Gestalt "Theme" Build

[FallenSuns]

Hey all, so I'm involved with a gestalt campaign where the players rotate in and out and have multiple characters, with missions often taking place simultaneously as another is going on. There's also a lot of underdark involvement in this particular campaign.

Rules are:
Level 6 start.
LA is all halved, and LA buyoff is allowed. Templates/Races have to be cleared with the DM. (Mine are.)
In the case of a 1/2 LA, it's handled by simply starting with less xp. Meaning a 1/2 LA character would start at level 5, with half of the xp to level 6.

Prestige Classes and multiclassing can only be done on one side of the Gestalt.
Any non 3rd party 3.5e Books are available.
Maximum 1 Flaw.

Any assistance as far as feat selection, or other optimization is welcome.

So here's what I've got so far, planning out to level 20:
NE Dark Template Drow
Drow Racials: +2 Dex, Int, Cha, -2 Con. SR 11+Level, Darkvision 120ft, Light Blindness, racial spells, etc.
Stats available before racials: 16, 18, 16, 16, 14, 10.

Dark Template for Reference:
Darkvision 60 ft
Hide in plain sight
Resistance Cold 10
Superior Low Light Vision
Hide +8
Move Silently+6
+10 Movement Speed
+1 LA

1.5 LA for this character, in other words. Which I should be able to buy off immediately.

The vision for this character is a sort of hit and run style, with a focus on still being able to deal out an impressive amount of burst. I wish I could get more sneak attack in here, but it's not a priority as sneak attack falls off pretty hard as we level up what with constructs and undead, etc.

Level 1. Swordsage/Swashbuckler - Gain Free Weapon Finesse, Level 1 Feat: Darkstalker from LoM, Flaw Feat: Adaptive Style, Weapon focus: Shadow Hand (From Swordsage)

Level 2. Swordsage/Swashbuckler

Level 3. Swordsage/Swashbuckler - Insightful Strikes (Int to Damage) Level 3 Feat: Midnight Dodge (Need 1 Essentia to qualify for Umbral Disciple, also arguably more useful than normal dodge.)

Level 4. Swordsage/Fighter - Hit and Run Tactics from Drow of the Underdark ACF (Dex to Damage on all Flatfooted Opponents, Competence Bonus) , +2 Initiative, lose Heavy Armor/Tower Shield Prof.)
- Fighter Bonus Feat: Exotic Weapon Prof: Elven Court Blade. (Will be using an Aptitude Elven Court Blade)
- Insightful Strikes (Diamond Mind)

Level 5. Swordsage/Fighter
Fighter Bonus Feat: Combat Reflexes

Level 6. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple
- Level 6 Feat: Shadow Blade (While you are in a Shadow Hand stance and attack with one of the discipline's preferred weapons, you can add your Dexterity modifier as a bonus on melee damage for attacks made with the weapon.) I intend to be in Assassin's Stance most of the time, so this should be applicable quite often. Also, as written I believe this is an untyped bonus that stacks with the Hit and Run Tactics ACF.

Level 7. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple - Sneak Attack Gained Here.

Level 8. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple - Discipline Focus: Defensive Stance (Shadow Hand)

Level 9. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple
- Evasion gained here.
- Level 9 Feat: Craven

Level 10. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple - 2d6 sneak attack here.

Level 11. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple

Level 12. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple
-Discipline Focus, Insightful Strike [Stone Dragon or Shadow Hand]
- Level 12 Feat: Improved Critical Shortsword. (Shortsword happens to be on the Shadow Hand List, and I figured made a good back-up weapon to the Court Blade, which as an Aptitude weapon still benefits from this feat.)

Level 13. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple - 3d6 Sneak here.

Level 14. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple

Level 15. Swordsage/Umbral Disciple
- Level 15 Feat: Gloom Razor

Level 16. Swordsage/Fighter - Discipline Focus Defensive Stance [???]

Level 17. Swordsage/Fighter - Imp Evasion gained here.

Level 18. Swordsage/Fighter
- Level 18 Feat: ???
-Fighter Bonus Feat: ???

Level 19. Swordsage/Fighter

Level 20. Swordsage/Fighter
- Fighter Bonus Feat: ???


Any assistance or opinions/suggestions welcome.

[Aegis013]

You have 11 levels of Umbral Disciple, though there are only 10 available to you.
That means the last 5 levels on your Fighter side are giving you junk as far as benefit; the fighter bonus feats just aren't good enough and there are tons of other full BAB classes available to you that will help more.

Consider another MoI PrC so you can spend your essentia on something more useful.

[FallenSuns]

Whoops, did I really put 11 levels of Umbral in there? That's not even possible. You're right about the fighter levels, I don't really see the point of the later ones. Eternal Blade is an option, though I personally feel it to be lackluster until level 10.

*Edit: I actually cannot qualify for any other MoI PrC's from what I can tell.

[Jack_Simth]

Let's see...

Math problem: You've got 11 levels of Umbral Disciple, and it's a 10 level PrC. Ignoring that....

Power curve: Melee + Skill monkey. Your power curve starts out high (melee), and ends mid-range (skillmonkey). Tier 3.
Attribute Dependancy: You're looking at wanting good scores in Int (Swashbuckler), Wis (Swordsage), Dex (Attack rolls), and Con(Essentia, HP), at a minimum here. You're also going to want at least a little Strength for damage, so Charisma is your only possible dump stat. While yes, you've got the rolls to support this... you've only got your standard boosts during level up, and you've only got the one set of equipment. This level of MAD will eventually come back and bite you.
Acton economy: You sneak around and hit things. You've got a bit of variation on that, but this is all you really do. Small number of save-or-lose available via Swordsage, small number of utility effects available via swordsage.
Chassis: 6+Int skill points per level, 11d8+9d10 10d8+10d10 HD, 9 10 levels of full BAB, 11 10 of 3/4ths, all good Reflex and Will, 9 10 levels of food Fort.

