Building an Epic Character

[GnomishPride]

So a friend of mine is starting up an Epic campaign, and I need a little help building my character.
We start at level 21 and are using gestalt rules. All sourcebooks are allowed, excluding Dragon Mags, but homebrew is disallowed.
I was thinking of going Druid 21//Scout 20/Barbarian 1 with a Knight (Dragon 310 Fighter Variant) 19 (level 20 with Close Cohort if I have room for it) cohort. The idea is to Wild Shape into a fast (preferably flying) Large creature with Pounce, then have the cohort use me as his mount. The cohort will specialize in lancing (charging + spirited charge + valorous enchantment = win), and the Druid//Scout will serve as a speedy quick transport.
Is this a solid build? Should I (or my cohort) PrC out at some point (I've heard that Scouts can have some neat builds)? Which feats should I take?

Also, for making strafing charges (charging, hitting, continue move, charge back, hit again, continue move, etc.), would the Druid//Scout use Spring Attack (or similar) or would the Knight use Ride-By Attack? Or both?

Thanks in advance!

[AvatarVecna]

Scout 20/Barbarian 1 is alright, but I'm not sure why the barbarian is there. As an alternative, go Scout/Ranger for a classic Swift Hunter build on one side, while getting strong stats and pounce from the other side to get you some serious ubercharging (pick up some standard ubercharger feats to make yourself more viable as well). Not sure how to optimize the cohort riding you, other than maybe making them a paladin instead of a fighter, but either way they'll be great as long as they're lance-pouncing. What you'll really want in epic is pouncing and flight, so make sure to have a flight-granting item/spell that will still affect your pouncing animal form.

This is all just some basic off-the-top-of-my-head ideas. I'm sure somebody else will have better ideas.

[GnomishPride]

Scout 20/Barbarian 1 is alright, but I'm not sure why the barbarian is there.

The barbarian is for bonus to land speed in case flying isn't viable. It's also there as filler because I couldn't find an Epic Scout progression. :smalltongue:

[Jack_Simth]

So... you're mixing gestalt and Epic? Fun.

Well, the first real question you need to ask yourself is: How much is too much? That's not a question we can answer for you, and it's also a hard one to communicate a useful answer for. You're well past the level by which you can do literally infinite power. The big gotcha is that most games go best when everyone is in the same ballpark, power wise. We can tell you how to make your character stronger, while keeping to a theme (for instance: Your wildshape form doesn't need Pounce if you have it from class levels, and there's a Barbarian ACF that'll do you wonders in that regard with just a single level dip - Lion Totem, Complete Champion - which means using feats like Draconic Wild Shape is much more viable for you, especially as Dragons can cast anyway... you could be a flying, pouncing mount with many, many attacks). You want to figure out some form of a reference for how much 'power' you want to have. A creature somewhere, with a "I want to have a 50% chance of beating this into the ground in a one-on-one fight" or some such.

[GnomishPride]

The friend who's running the campaign, and the rest of our group for that matter, are pretty huge power gamers. We tend towards the ultra powerful, but not infinitely powerful (no Pun-Pun). That means that most cheese is fair game, but it can't be too cheesy. I don't know if that helps at all, but I think it's worth noting.
On another note, I forgot to clarify that the cohort is gestalt too, though I haven't thought of a good secondary class. Maybe Dragon Rider (is that the right name? I think it's from the Draconomicon (if that's what that's called)) for Dragon Wild Shape fun.

[ThisIsZen]

Maybe give some examples of cheese that has flown in your group before? The definition of "powergaming" can vary a bit between tables, and I don't just mean in a quantitative sense. Ice assassin true mind switch shenanigans abusing genesis to create security dilemma shenanigans and night stick DMM buffing are both power gaming but lead to rather different types of game, for example.

[Jack_Simth]

The friend who's running the campaign, and the rest of our group for that matter, are pretty huge power gamers. We tend towards the ultra powerful, but not infinitely powerful (no Pun-Pun). That means that most cheese is fair game, but it can't be too cheesy. I don't know if that helps at all, but I think it's worth noting.
On another note, I forgot to clarify that the cohort is gestalt too, though I haven't thought of a good secondary class. Maybe Dragon Rider (is that the right name? I think it's from the Draconomicon (if that's what that's called)) for Dragon Wild Shape fun.

Much like the guy who grew up in a dense city will get annoyed with the farmer when the farmer says something isn't far (and then proceeds to take the man on a thee hour drive), everyone has a different definition of what counts as 'powerful'. Seriously: Find a reference creature somewhere that you want to be about as powerful as that. The farmer and the city guy can get along just fine... if they both use 'miles' or 'hours' when referencing how long the trip is. When you're talking to people whom you have not spent several gaming sessions with, you need some form of benchmark. So pick a reference critter (http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/epicMonstersAndObstacles.htm) that you'd like to be on even footing with. It's the simplest way to communicate what optimization level you'd like.

[GnomishPride]

Perhaps the most infamous powergaming legend in our group to date...
Chandra the Pyromancer (yes, the Chandra from MTG. Names are not our strong suit)
In another gestalt campaign, Chandra was a Sorcerer//Wizard/Ultimate Magus/Pyromancer who abused gestalting prestige class spellcasting advancement (pyro and ultimate magus both give increases to caster level/spells per day/spells known, which were all put in Sorcerer if possible) to get 40th caster level by 20th level (had 9th level spells by ~12th level). Chandra was fairly ridiculous. She could solo monsters 4 or 5 CR's higher than her character level in a few rounds.
Other notable examples include a guy with 180ft as a move action at 20th level, Xazzal the Immortal (impossible to kill permanently for a variety of reasons; famously used death as a teleportation method), the Flurry, a 10-armed Dragon/Demon hybrid with Str in the triple digits, 38th level spellcasting at level 20 (that guy was cool) and 140 some attacks per round; and gestalting War Hulking Hurler with a bunch of Str-increasing templates to get truly ridiculous Str (not as ridiculous as the Flurry but a tad more playable).

[WeaselGuy]

I would definitely do Draconic Polymorph Druid on one side, and Barbarian 1/Scout 3/Ranger 16 Swift Hunter Pouncer on the other. For the cohort, Fighter 5 into Cavalier 10 and then Dragonrider 5 can crank your lancing game up pretty high. One of the most difficult parts of Dragonrider is that it doesn't give you a dragon to actually ride, so in this case that half of the equation is solved by you. For the cohort's other half of the gestalt, Cleric 20 is never a bad idea, and either Knight 20 or Marshal 20 would give some good flavor and some not so terrible abilities as well. I don't really know what to do for the epic portion's of either build though, there's already so much you can do with just the gestalt!

[GnomishPride]

Thanks for the help so far guys, it's been super helpful! :smallsmile: :smallbiggrin: