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merrja666
2007-10-13, 01:42 PM
I just don't get gestalt characters, and to my mind, there are only 3 reasons why you would need one;

(If you don't know what Gestalt characters are, look here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).)

1. If the campaign does not have enough player

2. If you are playing a higher-level campaign with lower-level gestalt characters

3. Or both.

I mean, I'm playing a gestalt campaign right now, and I am a Ultimate Magus (Wizard/Warmage) and a Barbarian with a level or two of Rage Mage, and it is just stupidly broken.

For example: A Level 20 Two-Weapon Fighter / Level 20 Monk, when using Flurry of Blows and Full Attack, has a BAB +20, +20, +20, +20, +15, +15,+10, +10, +5, which, frankly, is stupid.

A Level 20 Fighter / Level 20 Fighter, although not many people's first choice, has (by my count) 36 feats. That's 5 times the feats you normally get.

As Gestalt characters are totally and utterly broken, I give you a challenge - an ECL 21 Gestalt Character. Everythings is allowed, nothing is banned.

Have fun...

Rigel Cyrosea
2007-10-13, 01:49 PM
Gestalt is not always broken, and there are more reasons to play it than those you listed. Gestalt is great for classes like the Warlock, giving you more to do than just Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Blast... Gestalt is also great if you are using monster classes, as they allow you to gain the benifit of the monster class, while still having normal class abilities.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-13, 01:49 PM
I kind of doubt that those are actually broken. The mage/barb is probably not as good a magic-user as a non-gestalt wizard-20.

But it is rather obviously intended that gestalt characters be more powerful than normal, so you ought to face them with enemies you wouldn't put against an equivalent group of non-gestalt characters...

kamikasei
2007-10-13, 01:51 PM
1. If the campaign does not have enough player

That's the idea behind it, yeah, more or less.


I mean, I'm playing a gestalt campaign right now, and I am a Ultimate Magus (Wizard/Warmage) and a Barbarian with a level or two of Rage Mage, and it is just stupidly broken.

That would be because you're not supposed to take two-class-at-once PrCs like Ultimate Magus or Mystic Theurge in gestalt, specifically because they're overpowered.

[QUOTE=merrja666;3341388]A Level 20 Fighter / Level 20 Fighter, although not many people's first choice, has (by my count) 36 feats. That's 5 times the feats you normally get.

The feat progression is the same feature, so you only get it once. You don't get twice the save bonus if both sides have good fortitude, for example, you just get good fortitude.

UserClone
2007-10-13, 02:04 PM
Gestalt is an intentionally overpowered variant, and says so in its description. As stated before, while technically legal, having a PrC which uses two casting progressions is insanely b0rkened.
Also, there are only a certain number of useful feats, as most of them specify an action, and cannot be used in conjunction with others. Fighter//Fighter (which I am not even sure it is legal) seems pointless to me- it has all the weaknesses of Fighter, and no shoring up of those weaknesses, or additional strengths, aside from the fact that, again as previously pointed out, you only get the feats once.

Bauglir
2007-10-13, 02:09 PM
What are we to accomplish with this 21st level character?

Also, you can't take the same class simultaneously, nor can you take two prestige classes simultaneously (though I assume you didn't). However, Ultimate Magus is one of the prestige classes they suggested banning; classes that progress two other classes simultaneously are unnecessary in gestalt, and yes, quite silly-broken.

That said, I think a good one would be Barbarian 10/Bear Warrior 10/Warshaper +1, Fighter 2/Psychic Warrior 2/Warblade 1/Warhulk 10/Warshaper 1/Frenzied Berserker 5. We will, of course, be playing a Lolth-Touched Orc (with LA buyoff) with a magic item of continuous Enlarge Person. Start with an 18, +6 Enhancement, +5 Level, +5 Manual, +4 Racial, +6 Lolth-Touched, +20 Bear, +8 Rage, +4 Warshaper, +20 War Hulk, +6 Frenzy, +2 Size = 104 Str. I can think of no reason not to power attack for full, and we have Improved Power Attack. Gloves of Man are a must, allowing us to wield a Goliath Greathammer in bear form (3d6 damage when it's large, with a x4 Crit). Our damage on a +5 Collision Berserker Brash Corrosive Greathammer with a Greater Crystal of Electricity Assault, thus, is 3d6+1d8+1d6 Acid+1d6 Electricity+140 and a -1 Penalty to the opponent's AC. And we have Full base attack bonus and Pounce, thanks to the Lion Totem Barbarian. What saddens me is that the level 21 non-gestalt wizard does better.

Gralamin
2007-10-13, 02:18 PM
A Question that I've always had with Gestalt:
Why is it that with a Wizard/Fighter, Wizard Bonus Feats and Fighter bonus feats do not stack? Yes they have the same name, but so does Spellcasting, and a Wizard/Sorcerer is supposed to have both sides of their spellcasting.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-13, 02:42 PM
Lion Totem Barbarian 1/Totemist 9/Totem Rager 10//Druid 20.

Hey look. I'm a giant bear with full spellcasting, pounce, and extra natural attacks in any form.

But wait, there's more! Let's toss in Vow of Poverty, Exalted Wild Shape, and Aberration Wild Shape.

Now I'm a giant fartouched monstrous scorpion that has six claws, three bites, a slam, pounce, rage, trip attempts attached to all three bites, an extra four claw attacks from extra arms gained from Girallon Arms and girallon's blessing, Power Attack/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, and more.

Ivius
2007-10-13, 02:45 PM
Lion Totem Barbarian 1/Totemist 9/Totem Rager 10//Druid 20.

Hey look. I'm a giant bear with full spellcasting, pounce, and extra natural attacks in any form.

But wait, there's more! Let's toss in Vow of Poverty, Exalted Wild Shape, and Aberration Wild Shape.

Now I'm a giant fartouched monstrous scorpion that has six claws, three bites, a slam, pounce, rage, trip attempts attached to all three bites, an extra four claw attacks from extra arms gained from Girallon Arms and girallon's blessing, Power Attack/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, and more.

:smalleek:

Jack Mann
2007-10-13, 02:51 PM
You want a broken prestige build? How about Wizard 10/Incantatrix 10//Archivist 20. Go with illumian and use strength for your bonus spells. Persist bite of the werebear. Boom. You now have spells out the yin-yang, and you're a melee god.

Dragonmuncher
2007-10-13, 02:54 PM
A Question that I've always had with Gestalt:
Why is it that with a Wizard/Fighter, Wizard Bonus Feats and Fighter bonus feats do not stack? Yes they have the same name, but so does Spellcasting, and a Wizard/Sorcerer is supposed to have both sides of their spellcasting.

They do stack. The fighter bonus feat can only be used to take fighter feats, and the wizard feat has to be item creation/metamagic/Spell Mastery

So, if you were taking your fifth level of wizard at the same time you were taking your fourth level of fighter, you'd get the fighter bonus feat (which is a class feature, not the generic "character leveled up" bonus feat) and the wizard bonus feat (ditto).

triforcel
2007-10-13, 02:57 PM
Gestalt is supposed to be high powered, but not to the extent that you seem to be thinking. For instance, you can't use flurry of blows and a full attack action in the same round (without something to give you another full round action) so the monk/fighter would have a flurry of 20/20/20/15/10/5 not the 20/20/20/20/15/15/10/10/5 that you said he would get. And while it is fun to have twice the options that a normal character would have, you're still only one character. You can't cast a spell and take a full attack action in the same round (again, without something to give you another full round action), but you can take one class to do combat stuff and then use the other class for out of combat stuff. For instance have a full melee character who's also a cleric to keep himself healed and buffed. Or my favorite gestalt character, the Rogue/Warlock. Most of the Warlock's invocations have a rougish feel to them and adding sneak attack to eldritch blast gives you a whole lot of d6's.

Generally though you only play a gestalt character in a gestalt campaign, which aren't played very often.

MeklorIlavator
2007-10-13, 02:58 PM
How about Factotum 8/Wizard8. @ standard actions per round/ per encounter, with more uses per encounter added if he wanted to take font of inspiration. I have one in my campaign thats starting in about 30 minutes, mostly because he says its not that great.:smallconfused:

Kaelik
2007-10-13, 03:15 PM
My favorite Gestalt build is:

Ogre Mage/Half Dragon Black/Whatever you want//Wizard 10/Elemental Savant 10

Advantages: Can never die. Regenerates all damage not immune to, immune to death effects, and anything else that can kill you. Also, Wizard spellcasting/Levitate and other stuff at will/Insane stats.

