Zrak
2015-10-18, 03:44 AM
Hi, Playgrounders. I'm hoping to pick your collective brains to help me build a couple characters The basic situation is that I'm trying to create two characters for a sandbox-style 3.5e gestalt game that begins at level three; I came up with a couple character concepts that I like and, moreover, feel lend themselves particularly well the possibilities of gestalt. The main problem is that I'm terrible at creating gestalt characters whose two halves work together to create a coherent, cohesive whole; generally, my gestalt characters always come out mechanically feeling like single-classed characters with better numbers, even if they're specifically designed around concepts that make use of both halves of the build. Rather than build the characters myself and, in all likelihood, arrive at the same end result, I thought I'd post the basic concepts here and ask for help from people with more experience successfully designing gestalt characters. In general, I'm not necessarily looking for help optimizing the power of either build, but more for helping tailoring the build to the concept and making the two halves of the gestalt work together.
While I already have some ideas for each build, they aren't set in stone, so feel free to suggest alternatives that throw out most or all of my tentative ideas, if you think they'll work better. Thanks in advance, and without further ado, here are the concepts, rules, and tentative builds.
I think the relevant aspects of the character creation rules are pretty simple, although I can check about anything else that comes up. In terms of material, anything from an official WotC source is allowed and third-party may be allowed on a case-by-case basis. Ability scores are 32 point buy, health is max for each HD, and the starting gold is 3,000. Level adjustment is allowed, and only takes up one side of the gestalt.
1) The Green Knight
The first idea I had was for a character who emulated a sort of amalgamation of the various versions of the Green Knight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Knight) from Arthurian legend. In mechanical terms, this would end up as a buff-focused gish to reflect the character's knightly martial prowess and his strange, magical aspects. On an aesthetic level, the character should be green and wield as giant an axe as possible; these don't have to be mechanically justified, as such, but I'd much rather they have some connection to the mechanics, rather than being purely descriptive aspects.
Currently, my idea is a Primordial Half Giant Psion//Warblade, going into anarchic initiate on the psion side. I think the two halves of this character would actually be pretty easy work into a coherent whole as-is. . . if I hadn't forgotten everything I knew about building initiators. Like I said above, I'm open to other suggestions if you think another build would work better, but with what I have right now, I think the main thing I need help with is working out how to best make the Warblade half a mechanically and thematically contributing part of the build.
Fluffing the half-giant's giantish parent as a storm giant gives us the green skin, while Powerful Build justifies our giant axe; the LA isn't as much of an issue since it won't hurt as much in a gestalt build, and since it opens up the primordial template, which will help a lot of I end up with an Int- or Cha-based casting class. Psion is int-based and psionic, so it has good synergy with a primordial half-giant, and most psionic powers are fluffed vaguely enough to just make their displays nature-y versions of whatever's listed. Moreover, it leads into Anarchic Initiate, which has a lot of aspects that fit the Green Knight's nature-as-chaotic-foil-of-chivalry aspects and works in some of the mysterious magical properties. While Druid might seem like an obvious choice for the casting half, I'd actually rather avoid it for a couple reasons; first, it's a little too on-the-nose for my tastes; and second, while the fluff is too on-the-nose, the mechanics actually weren't that close to what I had in mind, since the Green Knight isn't really associated with shapeshifting in the wildshape sense and doesn't really have an animal companion beyond sometimes riding a horse. As for the martial side, I wlean towards Warblade honestly just because of the intelligence synergies, because a d12 HD suits the Green Knight's supernatural toughness, and because I just sort of assume some stances and maneuvers will suit the concept, but it's been long enough since I've made an initiator I don't really know where to start, which is why I think the Warblade/martial half is where I need the most help.
In terms of feats, I'd need room for Overchannel to qualify for anarchic initiate. Otherwise, all I really have in mind is taking Faerie Mysteries Initiate if it's allowed, which I'd assume it's not, since this is probably the only character I'll ever make where that feat is thematically relevant enough to excuse its colossal cheese, given the whole thing with Gawain and the Green Knight's wife, all versions of the Green Knight gaining their magical powers from their association with a woman, and the Green Knight's association with the natural/fey world.
2) The Hound of Urogalan
Way back in the days of AD&D, the first multi-class character I ever made was a halfling ranger/cleric of Urogalan the DM agreed to let me play despite its various clashes with the AD&D rules, probably because a Perky Goth halfling ranger was a welcome respite from and bulwark against the brooding Drizzt imitators that were probably at their peak around then. Given that Gestalt works along similar lines to AD&D multiclassing, I thought I'd make a sort of homage to that character. The general schtick I had in mind was a priest of Urogalan whose duty is to seek out the remains of the halfling dead wherever they may be (wherever (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator)) and return them home for a proper burial. In mechanical terms, I'd want a divine caster who's uniquely skilled at infiltration and escape, in addition to the standard priestly skills of fighting his way through a dungeon and returning undead to rest. This build has a few more set-in-stone aspects than the Green Knight build (i.e. he has to be halfling and worship Urogalan) but I have less ideas of how to actually make the character beyond those basic aspects.
