A question of tier; Tome of Magic "Tristalt" in pathfinder

[Xuldarinar]

A notion I was toying around with, which ultimately goes as follows; Utilizing gestalt rules, and updating the classes where necessary (Skills, HD, ect.), slap all three tome of magic classes (Binder, Shadowcaster, and Truenamer) on a character and treat them as a singular class for all intents and purposes.

With that notion in mind, how strong would such a thing be? How well would it hold up in a pathfinder party (first assuming one isn't using vestiges such as Zceryll, or any other class support outside the ToM)?

Any tweaks that one would recommend to make such a thing more balanced or at least mesh a bit better with existing pathfinder content?

[Forrestfire]

Adding truenamer to something doesn't appreciably increase its power outside of a couple very small tricks and conjunctive gate at level 20. Their abilities are pretty useless unless you optimize absurdly heavily, and even then, you barely make it into tier 4ish. Adding shadowcaster to something gives you some neat, but mostly underwhelming abilities. Binder on its own is a decent tier 3, but adding these things to it would just make it a bit more versatile. There wouldn't be a tier increase. The character would play well with other tier 3s, in all likelihood.

[Xuldarinar]

I think that is a reasonable assessment.
Anything that could be done to make things mesh better, in terms of flavor or mechanics?

[Novawurmson]

The difference between a tier 2 and tier 3 is generally that a tier 2 can break the game in a limited number of ways, while a tier 3 class is good at what it does, reasonably flexible, and doesn't break the game.

If you take something that doesn't break the game and add it to something that doesn't break the game, you usually don't break the game, though sometimes the numbers get wonky.

Honestly, I think a binder/shadowcaster mesh is the perfect way to fix the shadowcaster. The shadowcaster's main problem is that it doesn't have enough daily resources; the binder gives it lots of staying power throughout the day.

[Chronos]

Trunamer wouldn't actually be completely irrelevant here; it'd just add (practically speaking) everything except truenaming. You'd still get a few added class skills (most notably, Use Magic Device), a bonus to Knowledge checks, and I think a couple of other trinkets.

You might also be able to do some useful out-of-combat healing at low levels, which would add to your versatility.

As for Binder with Shadowcaster, it's tough to fit into the tier list, but it'd definitely be a major improvement over either, since the two classes' strengths and weakness complement each other well. Offhand, I'd say it'd probably either be a very high T3 that's more powerful than many T2s, or possibly T2b like the Zcerryl binder and the spirit shaman (as opposed to T2a like the sorcerer and psion).

[Novawurmson]

Let's take this another way: If you took a sorcerer and gestalted it with a fighter, would you get a tier 1 class?

No - nothing the fighter is giving the sorcerer is enough to allow it to break the game in the repeated, varied ways a tier 1 can. That's not to say a fighter/sorcerer is balanced for non-gestalt play - just that it doesn't cross the tier 1/tier 2 line.

Similarly (in my opinion), when you take a binder and give them all the goodies of a shadowcaster, you're just making a more flexible binder. The binder was already flexible; it's not gaining the world-breaking power that divides tier 2 from tier 3. That doesn't mean its perfect balanced for non-gestalt play, but it's not powerful enough to cross the tier boundary.

[atemu1234]

I think that is a reasonable assessment.
Anything that could be done to make things mesh better, in terms of flavor or mechanics?

I'll put it this way. With tier and gestalt, the tier is the highest one of the two. Because something with less versatility plus something with more, is just the same as the thing with more.

This is probably around T3 bordering on T2, what you're suggesting.

[A Tad Insane]

A powerful teir 3. It can do ALL the things competently, but until it can truename chain gate, nothing about either class is game breaking. Though there might be some weird interaction that isn't immediately obvious that could.

[Honest Tiefling]

Anything that could be done to make things mesh better, in terms of flavor or mechanics?

In terms of flavor? Binders bind things not just through the symbols they inscribe, but also by knowing the truename of the vestiges. The Shadowcaster side actually casts spells not from the shadow itself, but from the void. Or the shadow leads to the void, being that shadowy stuff tends not to always be real or defined.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It wouldn't be game-breaking in a power way, but it might be in a complexity way. The Binder is one of the more unwieldy classes in 3e, with all it's abilities coming in big chunks, each with their own requirements. Then you add the Shadowcaster and ITS weird mechanic, and the Truenamer and ITS dysfunctions... You're talking three completely unrelated sets of abilities, none of them familiar, each a full caster's worth of options and each with their own complexities. I'm afraid the result will be a disgusting, befuddleing mess, drowning in an overabundance of mediocre options.