Penguinizer
2007-10-13, 03:22 PM
Gestalt is supposed to be high powered, but not to the extent that you seem to be thinking. For instance, you can't use flurry of blows and a full attack action in the same round (without something to give you another full round action) so the monk/fighter would have a flurry of 20/20/20/15/10/5 not the 20/20/20/20/15/15/10/10/5 that you said he would get. And while it is fun to have twice the options that a normal character would have, you're still only one character. You can't cast a spell and take a full attack action in the same round (again, without something to give you another full round action), but you can take one class to do combat stuff and then use the other class for out of combat stuff. For instance have a full melee character who's also a cleric to keep himself healed and buffed. Or my favorite gestalt character, the Rogue/Warlock. Most of the Warlock's invocations have a rougish feel to them and adding sneak attack to eldritch blast gives you a whole lot of d6's.

Generally though you only play a gestalt character in a gestalt campaign, which aren't played very often.

Bring in Warblade 21// Sword Sage 11/Blood Strom Blade 10. Thrikreen.

Full Two-Weapon Fighting Tree. Activate Blood in the water, Girallion Windmill Fleshrip, and then the Blood Storm Blade capstone. You're doing a full attack on all enemies in a large, large area. +1 stacking damage for each critical. 2 full attacks in a nigh limitless range.

Josh the Aspie
2007-10-13, 03:35 PM
Gestalt is supposed to be high powered, but not to the extent that you seem to be thinking. For instance, you can't use flurry of blows and a full attack action in the same round (without something to give you another full round action) so the monk/fighter would have a flurry of 20/20/20/15/10/5 not the 20/20/20/20/15/15/10/10/5 that you said he would get.



Flurry of Blows (Ex)
When unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. The resulting modified base attack bonuses are shown in the Flurry of Blows Attack Bonus column on Table: The Monk. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity the monk might make before her next action. When a monk reaches 5th level, the penalty lessens to -1, and at 9th level it disappears. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.

When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). She may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus × 1½ or ×½) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows.

In the case of the quarterstaff, each end counts as a separate weapon for the purpose of using the flurry of blows ability. Even though the quarterstaff requires two hands to use, a monk may still intersperse unarmed strikes with quarterstaff strikes, assuming that she has enough attacks in her flurry of blows routine to do so.
Greater Flurry

When a monk reaches 11th level, her flurry of blows ability improves. In addition to the standard single extra attack she gets from flurry of blows, she gets a second extra attack at her full base attack bonus.


The above is taken from d20srd.org. The emphasis is my own.

As you can see above, flurry of blows is not a separate type of full round action, it is an ability granting additional options when one uses a full attack, which is the type of action one must also use when fighting with two weapons.

So I do believe that he is correct in that a monk could gain the full additional attack progression from the two weapon fighting feats.

deadseashoals
2007-10-13, 05:47 PM
I just don't get gestalt characters, and to my mind, there are only 3 reasons why you would need one;

(If you don't know what Gestalt characters are, look here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm).)

1. If the campaign does not have enough player

2. If you are playing a higher-level campaign with lower-level gestalt characters

3. Or both.

I mean, I'm playing a gestalt campaign right now, and I am a Ultimate Magus (Wizard/Warmage) and a Barbarian with a level or two of Rage Mage, and it is just stupidly broken.

For example: A Level 20 Two-Weapon Fighter / Level 20 Monk, when using Flurry of Blows and Full Attack, has a BAB +20, +20, +20, +20, +15, +15,+10, +10, +5, which, frankly, is stupid.

A Level 20 Fighter / Level 20 Fighter, although not many people's first choice, has (by my count) 36 feats. That's 5 times the feats you normally get.

As Gestalt characters are totally and utterly broken, I give you a challenge - an ECL 21 Gestalt Character. Everythings is allowed, nothing is banned.

Have fun...

Well, gestalt can be used to make broken characters, but Fighter 20 / Fighter 20? You have to be trolling me here, Fighter 20 is already normally too many feats to allocate in any useful manner. Fighter 20 / Fighter 20 is pretty much the bottom of the barrel, and any reasonably optimized, NON-gestalt ECL 15 character would wipe the floor with that garbage. The Fighter 20 / Monk 20 is hardly any better. Taking the two worst PHB classes and gestalting them is hardly the way to go.

As for the most broken ECL 21 gestalt character? I have no idea, but here's a really broken one: Monk 1 / Druid 20 // Wizard 21. Take Epic Spellcasting. Or for something slightly more optimized, Monk 1 / Druid 10 / Planar Shepherd 10 // Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 10 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Archmage 1.

Edit: I just remembered how broken Incantatrix is with Persistent Spell. The build you want is Grey Elf Monk 1 / Druid 10 / Planar Shepherd 10 // Wizard 5 / Incantatrix 4 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Abjurant Champion 5. Turn 3 + Int of your most ridiculous spells into Persistent spells every day, wild shape into a Pit Fiend, have +16 BAB, have dual 9th-level spellcasting, go nuts. It does involve using PrCs from two different campaign settings, but you can do without the Planar Shepherd anyway, shapechange and polymorph and object are just as good.

Solo
2007-10-13, 05:51 PM
Gestalt is for very high powered campaigns, with people who like to play in a higher power level, and face very hard challenges.

triforcel
2007-10-13, 05:57 PM
The above is taken from d20srd.org. The emphasis is my own.

As you can see above, flurry of blows is not a separate type of full round action, it is an ability granting additional options when one uses a full attack, which is the type of action one must also use when fighting with two weapons.

So I do believe that he is correct in that a monk could gain the full additional attack progression from the two weapon fighting feats.

He made no mention of two weapon fighting in the post, he just said that a 20 fighter/20 monk using full attack would get 20/20/20/20/15/15/10/10/5, which he wouldn't because using flurry of blows is a full attack action that (after level eleven) gives you two extra attacks at your highest BAB and thus a full round action by itself so the fighter/monk's flurry of blows would only give him 20/20/20/15/10/5. He was adding in another separate full attack actions worth of attacks which you wouldn't be able to do without an extra full round action through some spell/item/class ability, and even then you'd have another attack at 5 after those nine.

Draz74
2007-10-13, 06:04 PM
Or for something slightly more optimized, Monk 1 / Druid 10 / Planar Shepherd 10 // Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 10 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Archmage 1.

Can't take more than one PrC in the same level in Gestalt.

How about Druid 10 / Planar Shepherd 10 / Heirophant 1 // Cloistered Cleric 5 / some-Cleric-PrC(s) 5 / Monk 2 / Cloistered Cleric 9? That's the most broken Gestalt build I've ever heard of.

Factotum 8 / Warblade 10 / Swashbuckler 3 // Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 4 / Incantrix 5 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Archmage 2 is certainly nothing to sneeze at, though. :smallamused:

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-13, 06:14 PM
Utterly broken gestalt characters:

Wizard/anything

Cleric/anything

Druid/anything

Artificer/anything

Beguiler/anything

Josh the Aspie
2007-10-13, 06:41 PM
He made no mention of two weapon fighting in the post, he just said that a 20 fighter/20 monk using full attack would get 20/20/20/20/15/15/10/10/5, which he wouldn't because using flurry of blows is a full attack action that (after level eleven) gives you two extra attacks at your highest BAB and thus a full round action by itself so the fighter/monk's flurry of blows would only give him 20/20/20/15/10/5. He was adding in another separate full attack actions worth of attacks which you wouldn't be able to do without an extra full round action through some spell/item/class ability, and even then you'd have another attack at 5 after those nine.



For example: A Level 20 Two-Weapon Fighter / Level 20 Monk, when using Flurry of Blows and Full Attack, has a BAB +20, +20, +20, +20, +15, +15,+10, +10, +5, which, frankly, is stupid.


Again, emphasis is mine.

He did make mention of two weapon fighting. I didn't say that he was right about how well he applied the two weapon fighting as that would have required more research into two weapon fighting, and a lot of assumption on my part.

But he did talk about two weapon fighting on top of a monk's flurry of blows.

deadseashoals
2007-10-13, 06:50 PM
Can't take more than one PrC in the same level in Gestalt.

How about Druid 10 / Planar Shepherd 10 / Heirophant 1 // Cloistered Cleric 5 / some-Cleric-PrC(s) 5 / Monk 2 / Cloistered Cleric 9? That's the most broken Gestalt build I've ever heard of.

Factotum 8 / Warblade 10 / Swashbuckler 3 // Abjurer 3 / Master Specialist 4 / Incantrix 5 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 / Archmage 2 is certainly nothing to sneeze at, though. :smallamused:

Ah, yeah, I forgot about that rule (I don't play gestalt :smallwink: ). But, like I said, the Planar Shepherd is overkill due to PaO and shapechange, so I'd just persist that. Maybe I'd just make the other side Cleric 20, come to think of it. The buffs from cleric synergize better, and there's always the Miracle for Giant Size cheese as well.

BTW, Josh is correct about the attack sequence, triforcel. I have no idea where you're getting your rules from, but maybe you should try quoting the SRD to back up your statements. Here's an excerpt from the FAQ:


Can a monk fight with two weapons? Can she combine a two-weapon attack with a flurry of blows? What are her penalties on attack rolls?