Might I suggest a Cleric-20//Swordsage-5/Umbral Disciple-10/Swordsage+5, instead? Use the cleric side for buffs that make you better at things (DMM(Quicken) or DMM(Persist) for things like Divine Favor / Divine Power, and hey: You're drow, Lolth has some handy domain spells for you). You get a better power curve (skill monkey + some melee + Full Casting = T1), less MAD (Wis & Con primary; secondary of Str, Dex, Tetriary of Int/Cha), you get all good saves on your base chassis (and with a little casting, you essentially have full BAB and all d10 HD) while keeping the 6+Int/level skill points. By using the Cleric side almost entirely for self-buffing, you don't have an action economy issue... and you have a rather lot of flexibility on what you can do.

[Aegis013]

You should easily be able to qualify for Incarnum Blade. It's also a 5 level Prestige Class so it fits nicely into your open levels.

Unfortunately, while it opens numerous Charkas, it provides no soulmelds or binds, and frankly, nothing to utilize your essentia. With only one open feat, Shape Soulmeld (whatever you want) would be useful for something to use essentia on other than Midnight Dodge, but you won't have any binds, despite all the open chakras. Ask your DM about this, since there's the debate about Open Chakra feats providing a bind (otherwise they're useless) to see if this PrC might grant binds too, since you won't have much in the way of soulmelds to bind.

[FallenSuns]

Truth be told, I was actually trying to keep it to T2, the reason being that the campaign already has multiple characters. My other happens to be a Transmutation Domain Wizard/Factotum/Incantrix. (Or, very broken T1 in my opinion.)

But you're probably right that it doesn't leave me many options and the MAD is pretty terrible. The rolls being decent help.

Equipment to start is 15k, but I can buy new stuff as the campaign continues. I'm not actually limited in that aspect.

[FallenSuns]

You should easily be able to qualify for Incarnum Blade. It's also a 5 level Prestige Class so it fits nicely into your open levels.

Unfortunately, while it opens numerous Charkas, it provides no soulmelds or binds, and frankly, nothing to utilize your essentia. With only one open feat, Shape Soulmeld (whatever you want) would be useful for something to use essentia on other than Midnight Dodge, but you won't have any binds, despite all the open chakras. Ask your DM about this, since there's the debate about Open Chakra feats providing a bind (otherwise they're useless) to see if this PrC might grant binds too, since you won't have much in the way of soulmelds to bind.

I imagine the majority of my essentia will go directly into the Umbral Disciple Abilities. Namely, The Blindsense, concealment, and Extra Melee Range. Regardless, I'll ask so it's an available option.

[Jack_Simth]

But you're probably right that it doesn't leave me many options and the MAD is pretty terrible. The rolls being decent help.

Equipment to start is 15k, but I can buy new stuff as the campaign continues. I'm not actually limited in that aspect.Unless you somehow end up with effectively limitless wealth, yes, you are limited in that aspect. Oh, you can change out your equipment a bit... but in a level or two where you've got 40k available... you're still splitting that between four major ability scores, rather than just two or three.

[FallenSuns]

Unless you somehow end up with effectively limitless wealth, yes, you are limited in that aspect. Oh, you can change out your equipment a bit... but in a level or two where you've got 40k available... you're still splitting that between four major ability scores, rather than just two or three.

You're right, what I should've said is I'm not limited to a single set with no chance at upgrading. But buffing 4 different stats with items is not ideal in any respect.

Instead of Cleric, is Favored Soul an option to bring it down to T2? If I'm using casting only for buffing, I shouldn't care much about save DC's anyhow.

[Troacctid]

Those Swashbuckler levels need to go. They're doing nothing for you except making you more MAD than you already are. All of the Fighter levels past the second are really poor value too. Actually, even the second level of Fighter is bad--at least the first one gives you Hit and Run, but the second is basically just straight-up worse than Monk or Feat Rogue.


You should easily be able to qualify for Incarnum Blade. It's also a 5 level Prestige Class so it fits nicely into your open levels.

Unfortunately, while it opens numerous Charkas, it provides no soulmelds or binds, and frankly, nothing to utilize your essentia. With only one open feat, Shape Soulmeld (whatever you want) would be useful for something to use essentia on other than Midnight Dodge, but you won't have any binds, despite all the open chakras. Ask your DM about this, since there's the debate about Open Chakra feats providing a bind (otherwise they're useless) to see if this PrC might grant binds too, since you won't have much in the way of soulmelds to bind.

Incarnum Blade is a garbage class. No reason to take it. Like, ever.

Umbral Disciples aren't exactly drowning in essentia. They barely have enough to power their own class features. I don't think having too much of it is going to be an issue.


Instead of Cleric, is Favored Soul an option to bring it down to T2? If I'm using casting only for buffing, I shouldn't care much about save DC's anyhow.
Yes, buuut Favored Soul has the kind of annoying drawback of being just a weakened sloppily designed knock-off version of Cleric, so I don't really recommend it? Ask if you can use the spontaneous version (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) of the Cleric instead. It's still T2, but a lot more interesting and palatable IMO.

[Jack_Simth]

You're right, what I should've said is I'm not limited to a single set with no chance at upgrading. But buffing 4 different stats with items is not ideal in any respect.

Instead of Cleric, is Favored Soul an option to bring it down to T2? If I'm using casting only for buffing, I shouldn't care much about save DC's anyhow.Absolutely. But as Troacctid suggested: Spontaneous Cleric instead. Much better.

[FallenSuns]

I'll look into it, see what the DM says. May update this later as a result. Much appreciated for help.