Two-Weapon Gestalt Build

[Eloel]

For the sheet: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=93024
This is my first time with gestalt, so any comments/suggestions would be great.
(I don't know if gitp has char sheets, if they do, I'll create one here to show, sorry for off-site linking)

For char creation rules:
http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=50915

My rolls: 16-15-15-15-15-14


PS: If off-site linking is not allowed, I'm sorry, I'm only trying to get some help.

[jcsw]

...Two Weapon Fighting ain't very useful unless you have a source of bonus damage... As a ranger a good way is to multiclass into scout for skirmish and then take the swift hunter feat so your Ranger and Scout levels stack for skirmish and favored enemies.

[Eloel]

The free +2 enchantment provides the needed bonus I think (2d6 per hit is good enough)

[RMS Oceanic]

I would go with the Ranger/Scout thing, and take the Spring Attack feat tree. On your fighter side, take the full five levels of Tempest (Complete Adventurer) to allow you to Spring Attack with both weapons.

[Epinephrine]

Swift Hunter likely isn't allowed in Gestalt - any multiclass Prestige class or multiclassing feats are normally disallowed.

[RMS Oceanic]

It's tricky, because the "stacking" feats didn't exist when Gestalt was devised. I would allow if if the Ranger and Scout were only on the one side, i.e. LA/Fighter//Ranger/Scout

[Eloel]

We're allowed to take any route we want, including combined-classes. Can I get the exact details on how to change this char to a swift hunter?

[Epinephrine]

Most people take a three levels of scout and use ranger levels for the rest. I prefer the other direction, one level of ranger and the rest of scout.

For you:
Take 3 levels of Scout
Take the feat Swift Hunter
Take the rest of your levels in Ranger

Now you get the Skirmish damage progression of the scout, and you get to add the 3 scout levels to your ranger level for your favoured enemies.

If you can re-train, I'd ask if you can go ranger 1/scout 5 or something, and follow the scout side. It gets bonus feats, blindsense, a better version of Woodland Stride, movement bonuses, earlier access to Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight and so on, more skill points, and since you have full BAB on the other side you really don't need the bit of BAB that the ranger would provide.

[Eloel]

I think I'll keep the class build I have now, too much work to convince DM to change my character as a whole :) Any tips on magic items?

[Talic]

First. Bugbear isn't a +4LA adjustment. It's 3 Racial HD / 1 LA.


By gestalt, they need to be on opposite sides of the build. Thus, you can have:

Bugbear HD x3 / Fighter 2 / PrC 1
Bugbear LA x1 / Ranger 5

For BAB/Skill points/etc for the racial HD, look here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#humanoidType)

That said, it's not bad. Look into Dual strike, which allows attacking with 2 weapons as a standard action. It'll work well for those times you need mobility.

[Epinephrine]

First. Bugbear isn't a +4LA adjustment. It's 3 Racial HD / 1 LA.


By gestalt, they need to be on opposite sides of the build. Thus, you can have:

Bugbear HD x3 / Fighter 2 / PrC 1
Bugbear LA x1 / Ranger 5

For BAB/Skill points/etc for the racial HD, look here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#humanoidType)

That said, it's not bad. Look into Dual strike, which allows attacking with 2 weapons as a standard action. It'll work well for those times you need mobility.

Good points overall, though if he's trying to get his bonus damage from Skirmish, it's worth noting that Double hit doesn't allow precision damage to be applied more than once. If you do go with Double Hit, I'd recommend Two Weapon Rend later, so that you can hit with both weapons on a standard attack and also get a rend off. (you get main weapon+secondary weapon+1d6, +Str bonus+1/2 Str bonus+1-1/2Str bonus, so it can really add up)

Some of the weapon style feats can also be good with Double Hit, as they often read that if you hit with your X and your Y, you get to Trip/Disarm/etc. Think High Sword Low Axe (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?High_Sword_Low_Axe,CW), Crescent Moon (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Crescent_Moon,CW), Anvil of Thunder (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Anvil_of_Thunder,CW), Hammer's Edge (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Hammer~s_Edge,CW),and other similar feats.


