Gestalt build ideas (Cleric/Wizard)

[Shadow_hands]

I’m playing a NE tie fling cleric/wizard gestalt following Loviatar. 5th level. Just seeing if anyone has any good ideas for down the road (of coarse if she doesn’t die first).

[Kayblis]

Gestalt lets you pick bad classes and make them great. Pick 3 levels of Cleric//Wizard, but on your 4th level and from thern on pick Mystic Theurge//Anything. Mystic Theurge advances both casting classes, and while its requirements make it really hard to make a strong character in normal play, he's absolute beast in Gestalt.

The "Anything" literally means anything. Pick Barbarian for the BAB/HP/Fort, or Fighter for the free feats, or Rogue for the bucket of skillpoints, or a ToB class for all the benefits. Hell, you could even start a Psionic class to get that triple spellcasting going. Any class that gives you more actions per round is also welcome, because you'll run into the problem of having TOO MANY spells and not enough time to cast them.

[skunk3]

AFAIK, you cannot select a dual-progression prestige class if you are playing gestalt. The reason for this is because if one were allowed to do so, they could effectively progress 3 (or more) classes almost all the way up to level 20.

In gestalt you can only level up in a prestige class on one 'side' of the gestalt at a time also... so at each given level you have to be taking a level in a base class opposite the level in whatever prestige class. Of course there's other options like racial levels, templates, and other such things.. but you get the picture. Long story short, Eldritch Theurge wouldn't work in gestalt.

As far as what you should pick... that entirely depends on what level of power you are going for. Since you're playing a Cleric/Wizard I am hard pressed to think of something more powerful than Dweomerkeeper. If you are going for crazy power, try this:

1. Wizard 1 / Cleric 1
2. Wizard 2 / Cleric 2
3. Wizard 3 / Cleric 3
4. Wizard 4 / Cleric 4
5. Wizard 5 / Cleric 5
6. Incantrix 1 / Cleric 6
7. Incantrix 2 / Cleric 7
8. Incantrix 3 / Cleric 8
9. Incantrix 4 / Cleric 9
10. Incantrix 5 / Cleric 10
11. Dweomerkeeper / Cleric... up to 20.

You would have full 20th level Wizard AND Cleric casting due to Incantrix and Dweomerkeeper progressing your Wizard side. Be a Cleric of Mystra. Take the Initiate of Mystra feat. Incantrix isn't really necessary (there's some other PrC's out there that advance casting) but it does offer 2 bonus metamagic feats. Your call. Dweomerkeeper is insanely powerful.

Congrats, you're now an earth-shattering gish that can overcome basically anything.


Since you are a NE Tiefling I think that Dread Necromancer / Cleric would be more fun than Wizard/Cleric. TBH I think that taking levels in 2 spellcasting classes in gestalt is kinda boring because you still have action economy to consider. So what if you have a million spells available? You're still going to be limited by action economy unless you invest heavily in summoning.

Assuming that you don't want to change your class levels and continue playing forward, I'd say just look at Wizard and Cleric prestige classes that advance spellcasting and figure out how many levels in each that you want to take, and figure out when would be best to take them... because remember, you have to take a level in a base class at the same time as a level in a prestige class as you level up.

A cool idea for an evil Tiefling would be something like Dread Necromancer 20 on one side and on the other side go with Cleric 6 / Master of Shrouds 10 / Contemplative 4. You would lose out on 1 level of Cleric casting but big deal. You would be master of the undead.

[gkathellar]

If you can find a way to treat your Wizard spells as Divine, then you can apply DMM Persist to them.


AFAIK, you cannot select a dual-progression prestige class if you are playing gestalt.

It's suggested that DMs not allow it and this is generally considered to be a good suggestion. However, since gestalt is a variant rule and people do implement it differently, Ask Your DM.

[Jack_Simth]

I’m playing a NE tie fling cleric/wizard gestalt following Loviatar. 5th level. Just seeing if anyone has any good ideas for down the road (of coarse if she doesn’t die first).

You're going to have a difficult time burning through a meaningful fraction of those spell slots in a few levels, (assuming you're not facing that problem now) due to action economy issues. Additionally, you're likely to be running across save DC problems soon-ish; your ability boosts and stat enhancement is of necessity split when you're doing the dual-casting like that. This may sound strange, but if the party has a Wizard or Cleric separate from yourself, I might suggest abandoning one of those two classes.

[Gnaeus]

You're going to have a difficult time burning through a meaningful fraction of those spell slots in a few levels, (assuming you're not facing that problem now) due to action economy issues. Additionally, you're likely to be running across save DC problems soon-ish; your ability boosts and stat enhancement is of necessity split when you're doing the dual-casting like that. This may sound strange, but if the party has a Wizard or Cleric separate from yourself, I might suggest abandoning one of those two classes.

That isn’t necessarily true. It is a concern, yes. But it isn’t difficult, for example, to fill the higher DC side (likely but not necessarily wizard) with your attack spells and the lower DC side (likely but not necessarily cleric) with pre-combat buffs, swift action spells, etc...

Even if all cleric is doing is giving 3/4 BAB, good fort saves, and loading up on utility/situational stuff like invisibility purge, magic vestments, water breathing, lesser restoration and animate dead, it still brings as much or more to the table as most passive gestalt classes. And that’s without digging through spell compendium for swift action stuff. Then there’s turn attempts, domains or domain feats... it’s an above average choice. And you can do the same with wizard (with a little more work)

[Malphegor]

I've never played gestalt myself, but for a tiefling regular wizard/cleric/dweomerkeeper, I went

feats:

Fiendish bloodline (gives you spells/level. Also qualifies you for wings!)
Outsider wings (average flight, also looks pimping)

Ocular Spell: This was mainly just to qualify for dweomerkeeper so we can get supernatural spell and mantle of spells. However, it also is cool because it lets you cast some spells (touch spells for example) as ray attacks. There's some touch spells that would be useful, but I am never getting closer than 60feet of anything that can kill me if I can help it. (also it gets weird with some spells and weirdness is magic for me- what does it MEAN, for there to be a ray of Grease now? Does my laser now shoot a single splodge of grease where it hit? Does it coat the entire target within range?)

Alacritous Cogitation+Uncanny Forethought+Dweomerkeeper's Mantle of Spells:

Heeeeey sorcerer. I heard you cast spontaneously. But you can't learn from scrolls? That's kinda tragic. I'm sure magic is very proud of you, and you are a paragon of all that you do. You are a perfectly adequate spellslinger, and never let anyone take that away from you.

At this point, you don't really need a spellbook for a decent chunk of spells for any one encounter. It's handy, sure, but right now, you can just go 'WELL I HAVE SPELLS PREPARED NOW' for a hefty number of slots, albeit with penalties and issues but meh. And even if those spells aren't what you need, you can swap them for your playlist of your top 10 hits via the mantle.
Literally all you need is the epic version of eschew materials now and you could be a decent wizard just waving your arms and shouting at things...

Geometer: you don't need to wave your arms and shout at things, just doodle with your fancy pen beforehand. So you literally just need pen, paper, and fancy boy inks to magic now. If you take 2 levels of this, you can even get your spellbook tattooed on you in defragmentation-datacompression swirls and imagery, so now you can be extra naked and still be a good wizard.


Now, the fun thing about dweomerkeeper is that while it's not a dual-advancement class, you can pick what spellcasting class it advances as you level it. So, if you get sick of wizardry and want to spend a wild summer as a divine caster, bam a level here or there you still progress your sweet dweomerkeeper features but can now sanctify puppies or whatever clerics do at higher levels.