3.5/PF Gestalt Build Help

[Aragorn5000]

Hello gents, I've been lurking for a while but this is my first actual post. I've recently gotten back into roleplaying after years of being away. Loving it as usual. I've not played since 2007 or so. Never played PF so some of the modifications are seriously throwing me (Deeper Darkness isn't totally dark anymore? What? Bummer lol, there goes my fast healing).

Ok, so as a break from the normal campaigns while our usual DM is gone we're going to run "world's largest dungeon". I never play casters, and I have taken it upon myself to fix this issue. Frankly I've been a "hit it with my sword, break it in two" guy, goes with my personality lol. I think this is a good time to mess with arcane casting in a non-campaign setting and figure some of it out so I can open myself up.

We are a group that plays mid-high OP. This is essentially a time killing munchkin dungeon crawl. So here's the vague idea of the build I'm thinking of. 3rd party is allowed, open choice of race but low LA, starting 1st level gestalt:

Arcanist(10)/swashbuckler/skirmisher (AEG Mercenaries PrC)/warblade with 2-4 fighter levels for feats/1 rogue dip for 1st character level skill points (skirmisher pre-reqs -- 22 skill rank allotments). We've already rolled Ability scores, here are mine: 16,16,12,18,17,14

Swashbuckler/Skirmisher levels TBD, don't know. HOUSE RULE (I think, dunno actual gestalt rules): can vary any class as long as one stays constant all the way up (arcanist). General idea is a full caster who can also channel spells through his melee weapon. I know I know, spellsword...but I want to work with full casting abilities so I can get a feel for abilities without sword as well.

If somebody wants to go an entirely different direction I'm open to most anything really. This is a) the first gestalt character I've ever played and going to be the first arcane caster as well. Combine with being new to PF and I'm out of my league lol. Thank God for the 3.5/PF hybrid back compatibility.

[Zweisteine]

I apologize for the poor readability of this post.

First off, a few questions about DM rulings/rules.

You say "low LA." Will any LA you have be counted as normal, or is it free? And if it is counted, will it be on one or both sides of the gestalt?

And are you using 3.5e material where it does not overlap with PF? You've got Warblade in there, which is a 3.5e class... For Pathfinder, you'll want to look at the Path of War (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war) classes.

Are you using traits (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits)? How many?


Arcanist(10)/swashbuckler/skirmisher (AEG Mercenaries PrC)/warblade with 2-4 fighter levels for feats/1 rogue dip for 1st character level skill points (skirmisher pre-reqs -- 22 skill rank allotments). We've already rolled Ability scores, here are mine: 16,16,12,18,17,14

Swashbuckler/Skirmisher levels TBD, don't know. HOUSE RULE (I think, dunno actual gestalt rules): can vary any class as long as one stays constant all the way up (arcanist). General idea is a full caster who can also channel spells through his melee weapon. I know I know, spellsword...but I want to work with full casting abilities so I can get a feel for abilities without sword as well.

To start, gestalt notation is [side 1 classes]//[side 2 classes], so you're looking at Arcanist//Swashbuckler/Skirmisher.

Second, what skills does the skirmisher PrC require? In my quick attempt to find it online the only mention of it as the subject of a conversation was a thread about how it is very much overpowered.

Onto actual thoughts on your build.
Unfortunately, I know little about either of your main classes. My first though is that you might want to do something a bit less MAD, but then I remember that you rolled really well. So you're safe on that front. Even so, I would recommend a charisma-based class for your caster, to go with your Swashbuckler side.

For someone new to casters, though, I'd recommend a sorcerer or other spontaneous caster (i.e. oracle). They get more spells per day than anyone else, so you don't have to worry as much about managing that, and you don't have to worry about preparation. Much easier for a first-time caster. Having fewer spells known also won't hurt as much on a gestalt character with a clear purpose. And you'd drop from very MAD to only slightly MAD.


Which side are you planning to focus most on? If you plan to be a caster with melee as a backup plan, your build will be quite different from one that's a swordsman backed up by sorcery. And if you do that, you might want to look into Magus (though I suspect it isn't as good for a full caster gestalt).

