[3.5] Gestalt build advice (Cleric / Druid) - looking for awesome but kinda lame

[TallerSpine]

In another thread, I mentioned that I was making "opposites" for the evil characters in my campaign. The idea behind the campaign is that evil will always be better than good because evil is willing to bend/break the rules. So, that goes for character building. Here are the rules:

All 3.5 splatbooks are acceptable, but anything dragon magazine needs DM (my) approval.
Characters are Gestalt (Good characters follow the normal Gestalt rules from Unearthed Arcana - evil characters can bend those rules, taking prestige classes that increase two different classes worth of abilities on each side of the gestalt)
Characters gain a feat every level instead of every three levels (Monte Cook's Book of Experimental Might)
Characters gain two +1s (to be applied to two different abilities) every other level instead of one +1 per four levels.

I am trying to build exalted "versions" of the same characters. The idea being, those they meet will get confused between the two parties. The evil party may arrive in a town helped by the good party and be heralded as heroes while the good party may arrive in a town that the evil party demolished and find themselves run out of town or arrested.

The idea behind these characters is they are awesome (a challenge for the party), but at the same time, ridiculously lame.

Example: the good version of the Half-Ogre fleshwarper barbarian/wizard murderhobo (with an aberrant form of Vow of Poverty) is a werebear half-ogre paladin / War Hulk with the Vow of Poverty and Vow of Peace. So, the good version has as much strength as the evil character (maybe even more), but with the vow of peace, he is prohibited from dealing lethal damage.

The good version of the half-nymph lesser aasimar sorcerer 5/Urpriest 2/Mystic Theurge 2//wizard 1/hexblade 3/spellthief 1/Ultimate Magus 5 (Caster level 21) is a half-nymph lesser aasimar Battle Sorcerer 8//Cleric 3/Church Inquisitor 5 who has the Slow trait and wears Mithral Mechanus Gear -- so move speed is 5 ft/rnd.

I thought I knew what I was doing for the opposite of the cleric/dread necromancer. I assumed I would make a cleric of life. But, I am not sure what to put for the other side of the gestalt. Is druid a good fit? I feel like druids are just awesome with no opportunity for lameness. Unless I take variant features that makes the druid lamer. Any suggestions?

[Khedrac]

The problem with a cleric//druid gestalt is that you have put active classes on both sides of the gestalt - you can still only cast one spell per round.

The more effective gestalt characters tend to be active//passive, so thinks like cleric//monk or cleric//dragon shaman - classes that are remarkably weak on their own often provides good benefits when gestalted with a good class.

All that said, there's one double "active" gestalt i think works not too badly - cleric (or druid)//healer! A cleric//healer is basically a cleric who doesn't need to waste spell slots on healing - they just have the downside of no metal armour (hence druid//healer). They are still not great combinations.

Oddly rogue counts as a passive class - their skills are mainly used out of combat, and in combat all they really add is extra damage on the active class's attacks.

On the subject of opposing a cleric//dread necro, a cleric//marshal with the marshal side boosting the turn undead through the stratosphere might be very frustrating for your player...

[gkathellar]

The trick is that while both classes have plenty of active abilities, a lot of those abilities are buffs of one type or another, so they're only active until they're passive. Instead of Cleric-or-Druid-zilla, you'll be Cleric-and-Druid-zilla, an absurdly SAD dire tortoise armored in just about every buff in the books, accompanied by a dinosaur that is also armored in just about every buff in the books. That's pretty good!

Also DMM Persist works with druid spells.

[liquidformat]

you can also take an initiate feat to get turn animals which might work for DMM...

Besides that totemist/druid is an awesome easy build, they synergies very well.

An interesting mix is Hexblade on one side and cleric/Divine Oracle on the other between presence sense and mettle they are pretty nasty. If you can pull divine grace from somewhere things just get better. Granted hexblade probably doesn't work for the good guys...

[gkathellar]

Besides that totemist/druid is an awesome easy build, they synergies very well.

Or Totemist|Cleric, fwiw. Not quite as good, but still solid. Totemist goes well with just about everything, to be honest (it’s one of the best-designed classes in the game, just generally speaking).

Incarnate is also really good for gestalt in particular, as its main schtick of “I can be okayish at everything,” becomes, “I am really good at what my other class does and okay at everything else.”

... thinking about it, if this character is meant to be a thematic opponent to a Cleric|Dread Necromancer, you might want to consider Cleric|Incarnate. It would be thematically appropriate and is quite a capable, flexible build besides.

[liquidformat]

Or you could go full on cleric/radiant servant of pelor with paladin or crusader on the other side depending on how optimized you want to make this. Holy knight of light is always a decent go to and very thematically good choice for the goody two shoes team...