D&D 3.5 Level 6 Gestalt Warlock-?

[Mercy4Hire]

Good day all,

Got word from my DM that I can use the Gestalt feature to fulfill 2 roles in the party and I always wanted to try out a Warlock mixed with something. Starting level is 6 and every legitimate sourcebook is open for use. Character is set into a mostly undead city type environment and have been toying with the idea of a Necropolitan for story-wise purposes. Any and all feedback would be much appreciated. Stats wise is a 60 point buy. (he has done this sort of thing in the past and enjoys making broken characters while the rest of the party makes sub-optimal, so why not return the favor). Can't wait to see your inputs.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Gestalt characters don't really fill two roles in the party.

Do I understand correctly that you're going to be playing a gestalt character with 60-point buy, while the rest plays regular characters (with 60 pb, I presume?)? If so, I'm obliged to mention that that's a really bad idea.

Warlocks have some good 24-hour self-buffs, and they craft items at higher levels (=versatile), so they go well with various things. What do you want to play? You can do worse than dread necromancer, in an undead-heavy campaign.

[Soranar]

If you intend to play an undead, then your hit dice won't matter so you don't need to stick to a high HP chassis

A high BAB is not a bad idea to get more iteratives with eldritch glaive though
Precision damage is also a good way to increase your eldritch blast damage

so here are some suggestions

Rogue

The first thing that comes to mind is a rogue with the ACF that lets it sneak attack flanked creatures for half even if they are immune to sneak attack. Combine that with x8 skill points, access to diplomacy and a good reason to have a high CHA and you become the party face, a decent skill monkey and a damage dealer

Another option

Ranger

Take the ACF that lets you disarm traps, trade your animal companion for the familiar (hawk is a great scout), trade your combat style for wild shape and take surrogate spell casting to let you cast your spells in any form. You get full BAB (so more iterative), bonus damage vs favoured enemies, x6 skill points and wildshape

Factotum

Gives skills and skill points, technically you can trigger Iaijutsu focus with any weapon your draw as a free action, drop said weapon and then attack with eldritch blast (or glaive) to get bonus damage... Cheesy as hell but RAW

[Mercy4Hire]

Gestalt characters don't really fill two roles in the party.

Do I understand correctly that you're going to be playing a gestalt character with 60-point buy, while the rest plays regular characters (with 60 pb, I presume?)? If so, I'm obliged to mention that that's a really bad idea.

Warlocks have some good 24-hour self-buffs, and they craft items at higher levels (=versatile), so they go well with various things. What do you want to play? You can do worse than dread necromancer, in an undead-heavy campaign.

I have been given the option to play a gestalt character with 60 point buy and yes the rest of the party is also 60 pb. And as for warlock, I'd really like to get into Demonics and the such possible demonic undead type things. Not really sure, Darkfire option is definitely open. I'd like to go more emphasis on blasting with curses and whatnot but haven't really touched warlock in years.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Well, you can load on the demonic flavour with Nar Demonbinder and Hellfire Warlock, entering ND with your choice of caster, probably charisma-based. Note that demons are not in hell, so you'll need to work out how to please both Asmodeus and the Abyss (or just pick one).

[Emperor Tippy]

I have been given the option to play a gestalt character with 60 point buy and yes the rest of the party is also 60 pb. And as for warlock, I'd really like to get into Demonics and the such possible demonic undead type things. Not really sure, Darkfire option is definitely open. I'd like to go more emphasis on blasting with curses and whatnot but haven't really touched warlock in years.

Warlock//Sorcerer could be amusing.

Warlock 8/ Mindbender 1/ Hellfire Warlock 3/ Warlock 8// Sorcerer 4/ Binder 3/ Anima Mage 6/ Nar Demonbinder 7

Multiple prestige classes at the same time though so you have to decide what to cut. Nar Demonbinder would honestly probably be my choice, finish off Anima Mage and add in three more levels of Sorcerer.

So Warlock 17/ Hellfire Warlock 3// Sorcerer 4/ Binder 3/ Anima Mage 10/ Sorcerer 3.

[Gruftzwerg]

How about a Monk-gish? Take Eldritch Claws Feat from Dragon Magazine and rend everything into pices!? have a look at my signature build for more info (not gestalt but you should find some info for your own gestalt build).

[Waker]

You could consider going Sorcerer or Sha'ir into Eldritch Theurge to let your Eldritch blast shine (or smolder as the case may be). Scout wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, since it would give you a bit of precision damage and skills, plus feats, movement and detection bonuses.

[Zaq]

Good day all,

Got word from my DM that I can use the Gestalt feature to fulfill 2 roles in the party and I always wanted to try out a Warlock mixed with something. Starting level is 6 and every legitimate sourcebook is open for use. Character is set into a mostly undead city type environment and have been toying with the idea of a Necropolitan for story-wise purposes. Any and all feedback would be much appreciated. Stats wise is a 60 point buy. (he has done this sort of thing in the past and enjoys making broken characters while the rest of the party makes sub-optimal, so why not return the favor). Can't wait to see your inputs.

