The Craziest Gestalt (PoW, SoP, Psionics, and Vancian)

[CGNefarious]

So I'm in a hardcore dungeon crawl gestalt game, and I started to muse on whether or not it would be possible to get 9th level spells, 9th level psionic powers, 9th level maneuvers, and, well there's no "levels" in sphere casting, but a high level sphere caster, all in the same character.

The answer is yes. My DM actually came up with this combination of classes during our discussion, but I ran with it to see where I could go. The class list is as follows.

Wizard 3 / Incanter 4 / Harbinger (or Warder) 3 / Bokor 10 // Psion 3 / Cerebremancer 7 / Awakened Blade 10

I'd have to take the Advanced Magical Training feat and the Practiced Initiator and Psionic Knack traits, but I would wind up with full Arcane Casting, full Manifesting, a Sphere Caster level of 17, and an Initiator level of 18.

So the question is, now that I've got all this, how do I actually build the character?



My current idea is to focus on mainly conjuration an battle field control with my Wizard spells. I've never actually played a manifester, but I was considering doing the same there, but with extra emphasis on the cool powers that give me more actions (schism, fission, etc.). For the Sphere Casting, I was thinking of doing the Time Sphere (who doesn't need more actions?), the Warp Sphere (who doesn't love teleportation?) and the Destruction Sphere (so I have some form of reliable damage when I run out of spells and power points). I am also considering the Conjuration Sphere. For Disciplines, I'm looking at Riven Hourglass (moar actionz!), Shattered Mirror, and either Veiled Moon or Cursed Razor. Possibly even going Ravenlord so I can have my raven initiate my maneuvers for me.

The only feats I need to take are Psionic Body, Psionic Meditation, and Advanced Magical Training. This leaves around 15 feats to spare, one of which will be Grasp of Darkness. I have also considered taking feats to get Veils, because why not?

My GM already said no to Paragon Surge, Sacred Geometry, and Leadership.

But honestly, other than that, I have no idea where to go with this theorycraft gone wrong. Do you guys have any ideas on how I can push this into further ridiculousness?

[Sagetim]

I mean, arcane and psionics both suck at healing, so if you can fit Silver Crane maneuvers in there, you can use them to supplement your healing. For this, use Unorthodox Training merit trait in Path of War Expanded and trade a discipline out that you're not going to use.

For further shenanigans with path of war, get weapon group adaptation (heavy blades) and then use broken blade maneuvers with whatever sword you happen to be using at the time. For added points, buff it with spells, and buff your stats with psionics, then proceed to wreck face.

You've got the right idea there, taking the first warder level at character level 8, this is going to let you be lean but tall in your maneuvers known. If you find yourself needing more, don't be afraid to use the advanced learning feat to grab maneuvers and stances.

Comboing Bronze Knuckle (or Iron Knuckle) and Steel Flurry Strike is going to let you murderfy things in melee, and that can come online immediately with that first Warder level. Meanwhile, stances like Eyes of the Silver Crane and Stance of the Silver Crane will let you pretend to be a paladin, what with one of them giving you detect evil and advantage on perception checks, and the other one making your weapons holy and giving you protection from evil.

If you have the downtime for it, taking craft arms and armor and/or craft wonderous item could be a great boon to you. Especially if you can liquidate unneeded loot assets to then funnel the money from those sales into making magic items you actually need (or upgrading ones you already have).

Taking the feat that lets you have two psionic focuses, psionic weapon, and greater psionic weapon can help you to consistently bring the pain on your steel flurry strike, giving two of them +4d6 More damage, though you'll need Psychic Meditation to recover more than one focus a turn (or to recover a focus and do anything else).

And given your gestalt, you'll want warder levels instead of harbringer, because the BAB and hp will be nice additions. The main problem will be dealing with arcane spell failure if/when you start wearing full plate. This can be resolved with Still Spell, or by picking spells that don't have somatic components, like dimension door.

With Maneuvers for raw damage output, spells for utility, and psychic powers for utility and ranged attacking, I have no idea what role spheres of power might play into this. If there's some kind of healing sphere thing, that would probably help to some degree. Similarly, you're going to want to cover feeding yourself, which is easy enough if you go Elan or take the sustenance power (or craft/obtain a ring of sustenance). Point is, if you're on a long dungeon delve, you're going to want to not die of lack of food. And if that capability cannot be removed from you, then all the more reliable it becomes.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Don't standard gestalt rules prohibit taking PrCs on both sides of your build? And strongly recommend banning dual-progression PrCs?

