Gestalt character ideas (Pathfinder)

[Railak]

So there's a campaign my group has coming up, a gestalt campaign. I already know I want to use barbarian, but I'm not sure what to do for the other part. I'm pretty much going to be the only front line fighter as the party is just 3 people, there's a fighter/warlord doing archer, and a spell caster of some sort.

I'm going to go into invulnerable rager, and try to be a tank kind of build.
The races are a little strange, they're non standard, and are made by the DM, I chose one called a shield drake, basically it's a medium wingless, breathless dragon, that has some natural armor, and natural weapons.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Maybe combine it with Alchemist (vivisectionist?) for self-buffing and utility?

[Jack_Simth]

A Barbarian starts strong, then starts to peter out at higher levels due to lack of utility abilities. A full caster would likely pair well to resolve that - Cleric, Oracle, or Druid, perhaps. Use Quicken Spell to drop a buff or two before raging at your foes (at 9th+, anyway), and have the spells to reach opponents when they're fly or whatever.

[Psyren]

Have you rolled stats yet? I definitely second adding some form of caster to your gestalt, but you have a lot of options as far as which one to use. I would go for a form of magic that isn't affected by your armor such as divine, psychic, alchemy, pact magic, or veilweaving.

[Kurald Galain]

Barbarian goes particularly well with shapeshifting, so I'd recommend druid.

[AvatarVecna]

Presuming that Spheres Of Might is off the table, I'd probably go with either Cleric (good Will, domain powers, healing+buffing so you don't need to worry about save DCs so much), Viking Fighter (good access to combat feats, an Intimidate focus, and rage-stacking of one flavor or another depending on interpretation), Phantom Thief (good Ref, more skill points, rogue talents, lots of big skill bonuses, and lots of unchained skills - which reach the high-rank unlocks much quicker), or Oracle (good Will, revelations, healing+buffing spontaneously so you don't need to worry about save DCs. Cha is worse for Barbarian than Wis, but there's a curse that facilitates rage-cycling so that's cool).

EDIT: The benefits can, I suppose, be summed up as "caster cola", "barbarian+", "skilled barbarian", and "pepsi caster".

[BlueWitch]

I say do Primalist Bloodrager instead. Demonic Bulk from the Abyssal Bloodline lets you grow large when you Bloodrage. Then on the other side, either do Druid (for Casting and Shapeshifting) or Cleric.

If Hybrid classes are banned or you strictly want to go Barbarian, then I'd still say Druid on the other side is a great way to go.

Raging Tiger's are no joke. One of the NPC's I created had this ability and killed the entire group of adventurers. She did way better than I'd thought possible. And you can get an Animal Companion. That's like an extra set of attacks and HP.

[StSword]

Okay, first of all, what are your limits for class selection? First party pathfinder? Or are third party classes on the wikis available? Or will the DM give a look to any class you show them?

[Railak]

Well it needs to be "published" somewhere, like Path of War. Sorry I was at work, and most of these ideas are interesting, though not really what I'm looking for, sorry.

[RatElemental]

I have to second alchemist. You can use the mutagens to basically double rage and there are discoveries that will give you working wings and extra hands to carry shields, use potions/wands/scrolls/climb stuff without putting away your weapon(s). Also bombs are super good.

You could go mind chemist or pick up the cognatogen discoeveries too, to be able to "anti-rage."

[Psyren]

Well it needs to be "published" somewhere, like Path of War. Sorry I was at work, and most of these ideas are interesting, though not really what I'm looking for, sorry.

What don't you like about them - are you trying to avoid any kind of casting at all? We need a bit more to go on.

[AvatarVecna]

What don't you like about them - are you trying to avoid any kind of casting at all? We need a bit more to go on.

See and I suggested "fighting" and "skills" as my gestalt ideas, so I'm not even sure what else there is to suggest. Maybe he wanted his barbarian to have ranged options? I guess Gunslinger would do well enough for that if he can afford the feats to invest in both - but probably simpler to go Trench Fighter for feats and Dex-to-damage on guns if that were the case...

EDIT: Maybe he wanted to double-down on tanking, or take up healing? Either way, a Paladin with the right archetypes can do either (I'm sure there's a Paladin archetype for tanking hard, and I know for certain there's one that gives up smiting for healz-for-dayz).

