Since we're playing from level 1 mindsight and flyspeed is super useful

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'm leaning towards Djinni / Something, play it as a scout of sorts. Since we're playing from level 1 mindsight and flyspeed is super useful

If you can get the Swordsage's x6 skill points at 1st level, you should probably go with that, just remember that if you multiclass odd-numbered levels you won't get full BAB unless your gestalt classes already get full BAB. Something like (Unarmed) Swordsage 2/ Ardent into Psychic Assassin (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d) gets you Mind Cripple which deals 2 Int damage per sneak attack. Mindsight tells you the opponents' Int scores, so you'll know how many hits it takes to put them into a coma regardless of their HP.

[Wacky89]

If you can get the Swordsage's x6 skill points at 1st level, you should probably go with that, just remember that if you multiclass odd-numbered levels you won't get full BAB unless your gestalt classes already get full BAB. Something like (Unarmed) Swordsage 2/ Ardent into Psychic Assassin (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d) gets you Mind Cripple which deals 2 Int damage per sneak attack. Mindsight tells you the opponents' Int scores, so you'll know how many hits it takes to put them into a coma regardless of their HP.

Great idea but the campaign has a any Non-Evil alligment requirement.

I was actually thinking Conjurer/Mage of the Arcane Order with immediate magic.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Great idea but the campaign has a any Non-Evil alligment requirement.

I was actually thinking Conjurer/Mage of the Arcane Order with immediate magic.

You can easily reflavor any assassin-type character as an agent/spy, and remove the death attack class feature along with the alignment and special prerequisites.

[Kraken]

If you're okay with using Wizards of the Coast web content, the avenger (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a)is basically an assassin, but instead of needing to be evil, you just need to be non-chaotic.

[Wacky89]

I decided to go with Djinni/Psion into Anarchic Initiate.

This is my first time making a psionic character, if any1 got any pointers.
I've read some of the Psion handbook.

If any1 got any pointers, here it is:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=1094324

Here was the character creation rules:

3.5, No Dragon Magazine, No Book of Erotic Fantasy.

Gestalt Rules will be used http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm

ECL will be 1//1. (You may use one side of your gestalt for LA/Templates/Racial Classes.)

1,000 starting gold, Non-magical items are fine, everything except eatable items. Magical items will have to be given a pass by me.

No Double spell-casting for the sake of Gestalt, if you want to be a Theurge on one side of your gestalt that's fine but a Wizard//Cleric will not be given a pass.

Point Buy, 32.

Good Aligned Character > Anything else and Evil will not be given a pass.