Have your first level be Swashbuckler if you're going to be a dexterity/charisma based warrior, and pick up Deadly Agility (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/feats#TOC-Deadly-Agility-Combat-) as your first feat. That will eliminate most of your need for strength, ever. For ability scores, I then might go Str 12, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 18 (switch Int and Cha if not taking any Int-based class levels).

One possibility could be Sorcerer//Magus 2/Swashbuckler. By learning Magus spells as a sorcerer, you could spam the Magus' spellstrike far more than normal. If you want to be more focused on the magus and melee parts, be a Arcane (Sage) Bloodline Sorcerer, and have abilities 12/18/16/17/14/16.

Another good idea might be to rely primarily on your melee side (probably swashbuckler/warlord) in combat, and take oracle on the casting side for support casting purposes. Oracles get a bunch of good stuff, and have a few ways to get charisma to important things like AC.

SUMMARY:
If going for melee/charisma base, be a Oracle//Swashbuckler/Warlord.
If going for a melee/intelligence base, be a Sage Sorcerer//Magus 2+(/Swashbuckler?).

The full gestalt rules can be found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).

As for the house rule about one class staying constant... Are you allowed to use prestige classes on that side?

[FocusWolf413]

If you can use Dreamscarred Press, an Elan Psion, Wilder, Erudite, etc//Soulknife would be cool. Use the caster side to buff yourself and use the cutthroat variant of soulknife to get sneak attack. Focus your points into your casting stat, dex, and con. Get weapon finesse and maybe the twf line. Use the agility enhancement to add dex to damage. With sneak attack, you can easily pick up craven and staggering strike.

It's not the most powerful, but it is extremely flavorful and fun. Most importantly, it suits your play style.

[Brova]

My favorite simple Gestalt build is Rogue 20 || Wizard 3/Binder 1/Anima Mage 10/Caster PrC 6. You get a bunch of dice of sneak attack, three free persists, and whatever your second PrC gets you (Incantatrix for more persist, Archmage for random value, whatever). I wish you could keep taking Anima Mage levels for as long as you'd like, but for some reason you can't.

If you want to go full caster, you could do worse than Dread Necromancer 20 || Druid 5/Sorcerer 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge 4. You get almost full Druid casting, full DN casting, undead hordes, Sorcerer utility, and you are a dire bear. Note: You can get into Arcane Hierophant with four Druid levels, but you don't get Wild Shape.

[pi4t]

For someone new to casters, though, I'd recommend a sorcerer or other spontaneous caster (i.e. oracle). They get more spells per day than anyone else, so you don't have to worry as much about managing that, and you don't have to worry about preparation. Much easier for a first-time caster. Having fewer spells known also won't hurt as much on a gestalt character with a clear purpose. And you'd drop from very MAD to only slightly MAD.

I disagree with this. When you're new to casting, it's easy to pick up some spells which looked great, but turn out weak in practice. With a spontaneous caster, you're stuck with them until you very slowly swap them out as you level. With an arcanist, if you find a spell isn't as much use as you thought, you can prepare a new one tomorrow! The main problem with a new player playing a prepared caster is that you have to predict just how many fireballs/charm persons/webs/etc you'll need on a given day, but the arcanist neatly circumvents this issue. The arcanist's main weakness is having less spells per day than either prepared or spontaneous casters, which is less of a problem in gestalt.

If you go arcanist, consider making the other side of your gestalt a magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus). It's an intelligence based class which focusses on using spells in combat. Normally, taking two spellcasting classes in gestalt is a bad idea as you only have one standard action per turn, but in this case the benefits come from the noncasting class abilities. Importantly, you can make all the key magus abilities also apply to your arcanist spells, using a combination of broad study (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/magus-arcana/paizo---magus-arcana/broad-study-ex) and the kensai (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/kensai) archetype. The former lets you use your higher level arcanist spells on the same turn as attacking in melee, and channel them through your melee weapons, to quote the OP. The latter gives you a lot of bonuses for a high intelligence in exchange for the armour proficiencies (which you'll never use: armour will still interfere with your arcanist casting) and a magus spell per level (which isn't so important, since you have arcanist spellcasting too). Broad study has a prerequisite of level 6, which is conveniently the first level that the arcanist has higher level spells than the magus.

