Gestalt character for two person campaign.

[The Sparrower]

My gaming group is currently three people, including the DM. We are about to start Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. To balance our small party, our DM has asked us to make gestalt characters. The other PC has rolled a Druid // Fighter, probably going into Warshaper and/or Master of Many Forms on the Fighter side. I'm trying to round us out by handling skills and arcane magic.

My original idea was for a Bard / Lyric Thaumaturge / Sublime Chord // Crusader. All good saves, relatively good skills, and some damage through Dragonfire Inspiration. The build seems solid, but for some reason I don't love it, and it has some problems: I'm the skillmonkey, but I don't have Trapfinding; my prestige classes reduce my skill points and suck up a lot of my Bard skill points to qualify; DFI is best with many allies/attacks, which I don't have many of; and I can't cast Bard spells in the heavy armor that Crusader wants me to wear. The build has some synergy, but feels disjointed in a number of places.

My other idea was for a Wizard // Factotum, or Wizard // Artificer. The wizard would likely be a conjurer so that summons and area spells could help pull our weight for us. I like Factotum for the increased versatility, Trapfinding, and skill points. Artificer seems handy as well, for many of the same reasons. Being able to build an item to cover anything we are lacking seems good, although I'm not sure how useful crafting might be in a dungeon-centered campaign like I am assuming Elemental Evil is.

My big question is: how do I make my character able to adequately support a small gestalt party without breaking the game? The DM and other PC have played 5th edition for about a year and have a tiny bit of 3rd edition experience, but are still pretty new. I feel like I should optimize to a degree, but I don't want to break the game in half. Am I on the right track?

I've never played gestalt before, so I apologize for all the questions. Gestalt always sounded like so much fun, but now that I'm sitting down to make a character I'm a bit overwhelmed by the options. I am open to any thoughts or new ideas. Thanks in advance!

[Mr Adventurer]

I had a lot of fun with a Warblade//Factotum. You don't get a lot of your own spells, but you can UMD and you have the skills you need, and Int is secondary synergy with Warblade.

I would say that two key considerations for gestalt play are action economy, and decision paralysis. You can normally only take one action per turn after all. And you're already running into the other thing - you need a character that'll be fun for you to actually run, too.

You could simplify your build by just going straight Bard//Crusader. Slip in a level of a trapfinding class somewhere (this could be Factotum again, or, I think if you are a Changeling there's a Changeling Rogue alternate class level that gives 10 skill points. Not sure if that's at 1st though).

[White Blade]

Wizard//Factotum will do everything you're looking to do well. You're not overstretching yourself into a demigod or anything with that build (unless you so wish it), but you're good at what you need to be good at all the time. You're still really squishy though, which you may wish to avoid.

Beguiler//Crusader might get you closer to what you're trying to do with the bard build without making you jump through a bunch of hoops. Of course, you're still MAD as the devil, what's the stat generation method?

[The Sparrower]

I had a lot of fun with a Warblade//Factotum. You don't get a lot of your own spells, but you can UMD and you have the skills you need, and Int is secondary synergy with Warblade.

I would say that two key considerations for gestalt play are action economy, and decision paralysis. You can normally only take one action per turn after all. And you're already running into the other thing - you need a character that'll be fun for you to actually run, too.

You could simplify your build by just going straight Bard//Crusader. Slip in a level of a trapfinding class somewhere (this could be Factotum again, or, I think if you are a Changeling there's a Changeling Rogue alternate class level that gives 10 skill points. Not sure if that's at 1st though).

I had considered Warblade // Factotum as well. I think part of my trouble right now comes from the fact that we could use a skillmonkey and an arcane caster, but at the end of the day we will each need to deal some damage, too. Factotum definitely covers skills, and it's limited spellcasting is probably more than adequate. Part of me hates the idea of giving up 9th level spells, but it might be a small price to pay to cover our bases. Definitely good food for thought.

Now that I think about it, I could probably have my cake and eat it too: Wizard X // Factotum 8 / Warblade 12 has trapfinding, decent skill points, Factotum flexibility with a good breakpoint, full casting, good HP later on, and melee capability if the need should arise. The build is relatively straightforward as well!


Wizard//Factotum will do everything you're looking to do well. You're not overstretching yourself into a demigod or anything with that build (unless you so wish it), but you're good at what you need to be good at all the time. You're still really squishy though, which you may wish to avoid.

Beguiler//Crusader might get you closer to what you're trying to do with the bard build without making you jump through a bunch of hoops. Of course, you're still MAD as the devil, what's the stat generation method?