The very loose idea would be to combine a divine casting class on one half of the build with a more skill-focused class on the other half, but I'd also like to manage to get at least decent martial capabilities with a flail in there somewhere, mostly because when you have a deity with a super rad and mechanically decent favored weapon, it's a shame not to take advantage of it. A pretty easy route would be to just go Cleric//Ranger again, but I could see something like Archivist//Factotum outshining it, especially since I'd rather the skill-focused side of the character emphasize dungeoneering and general infiltration skills more than wilderness survival and Urogalan's domains don't exactly provide a lot of stellar or mechanically interesting options.
While I already have some ideas for each build, they aren't set in stone, so feel free to suggest alternatives that throw out most or all of my tentative ideas, if you think they'll work better. Thanks in advance, and without further ado, here are the concepts, rules, and tentative builds.
I think the relevant aspects of the character creation rules are pretty simple, although I can check about anything else that comes up. In terms of material, anything from an official WotC source is allowed and third-party may be allowed on a case-by-case basis. Ability scores are 32 point buy, health is max for each HD, and the starting gold is 3,000. Level adjustment is allowed, and only takes up one side of the gestalt.
1) The Green Knight
The first idea I had was for a character who emulated a sort of amalgamation of the various versions of the Green Knight (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Knight) from Arthurian legend. In mechanical terms, this would end up as a buff-focused gish to reflect the character's knightly martial prowess and his strange, magical aspects. On an aesthetic level, the character should be green and wield as giant an axe as possible; these don't have to be mechanically justified, as such, but I'd much rather they have some connection to the mechanics, rather than being purely descriptive aspects.
Currently, my idea is a Primordial Half Giant Psion//Warblade, going into anarchic initiate on the psion side. I think the two halves of this character would actually be pretty easy work into a coherent whole as-is. . . if I hadn't forgotten everything I knew about building initiators. Like I said above, I'm open to other suggestions if you think another build would work better, but with what I have right now, I think the main thing I need help with is working out how to best make the Warblade half a mechanically and thematically contributing part of the build.
Fluffing the half-giant's giantish parent as a storm giant gives us the green skin, while Powerful Build justifies our giant axe; the LA isn't as much of an issue since it won't hurt as much in a gestalt build, and since it opens up the primordial template, which will help a lot of I end up with an Int- or Cha-based casting class. Psion is int-based and psionic, so it has good synergy with a primordial half-giant, and most psionic powers are fluffed vaguely enough to just make their displays nature-y versions of whatever's listed. Moreover, it leads into Anarchic Initiate, which has a lot of aspects that fit the Green Knight's nature-as-chaotic-foil-of-chivalry aspects and works in some of the mysterious magical properties. While Druid might seem like an obvious choice for the casting half, I'd actually rather avoid it for a couple reasons; first, it's a little too on-the-nose for my tastes; and second, while the fluff is too on-the-nose, the mechanics actually weren't that close to what I had in mind, since the Green Knight isn't really associated with shapeshifting in the wildshape sense and doesn't really have an animal companion beyond sometimes riding a horse. As for the martial side, I wlean towards Warblade honestly just because of the intelligence synergies, because a d12 HD suits the Green Knight's supernatural toughness, and because I just sort of assume some stances and maneuvers will suit the concept, but it's been long enough since I've made an initiator I don't really know where to start, which is why I think the Warblade/martial half is where I need the most help.
In terms of feats, I'd need room for Overchannel to qualify for anarchic initiate. Otherwise, all I really have in mind is taking Faerie Mysteries Initiate if it's allowed, which I'd assume it's not, since this is probably the only character I'll ever make where that feat is thematically relevant enough to excuse its colossal cheese, given the whole thing with Gawain and the Green Knight's wife, all versions of the Green Knight gaining their magical powers from their association with a woman, and the Green Knight's association with the natural/fey world.
2) The Hound of Urogalan
Way back in the days of AD&D, the first multi-class character I ever made was a halfling ranger/cleric of Urogalan the DM agreed to let me play despite its various clashes with the AD&D rules, probably because a Perky Goth halfling ranger was a welcome respite from and bulwark against the brooding Drizzt imitators that were probably at their peak around then. Given that Gestalt works along similar lines to AD&D multiclassing, I thought I'd make a sort of homage to that character. The general schtick I had in mind was a priest of Urogalan whose duty is to seek out the remains of the halfling dead wherever they may be (wherever (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator)) and return them home for a proper burial. In mechanical terms, I'd want a divine caster who's uniquely skilled at infiltration and escape, in addition to the standard priestly skills of fighting his way through a dungeon and returning undead to rest. This build has a few more set-in-stone aspects than the Green Knight build (i.e. he has to be halfling and worship Urogalan) but I have less ideas of how to actually make the character beyond those basic aspects.
The very loose idea would be to combine a divine casting class on one half of the build with a more skill-focused class on the other half, but I'd also like to manage to get at least decent martial capabilities with a flail in there somewhere, mostly because when you have a deity with a super rad and mechanically decent favored weapon, it's a shame not to take advantage of it. A pretty easy route would be to just go Cleric//Ranger again, but I could see something like Archivist//Factotum outshining it, especially since I'd rather the skill-focused side of the character emphasize dungeoneering and general infiltration skills more than wilderness survival and Urogalan's domains don't exactly provide a lot of stellar or mechanically interesting options.