A monk can fight with two weapons just like any other character, but she must accept the normal penalties on her attack rolls to do so. She can use an unarmed strike as an offhand weapon. She can even combine two-weapon fighting with a flurry of blows to gain an extra attack with her off hand (but remember that she can use only unarmed strikes or special monk weapons as part of the flurry). The penalties for two weapon fighting stack with the penalties for flurry of blows.

For example, at 6th level, the monk Ember can normally make one attack per round at a +4 bonus. When using flurry of blows, she can make two attacks (using unarmed strikes or any special monk weapons she holds), each at a +3 bonus. If she wants to make an extra attack with her off hand, she has to accept a –4 penalty on her primary hand attacks and a –8 penalty on her off-hand attacks (assuming she wields a light weapon in her off hand).

If Ember has Two-Weapon Fighting, she has to accept only a –2 penalty on all attacks to make an extra attack with her off hand. Thus, when wielding a light weapon in her off hand during a flurry of blows, she can make a total of three attacks, each at a total bonus of +1. At least one of these attacks has to be with her off-hand weapon.

A 20th-level monk with Greater Two-Weapon Fighting can make eight attacks per round during a flurry of blows. Assuming she wields a light weapon in her off hand, her three off-hand weapon attacks are at +13/+8/+3, and she has five attacks (at +13/+13/+13/+8/+3) with unarmed strikes or any weapons she carries in her primary hand. If the same monk also has Rapid Shot and throws at least one shuriken as part of her flurry of blows (since Rapid Shot can be used only with ranged attacks), she can throw one additional shuriken with her primary hand, but all of her attacks (even melee attacks) suffer a –2 penalty. Thus, her full attack array looks like this: +11/+11/+11/+11/+6/+1 primary hand (two must be with shuriken) and +11/+6/+1 off hand.

Felius
2007-10-13, 06:56 PM
Utterly broken gestalt characters:

Wizard/anything

Cleric/anything

Druid/anything

Artificer/anything

Beguiler/anything

How about a
Wizard 21//Commoner 21

triforcel
2007-10-13, 07:00 PM
Again, emphasis is mine.

He did make mention of two weapon fighting. I didn't say that he was right about how well he applied the two weapon fighting as that would have required more research into two weapon fighting, and a lot of assumption on my part.

But he did talk about two weapon fighting on top of a monk's flurry of blows.

Well I feel dumb. I don't know how I didn't notice that every time, but somehow I did.

Josh the Aspie
2007-10-13, 07:02 PM
Don't. We all miss things, and it's harder to see something we missed the first time without someone pointing at it.

Besides, the OP mentioned it next to the class name and in the build, not in the action taken, so I can understand your missing it.

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-13, 07:12 PM
How about a
Wizard 21//Commoner 21

Still broken. It is a wizard. :smalltongue:

I wonder if wizard/monk wouldn't be too bad? You get good saves in all three categories, an arbitrary bonus to speed that's not limited to the ground, so it would make you fly faster, too, a free extra dimension door (not that great, but oh well -- one less spell slot for that spell), immunity to poisons so you can cast cloudkill point-blank if you want, spell resistance, the ability to speak with any living creature (good for spells that require language), free extra etherealness, a sorta dinky save-or-die that at least is one more of those, slightly better AC, anti-stealth class skills, Tumble as a class skill, Diplomacy as a class skill (possibly the most broken skill there is at high levels) ...

It's not like you'll actually try to punch anyone or anything, of course. But you get all of the monkish ability to survive piled onto the wizardish ability to survive. Become a lich on top of it all if you want and just keep yourself looking good via gentle repose, and you're golden.

Or what about wizard/psion (telepath)? Schism -- use Silent Spell and Still Spell and become able to cast two spells per round. Become effectively immortal without having to be a lich because you can manifest mind switch, true, and hey, while you're at it, you can grab any body that's better than yours and make it yours until it gets too old to be useful.

martyboy74
2007-10-13, 07:15 PM
Monk is acutally a great class in gelstalt, so yeah, that's true. Especially if you take either Kung-fu Genius or Carmendine Monk, both of which let you use your intelligence in place of your wisdom for all your monk abilities.

Wizard//Psion isn't as good as you;d think, because of the lack of defense abilities. The have the same hit die (d4, which is crap), same saves (only good will), same BAB (poor), same skills (2+). The only really good thing is that they use the same casting stat. Wizard//Archivist (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3) would be a better gestalt, because you get a slightly better hit die (d6), good fort and will, 4+ skills, and access to the cleric spell list, which is far more extensive than the psion's power list.

You could probably get a psionic item letting you use schism 3 or 4 time a day anyways; it's not like gestalt isn't overpowered anyways.

Tokiko Mima
2007-10-13, 07:16 PM
I considering letting my gestalt players use duel advancing PrC's, with the qualification that while they are advancing Ultimate Magus, Mystic Disciple, Jade Phoenix Mage, etc., that's the only class they can advance. If they drop back to a base class, then they can advance two classes at a time.

So a Sorcerer 3//Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 2 would be ECL 5 instead of ECL 4. Does that make sense and is it fair balance wise for gestalts?

Nowhere Girl
2007-10-13, 07:32 PM
How about samurai/swashbuckler? Full of win or what??

:smallbiggrin:

Draz74
2007-10-13, 07:38 PM
What.

...........

Hawriel
2007-10-13, 07:43 PM
I dont mean to ruffle feathers but to me Gastalt = powergaming. Blatant powergaming. If you want to just make a power character and grind play a vidio game. As my friend tried to tell his kid, your not cool because your character has all 20 stats kill any thing in melee and cast almost any spell. What makes you cool is if you can give your character a personality, driven by there own motivation and work with your fellow players.

triforcel
2007-10-13, 07:44 PM
@Josh: Well I looked it over, and the rules for flurry of blows reference switching between unarmed and staff attacks. This seems to me like you can multiweapon fight with flurry, but I guess it's up to your DM if you can use TWF on top of that.

@Tokiko: That's a bit weaker than a standard Gestalt character, since in basic Gestalt you would be able to be a Sorcerer 5//Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 2, but you couldn't be taking levels in Ultimate Magus and levels in another prestige class at the same time.

Fax Celestis
2007-10-13, 07:46 PM
I dont mean to ruffle feathers but to me Gastalt = powergaming. Blatant powergaming. If you want to just make a power character and grind play a vidio game. As my friend tried to tell his kid, your not cool because your character has all 20 stats kill any thing in melee and cast almost any spell. What makes you cool is if you can give your character a personality, driven by there own motivation and work with your fellow players.

If everyone in the party is doing it, however, and all of you agree that this is what you'd like to do and are under the full assumption that you will be facing battles six or seven CR above you, why not? It certainly makes for some epic battles.

NEO|Phyte
2007-10-13, 07:48 PM
Bring in Warblade 21// Sword Sage 11/Blood Strom Blade 10. Thrikreen.

Full Two-Weapon Fighting Tree. Activate Blood in the water, Girallion Windmill Fleshrip, and then the Blood Storm Blade capstone. You're doing a full attack on all enemies in a large, large area. +1 stacking damage for each critical. 2 full attacks in a nigh limitless range.

Doesn't work that way, Blade Storm only gets you a single attack on as many targets as you want.
Now, a fun build along a similar line would be Warblade 21//stuff 5/Bloodstorm Blade 10/War Mind 5
Have Blood in the Water up, activate Thunderous Throw, then Blade Storm. Loads of attacks, all hitting 2 squares each. I asked CustServ about this, and they said it worked.

Josh the Aspie
2007-10-13, 07:48 PM
@Josh: Well I looked it over, and the rules for flurry of blows reference switching between unarmed and staff attacks. This seems to me like you can multiweapon fight with flurry, but I guess it's up to your DM if you can use TWF on top of that.

@Tokiko: That's a bit weaker than a standard Gestalt character, since in basic Gestalt you would be able to be a Sorcerer 5//Wizard 3/Ultimate Magus 2, but you couldn't be taking levels in Ultimate Magus and levels in another prestige class at the same time.

You can also use any special monk weapon when flurrying. If one of these is a weapon, you could, for example, get your second weapon attacks with a Kama, while beating someone up for flurry with your hands and feet. There is nothing forbidding it other than a house ruling.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-13, 07:52 PM
Gestalt seriously isn't that powerful. It just allows for more epic'ish characters. Heck, if you want a really broken character, just check out the swordsage variant that lets the player choose maneuvers OR spells, which I posted in another thread. A non gestalt char that effectively is a gestalt. Or, for a more common example, a natural spell druid, a Wizard, etc. They can ravage opposition and do more than most gestalts dream of.

Edea
2007-10-13, 07:56 PM
Bahahaha.

