Paladin/blackguard Gestalt

[DuckHunter]

Yes.. DM has allowed me to utilize the two classes at the same time. Let me explain...

So, I'm restatting an old character that marked history with our roleplaying group. He began his career as a paladin, then after finding out his god was a fraud (an ordinary outsider), he renounced his faith and became a thrall to a demon. After that, he turned into a blackguard, but at the time, the DM has allowed me to use both paladin and blackguard powers. After freeing himself from the demon, he decided that if anything could be called a god, then he would turn into a god himself.

Keep in mind that some rules were taken pretty lightly back then.

Deciding to go on a quest for power, he eventually found psionic powers and started using them. Also, he had several unique items on his arsenal. He eventually rose to godhood, killed the Guardian of the Eighth Heaven (tailor-made for the campaign) and became the ultimate beign in that universe.

I've decided to recreate the character for a possible reboot. So, I have some questions regarding him.

1. The paladin/blackguard gestalt. How good would that actually be? It's pretty badass for fluff reasons, but mechanically speaking, what's the playground's opinion?

2. What classes do you recommend, based on the story above and power level? In the original game, he had an AC so high that he earned the moniker of "Untouchable", so please, keep that in mind, too.

3. He also had an extremely strong case of magic immunity. It was due to one of his swords, which created an Anti-Magic Zone around himself, so every spell cast upon him would fail. He probably wouldn't have that in this new iteration, but something similar would be appreciated.

Can you guys help me out?

[Mr.Kraken]

As part of the possible reboot, I'm looking forward to what the playground has to say. :smallcool:

[Jack_Simth]

Well, if you're OK with alignment and fluff flexibility, and you're going Gestalt... maybe you could catch most of the flavour you want (eventually) with something like:

Wilder-20//Paladin-5/Blackguard-10/Pious Templar (Complete Divine)-5

Heavy Armor and a tower shield - both of which apply to Touch as well, thanks to Wilder - gives you a hard-to-beat AC; Charisma-based manifesting (and you can change powers via Psychic Reformation when you need to), lots of power points, and Mettle. Add a Ring of Evasion to the mix, and with Charisma to saves twice, you ignore most spells (powers too) simply by saving and then Evasion or Mettle. Meanwhile, you kill things with your mind. A fairly SAD build, you need little more than Charisma and Constitution.

[Mr.Kraken]

Well, if you're OK with alignment and fluff flexibility, and you're going Gestalt... maybe you could catch most of the flavour you want (eventually) with something like:

Wilder-20//Paladin-5/Blackguard-10/Pious Templar (Complete Divine)-5

Heavy Armor and a tower shield - both of which apply to Touch as well, thanks to Wilder - gives you a hard-to-beat AC; Charisma-based manifesting (and you can change powers via Psychic Reformation when you need to), lots of power points, and Mettle. Add a Ring of Evasion to the mix, and with Charisma to saves twice, you ignore most spells (powers too) simply by saving and then Evasion or Mettle. Meanwhile, you kill things with your mind. A fairly SAD build, you need little more than Charisma and Constitution.

Why five levels of pious templar? Only one would be good, IMO.

[Flickerdart]

A dip into Hexblade will give you CHA to saves VS spells, and it's got a pretty good anti-paladin feel to it.

Also consider the Blackguard's ex-paladin rules. Either go Paladin 1/Blackguard 10, or start with Paladin of Tyranny 10 and then reap all the benefits of being a Blackguard Paladin without losing your Paladin powers.

[Jack_Simth]

Why five levels of pious templar? Only one would be good, IMO.
No particular reason, really. Saves on dipping. There's a rather lot of optimization that's possible, but the way things were phrased didn't strike me as a table where a lot of optimization was a good thing.

[AmberVael]

1. The paladin/blackguard gestalt. How good would that actually be? It's pretty badass for fluff reasons, but mechanically speaking, what's the playground's opinion?
Not very. There is a ton of overlap between the two, so you're not actually benefiting from gestalt in any way. Plus, neither of them are terribly effective classes in the first place (though dips can be nice.)
It does sound like a fun concept though.


2. What classes do you recommend, based on the story above and power level? In the original game, he had an AC so high that he earned the moniker of "Untouchable", so please, keep that in mind, too.

Rather than recommending a specific build, some classes this makes me think of-

1) Ardent. Though many dislike it for its fluff, the very reason it is disliked makes it a pretty good choice here- its a psionic class with a lot of religious and spiritual flavor to it. You could easily substitute it in for one of your classes and get strong psionics and a rather divine crusader sort of flavor at the same time. Also, works a ton better than other psionic classes even without full levels due to how it determines what level of powers it can get.
2) Crusader. Its Paladin, but Tome of Battle! And thus more powerful. Even putting aside the increased level of power, using Crusader instead of Paladin (or Blackguard) would diversify your abilities a little bit, while maintaining your fluff pretty well. Probably replace Paladin with it. It just seems to work for the purposes of good a lot easier than evil, if you ask me. Mainly because a lot of its divine flavor is in protection or healing, which are generally more associated with good.
3) Psychic Warrior. You mentioned psionics, and paladin and blackguard are both warrior oriented classes... makes sense to me!

If you wanted to use Ardent or Psychic Warrior along with paladin then it might be prudent to get the Serenity feat (Dragon Magazine 306) to let you use Wisdom for all your paladin feats. Potentially even add in Intuitive Attack and something like a monk's belt for pure wisdom build shenanigans.



3. He also had an extremely strong case of magic immunity. It was due to one of his swords, which created an Anti-Magic Zone around himself, so every spell cast upon him would fail. He probably wouldn't have that in this new iteration, but something similar would be appreciated.

Well with the right psionics class (and potentially use of Expanded Knowledge) you could drop doing it with a sword and just manifest Null Psionics Field (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/nullPsionicsField.htm) yourself (which normally applies to magic as well due to magic-psionics transparency rules).


As for untouchable, proper use of the Inertial Armor, Force Screen, and Defensive Precognition psionic powers on top of defensive magic items can really skyrocket your AC. Add in Vigor just to frustrate people even more.
"Well you finally hit me. Only a few more hits before you can actually start dealing hp damage to me!"