Surprisingly, the arcanist has very little reliance on charisma - it affects a few of his exploits, but none of the really good ones, and it doesn't affect his spellcasting or arcane pool. Thus if you went arcanist//magus you could quite reasonably put your 12 or 14 in charisma, and not miss out on much. That would mean the only attributes you cared about were int, str, dex and con - and if the pathfinder path of war content is allowed, you could take weapon finesse + deadly agility to remove the str dependency, if you wanted. Or weapon finesse + agility enchantment, if you prefer, although you wouldn't be able to do that for a little while.

[Aragorn5000]

I apologize for the poor readability of this post.

First off, a few questions about DM rulings/rules.

You say "low LA." Will any LA you have be counted as normal, or is it free? And if it is counted, will it be on one or both sides of the gestalt?

And are you using 3.5e material where it does not overlap with PF? You've got Warblade in there, which is a 3.5e class... For Pathfinder, you'll want to look at the Path of War (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war) classes.

Are you using traits (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits)? How many?



To start, gestalt notation is [side 1 classes]//[side 2 classes], so you're looking at Arcanist//Swashbuckler/Skirmisher.

Second, what skills does the skirmisher PrC require? In my quick attempt to find it online the only mention of it as the subject of a conversation was a thread about how it is very much overpowered.

Onto actual thoughts on your build.
Unfortunately, I know little about either of your main classes. My first though is that you might want to do something a bit less MAD, but then I remember that you rolled really well. So you're safe on that front. Even so, I would recommend a charisma-based class for your caster, to go with your Swashbuckler side.

For someone new to casters, though, I'd recommend a sorcerer or other spontaneous caster (i.e. oracle). They get more spells per day than anyone else, so you don't have to worry as much about managing that, and you don't have to worry about preparation. Much easier for a first-time caster. Having fewer spells known also won't hurt as much on a gestalt character with a clear purpose. And you'd drop from very MAD to only slightly MAD.


Which side are you planning to focus most on? If you plan to be a caster with melee as a backup plan, your build will be quite different from one that's a swordsman backed up by sorcery. And if you do that, you might want to look into Magus (though I suspect it isn't as good for a full caster gestalt).

Have your first level be Swashbuckler if you're going to be a dexterity/charisma based warrior, and pick up Deadly Agility (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war/feats#TOC-Deadly-Agility-Combat-) as your first feat. That will eliminate most of your need for strength, ever. For ability scores, I then might go Str 12, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 18 (switch Int and Cha if not taking any Int-based class levels).

One possibility could be Sorcerer//Magus 2/Swashbuckler. By learning Magus spells as a sorcerer, you could spam the Magus' spellstrike far more than normal. If you want to be more focused on the magus and melee parts, be a Arcane (Sage) Bloodline Sorcerer, and have abilities 12/18/16/17/14/16.

Another good idea might be to rely primarily on your melee side (probably swashbuckler/warlord) in combat, and take oracle on the casting side for support casting purposes. Oracles get a bunch of good stuff, and have a few ways to get charisma to important things like AC.

SUMMARY:
If going for melee/charisma base, be a Oracle//Swashbuckler/Warlord.
If going for a melee/intelligence base, be a Sage Sorcerer//Magus 2+(/Swashbuckler?).

The full gestalt rules can be found here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).

As for the house rule about one class staying constant... Are you allowed to use prestige classes on that side?


Thanks for the tip on gestalt notation and yes, 3.5e only classes are allowed as well without overlap. I wasn't clear on things when I said 3.5/PF hybrid. What I meant was either/or are allowable--both PF only classes (hence arcanist, which is hybrid sorcerer/wizard class) and 3.5 only. Really, we're pretty wide open in our options and play in general, but this is also kinda side-crawl Munchkiny so mostly just for fun.