Plain old human, Artificer 21||Druid 5/Planar Shepherd 10/Druid +5/Planar Shepherd +1. Would you like fries with your wilding clasps? Ohhh, you wanted the multiverse. Aiyah...well, we haven't baked any of those yet today, sir, but I'm sure you can help yourself ^_^.

Or hell, anything with a decent Knowledge (the planes) check.

Felius
2007-10-13, 08:11 PM
How about samurai/swashbuckler? Full of win or what??

:smallbiggrin:

I prefer the Pirate//Ninja

Zincorium
2007-10-13, 08:22 PM
I dont mean to ruffle feathers but to me Gastalt = powergaming. Blatant powergaming. If you want to just make a power character and grind play a vidio game. As my friend tried to tell his kid, your not cool because your character has all 20 stats kill any thing in melee and cast almost any spell. What makes you cool is if you can give your character a personality, driven by there own motivation and work with your fellow players.

Right, you have just made your comment irrelevant in the extreme. No one is saying that we should stop character development to work on stats, if you seriously can't build a decent character mechanically in addition to creating a personality, then you should play video games. Because they don't have schedules and you can reload if you screwed up. Balance is always a desirable goal.


Gestalt is very useful for games where characters have to fill more than one role in the party proficiently, and that's what I use it for. Builds that only do one thing well, be it damage, spellcasting, or skills, are not only missing the point but are wasting the potential of gestalt.

To that end, builds like Duskblade//factotum and such which do multiple roles very well, to me constitute the most playable gestalt combinations.


If I want broken, either wizard 3/geomancer 10/initiate of the sevenfold veil 7//cleric 20 is about as broken as you get. Divine MM + batman? Able to cast most spells in full armor? How could you lose?

Kompera
2007-10-13, 08:35 PM
The Fighter 20 / Monk 20 is hardly any better. Taking the two worst PHB classes and gestalting them is hardly the way to go.
The definition of gestalt (according to the M-W online dictionary) is "a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts".

The idea is that even a weak class or pair of weak classes become better than might be obvious when gestalted.

But, yeah, combining with the strongest class is still mo betta powerful. :smalltongue:

Edea
2007-10-13, 08:37 PM
Felius, your avvy atm is made of WTF. :smallbiggrin:

Hario
2007-10-13, 09:07 PM
I don't know how good this is for a melee build but Barbarian 11/frenzied bereserker/10//Druid 21

I'm pretty sure you can wildshape and rage, so lets say you transform into a Greater earth elemental (I know there are worse ones like giants, or if you take master of many forms, but still)
that's 31 Strength off the bat, and your Animal companion transforms with you.
You inspire frenzy in you're companion and you and you use greater rage, thats +16 strength for you, and +10 for your companion (or any other ally who wants it) 31+16=47 (not the best you can do at lvl 21 by far, but you only really need Wisdom and Constitution in this build) The Frenzy and rage's last for (assuming you have an 18 con) 4+3+8= 15 rounds pretty much every encounter (not too many DMs run over 4 encounters per day) so a full attack on this beast is generally going to be +38/+33/+28/+23 (an extra +38 on a full attack if you want from frenzied berserker) you can add the ole' shocktroopers and leap attack into the build to make your attacks even more insane which are 2d10+18 for natural attacks but if you want to pick up say a huge greatsword it'd be 4d6+27 each attack.

I'm too tired to figure out the math, all I know its not the worst on the char ops boards but I know it can be ridiculous, I don't even want to get into the fact that you don't need magic items, and can do this build (minus the giant greatsword you'd need to settle with the 3d6 huge longsword) with vow of poverty. If you ever get into trouble you can always end your frenzy (you can keep your animal companion in a frenzy) and be the wildshaped healer or still fullcaster you want to be.

Turcano
2007-10-13, 09:19 PM
You want a broken prestige build? How about Wizard 10/Incantatrix 10//Archivist 20. Go with illumian and use strength for your bonus spells. Persist bite of the werebear. Boom. You now have spells out the yin-yang, and you're a melee god.

I think I can improve on that. You can take Incantatrix as soon as level 6, so you can sacrifice two levels of the class and go with Wizard 5/Incantatrix 8/Iot7V 7//Archivist 20. You don't get a whole lot for those last two levels, and certainly not compared to the Sevenfold Cheese.

Solo
2007-10-13, 09:42 PM
I dont mean to ruffle feathers but to me Gastalt = powergaming. Blatant powergaming. If you want to just make a power character and grind play a vidio game. As my friend tried to tell his kid, your not cool because your character has all 20 stats kill any thing in melee and cast almost any spell. What makes you cool is if you can give your character a personality, driven by there own motivation and work with your fellow players.

Powergaming and roleplaying aren't exclusive.

I'm playing a Rogue//Warlock who's main focus knowledge, support fire, and humor.

So far, he has made many metagame references, shot eyebearms at enemies, and used Flee the Scene to leave behind an image of himself vigorously humping the air.

Fun stuff.

Ramza00
2007-10-14, 01:44 AM
Archivist 21//Wizard 5/Spellguard of Silverymoon 5/War Wizard 1/Legendary Champion 10

can cast up to 9th lvl spells in your weave. Has access to all divine and most arcane. Can cast 8 spells as a move action. Spellguard of Silverymoon 4 makes personal spells that increase ac, saves (thus dex, str, and wis boosters), or hit points (temporary or permanent) as touch spells.

Thus you can cast shapechange on your entire party, divine power, bite of the werebear, owl's insight (1/2 caster level boost to wisdom0 giant size, favor of the martyr, mind blank, heal, foresight etc.

Fizban
2007-10-14, 01:48 AM
If everyone in the party is doing it, however, and all of you agree that this is what you'd like to do and are under the full assumption that you will be facing battles six or seven CR above you, why not? It certainly makes for some epic battles.

Man, what? I've never played it myself, so I don't know just how much more powerful it is, but Unearthed Arcana says CR two higher than the party level.

Anyway, here's a thought: play gestalt, but count full casters as both sides of the class. If someone wants spells with another class they can work with bard or adept or something.

Hadrian_Emrys
2007-10-14, 02:19 AM
City of the Spider Queen. Three gestalt characters. One made for causing hurt, one made for healing/buffing, and the last made to never die. Nearly TPK'd twice in the first session. It's not that much of a power boost, especially when used to cover a shortage of players. Number of actions per round is a precious, precious commodity.

Kaelik
2007-10-14, 02:30 AM
City of the Spider Queen. Three gestalt characters. One made for causing hurt, one made for healing/buffing, and the last made to never die. Nearly TPK'd twice in the first session. It's not that much of a power boost, especially when used to cover a shortage of players. Number of actions per round is a precious, precious commodity.

Wizard//Factotum

brian c
2007-10-14, 02:37 AM
My favorite Gestalt build is:

Ogre Mage/Half Dragon Black/Whatever you want//Wizard 10/Elemental Savant 10

Advantages: Can never die. Regenerates all damage not immune to, immune to death effects, and anything else that can kill you. Also, Wizard spellcasting/Levitate and other stuff at will/Insane stats.

Ogre Mage is possibly the most broken "race" in the game, if played by a PC. It has features that are nice for a monster (who you will only ever see once, just to kill it) but are game-breakingly ridiculous for a PC, who plays for a whole campaign.


Also, Re: gestalt PrCing and dual-progression classes.

Dual-Progression classes such as Mystic Theurge are NOT banned by RAW, it is merely recommended that DMs use caution when deciding if they are allowed. My own opinion is that if you cap caster level (and effective spellcasting for the class) at HD, then it shouldn't be a problem. For example, don't let someone take Wiz 10/Theurge 10 // Cleric 20 and say that they have 30 levels of cleric spellcasting. Wiz 10/Theurge 10 // Cleric 10 / Fighter 10 is fine as a 20/20 spellcaster though (overpowered, but hey it's already gestalt).

As for taking PrCs on both "sides" of gestalt at once, I believe that it's also not explicitly banned, just warned. I could be wrong about that one though. Basically, for most situations it isn't more gamebreaking to have PrCs on both sides, although some optimized builds get ridiculous if that's allowed.


On the subject of gestalt builds though, here's a nice legal one

Wizard 20 // Warblade 10/Jade Phoenix Mage 10

Hadrian_Emrys
2007-10-14, 02:37 AM
Ah, but of course. A combo made to be a wizard, but with more actions per round. :smallannoyed:

"I'm Batman."

merrja666
2007-10-14, 03:45 AM
Currently I'm thinking of a Warlock/Sorcerer, as they are utterly broken together, and use Battle Caster feat to allow you to cast in Medium Armour without any penalties, and maybe have a bit of Eldritch Theurge in there, and a dash of Archmage.

Or I could have a Fighter/Dervish/Tempest, and a Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker - Devish Dance and Frenzy is a good combination.