You raise a very good point; wizard is a powerful class but it is only as powerful as you make it. I've never played Beguiler before and they do look interesting! My original build included Bard and Crusader because I thought the backup healing might be a good idea with such a small party. I'm starting to think that I might just have to suck it up and not have healing, as I'm starting to spread myself thin (which probably means I'm trying to do too much). I have never considered Beguiler // Warblade before, which could be very interesting. I'll have to give Beguiler another look real quick.

We did normal rolling for stats; after rolling several sets with overall negatives I got lucky: 18, 17, 14, 13, 13, 12.

[Fouredged Sword]

A lot of fun can be had with Spellthief 20 // Diviner wizard 5 / unseen seer 10 / abjurant champion 5.

Spellthief with master spellthief as a feat means all your wizard casting can be done in light armor. Unseen seer adds 4d6 sneak attack onto spellthief in a way that should stack. It also adds some really nice additions to your divination selection, such as sniper's shot and hunter's eye.

You are murder on most spellcasters with a sniper's shot long range ray of some sort, as you will rapidly drain away any serious spellcasting you are faced with.

I wouldn't worry about much charisma. Take a few nice low level buffs in your spellthief casting and just rock a 12 or so and a cloak of charisma. Int is your bread and butter.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Whatever you go with, I suggest grabbing Wild Cohort. That'll help balance things considerably. Two gish gestalt and two animal companions should be able to handle a lot.

My suggestion would be Human Wizard//Spellthief 1/Warblade, with Wild Cohort and Able Learner at 1st and Master Spellthief at 3rd. That gives you a fair chunk of skill points (with your high Int and all), a good list, a fighting buddy and plenty of melee combat power.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, I sorta see everyone's point. You need to be pretty diverse in such a game. You can't be weak in any area. This suggests ether doing Skill monket // gish or Full caster // skill monkey and focus a good bit of resources ensuring you can survive melee.

I suggest gish / skill monkey as gish is likely to eat your PRC's. Wizard 5 / unseen seer 2 / abjurant champion 3 is a solid level 10 gishy half of a gestalt when paired with something sneaky like spellthief, rogue, or another class set that grants at least 1d6 sneak attack.

Otherwise, Beguiler 5 / rogue 1 / unseen seer 10 // warblade 16 is also very solid. Play an elf, take fairy mystery initiate and get int to con on top of your 1d12 HD.

[The Sparrower]

I've been thinking about my options; I haven't decided on anything but definitely wanted to say thanks to everyone who has weighed in. Wild Cohort is awesome; in all my years of playing, lurking and reading about 3.5 I never knew about it. I think I will almost certainly take it since it scales off of character level. Spellthief is very tempting, but ultimately I think I will pass on it. It has the skills, but it's still squishy and while the spell stealing is undeniably powerful it is much more situational than what Factotum or Warblade bring all the time. Also, Unseen Seer looks really cool, but I was under impression that dual progression classes were not allowed? Looking at the wording, I guess it is just suggested they not be used. That's definitely a problem I've run into: gestalt seems to beg for a lot of dual-progression classes, but I'm not sure how my DM would feel. Definitely a question for him, as Swiftblade sounds like it would be a great way to gish my character, but it is definitely a dual progression class as well.

Right now I am playing around with these ideas:


Focused Specialist Transmuter or Conjurer // Factotum and/or Warblade
Beguiler // Warblade


I used to enjoy playing a summoner in the Baldur's Gate games back in the day and it seems like a great way to beef up the party. Brushing up on summoning reminded me about the Thaumaturge, and the cohort seems like it could help out a lot. Maybe something like Archivist / Thaumaturge / Malconvoker on the casting side? Not sure if the lack of arcane would hurt too much, but I could probably poach some arcane spells from cleric domains.

In order to narrow down my options and nail down my build, my next step needs to be to find individual spells and skills that we need; I'm sure the build will make itself once I know details about what we need/want.

Thanks again for the ideas, I'll be working on this character for the next few days and am definitely still open to suggestions!

[DMVerdandi]

Honestly, I would have DEFINITELY gone for the Artificer//Wizard.
Not so much for the crafting, but for the infusions and spells.

My reason is this. Most skills are on an individual basis. They help the skilled person. However, most spells/infusions have options to help either yourself or another. So, where you would be helping yourself as a xx//warblade or xx//factotum, you could be actively helping your comrade with xx//artificer.

All day buffs are WAY better. And if anything, theoretically you could have artificer be the casting class. Warblade//Artificer can be dope. Especially as a war forged, but even as a fleshy one, it's really cool.

IMO Artificer//wizard has a little bit more synergy though.


Artificer//Sha'ir GOAT.

[Nifft]

Scout is a neat class. In combo with a Wizard, you'll get powerful rays that deal more damage as you bravely run away. Unlike a Rogue, there's no need to flank -- if you move, you get more damage. Works with some [Reserve] feats, too.