House rule constant class has to be non PrC. Can be base, core, alternate, hybrid (PF), whatever. Just not PrC.

Arcanist is a blend of casting methods. "An arcanist casts arcane spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list. An arcanist must prepare her spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, her spells are not expended when they're cast. Instead, she can cast any spell that she has prepared consuming a spell slot of the appropriate level, assuming she hasn't yet used up her spell slots per day for that level.....Like a sorcerer, an arcanist can choose to apply any metamagic feats she knows to a prepared spell as she casts it, with the same increase in casting time (see Spontaneous Casting and Metamagic Feats). However, she may also prepare a spell with any metamagic feats she knows and cast it without increasing casting time like a wizard." http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/arcanist

The save DCs for Arcanist class exploits are all Charisma based so the class relies heavily on both charisma and intelligence.

The LA is "free". Looking mostly for stat boosts to Int, Cha, Dex since those are the 3 primaries for all the classes I mentioned, unless of course I change classes. Arcanist is Int though with Cha based save DC traits. Definitely considering your Oracle idea.

Skirmisher is likely overpowered lol but....munchkin game. Pre-reqs: alignment non-lawful, SKILLS: climb 4, hide 6, disguise 4, intuit/know direction 4, move silently 4, FEATS: Combat Reflexes, Blindfight, Improved Initiative, Run

Skirmisher gets to add his Int to AC, so I felt it stacked well with an Int based casting class.

Sooo....I say full caster with swordsman as back up, but then if you look at the skirmisher it's completely swordsman lol. And a helluva PrC (probly exactly why it is 3rd party). Since I can gestalt I can run a swordsman class so I'm not a squish if it comes to it, but focus on spellcasting. Basically hedging my bet lol. I will definitely be taking the "Deadly Agility" feat, that's a great one and I can dump Str.

[Aragorn5000]

If you can use Dreamscarred Press, an Elan Psion, Wilder, Erudite, etc//Soulknife would be cool. Use the caster side to buff yourself and use the cutthroat variant of soulknife to get sneak attack. Focus your points into your casting stat, dex, and con. Get weapon finesse and maybe the twf line. Use the agility enhancement to add dex to damage. With sneak attack, you can easily pick up craven and staggering strike.

It's not the most powerful, but it is extremely flavorful and fun. Most importantly, it suits your play style.

We can use 3rd party press so I'll give that a look. I'm completely unfamiliar with Erudite and Soulknife. Sounds fun! :smallsmile:

[Aragorn5000]

I disagree with this. When you're new to casting, it's easy to pick up some spells which looked great, but turn out weak in practice. With a spontaneous caster, you're stuck with them until you very slowly swap them out as you level. With an arcanist, if you find a spell isn't as much use as you thought, you can prepare a new one tomorrow! The main problem with a new player playing a prepared caster is that you have to predict just how many fireballs/charm persons/webs/etc you'll need on a given day, but the arcanist neatly circumvents this issue. The arcanist's main weakness is having less spells per day than either prepared or spontaneous casters, which is less of a problem in gestalt.

If you go arcanist, consider making the other side of your gestalt a magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus).

It's an intelligence based class which focusses on using spells in combat. Normally, taking two spellcasting classes in gestalt is a bad idea as you only have one standard action per turn, but in this case the benefits come from the noncasting class abilities. Importantly, you can make all the key magus abilities also apply to your arcanist spells, using a combination of broad study (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/magus-arcana/paizo---magus-arcana/broad-study-ex) and the kensai (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus/archetypes/paizo---magus-archetypes/kensai) archetype. The former lets you use your higher level arcanist spells on the same turn as attacking in melee, and channel them through your melee weapons, to quote the OP. The latter gives you a lot of bonuses for a high intelligence in exchange for the armour proficiencies (which you'll never use: armour will still interfere with your arcanist casting) and a magus spell per level (which isn't so important, since you have arcanist spellcasting too). Broad study has a prerequisite of level 6, which is conveniently the first level that the arcanist has higher level spells than the magus.