On that note, an Archmage/Frenzied Berserker with one or two ranks in Rage Mage is a fearsome combination, and with a d12 Hit Dice, you can take some serious punishment, but you must take the Somatic Weaponry feat for this to work.

But, personally, my favorite is Rogue 20 and a Druid 10/ Master of Many Forms 10. Wild Shape to a 9-Headed Hydra, then use your animal companion to flank the target, and each head can do 10d6 sneak attack damage.

EDIT: Remember people, its Gestalt, not Gastalt.

Reel On, Love
2007-10-14, 05:21 AM
Ah, but of course. A combo made to be a wizard, but with more actions per round. :smallannoyed:

"I'm Batman."
The problem is, you run out of spells really fast--and it's a gestalt game, so you're expected to have *more* endurance.


Currently I'm thinking of a Warlock/Sorcerer, as they are utterly broken together, and use Battle Caster feat to allow you to cast in Medium Armour without any penalties, and maybe have a bit of Eldritch Theurge in there, and a dash of Archmage.
Um. Why are they utterly broken together? The Warlock adds very little to the Sorcerer.
Eldirtch Theurge is a dual class and thus isn't for gestalt.


Or I could have a Fighter/Dervish/Tempest, and a Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker - Devish Dance and Frenzy is a good combination.
Dervish Dance explicitly prohibits you from using rage type things while you do it.
Also, Tempest? Tempest sucks.
And you can't take a prestige class on each side. Dervish or FB? Pick one.

On that note, an Archmage/Frenzied Berserker with one or two ranks in Rage Mage is a fearsome combination, and with a d12 Hit Dice, you can take some serious punishment, but you must take the Somatic Weaponry feat for this to work.

Starsinger
2007-10-14, 05:24 AM
It's rather messy, but if one side is a PrC with limited caster level, can you take levels of the caster class on the other? Like Sorcerer 10/Eldritch Knight10//Fighter19/Sorcerer1? And how do feats made for multiclassing (Ascetic Monk, Dedicated Tracker, etc.) work with gestalt?

I think the most "broken" gestalt combination one of my players has tried to pull on me was Ranger 10/Dervish 10//Rogue 20.. but as I repeatedly say, I've been blessed with players who don't really get optimizing. So out of personal experience, I don't find Gestalt that broken, I mean.. the people who break gestalt are usually the same people who'd find a way to do it in vanilla D&D.


Also, Tempest? Tempest sucks.
If he's a dervish he's going to be dual wielding anyways might as well get the TWF bonuses from Tempest (Tempest is the TWF class, ya? I don't wanna feel too stupid saying this..)

SCPRedMage
2007-10-14, 05:26 AM
A Level 20 Fighter / Level 20 Fighter, although not many people's first choice, has (by my count) 36 feats. That's 5 times the feats you normally get.
Unless I missed something (and I did just review the rules, just in case), you can't take the same class twice, with two separate progressions; otherwise, I'd just keep taking Fighter levels 1&2 over and over again. Heck, Unearthed Arcana even goes out of it's way to say that you can't gestalt two variants of the same class.

THIS.

DOESN'T.

WORK.

I don't know what you're taking to make you think this could EVER be considered an option, but please, share; maybe I could slip my GM some...

Hadrian_Emrys
2007-10-14, 05:33 AM
The problem is, you run out of spells really fast--and it's a gestalt game, so you're expected to have *more* endurance.


I'm willing to bet that a Factotum Batman can still roll with the party without them hatin, tryin to catch him riding dirty.

MeklorIlavator
2007-10-14, 09:00 AM
The problem is, you run out of spells really fast--and it's a gestalt game, so you're expected to have *more* endurance.


If you can end an encounter with 2-3 spells, casting two of them in a turn shortens the overall encounter length, thereby saving more resources. Of course, if you cast deep slumber on drow, your mileage may vary(ya, that did happen last night).

Quirinus_Obsidian
2007-10-14, 09:15 AM
:smalleek:

My thoughts exactly! :eek:

Stam
2007-10-14, 09:19 AM
Most broken thing I've seen used in a gestault game was Druid/MoMF/Warshaper on one side, and I believe the other side was Wizard/Master Transmogrifer.

All the (Ex) qualities of a wild shape, plus one mixed-in miscellaneous item via Infinimorph. Can alter form as a Free Action.

I'm still not sure how legal the build and its actions are, but...the guy knows the rules inside out, so...

He shifted into a hydra, and then added the natural attacks of a giant squid - net result, twenty attacks as a Standard Action.

Arbitrarity
2007-10-14, 08:53 PM
Now, question. Is +2'ish LA (NO BUYOFF!) reasonable for gestalt benefits? Doubled class features are pretty insane, but at the same time, 2 LA is supposed to represent a doubling of power, roughly, which gestalt is not quite, except with highly synergistic builds (like factotum8/Ur-Priest 10//Wizard 18. Cunning surge, Ur priest, wizard. Baad). More, less, or just make it universal if it's used?

EDIT: Probably something scaling actually. Don't forget to account for WBL, so maybe 2+Character level/5?


Incidentally, master transmogrifist is oh so easy to break. There was or is a thread on it somewhere in WOTC boards. Something about Black pudding split applied to titan HP, and wizards. Soon to be, lots of wizards.

martyboy74
2007-10-14, 08:55 PM
Incidentally, master transmogrifist is oh so easy to break. There was or is a thread on it somewhere in WOTC boards. Something about Black pudding split applied to titan HP, and wizards. Soon to be, lots of wizards.

It a PrC based on polymorph. Of course it's broken.

webgem
2007-10-14, 09:24 PM
I also would like to point out that gestalt can actually simplify things a little bit, even role playing wise, if taken that way. Some of these things are already mentioned. Like playing a monster race. That's pretty fun, but I'd never really want to do it because in a normal game it would be very difficult to deal with the LA, at least from my experience. This allows a character to be different, but not over or under powered with respect to other members of the party. Also, it allows somebody to enjoy a couple things at a time without resorting to other crazy class combos. Do you want to be able to hit things and cast spells without adding fifty million pc's together? Can be done. Yeah it can easily be done in the non gestalt too. I think that the characters who like to role play will role play, and those who like to roll play will roll play no matter what happens, so why not gestalt every once in a while even if it isn't just to power game. Also, I think I would like to play an Range 11/arcane archer 10/wiz 21. Maybe not the most super broken, but it does have some pretty nifty abilities in fact, I think I'm going to go surf the recruiting pages, all this talk about gestalt has gotten me a bit excited!

BardicDuelist
2007-10-14, 09:35 PM
Any combination of Warblade, Artificer, Wizard, Archivist, and Factotum seems really broken. You can make things so completely SAD it is, well sad.

Kantolin
2007-10-15, 04:58 AM
I dont mean to ruffle feathers but to me Gastalt = powergaming. Blatant powergaming. If you want to just make a power character and grind play a vidio game. As my friend tried to tell his kid, your not cool because your character has all 20 stats kill any thing in melee and cast almost any spell. What makes you cool is if you can give your character a personality, driven by there own motivation and work with your fellow players.

Say I'd like to play an elf. Say I'd like to go with, as the PHB suggests, a fighter-mage sort.

Why is there more personality to a Fighter 5 / Wizard 5 (thus level 10) nongestalt character, over a Fighter//Wizard 5 gestalt character?

Both are absolutely fighter-mages. Gestalt, if nothing else, makes the combination actually work out in game. Either way, Gestalt (or not gestalt) certainly does not interfere with your character's personality, their motivation to be a fighter mage, or any of the other players who are all either gestalt (if you are) or not (if you are not).

Gestalt is not equal to powergaming.

Josh the Aspie
2007-10-15, 06:53 AM
Gestalt makes you more powerful. Thus it is power-gaming.

Of course power-gaming and role-playing are not by any means mutually exclusive. Some of my DMs love me because I can do both. Some of my DMs hate me because I can do both. :P go figure.

Roog
2007-10-15, 05:48 PM
Gestalt makes you more powerful. Thus it is power-gaming.

Have you ever played a character over level 1?

Going up levels makes you more powerful. Thus it is power-gaming.

Turcano
2007-10-15, 06:10 PM
Have you ever played a character over level 1?

Going up levels makes you more powerful. Thus it is power-gaming.


http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2595/houseohsnapmm0.gif

Quirinus_Obsidian
2007-10-15, 06:13 PM
Wizard10/Transmogrifist10 // Druid(zilla)/Master of Many Forms

terrifyingly badly b0rked...

Turcano
2007-10-15, 06:20 PM
Wizard10/Transmogrifist10 // Druid(zilla)/Master of Many Forms

terrifyingly badly b0rked...

If by "b0rked" you mean "illegal."

