Help with a Gestalt Build

[kuhaica]

Forgive me as I'm not the best at asking for advice when it comes to character builds in general and while I'm capable of optimizing and do so from time to time, but that is hardly the goal in this situation. I'm more looking for ideas on how to make a gestalt build fit a players idea for said character. I've gotten a good chunk of it already down, but I'm current stuck.

Essitenly the player in question wants a Frontline Heavy Hitter, Leader with some Divine Spellcasting. But doesn't want barbarian which would be the easy way to get this done. So far I've been using PF and 3.5 material with a little bit of third party material to help with gaps. I'm currently working on the Classes and Feats since equipment and chorots are quite easy to handle and I'm at the moment stuck with how to proceed with the build.


TL;DR Player wants a Gestalt Build that is a Frontline Melee, Heavy Hitting that is able to be a competent leader with some Divine Spell Casting and I need help withc choosing classes and feats.

Current Levels:
15 Leves as PF Cavalier (Order of Claymore)
7 Levels of PF Fighter
6 Levels of 3.5 Sublime Way Varient Marshall
2 Levels of 3.5 Cleric

I plan on bumping the Cleric levels but I don't know if this is good enough for whta my player wants or if I'm perhap missing something.

[Falontani]

As always I can't design a cleric effectively without knowing the setting, however:
1 Knowledge Cleric (Knowledge, War, and an elemental domain) | Warblade (or some other full bab initiator, perhaps crusader)
2 Cleric | Warblade
3 Cleric | Warblade
4 Cleric | Warblade
5 Cleric | Warblade
6 Cleric | Ordained Champion
7 Abjurant Champion | Ordained Champion
8 Abjurant Champion | Ordained Champion
9 Cleric | Ordained Champion
10 Abjurant Champion | Ordained Champion
11 Abjurant Champion | Cleric
12 Abjurant Champion | Cleric
13 Psychic Warrior | Prestigious Paladin
14 Cleric | Prestigious Paladin
15 Soulborn | Prestigious Paladin
16 Cleric | Prestigious Paladin
17 Soulborn | Prestigious Paladin
18 Cleric | Witch Slayer
19 Cleric | Witch Slayer
20 Cleric | Swordsage

1) Combat Casting
1) Extra Turning
3) Southern Magician
6) Mounted Combat
9) Power Attack
12) Holy Warrior
15) Sapphire Smite
18) Psycharnum Infusion

Level 14 sub your mount out for Charging Smite

19-20 BAB, full cleric spellcasting, many maneuvers (if you went crusader then grab some white raven abilities and you are a leader) Powerful extended abjurations
22+ 2*cha mod number of Smites based on your turning level (with +24 damage per) (with your domain that you can get on entering ordained champion if you grab another elemental domain it will be 33+ 3*cha mod number of Smites)
6 smite evils (with +9 damage per)
5 smite oppositions (+5 damage per)
6 smite spirit user (+6 damage per)
Charging Smite doubles the bonus on all smite attacks (+48, +18, +10, and +12 damage)
I highly suggest swapping to spontaneous cleric; Holy Warrior will grant you +9 damage on all attacks as long as you have a ninth level War domain spell ready

High saves due to paladin's Divine Grace, and you have Mettle.

Finally with your abjurant champion levels you are boosting your Shield of Faith by a large margin

I'm sure there are ways you can improve it and this is all with a human at no flaws

[Long_shanks]

Virtuous bravo Paladin // Oracle: Charisma to everything, dex to the rest. It can do a lot of damage, but is better played with dex than str. Works with straight paladin as well, but paladin casting is pretty useless with Oracle on the other side, and Virtuous Bravo is one of the few archetypes that drops casting. One of my friend is using this build in my current PF game and it's powerful as all hell.

Slayer // Inquisitor: A personal favorite of mine. Grab a greatsword and go to town. Inquisitor has a lot of the great cleric selfbuffs and you can do pretty awesome things with Solo tactics and Teamwork feats. Slayer gets full bab, solid talents, sneak attacks and quite a few skill points. Pretty much a well rounded build.

[GrayDeath]

If you are using maneuvers/ToB and/or PoW, there are a multitude of options, so I`ll jsut drop my 2 favourites for the stated purpose and keep it simple:

ToB: Crusader/Favoured Soul. Make sure he takes the right spells, and aside from being MAD which many Gestalt Variants are you ahve a combo thats extremely easy to play, has a lot of staying power (D12, all Saves High) and 9th Level Casting without being complicated anywhere.

More PFish: Warlord/Oracle. Excellent Leader, great Meleeist, good Casting, Charisma Synergy, and if you pick the right mystery even better for buffing or battle.


If Initiators are out (as is often the case) I would go for a Divine Bard/Marshall for the more extreme "Leading/Supporting" Role, or a CLeric (ideally with the feat that replaces Wisdom with Charisma for Casting, cant remember the name atm) Paladin if he is willing to be LG (or CG with a Paladin of Freedom).
Full Cleric Casting, maxxed Saves, can buff himself and others to Kingdom come.

[Andor13]

Doesn't seem like a tricky build honestly.

It depends on what he means by leader, honestly, and what his goals are for divine spellcasting.

Could be anything from Fighter/Cleric to Knight/Dragon Shaman to Warblade/Marshall. Or if you want to get pathfinderish Zealot (path of war, not vigilante)/Cleric (or Bard) could be downright ugly.

[kuhaica]

Thanks for the replies, I'll be sure to think over what you have said.

[Peat]

Does depend a bit on how much divine casting they want/how they reckon being a "leader" should look, but it sounds pretty doable to me. Plenty of tanky buffing classes; plenty of divine spellcasting buffers; plenty of divine casting frontliners. Even a simple Fighter//Cleric combo would do well, particularly if using PF archetypes to get Inspire Courage from Cleric (Evangelist) and something buffing from Fighter.