need character ideas for gestalt game

[LadyBast]

A little background first, I think, is in order. My group of consistent players is tiny (3 people including myself. We will call them A and B). So instead of adding flaky players and dropping the game when they flake on us, we decided that we would play with gestalt characters. We would play with them taking turns DMing every other week (week 1:game 1 A DMing, week 2:game 2 B DMing, week 3:game 1 ...). They would both play 2 characters since they have played D&D pretty much their whole lives while I will play one character per game. My first character was no problem since B waited for me to make a desicion on what I wanted to play before making his choices. My second character was a lot harder. I told A that I was thinking bard//favored soul level 4 so he made a melee tank and ranged arcane characters.
But here is the thing. We have now played our first day of Game 1 and I am loving the diverse complexity of the character I made for that game (rogue 2/ warblade 2//duskblade 4) and I am rethinking of my second character. I was talking to the guys and they both want to help me create something that I will love to play too so I don't give up after a while and begin to hate that week's game. So they threw some prestige classes at me and I am liking what I am reading about Holt Warden and only thing that comes to mind is Druid to go into it beforehand.

What would you pair with Holt Warden and then what would be a good class for the other side of the gestalt character? would it be better to go 5druid/10 holt warden//15 something, OR 5 something/10 holt warden//15 druid?

[Waker]

Druid is already a pretty versatile class with a good chassis. Since your partner will be playing as the warrior type, I'd suggest pairing druid with ranger or scout for the extra skill points.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Holt Warden is more or less the "become a druid without being a druid" class, for clerics, archivists, favoured souls and so on. The first two levels are good for druids, because of the bonus domain spells (the Plant domain is quite good). If you want to be a stealth druid, three levels is about the maximum I'd take. You lose Wild Shape advancement by taking more levels, and Wild Shape is really potent.


The question is: What kind of build do you want? It sounds like you want a druid with extra druid, which is fair enough, but kind of hard to expand on.

When you think of this character, do you think Fochlucan Lyrist (CAdv), Fist of the Forest (CChamp), Planar Shepherd (Faiths of Eberron), Master of Many Forms (CAdv), Arcane Hierophant (RotW), something else? Would levels in scout (CAdv), ardent (CPsi), crusader/warblade/swordsage (Tome of Battle), dragonfire adept (Dragon Magic) help realize your concept? You could do a cool Champion of Gwynharwyf build, if you want to be a fey- and forest-defending fighting druid, or you throw in some totemist (Magic of Incarnum) to buff your druidness into the next crystalline sphere.

In short, there are a lot of druid options. Especially in gestalt, because you don't have to lose Wild Shape or animal companion advancement if you don't want to. Speaking of, do you want to supercharge your animal companion?