Level 15 Gestalt PvP (3.5)

[Redshirt Army]

So my friends have decided to run a Level 15 gestalt tournament, and I figured I would pop down here to see what suggestions you have- I'm out of ideas at the moment, and I obviously can't ask my friends for help.

Relevant house rules: This is purely being done for fun, so please no Tainted Scholar//Beholder Mage suggestions- in fact, keep the power level around tier 3- beyond that, most anything goes. I have access to and permission to use nearly all 3.5 books.

32 Point Buy
Average Hp per level

Concept: Right now, all I have in mind is a Factotum//Warblade - no race chosen yet, and I'm impartial to losing the Warblade in favor of another class.
No full casting please (I've had my fill of those), and keep at least some of the factotum, as I've wanted to play one for a very long while.

Thanks!

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Without full casting, you'll probably have to rely on magic items to get around some basic caster tricks. Have at least one rod of cancellation, some item that grants a fly speed (or better yet, some racial [Ex] ability, for instance if you're a Raptoran), the maneuvers that swap saves with concentration checks paired with a Third Eye Concentrate, and maybe a dip in Swordsage to get some mobility powers.

Factotum is wonderful, but despite its love on these forums I wouldn't pump Font of Inspiration. Unlike a caster, extra actions aren't the end-all to winning a combat; you're going to need to increase the effectiveness and availability of your actions with your available feats instead. Different ways to go include the mage slayer line, power attack optimizing, reach lockdown, stormguard warrior, [strategies I missed], or some combination of the above.

In general, think of every clean trick a caster could pull, and try to find an item or an ability you can grab to get around it. If you have your bases covered, and you actually get to an opponent and start attacking, you should be able to either down them or seriously cripple them with strikes + extra actions from cunning surge.

[strider24seven]

I present The Factotum of War.

A 1-level dip in Master of Masks plus the Warblade's Weapon Aptitude equals all your weapon feats for ANY weapon. Including every exotic weapon ever made.

Edit: And for Warblade, I would take a few FoI if you are not going full Factotum.

Edit Edit: And take a dip in Monk with either Kung Fu Genius or Carmendine Monk. It helps your AC. Tremendously. A 2-level dip in Swordsage gets you some good teleport maneuvers from Shadow Hand.

[Eldariel]

Wildshape//ToB works very well outside casters. Templates//ToB is probably even stronger though. But yeah, actions become slightly worse when you can't do everything by just casting an extra spell or two (generally, whatever opponent's defenses are, you can penetrate them with just an extra spell or two, but it's much harder without spells). And yeah, items play a huge role. Stuff that gives basic spell effects like True Strike, teleport and such are absolute key.

[strider24seven]

Templates are only really good if you take the LA on one "side" of the gestalt. Otherwise they are only fairly good with ToB.

Half-Dragon, Feral, Lolth-Touched, Mineral Warrior, and Phrenic are absolutely vicious regardless of LA shenanigans.

[Yorrin]

Monster race classes (Savage Species) were practically meant for Gestalt. Go nuts- Grab Rhakshasa, or an Elemental, or Medusa. All sorts of fun to be had there.

[Redshirt Army]

Templates are only really good if you take the LA on one "side" of the gestalt. Otherwise they are only fairly good with ToB.

Half-Dragon, Feral, Lolth-Touched, Mineral Warrior, and Phrenic are absolutely vicious regardless of LA shenanigans.

I'm fairly certain that we're ruling that LA only takes up one "side" of a gestalt character, so we're fine on that front.

On another note, where's Mineral Warrior from? I've heard it tossed around a lot, so I figured I should ask.

EDIT: Found it. It seems okay, but it loses INT, which is at least the bread part of this builds "bread and butter". Are you sure it's good for a factotum//warblade?

[Eldariel]

Underdark (not Drow of the Underdark, just Underdark). Or, y'know, WotC Site.

[Jack_Simth]

Without full casting, you'll probably have to rely on magic items to get around some basic caster tricks. Have at least one rod of cancellation, some item that grants a fly speed (or better yet, some racial [Ex] ability, for instance if you're a Raptoran), the maneuvers that swap saves with concentration checks paired with a Third Eye Concentrate, and maybe a dip in Swordsage to get some mobility powers.

Actually, Factotums get a limited number of spells - and they're technically Spell-Like, which means no ASF, Verbal components, and the like (although they do have to suffer through material components). At 15th, that's 6 spells, only one of which can be at 6th level (the rest are 5th or lower). Greater Dispel Magic, Dimension Door, Teleport, Fly, Greater Invisibility, and See Invisibility will get you out of the first of most caster tricks.

[Redshirt Army]

Final bump before I let this die...

[PhoenixRivers]

My Recommendation?

Factotum 13 / Monk 2 // Ninja 3 / Swordsage 2 / Shadow Sun Ninja 8 / Shadowdancer 1 / ??? 1

The last level is flexible. Choose Swordsage if you want maneuver selection at IL 12.

If monk 2 is augmented by the Kung-Fu Genius feat, you'll get Wis to AC, int to AC, a lot of wis synergy on one side of the build, and int synergy on the other. If I were to replace factotum with anything, it'd be:

Druid 13 - For wildshape abilities, and buffs (with extra Wis synergy); however you expressed distaste for full casters (which I assume includes a long term buff fighter, with extend spell).