You can combo with Unseen Seer on the Wizard side to boost Skirmish damage into the ridiculous range. Oh, and take Improved Skirmish for another +2d6, too.

The build would be something like: Scout 20 // Wizard 5 / Unseen Seer 10 / xxx 5 (Archmage, Abjurant Champion, Spellwarp Sniper, whatever)


Another way to go might be Psychic Rogue 20 // Specialist Wizard 5 / Incantatrix 10 / xxx 5. The advantage here is that you get access to weird Psionic powers & feats, which you'd use generally for long-term buffs, or to cover the gaps in your spell list due to 3 forbidden schools.


Finally, the ultra-cheater: Beguiler 20 // Binder 1 / Incarnate 2 / Swordsage 2 / Chameleon 10 / xxx 5 (Master of Nine, Knight of the Sacred Seal, whatever).
- Bind Naberius every day. You can now take 10 on Diplomacy checks, and you heal ability damage (plus more).
- Incarnate gives you floating bonuses to various skills, including Diplomacy. It also gives you a 30 ft. acid touch attack (basically a [Reserve] feat).
- Swordsage gives you Maneuvers for some escapes & defensive tricks, and gives you +Wis to AC. You also get free Weapon Focus and (for the Unarmed type) Improved Unarmed Strike.
- Chameleon gets you access to all the spells on all the lists level 6 and below. This has Int synergy with Beguiler, and Wis synergy with Swordsage. Chameleon casting is ridiculous -- you can pick from the Bard list for Glibness, and from the Trapsmith for Haste as a level 1 spell, and from the Demonologist for Lesser Planar Binding as a level 3 spell (and Planar Binding as a level 4 spell). Finally, if you find any good Sacred or Corrupt spells, you can fill your Chameleon slots with them -- Naberius gets you back the ability damage in a few rounds. Hello, greater luminous armor, your Druid friend will love you.

So basically, you'd have one side that's got no strategic choices (Beguiller gets all spells every day; you know what skills you want; it's always the same every day) -- and the other side would be 100% bonkers all-choices-all-the-time, what with preparing Chameleon spells, picking who to bind (protip: Naberius), picking which Soulmelds to shape, and so forth. Very flexible on one side, very reliable on the other.



Ooo, one other idea: Barbarian 20 // Wizard 20 -- the keys here are the ACFs.
- Barbarian - Trapkiller (Dungeonscape, p 8): Lose trapsense, gain trapfinding. Use survival to find traps, attack rolls to disable. Doesn't work on magic traps but you are also a Wizard so you can dispel those.
- Wizard - Eidetic Wizard (Dragon Magazine): Lose familiar, lose Scribe Scroll; Don't use a spellbook, you instead use expensive incense to add spells to your memory.

You're illiterate. (And a Wizard.)

When you find a scroll you like, what you do is roll it up and smoke it (along with "expensive incense").

You find traps like they're tracks in the woods, and you disarm traps by stabbing them in their smug little mechanical faces. WHO IS LAUGHING NOW, TRIPWIRE?

You're that crazy old man in the woods, but your brand of crazy actually breaks the laws of physics on demand.

For extra fun, sprinkle in Fist of the Forest and Totemist and any other illiterate classes on the Barbarian side. Or don't -- Barb 20 is fine. For combat, you can either run around & cast spells, or you can buff up, summon a weapon (e.g. thunderlance), and RAAAAAAAGE.

You could also do this with Sorcerer, but you'd probably want to dip Sand Shaper in that case. You're not the old man in the woods -- you're a blue dragon in human form, bringing the ruination and devastation of the wastelands into these green hills. There are 2 levels of Sand Shaper which don't grant spellcasting, so you'd probably want to take those two levels on the Barbarian side.

[Nifft]

One more Dungeonscape thought: Ranger has a level 1 ACF which gives Trapfinding (instead of Track).

You could go like: Wizard 20 // Ranger 20 (easy and pretty decent).

Or you could sprinkle in PrCs on one side or the other.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

One more Dungeonscape thought: Ranger has a level 1 ACF which gives Trapfinding (instead of Track).

You could go like: Wizard 20 // Ranger 20 (easy and pretty decent).

Or you could sprinkle in PrCs on one side or the other.

I'd suggest Ranger as well. Like Monk, despite being quite unimpressive in normal games it works very well as a passive class in gestalt. In theory it's a bit MAD, but in practice Rangers don't need Wisdom that much. Also, if you want it to be a bit meatier there's a lot of good Ranger ACFs and prestige classes.

[Eldariel]

One more Dungeonscape thought: Ranger has a level 1 ACF which gives Trapfinding (instead of Track).