Perhaps this needs to be phrased more clearly, just so everyone can see it:

You. Can't. Take. Two. Prestige. Classes. For. The. Same. Level.

tainsouvra
2007-10-15, 07:00 PM
merrja666, you do know that gestalt characters are intended to be used in gestalt campaigns, which means their opponents will increase in power just as much as they do...meaning it actually isn't any more powerful in practice, since it's only relative power that matters...right?

CASTLEMIKE
2007-10-15, 07:48 PM
Planar Shepherd has already been mentioned several times.

Factotum-3 and taking Factotum -1 at first level and delay taking those next two Factotum levels later in the build to take advantage of taking 2 levels of MT on the Wizard side at the same time and you don't lose very much for what you gain Archivist - 19 spellcasting. (Taking a level in Monk and Marshall for Motivate Intelligence gives similar benefits to the PC with a single Factotum level at first).

Archivist - 17/Domain Variant Wizard - 5 +15 levels of PRCs to taste is pretty strong and SAD (You could pick up a few more PRC levels if you dip into Master Specialist before 6th level).

Toning the wizard side PRCs a few levels for Archivist side PRC dips like Sacred Exorcist or Divine Oracle (There are plenty of others).

If there are other ways to acquire Marshal type auras in game forget the single level Marshal dip.

Factotum - 8 (First level + 7 later matched with MT on the wizard side to pick up Cunning Surge), Archivist - 12 could be interesting losing some PRC abilities for basically full casting on both sides.

Factotum - 5, Ur - Priest - 1, Factotum -14/Wiz -5, PRCs - 6, MT - 9 could be interesting depending on the game.

Jorkens
2007-10-15, 07:59 PM
Everythings is allowed, nothing is banned.

Really?

I've got this idea for a Kobold Divine Minion 1/Wizard 1/Master of Many Forms 3 // Commoner 1...

martyboy74
2007-10-15, 08:01 PM
Really?

I've got this idea for a Kobold Divine Minion 1/Wizard 1/Master of Many Forms 3 // Commoner 1...

Um, how about a Kobold Paladin 1//Whatever 1?

\/ Look, this is how Pun-Pun works. It's this simple.
Current build as presented by Think0028
Race- Any
Takes 10 (since Knowledge is funny like that)
+4 ranks
+5 Int (18 + 2 for being old)
+1 Education (Eberron Campaign Setting)
+2 Masterwork item
+3 Psionic Shard
-------
25!

As for the non-campaign-specific case, use Skill Focus instead of Education.

Now, summon Pazuzu (you know that saying his name 3 times will summon him AND that he will grant any non-chaotic-evil character aid, generally in the form of a wish, from your DC 25 Knowledge planes check). Wish from him a Candle of Invocation. This will shift your alignment first one step towards chaotic unless you are already chaotic in which case it adjusts one step closer to evil. Use the candle to gate in an efreeti (candle's gate allows you full control over the efreeti). Have the efreeti wish for another Candle of Invocation and wish him to send you to another non-hostile plane. Use the second Candle of Invocation to gate in a Sarruhk.

DISCLAIMER
While the above build uses psionics it is optimal for the character to begin as a paladin for this ascention as the flavor text for Pazuzu states that he will go out of his way to help the paladin.

Jorkens
2007-10-15, 08:28 PM
That also works. In fact, Kobold Paladin 1 // Wizard 1 would save you a bit of time.

Ulzgoroth
2007-10-15, 09:09 PM
Once you're a wizard, koboldhood is optional. Just make the Sarrukh grant your familiar a modified version of its ability that doesn't limit targets.

merrja666
2007-10-16, 01:03 PM
merrja666, you do know that gestalt characters are intended to be used in gestalt campaigns, which means their opponents will increase in power just as much as they do...meaning it actually isn't any more powerful in practice, since it's only relative power that matters...right?

Let me put it this way:

ECL 6 characters

4 hours of play

8 character deaths

We need gestalt!

EDIT: If you want to know, I'm a Boar Totem Barabrian 3/Rage Mage 2/ Frenzied Berserker 1 // Wizard 6.

PlatinumJester
2007-10-16, 03:04 PM
How about samurai/swashbuckler? Full of win or what??

:smallbiggrin:

Man you just had to ruin it. Everyone was trying to avoid uber cheese but then you had to pull that out.. Hangeth thy head in shame. :smallwink:.

TheLogman
2007-10-16, 05:19 PM
Wizard//Archivist was probably already mentioned, simply because it is too broken. Druid//Monk or Psion both give some fun Wisdom stuff. Or, Wizard 20//Binder 3/Anima Mage 17. The best part is, your binding still gets better, and if you are glued to the word rather than the spirit, you get Wizard Progression times 2, but no sane DM would allow that.

Tor the Fallen
2007-10-16, 05:25 PM
Personally, I'm a fan of the druid//cleric or artificer//wizard.

Eldan
2007-10-16, 05:34 PM
Phh. Just phh.

Marshal1, Warlock1, bard19//Swordsage16,Dread Commando 5

What is this build for? Win the initiative and use a diplomacy modifier of +as much as you want. Mhm. Can probably be optimized even more but I don't want to think about it. It can even fight a litt.e :smallbiggrin:

Tor the Fallen
2007-10-16, 05:40 PM
What's the bard spell that gives you +2/level to any check, save, attack, or damage roll? It's a sixth level spell.

At 21, that's going to be +42 to a single diplo check. Crikey!

Fusecase
2007-10-16, 06:44 PM
Okay heres my personal fav.

Pixie
Thats: Greater Invis All Day long, SR 15+Class Levels, DR 10/Cold Iron, +8 dex, +6 Int, +6 Cha, +4 Wis, -2 Str, Spell Like Abilities, and a fly speed all for LA 4

Now then...

Sorcerer (Say What?) 15 / Archmage 5 // LA 4 / Monk 2 / Paladin of Slaughter 2 / Hexblade 3 / Blackguard 2 / Warblade 7

Now why:
Twice charisma to saves, Three times if its against spells, BAB 17, a full caster to back it up, and the abilities of a pixie to survive. This is why wizards won't print a more flexible Sorcerer, ever.

Use this against your players and make them wish they never wanted to gestalt.

Tor the Fallen
2007-10-16, 06:47 PM
Doesn't LA take both sides of the progression?

The gloura (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031003e) does it better than pixie, and don't forget the arcane duelist (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20030224a).

Also, pick up ascetic monk, so you get cha to AC.

What you get:
Charisma bonus to AC from monk, gloura, arcane duelist (x3, stack, work like deflection/dodge bonuses).
Charisma bonus to saves from hexblade, paladin of tyranny, blackguard, gloura. Also get mettle and evasion.

Congrats, nothing can ever touch you.
Oh, and gloura gives you spell casting as a bard. Sublime chord on the other side of the progression may be a good way to go.

BardicDuelist
2007-10-16, 06:54 PM
What's the bard spell that gives you +2/level to any check, save, attack, or damage roll? It's a sixth level spell.

At 21, that's going to be +42 to a single diplo check. Crikey!

Indeed, what is the awesome spell I don't know?

Tor the Fallen
2007-10-16, 06:59 PM
Indeed, what is the awesome spell I don't know?

Improvisation. 3.0, from Song and Silence. Competence bonus. Don't know if it's been updated, changed, or what.

Umbral_Arcanist
2007-10-16, 07:03 PM
Gestalt is not always broken, and there are more reasons to play it than those you listed. Gestalt is great for classes like the Warlock, giving you more to do than just Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Blast, Eldritch Blast... Gestalt is also great if you are using monster classes, as they allow you to gain the benifit of the monster class, while still having normal class abilities.

I've really wanted to play a gesalt warlock rogue... maybe with assassin and hellfire warlock levels.... Combine SA with 6d6 hellfire damage and the warlock's a decent blaster


Also i think the whole fighter20/fighther20 doesn't work legally... not sure though

Gralamin
2007-10-16, 07:11 PM
Doesn't LA take both sides of the progression?
I've never seen rules one way or the other for LA and Gestalt

Douglas
2007-10-16, 07:53 PM
Improvisation. 3.0, from Song and Silence. Competence bonus. Don't know if it's been updated, changed, or what.
It's been updated in the Spell Compendium. You get 2x your caster level in points to spend on luck bonuses, but you can't spend more than 1/2 your caster level on any one roll. Any points not spent after 1 round/level disappear.

Reel On, Love
2007-10-16, 07:59 PM
I've never seen rules one way or the other for LA and Gestalt

There is just plain no good way of handling it.

If it takes up both sides of the progression, no one will ever have any. LA is *already* punitively high 99.9% of the time; this will make it so much worse.

If it only takes up one side, you can expect to see everyone take it because taking it no longer loses you hit dice (and thus HD, BAB, caster level progression, HP, etc), plus, you can take an LA race that has a casting progression (something like the Sylph in the... MM2? Fiend Folio?... or the Unbodied in the XPH) and wind up with a casting/manifesting progression *above* what a character of your level would normally have.