Skirmish is pretty decent for what it does, but I think you'd be better off with Sneak Attack - it scales faster and is easier to get a full attack off.
You don't need to use the somewhat questionable Swift Hunter feat, simply take a fighter variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighter) that gets sneak attack instead of bonus feats - or simply alternate levels of rogue and rogue-type prestige classes. The ranger side is providing you the base feats for TWF anyway, so you still have plenty of feats left over to customise your attack style. In one of our gestalt games the DM decided that a full sneak attack progression might be a bit much opposite a fighting class, so he allowed alternating fiighter feats with sneak attacks - a nice way to get a bit of both worlds, a lot of feats to customise with and a slow Sneak Attack progression.

I think that you get a decent set of possibilities with a weapon style feat, Double Hit and Two Weapon Rend, TWF progression from the ranger side, and a few dice of sneak attack. When limited to a standard action you can still land two hits, a rend, a special effect (daze, trip, disarm?), and sneak attack damage. With a full attack you get 7 attacks easily enough, and this can allow 3 special attacks (trips, etc), 3 rends (if you spread your attacks around), and sneak attack on all the weapon attacks.

[Jack_Simth]

For the sheet: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=93024
This is my first time with gestalt, so any comments/suggestions would be great.
(I don't know if gitp has char sheets, if they do, I'll create one here to show, sorry for off-site linking)

For char creation rules:
http://www.myth-weavers.com/showthread.php?t=50915

My rolls: 16-15-15-15-15-14


PS: If off-site linking is not allowed, I'm sorry, I'm only trying to get some help.
Let's see...

Optimization:

Class:
You're Gestalting two melee classes. That's generally a bad idea, as they've got a lot of overlap. Generally, when I'm giving Gestalt advice, I tell people to put a Full Caster on one side - just because of power curve issues (melee characters are top-notch at low levels, casters are top-notch at high levels, and skillmonkeys are mid-level at all levels - if you're just melee, you're expected to have issues later on). A Fighter//Cleric, Fighter//Psion, Fighter//Druid (using one of the variants that trades out Wildshape, as you want a two-weapon fighter, rather than a jungle cat with five attacks on a Charge) would do very well for you. Your rolls are basically even across the board; instead of Fighter, I might suggest one of the classically MAD classes - Monk, Paladin, or similar.

Race:
Bugbear as a racial pick is not so optimal. It's abilities are watered-down by having actual hit dice, which would normally make it decent, but as you're getting actual hit dice from the other side, you're not getting any benefit from the bugbear levels. For most intents and purposes, your Bugbear is +4 LA; it gives you +4 Strength, +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Cha, +3 Natural Armor, and 60-foot darkvision; compare to the half-celestial template (+4) applied to a Dwarf (+0), which gives +4 Strength, +2 Dex, +6 Con, +2 Int, +4 Wis, +2 Cha, 60-foot Darkvision, 40-foot Fly (Good), +1 Natural Armor, a few spell-like abilities, SR, resistence to a few things, and some DR. Compare to a Half-Dragon (+3 LA) human, which nets you +4 Natural Armor, a breath weapon (1/day), Darkvision-60, an elemental immunity, +8 Strength, +2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Charisma.

[Talic]

Agreed. And Half dragon is ALL LA, so it can go on one side of the build only.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Combo this:

Swashbuckler 3/fighter 2/Dervish 10 / Tempest 5 // Swordsage 20

Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw and Shadow Hand are your friends.
Full BAB 20/20
Bonuses to AC from WIS
Add DEX to damage with the Shadow Blade feat (need to use shortswords, Kukris or daggers, though); bonus: 'tis NOT precision damage!!!
Add INT to precision damage from Swashbuckler (that limitation can be easily overcome!)
Add STR to damage by default.
Access to the most maneuvers of all the Martial Adepts.
L20 Swordsage ability: Double boost. Win.
Good saves
Tons and tons of skills (6+INT*6 @ L1?!)
Good HD (d10's at all levels)

--Edit
Oh, and if you are looking for an interesting flavor thing. Take Dragonborn from Races of the Dragon. You lose 2 dex, but you gain 2 con. I went with the Heart aspect, and gained the breath weapon. If you have room in your feat listing, Quicken Breath, then Dervish Dance is an interesting bonus.