You could go like: Wizard 20 // Ranger 20 (easy and pretty decent).

Or you could sprinkle in PrCs on one side or the other.

While PRC multiclass is not allowed, I'd ask for Swift Hunter. The best sides of Scout and Ranger combined.

[Fouredged Sword]

Another good option is Rogue 3 / swashbuckler 17 if you have access to daring outlaw. Full bab and sneak attack make for a solid combination. This also opens you up for PRC's on the wizard side. Abjurant champion, even if you are stacking the bab with another full BAB class, is still a incredibly powerful class. Initiate of the Sevenfold veil is also powerful.

Or just go malconvoker and beat the action econ with a big demonic stick.

[The Sparrower]

I have read all of the replies and thought about it, and there are some seriously cool ideas in there. It has definitely helped me figure out what I want my character to do. After some deliberation, I've decided my character will be a planar warden who hunts, captures, and uses evil outsiders to her advantage.

On the active side, I have a couple of ideas:

Focused Specialist Conjurer 3 / Master Specialist 10 / Malconvoker 2 / Thaumaturgist 5 (get all the Master Specialist goodies, then Malconvoker for planar ally, then Thaumaturgist for the cohort)
Focused Specialist Conjurer 3 / Master Specialist 3 / Malconvoker 9 / Thaumaturgist 5
Focused Specialist Conjurer 3 / Master Specialist 7 / Malconvoker 5 / Thaumaturgist 5

I would really like Thaumaturgist 5, as the Planahor Cohort would be awesome and thematic, and help with the small party size. I know that Master Specialist and Malconvoker both have several drop points. I'm not strongly inclined toward one or the other; Master Specialist seems like it would give me a bit more versatility which seems nice.

On the passive side, I've decided to drop my idea for a full caster / skillmonkey / gish and focus on being a skillmonkey:

Ranger 20 (lots of skills, all high saves, Trapfinding ACF, thematic/flavorful portal hunting ACFs, Planar Ranger could make the Animal Companion into a celestial creature, or even a mount!)
Factotum 20 (lots of skills and Trapfinding, perfect Int synergy, limited arcane casting helps get around three prohibited schools)

For a moment I thought that Factotum was in the bag, but Ranger seems like a very strong candidate now. Divine casting offers some good versatility, but the real winner for me is the Animal Companion. Having a celestial tracking beast seems very thematic for this character. Although, ranger companions suck, and the Wild Cohort looks strictly better, although less customizable.

Really, it's down to just fine tuning class levels at this point. Although, if anyone knows a way to snag a flying mount, I'm all ears. Ubercharger looks cool, but would be a dramatically different character and I would gladly settle for a Notatallubercharger if it's workable with this build.

As always, thanks for the ideas!

[Nifft]

First off, don't expect that whatever you get at level 20 will have much overall impact. You might not see level 20, and if you do, you'll have spent the vast majority of the game below that level.

So I think the Thaumaturgist capstone is not going to be as useful as you seem to think, not unless you can get in much earlier.


Second, there's a level 5 Wizard feature (Spontaneous Divination) which adds remarkable flexibility to any Wizard. As a two-man band, you're going to need that flexibility. Master Specialist is not bad, but it's not great in comparison.


Third, I highly recommend focusing on lesser planar binding and planar binding to get your party size up. Those start to kick in in at character level 9. There are a number of feats & items which can help you bind better -- research them, and make sure you're not banning any schools which you will need to control your minions (Abjuration is a necessity, but Enchantment and Necromancy are also great).

[Rebel7284]

Here is a rough stub of a build I suggest for Gestalt if you want to do everything and do it well.

Martial Wizard 5/Swiftblade 1/Spelldancer 1/Swiftblade +9/X 4
//
Factotum 5/Wizard +1/Factotum +3/Wizard +1/Y 10

You have two sources of extra actions, amazing skills, free metamagic, nice BAB, excellent class features. You can go to Factotum 11 to get the ability to ignore SR, or jump into Warblade early.

[DrKerosene]

I second Niffts most recent suggestion.

Alternatively, see if you can get Carmendine Monk or Kung-Fu Genius to apply to Swordsage. That first level of 6+Int*6 skill points is nice. Then maybe you can enter Urban Savant on the Wizard side.

How about a Binder1/"caster"1/Anima-Mage (early entry)//Wizard. Cloistered Cleric is a good "caster" if allowed into Anima-Mage and then Tenebrous Apostate. Maybe Beguiler instead.

Final idea, a Hellbred (former Druid) Bard/Ur Priest/Fochlucan Lyrist/Sublime Chord2/Fochlucan Lyrist//Rogue