You can say "it takes both sides but LAs are halved, or something" but then that makes odd LAs either very advantageous (+3 LA for the price of one if you round down) or pointless (+1 LA? Get a +2 LA instead, same price).

martyboy74
2007-10-16, 08:10 PM
Split it between the two sides, as evenly as possible? So a LA +2 would would LA 1//LA 1, but a LA +3 would be LA 2//LA 1.

What's everyone think of that?

Reel On, Love
2007-10-16, 08:16 PM
Split it between the two sides, as evenly as possible? So a LA +2 would would LA 1//LA 1, but a LA +3 would be LA 2//LA 1.

What's everyone think of that?

A slightly better solution, but it again gives a major advantage to odd LAs--you'd see a lot of LA +1 templates (especially stuff like Dark, which is already worthwhile) in use, I think.


I hate LA. It's such an awkward, cumbersome, ineffective way of doing what it tries to do.

And yet I can't seem to come up with a better one.

Draz74
2007-10-16, 09:20 PM
A slightly better solution, but it again gives a major advantage to odd LAs--you'd see a lot of LA +1 templates (especially stuff like Dark, which is already worthwhile) in use, I think.

Meh, I don't have a problem with that in a Gestalt game. Other than Feral, LA +1 templates and races tend not to be impressively powerful anyway. (Dark is ... better than most, without being ridiculous like Feral.)



I hate LA. It's such an awkward, cumbersome, ineffective way of doing what it tries to do.

And yet I can't seem to come up with a better one.

For Gestalt specifically? Or in general?

A lot of the time, I think Racial Hit Dice would be better. Or just banning some creatures as characters. Or allowing them, but only with certain abilities banned (e.g. Greater Teleport for demon/archon characters).

Roog
2007-10-16, 09:29 PM
Also i think the whole fighter20/fighther20 doesn't work legally... not sure though


Firstly its not legal.

...you can’t combine two versions of the same class.


Secondly, it doesn't matter whether it is legal or not.

Read the rules: (to paraphrase) gain the best of each classes class features, if the two classes have the same feature then gain that feature at the faster of the two rates.


Unsurprisingly, Fighter and Fighter have exactly the same class features, so you get to chose the best options of either Fighter or Fighter.

In other words:
Fighter N // Fighter N == Fighter N

Reel On, Love
2007-10-16, 09:30 PM
Meh, I don't have a problem with that in a Gestalt game. Other than Feral, LA +1 templates and races tend not to be impressively powerful anyway. (Dark is ... better than most, without being ridiculous like Feral.)
Fair enough.


For Gestalt specifically? Or in general?

A lot of the time, I think Racial Hit Dice would be better. Or just banning some creatures as characters. Or allowing them, but only with certain abilities banned (e.g. Greater Teleport for demon/archon characters).
In General. LA is problematic.

Racial HD are better in some ways and worse in others: for example, a skillmonkey is worse off with racial HD, since he can't get the x4 SP for his first class level of Rogue. Also, racial HD vary vastly in usefulness, from the fairly potent Outsider HD (a melee character who gets outsider HD and a bunch of cool racial powers wouldn't really be at so much of a disadvantage) to types like Fey and Monstrous Humanoid HD.

Draz74
2007-10-16, 09:35 PM
Racial HD are better in some ways and worse in others: for example, a skillmonkey is worse off with racial HD, since he can't get the x4 SP for his first class level of Rogue. Also, racial HD vary vastly in usefulness, from the fairly potent Outsider HD (a melee character who gets outsider HD and a bunch of cool racial powers wouldn't really be at so much of a disadvantage) to types like Fey and Monstrous Humanoid HD.

All true. I certainly don't think my ideas are a perfect answer to the LA problem ... and even if they were a perfect answer, it's an answer that's much too "case-by-case basis."

purplearcanist
2007-10-17, 01:10 PM
Some powerful core gestalts:

Rouge/Cleric: Wield two weapons (and take Two Weapon Fighting + power attack), buff up on cleric spells (like divine power), then attack for CARNAGE!

Wizard/Barbarian: Congrats, a hard to kill wizard, and you don't suck at low levels (unlike normal wizards).

Wizard/Cleric: The one man adventuring party.

Wizard/Sorcerer: Ultimate arcane caster, with the flexibility of a wizard and the casting power of a sorcerer.

Combine with prestiege classes for more cheese.

Hario
2007-10-17, 01:27 PM
a wizard//sorcerer actually is very bad, sure you'll have a bunch of spells, but you can only cast one at a time, sure you can quicken spell but you still need to prepare them. As a gestalt game all you get in spells, which isn't worth getting the same spells to make you a slightly better caster, also note, around level 10 or so you shouldn't be able to cast all your spells in a day unless your dm runs over 4 encounters a day, most DM's I have might run 3 a day max.

wizard barbarian suffers MAD unless you take polymorph which is really just there for polymorph cheese. Rage+Spells don't work, unless you take ragemage in which is a mix class and shouldn't be used in gestalt, unless you take both barbarian and wizard on one side.

The only decent build you have from a gestalt standpoint is cleric//rogue which gets best saves in all, use all abilities in light armor (a compromise) sneak attack is nice, 8+int skills, and full casting

Justyn
2007-10-17, 01:46 PM
a wizard//sorcerer actually is very bad, sure you'll have a bunch of spells, but you can only cast one at a time, sure you can quicken spell but you still need to prepare them. As a gestalt game all you get in spells, which isn't worth getting the same spells to make you a slightly better caster, also note, around level 10 or so you shouldn't be able to cast all your spells in a day unless your dm runs over 4 encounters a day, most DM's I have might run 3 a day max...

OBJECTION! A vanilla wizard/sorcerer is not very good, yes. But what about Specialist Wizard/Sorcerer? You can use the Sorcerer spells to get spells from the school(s) that you banned.

Draz74
2007-10-17, 01:54 PM
OBJECTION! A vanilla wizard/sorcerer is not very good, yes. But what about Specialist Wizard/Sorcerer? You can use the Sorcerer spells to get spells from the school(s) that you banned.

Yeah, and make sure that all your spells that have Saves are on one side or the other, so you can just pump one ability really high and have the other "just OK."

It's still not an amazing Gestalt build, but it's not bad for Core-Only.

kamikasei
2007-10-17, 02:01 PM
OBJECTION! A vanilla wizard/sorcerer is not very good, yes. But what about Specialist Wizard/Sorcerer? You can use the Sorcerer spells to get spells from the school(s) that you banned.

The thing is that you still have all the same weaknesses. Neither class covers up the low points of the other. That puts you behind the curve for gestalt.

Indon
2007-10-17, 02:26 PM
If you ask me, Gestalt is actually _harder_ to 'break' than standard D&D, simply because it's easy to make a powerful character and at the same time the real powerhouses gain less (Like Batman. Batman is about not _needing_ things like D12 HD and full BAB, giving them to one in Gestalt is not a significant upgrade).

I wonder what a Rogue//Luck Feat Oriented Progression would look like?

Reel On, Love
2007-10-17, 02:31 PM
If you ask me, Gestalt is actually _harder_ to 'break' than standard D&D, simply because it's easy to make a powerful character and at the same time the real powerhouses gain less (Like Batman. Batman is about not _needing_ things like D12 HD and full BAB, giving them to one in Gestalt is not a significant upgrade).
No, and Barbarian and Wizard don't synergize. But giving the wizard Archivist casting, or a Warblade's maneuver progression, or a Factotum's skills and extra abilities? Those are a significant upgrade.

And that's even without stacking synergistic things to become a minor god at something (i.e. full sorcerer casting with 2x CHA to saves, Mettle, Evasion, and AC plus a debuffing aura or two).

Indon
2007-10-17, 02:35 PM
No, and Barbarian and Wizard don't synergize. But giving the wizard Archivist casting, or a Warblade's maneuver progression, or a Factotum's skills and extra abilities? Those are a significant upgrade.

And that's even without stacking synergistic things to become a minor god at something (i.e. full sorcerer casting with 2x CHA to saves, Mettle, Evasion, and AC plus a debuffing aura or two).

A sufficiently optimized Batman wizard has little need for any of these; why does Batman need to make saves, he's never surprised, always goes first, and he ends encounters in one round. Why does he need Warblade abilities? They're just spells but not as good.

It is, admittedly, a very extreme example, but my point remains that characters that can do everything with one class don't benefit nearly as much from Gestalt as characters that can't.

CASTLEMIKE
2007-10-17, 04:05 PM
OBJECTION! A vanilla wizard/sorcerer is not very good, yes. But what about Specialist Wizard/Sorcerer? You can use the Sorcerer spells to get spells from the school(s) that you banned.