[Psyren]

I was thinking "add ranged" might be the answer, except the Fighter is going that route so I'm a bit stumped.

[StSword]

Okay, tankie goodness, published by someone.

Do you want to heal like your Wolverine?

Any of the Champion classes from spheres of might and power have a nice trick you can pull off. Champions are classes that can take both spheres of might and power talents. Considering a barbarian dragonoid, a Shifter with the Martial Shifter archetype (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/martial-shifter) would be very thematically appropriate.

Take the Guardian sphere and the Endure Pain talent for the Guardian sphere and your character can absorb BAB*3 damage per round and turn it into nonlethal damage.

Take the Life sphere and the Painkiller talent for Life and you can heal, all day every day, your caster level in nonlethal damage.

But that trick works with pretty much all the classes. Want your barbarian to summon magic weapons and armor out of thin air like Erza Scarlet? Armorist. Want to be more gishy? Mageknight. Want to smack people in the face with elemental energy? Elementalist. Maybe a blacksmith who makes magic items? Essence Smith Blacksmith. How about a magic warrior who uses combos like they're a fighting game character? Prodigy.

If you want to go another way, the Direlock (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/forest-guardian-press/direlock/) is a anti-magic debuffer tank.

The Armiger (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/rogue-genius-games/armiger/) is a class based on tanking.

If you want to protect your team, maybe a Guardian (https://lrgg.fandom.com/wiki/Guardian).

A Thane (https://lrgg.fandom.com/wiki/Thane) might fit if you imagine your character large and in charge.

[stack]

Okay, tankie goodness, published by someone.

Do you want to heal like your Wolverine?

Any of the Champion classes from spheres of might and power have a nice trick you can pull off. Champions are classes that can take both spheres of might and power talents. Considering a barbarian dragonoid, a Shifter with the Martial Shifter archetype (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/martial-shifter) would be very thematically appropriate.

Take the Guardian sphere and the Endure Pain talent for the Guardian sphere and your character can absorb BAB*3 damage per round and turn it into nonlethal damage.

Take the Life sphere and the Painkiller talent for Life and you can heal, all day every day, your caster level in nonlethal damage.

But that trick works with pretty much all the classes. Want your barbarian to summon magic weapons and armor out of thin air like Erza Scarlet? Armorist. Want to be more gishy? Mageknight. Want to smack people in the face with elemental energy? Elementalist. Maybe a blacksmith who makes magic items? Essence Smith Blacksmith. How about a magic warrior who uses combos like they're a fighting game character? Prodigy.

If you want to go another way, the Direlock (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/forest-guardian-press/direlock/) is a anti-magic debuffer tank.

The Armiger (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/rogue-genius-games/armiger/) is a class based on tanking.

If you want to protect your team, maybe a Guardian (https://lrgg.fandom.com/wiki/Guardian).

A Thane (https://lrgg.fandom.com/wiki/Thane) might fit if you imagine your character large and in charge.

Armiger is a switch-hitter (well, it can be a lot of things); sentinel is the SoM tanking focused class (anything using the guardian sphere can tank of course).

[Khosan]

Investigator is one of my favorite side classes for a melee-flavored gestalt. Studied Combat is great, loads of skill points and class skills, and Alchemist extracts to top it off.

[StSword]

Or for something a little more niche, how about adding more speed?

A Barbarian who can zoom around the battlefield?

There's the psychic Voyager (https://libraryofmetzofitz.fandom.com/wiki/Voyager).

There's the Accelerist (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/samurai-sheepdog/accelerist/).

Or the gravity defying Punk (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/the-punk).

[Railak]

So, after doing a considerable amount of research, I decided to go with warder from path of war.

[Psyren]

Err... glad we could help?

[Railak]

Sorry.. while all of you had interesting ideas, they really weren't the kinds of stuff I was looking for.. though I'll probably keep a couple of the ideas for future use xD so thank you all, and sorry again I didn't actually go with any of your ideas

[StSword]

Huh, I thought someone had suggested Warder.

That's why I didn't, it being the tanks of PoW.