[Castilonium]

For further shenanigans with path of war, get weapon group adaptation (heavy blades) and then use broken blade maneuvers with whatever sword you happen to be using at the time.

No need to take Weapon Group Adaptation to do this anymore. The errata (http://dreamscarred.com/download/DRP271X_PoWErrata.pdf) removed all weapon requirements for PoW disciplines (except Piercing Thunder from PoW:E).

[exelsisxax]

How are you supposed to qualify for bokor? Wizard 3 isn't enough to cast level 3 spells.
shenanigans.

Does it count as gestalt anymore if you don't follow the rules or spirit? bokor/AB is explicitly not permitted, and i'd argue that none of bokor, AB, or cerebremancer are permitted to be used in any other way than using both sides.

[BearonVonMu]

Don't standard gestalt rules prohibit taking PrCs on both sides of your build? And strongly recommend banning dual-progression PrCs?
Yes, both sides cannot be a prestige class at the same time.
I have not heard of banning dual progressions, but it would make really good sense to do so.

[martixy]

Don't standard gestalt rules prohibit taking PrCs on both sides of your build? And strongly recommend banning dual-progression PrCs?

Correct on both counts.

But it's not horribly out of balance, just puts the system a bit out of whack. My solution is to allow a level of such shenanigans for each RHD you have in your build(neatly, both making them less painful and giving a way to stack PrCs where there was none before).

[Sagetim]

I mean, if his GM is the one saying "DOOOO IIIIIT" then we're already outside the realm of 'that's not how the rules work' because the gm is rule 0 allowing it. That said, discussing the ways this is going to lead to out of whack balancing would be helpful as a roadmap for the GM so that they can see what kinds of things to expect and work around them, or at least be ready when they become possible when they might otherwise not be.

In the end, your action economy is still going to limit how many things you can do at once. Even with Riven Hourglass, one of the stances grants haste, so it doesn't stack with other sources of haste. But Haste and Schism might stack (I haven't looked them up to specifically check, if anything would call it out, Schism would have a note saying if it doesn't stack.)

It kind of doesn't matter if you can cast finger of death all day every day if the fight is going to be over in 2 rounds anyway, and it's the only fight in the day that matters. Now, it might mean that you can point at people and kill them and use it as a means of intimidating people and being a jerk, but there's lots of ways to do that without using magic at all.

Also, weapon group adaptation may no longer be required for Broken Blade (for some reason) but using it would still net you the +2 damage and bonus on dc's and whatever the other regular benefit is for using an in discipline weapon for a maneuver. And considering that broken blade has an early maneuver for 'eat it, staggered' in it, having a higher dc on that is rather nice.

[Castilonium]

Also, weapon group adaptation may no longer be required for Broken Blade (for some reason) but using it would still net you the +2 damage

No, the +2 damage was removed in the errata too. I added a link to it in my last post. You can read it easily for yourself.

[Snowbluff]

Vivisectionist//Synthesist or Paladin//Synthesist are my gold standards.

Summoner makes you t2, no if ands or butts. Vivi complements with extra damage, Paladin with Fey Foundling and a FCB for LoH compliments with very strong healing Synthesists are just tough.

I think figuring out something similiar would be good. You can VMC Paladin for LoH for some strong healing for your feats.

[neversterling]

GM here. CGNefarious forgot to mention the various nerfs to Path of War:

Broken Blade is sloppily over-nerfed by removing all bonus damage. Still can do three attacks w/ a two-handed weapon that bypass DR at level 5 with a standard and swift action.
Primal Fury's pouncing is banned, various specific maneuvers have their damage nerfed.
Riven Hourglass will be put in line more with the Shift Time talent from Spheres of Power, namely, you'll be borrowing more than your swift action on the next turn when you initiate those counters that give you move or standard actions, and instead of just getting an extra standard action with the God of the Hourglass, you'll get to trade your swift for a standard.
There might be others, eventually.


I'm deliberately going against the advice of the 3.5 Gestalt rules to ban dual progression PrCs and 2 PrCs at once. This is Pathfinder, where base class features are almost always better than PrC features, unlike 3.5 where prestiging was vastly more common and powerful. There's a reason one of the top 3 Pathfinder PrCs is the Evangelist. I'm coming from a perspective that they are weak, and I want to enable them in an environment where I'll still be able to challenge them even if they are powerful. Still aren't getting FCBs, still aren't getting Arcane School progression or free spells for your spellbook.

FWIW, I thought this idea was dumb, and can only imagine how much work it will be to level up.

Summoner is Unchained only.