As others have noted, gestalt doesn't automatically mean that you can fulfill two roles (there's a lot of problems with that assumption, not the least of which is action economy), but let's leave that aside for a second. What two roles are you hoping to fill? Failing that, what does the rest of the party look like? In other words, what do you want to actually do?

Just for general purposes, a gestalt usually benefits from having an "active" side and a "passive" side, with the active side giving you lots of things to spend your actions on (offensive casting, attacking, or whatever) and the passive side giving you things that don't really conflict with your standard actions most of the time. Warlock is a pretty decent passive class, since a lot of its cool invocations last 24 hours (and are therefore effectively permanent/action-free); it's rare for Eldritch Blast to be your primary offensive option in gestalt, but the fact that EB comes baked-in means that you have a decent (not amazing, but decent) fallback option without spending any real resources on it. That said, your active side can be basically anything, especially because Warlock puts few, if any, demands on your stats.

Without knowing where you want to go with this character, there's no useful advice we can offer. You've got a lot of different paths to go down, and we need more information to figure out which paths will actually do you any good.

[Metahuman1]

Do I understand correctly that you're going to be playing a gestalt character with 60-point buy, while the rest plays regular characters (with 60 pb, I presume?)? If so, I'm obliged to mention that that's a really bad idea.



If the rest of the party is Psion, Sorcerer and Spirit Shamen, or Archivist, Wizard, Artificer, then letting the lowly warlock Gestalt with something seems a reasonable way to help him out a touch.




To the OP:

Binder could be very flavorful.


Bard would be awesome if you go good aligned and get Words of Creation. Maybe a dip into Monk with the Astectic Mage feat or Battle Dancer to get Cha to AC. Maybe a level of Witch Hunter for Cha to all saves. And definatly 2 levels of Seeker of the Song.

Grab Dragonfire Inspiration (Maybe Draconic Heratge to get a different elemental damage type form fire, like Sonic or Acid.) and song of the heart with either Lingering Song, or a dip in Crusader or Warblade and Song of the White Raven. also Grab inspirational boost spell form Spell compendium. Maybe Melodic Casting.


Your Eldrich Blast is now powerful enough to keep relevant, your buffing the party in a way that matters as a matter of course, you've got bard skills and casting for some extra utility/versatility in and out of Combat, and Cha synergy. As a minor add on, extra good save.

With the dips into Battle Dancer/Monk with Feat and Witch Hunter, your one step shy of being all but totally CHA SAD.





that last step BTW, Ritual of Blood, it's in the Eberron Books somewhere, and if you do it once a level as a Necropolitan and a Cha focused pair of classes, you basically become Cha SAD and won't even Miss your con score.

[Gildedragon]

Do you have a character concept?


You can easily fill out the party face role, and skill-monkey too (with the right choices)
Warlock 6//Factotum 5/Uncanny Trickster 1
Makes for a great dungeon delver

Warlock 6//Crusader6 makes for a charismatic tank; use the glaive or claws in conjunction with your martial maneuvers for some nice effects

Warlock 6//Rogue 2/Swordsage 4 has the makings of a very sneaky blaster.

[Red Fel]

Bard would be awesome if you go good aligned and get Words of Creation.

Frankly, if you're going Good, gestalt is one of the only times that the Enlightened Spirit class is actually decent. It's a Warlock PrC requiring Good alignment that grants lots of neat passive benefits and a surprisingly effective targeted Greater Dispel Magic ability, but because it does not advance invocations at all, it is frequently avoided. Further, several of the abilities it grants are simply invocations you could otherwise choose, which isn't appealing. In a gestalt, however, you can actually run the PrC in parallel with the Warlock class proper, given that its class features don't actually overlap with the Warlock's. (Even the Eldritch Blast advancement merely tacks onto your EB damage, rather than increasing it outright.)

If you're particularly twisted, you can take Hellfire Warlock and Enlightened Spirit, but I'm not sure how much that would actually help you.

But yeah. One of my favorite gestalts involves using an unarmed Warlock//melee gestalt to basically create a flying invisible laser-firing brawler. Warforged if you really want to be abusive.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If the rest of the party is Psion, Sorcerer and Spirit Shamen, or Archivist, Wizard, Artificer, then letting the lowly warlock Gestalt with something seems a reasonable way to help him out a touch.
- There are absolutely cases where gestalting can help shore up a weak character build, but there was no reason to assume that was going on.
- If the psion, sorcerer and spirit shaman also pick tier 4 classes for their gestalt, or if the warlock picks a tier 1 class, you get a balanced enough party, so there is no reason to assume the warlock would need shoring up, or that the rest of the party should not gestalt.
- It can also go the other way: if the whole party is tier 4, the warlock gestalt will be out of whack.
- In short, it's not reasonable to assume that 'only one person gestalts' is balanced. With the information given, my warning was appropriate, especially given the sixth sentence of the opening post.



You can take a transformational class, like Acolyte of the Skin, on top of your necropolitan template. You end up as half-fiend undead, which is pretty neato, as evil species go. Monster classes are good in gestalts, too. You can straight-up play a demon//warlock, using day-long buffs to enhance your demonic racial abilities.