Surprisingly, the arcanist has very little reliance on charisma - it affects a few of his exploits, but none of the really good ones, and it doesn't affect his spellcasting or arcane pool. Thus if you went arcanist//magus you could quite reasonably put your 12 or 14 in charisma, and not miss out on much. That would mean the only attributes you cared about were int, str, dex and con - and if the pathfinder path of war content is allowed, you could take weapon finesse + deadly agility to remove the str dependency, if you wanted. Or weapon finesse + agility enchantment, if you prefer, although you wouldn't be able to do that for a little while.

Thanks for the great ideas, this is something I hadn't thought about....though I have no idea why! Haha.

Your points about Arcanist are kind of why I wanted to work with it for the first spellcaster I have: the flexibility means I'm not screwed too badly if I grab a spell that turns out to suck for the situation but it also makes me practice preparing a spellbook etc. All good things to get used to.

[Aragorn5000]

So I guess for information purposes for you guys gracious enough to help me out, here's the Skirmisher Class traits in short hand:

10 level PrC, full +10 BAB, Saves at 10th level: Fort +6, Reflex +7, Will +7

1st level: Add Intelligence modifier to AC, great for caster w/o armor

2nd level: ranged weapon feat, not useful for me, but: "Unorthodox Tactics: Skirmisher may ignore up to his class level in attack penalties for firing into melee. Example: 3rd level Skirmisher only suffers -1 when firing into melee....and 6th level Skirmisher only suffers -2 when firing into melee and past an ally who is providing cover."

3rd level: Fall back--skirmisher learns to fight normally while looking for a more advantageous position. May now take a full-round attack action and then also take a move equivalent action in any given round.

4th level: Ambush--Any time a skirmisher attacks enemy who is denied Dex AC modifier or is flanked, skirmisher strikes a vital spot. Any successful attack roll is considered a critical threat. (NOTE: if I took swashbuckler, I get my spent panache pool refilled every time I critical)

5th level: Disguised Strike--A skirmisher is never surprised and gains a bonus to his attacks during a surprise round that is equal to his skirmisher level

6th level: Sightless Strike--may operate without sight just as if he could see perfectly. Blindsight feat up to 30 ft away.

7th level: Enhanced Reflexes--any time the skirmisher is allowed an attack of opportunity on a single opponent he may make two attack rolls instead of one, so long as he has attack remaining.

8th level: Fast as Lightning--base land speed increase +10 ft while in no armor/light armor. In addition, retains his Dex bonus to AC regardless of being caught flat footed or struck by invisible attacker.

9th level: Enhanced critical--Whenever a skirmisher catches his opponents flat-footed, his critical threat range and modifier both increase by 1. (NOTE: works well with swashbuckler rapier)

10th level: Skirmisher ALWAYS catches his opponents flat footed.

[Zweisteine]

Hmmm...

I'd recommend checking with your DM before using that class. It's quite... strong.

I assume that last ability simply means that if he would have a chance of catching an enemy flat-footed, it happens, and not that his enemies ware always flat-footed. That would be silly.

(And you only regain 1 panache on a critical. Just making sure.)

[Aragorn5000]

Hmmm...

I'd recommend checking with your DM before using that class. It's quite... strong.

I assume that last ability simply means that if he would have a chance of catching an enemy flat-footed, it happens, and not that his enemies ware always flat-footed. That would be silly.

(And you only regain 1 panache on a critical. Just making sure.)

Yep, just 1 panache point. But then if I can crit 50% of the time... And nope, it's actually explicitly stated in the 10th level description that you always catch your opponents flat footed (unless, of course, they are immune to being caught flat footed).

Totally OP yes. But just making sure you remember this isn't a campaign but a dungeon crawl--just for killing time between campaign sets. Basically a goof off, and there are only going to be 2 of us with the DM as the rest are out of town.

I want to do it just to see what happens with the cheese factor, but in all seriousness I would probably (if allowed to use this class in a normal style campaign) just go up to level 4-6 to get an extra action for casting and improved chance of crits and blindsight without using feats. I doubt this would be an allowable class otherwise lol. BTW, magus + arcanist...yes.