A Stalwart Battle Sorcerer with D8 for HD +2 HP a level, No ASF in light armor and average BAB in an emergency with a single hand held weapon would be better normally particularly if you tack on a Divine Discipline to make up for lost spellcasting.

Thrawn183
2007-10-18, 09:54 AM
Cloistered Cleric(Trickery Domain) 1/Ranger 2/Monk 2/Chameleon 10/Human Paragon 3/OotBI 2//Psion 20

Can do pretty much anything at any time. (melee, ranged, divine casting, arcane casting and full psionics)

Shisumo
2007-10-18, 07:43 PM
oddly, Dragon Shaman makes a surprisingly good "other half" for gestalt, because its bonuses are almost entirely "free" - it adds basically nothing to ability dependency, takes up little or no actions to use its benefits, and has a fair amount to offer: d10 HD, midrange BAB, two good saves...

Draz74
2007-10-18, 07:48 PM
oddly, Dragon Shaman makes a surprisingly good "other half" for gestalt, because its bonuses are almost entirely "free" - it adds basically nothing to ability dependency, takes up little or no actions to use its benefits, and has a fair amount to offer: d10 HD, midrange BAB, two good saves...

Yeah, I like this, but I'm not sure what to actually combine it with. Something with good BAB, obviously, and Charisma-dependency. I think Hexblade is the best suggestion I've seen so far. Something with more than 2+Int skill points would be appealing.

Shisumo
2007-10-18, 07:59 PM
Yeah, I like this, but I'm not sure what to actually combine it with. Something with good BAB, obviously, and Charisma-dependency. I think Hexblade is the best suggestion I've seen so far. Something with more than 2+Int skill points would be appealing.

I used ranger, and it went swimmingly. Sorcerer would make an excellent (and thematically perfect) combination as well, as long as you're not too excited about skill points.

Chronos
2007-10-18, 08:59 PM
A sufficiently optimized Batman wizard has little need for any of these; why does Batman need to make saves, he's never surprised, always goes first, and he ends encounters in one round.Batman always prepares for everything, including for the possibility that he might be caught unprepared. Just in case something manages to get through his defenses, those d12s and good Fort save are a good thing to have. Plus, they'll make it a lot easier for him to survive to get to the level where he's able to always go first and always end an encounter in one round.

Arbitrarity
2007-10-18, 09:02 PM
Batman always prepares for everything, including for the possibility that he might be caught unprepared. Just in case something manages to get through his defenses, those d12s and good Fort save are a good thing to have. Plus, they'll make it a lot easier for him to survive to get to the level where he's able to always go first and always end an encounter in one round.

This is true. Don't forget the good reflex save as well, even if it isn't too important. It also allows him to be able to contribute over "long" days, with more encounters than normal.

Spectre3541
2007-10-19, 12:05 AM
I was thinking about a Wizard +3/Master Specialist 10/Wizard +7 // Hexblade 15 / Fatespinner 5

Make people suck and then kill them. Take the Dark Companion familiar variant and it helps. By level 20 you can pretty much kill any one creature per day. "Hey BBEG" *hexblades curse, seal fate, add spin, dark companion* "die." *finger of death or similar spell*

NotMe
2007-10-19, 06:45 AM
I don't really use gestalt to boost power level (just play a higher level game) but to improve the versatility, endurance, or survivability of characters in campaigns that require this). Consequently I look for classes that have traits that allow them to flourish in different types of situations while using many of the same attributes.
e.g, one of my favourites:
Beguiler / Warblade - d12HD, full BAB, good fort & will save, int added to ref save, 6sp/lvl (in addition to INT probably being most important stat), with combat abilities that refresh per encounter, int bonus adding to various combat actions (warblade), trapfinding, uncanny dodge, full int based spontaneous arcane casting in light armour, range of special abilities. Essentially you have combat, survivability, stealth, social, traps and a significant amount of spells to be an asset anywhere.

Indon
2007-10-19, 10:39 AM
Batman always prepares for everything, including for the possibility that he might be caught unprepared. Just in case something manages to get through his defenses, those d12s and good Fort save are a good thing to have. Plus, they'll make it a lot easier for him to survive to get to the level where he's able to always go first and always end an encounter in one round.

Contrast, however, with, say, the Rogue gestalting with Barbarian. Pretty much everything the Rogue can do, the Rogue now does much better. Combat? He's much tougher and hits more accurately. Saves? Now all good. Skills? Well, he's much more likely to survive a sprung trap with better HP and saves. He even gains a couple more class skills to drop his points into if he likes.

My point is that the more potent and versatile a class is in standard D&D, the less they gain from gestalt, which has a tendency to flatten out the power curve (towards the 'powerful' side).

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-10-19, 10:58 AM
Succubus Hexblade 4, Blackguard 2, Rogue 2 // Sorceress 6, Incantatrix 10, Archmage 4.

She never really fails a save (+38 bonus to saves, mettle, evasion) except on a 1 and has a decent spell save DC of 29+spell level+spell focus. She has a relatively good BAB and HP.

Duke of URL
2007-10-19, 11:03 AM
I'm thinking Ur-Priest would be decidedly sick in gestalt. Especially for, say, a Dwarf Wizard using Runesmith to be able to cast without ASF (and carry the heavy armor load without penalty). Assuming only one PrC/character level, this yields something like this at level 16:

Wizard 1-5 / Runesmith 1 / Wizard 6-15 // Fighter 1 / ??? 5 / Ur-Priest 10

Fighter is taken for access to all armor and shields; the bonus feat can be used for Improved Initiative, as that looks to be the most useful non-combat feat on the Fighter list. Or a suggestion for another base class?

At 16th level this yields 8th level arcane spells (at CL 16) and 9th level divine spells (at CL 18!), both of which can be cast in full armor and any shield. Fewer divine spells per day than a pure Cleric, though, but faster progression after level 11.

Of course, for a full level 20 build (not having to actually progress), Wizard/Runesmith // Cleric is probably better.

I need a good suggestion for 5 levels worth of base class(es), though... and then figure out where to go with the final 4 levels (probably a full-progression caster PrC on the Wizard side... either take the remaining 4 Runesmith levels, or 4 levels of another PrC -- which means I really need 9 good base class levels on the Ur-Priest side, not just 5).

Laurellien
2007-10-19, 01:48 PM
Oh good lord...
I DM the campaign that the OP is talking about. Please excuse him if he is hard of thinking sometimes. He tried to get another DM to let him play a half-iron golem for only +2LA. He is a little on the poor side in terms of character optimisation.
I didn't think that he would start asking for builds though... But meh, the campaign has had 12 hours so far and 9 character deaths.
Any help for him would probably be well received, but please make sure we know what sources you use as I never have more than the necessary books with me.
3.5 is allowed, Oriental Adventures, Deities and Demigods, Arms and Equipment, and a few other 3.0 are allowed too. Things like song and silence, which have been replaced by the complete series are out though... (He would probably be best helped by a level 6/7 build as that is the party's current level).

Roog
2007-10-19, 05:30 PM
She never really fails a save (+38 bonus to saves, mettle, evasion) except on a 1 and has a decent spell save DC of 29+spell level+spell focus. She has a relatively good BAB and HP.

The tendency for mutliclass gestalt characters to gain some pretty high saves, is why it can be a good idea to use fractional saves and drop the extra +2 bonuses from multiple versions of the same good save.

It gives a hand up to people who don't want particularly complex gestalt characters.

Draz74
2007-10-19, 05:40 PM
Succubus Hexblade 4, Blackguard 2, Rogue 2 // Sorceress 6, Incantatrix 10, Archmage 4.

She never really fails a save (+38 bonus to saves, mettle, evasion) except on a 1 and has a decent spell save DC of 29+spell level+spell focus. She has a relatively good BAB and HP.

OK ... if your DM lets you put all of your LA +6 on just one side of your Gestalt build. (Of course, if he does that, just about anything with large LA is worthwhile in Gestalt.) But the strong point of this build is, yes, it will have a ridiculously good casting stat for a full caster, because of the way you're setting up your LA. (And the saves will be incredible too, no denying that.)

But you're ignoring that you can't take Blackguard and Incantrix or Blackguard and Archmage in the same level. So technically this build can't even be done.

... and +13 BAB really isn't very impressive at all in Gestalt. HP will be mediocre.

merrja666
2007-10-20, 04:33 AM
Laurellien, I have already decided my build (either Fighter 5/Dervish 10/Tempest 5//Monk or Fighter 2/Barbarian 5/Rage Mage 3/Frenzied Berserker 10// Wizard or Warmage 20) I just wanted to see what the GitP Forum users thought of Gesalt Characters, and how broken people could make their builds. This is not a thread in which I nick other people's builds. If I wanted a build, I would put it on the Character Builder Thread.

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