--Edit #2:
Arrgh... no ToB! :smallfrown:
Well, Psion may be an interesting choice for the // 20 side. Psychometabolism or Kineticist disciplines may be in order.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Instead of Bugbear, would you consider something with Powerful Build like a Goliath or a Half-Giant? Complete Psionics is allowed, so it is understood that most of the psionic races are allowed.

It's a shame ToB isn't allowed in the game, that always opens the door for a lot of fun... oh well.

If you want two-weapon fighting nonsense, your best bet, as others before have said, is to increase damage per hit as much as you can. Often, this means precision-based damage, like Rogue or Scout.

Can I suggest you replace Ranger with Rogue? You can still pick up TWF with one of your fighter bonus feats, but you get more skills, wider selection of skills, only now you also get +3s6 sneak attack whenever you get into flanking position. With both weapons.

If you decide to go this route, you may well want to get feats like Vexing Flanker and Adaptive Flanker (both from the Complete series), which lets you flank a whole lot easier, making it much easier to get sneak attack damage.

[woodenbandman]

How about something like this:

Swashbuckler3/Rogue a lot/Avenging Executioner5(daring outlaw)//Bugbear3/Ranger11/Pious Templar 1/free choice for the rest.

This build gets you pretty good saves. Put paladin2 in there for divine grace and you're looking at evasion and mettle, which means you're immune to anything that allows a save. And you have full sneak attack on one side. But the cool thing about this is when you start intimidating (use swift demoralize and never outnumbered from complete scoundrel), and you can treat shaken opponents as flat footed for the purpose of sneak attacking them. Then you just go up to them and wail on them with your several attacks. If you want you can take only a few levels of rogue and go swashbuckler most of the way, but you get good BAB from your ranger/pious templar/paladin side, and you will want that rogue special ability and the skill points.

Important stats are Int, Dex, and Cha. Take weapon finesse and don't look back. You get to add your int to damage, and you can be the trapfinder, skillmonkey, and hurtbot (decently well), with your 10d6 sneak attack (adding up to 7 attacks a round in the endgame).

EDIT: Aww, no complete scoundrel. Well, you could... beg? I don't know.

[Eloel]

The only advice I can consider without wrecking the whole build, the one about the dwarf, is moot because of being limited to evil alignments... (half-celestial evil?)
Doing a spellcaster-warrior would be against the flavor I have in mind, will keep in mind for later uses though, thanks.

[Jack_Simth]

The only advice I can consider without wrecking the whole build, the one about the dwarf, is moot because of being limited to evil alignments... (half-celestial evil?)
Doing a spellcaster-warrior would be against the flavor I have in mind, will keep in mind for later uses though, thanks.
Replace with a half-fiend, or a chromatic half-dragon, then; it's basically the same analysis; just a few numbers change.

[Keld Denar]

Gravetouched Ghoul from LM IMO, best +2 LA you can buy. The stat bonuses, UD traits, and Paralysis on all of your natural attacks are pretty much orgasmic. Stack on Dreadful Wrath or Fightening Presence to instill [Fear] in foes, lowering their save, and take 4 levels of Hexblade (using the PHBII ACF) to further lower saves by 4 and 3 levels of Blackguard to lower saves by another 2. On a charge, you are looking at lowering saves by about -8. Then max your cha (the basis of your paralysis DC and Hexblade/Blackguard save bumps) and take Ability Focus (Paralyzing Touch) and your DCs will be effectively in the mid 30s at a relatively low levels. This only gets better as you level up, with a couple levels in Binder to get Foclour's Aura of Dispair on top of everything else. A level in Marshall gets you +cha to initiative with Motivate Dex, so you can go first and get your bad touch in. Blackguard also gives you Rebuke Undead, which powers Divine Might to get +cha to damage. 1 level in Spirit Totem Lion Barbarian gives you pounce, which combined with Rapid Strike and Improved Rapid Strike from the Dracinomicon gives you a TON of attacks on a full attack combined with a charge to make you a fearsome foe. Blackguard gets you some stealth skills and you could easily max them out more with a few levels in Rogue or something else to make sure that you are always striking from the deadly shadows in a pouncing flurry of claws and death. Then you can stand up and salute your DM with a big ol' SUCK MY CHA!

Maybe its the tequillia talking?