Gestalt goodness!!

[Grizzled Gryphon]

What class mixtures have you found to be interesting/ good? Your submissions have no requirements, so they don't have to be optimal or anything. Heck, you don't even have to be fully sure they work really good together, just post things you think might be good. But, it would be cool if you gave pros and cons to the idea.

Here are a couple I have recently thought of, but to be honest, I haven't crunched the numbers or anything, they just seem like they would be pretty cool characters.

Knight//Crusader. As they are both essentially tanks, and they don't have much in the way of overlapping abilities, they seem to mesh very nicely. I would think the class abilities of the two complement each other rather well. And, as an added benefit, it just sounds right for your character to say "I am a Knight Crusader."

This may have some RAW issues with Eldritch Glaive not being a weapon, but I would allow it in my games. Warlock//Warblade. Has the potential for some MAD problems, but that depends on what invocations you go with on the Warlock side. But, a flying, energy polearm wielding guy using maneuvers sounds pretty cool.

Dragonfire Adept//Dragon Shaman. Some nice support abilities with the invocations and aura's, the class abilities of the Shaman, and the caveat that all the abilities from both classes that deal with the breath weapons only say "your breath weapon", this is a pretty nice combo. Of course, in my games, I allow a Dragonfire Adept to use Metabreath feats, so that might be a factor.

[Waker]

Crusader//Incarnate- You have a heap of defensive abilities/immunities, the ability to heal while attacking, decent skill selection, good HP, saves and BAB, plus none of your powers ever "run out." In addition, melds can help get around some of the traditional melee weaknesses like flying, teleporting and so on.

Warblade//Factotum- High HP, BAB, two good saves, tons of skills, access to a good selection of maneuvers and some magic... This combination can basically emulate nearly every hero from myth and fiction.

Swordsage//Spirit Shaman- All good saves, decent HP and BAB, excellent skills, tons of maneuvers and access to powerful spells. You can emulate any sort of mystical priest/monk with ease.

Warlock//Totemist- Good HP and BAB, two good saves and decent skills. Between melds and invocations, you have plenty of movement and skill options. Makes for a good nature-themed warrior or emissary of the fairy courts.

Monk//Beguiler- All good saves, decent HP and BAB, plenty of skills. Helps emulate the old school ninjas with physical abilities and access to enchantment/illusion spells.

There are others, but I think I've listed enough.

[Zytil]

Factotum//Savant for entirely flavour-based reasons.

[Kennisiou]

Bardblade/DMM chameleon gestalt. Much support, very gish.

Also, recently started working on a TWFing gestalt. it's:

Whirling Frenzy Lion Totem barbarian/Scout/Ranger//Rogue/Swashbuckler/Cloistered Cleric/Swordsage/Sohei.

The purpose of the sohei levels is that even more iterative attacks, allowing me to frenzy and ki frenzy while twfing to get a solid nine attacks every full attack action.

[Grizzled Gryphon]

I actually played a Half Orc Psychic Warrior//Monk, and he was very fun. I went the grappling feat tree on the Monk side, supported by the psychic and fighter feats with the PW... All inspired by that cool pic of the Half Orc Monk and friends fighting the Displacer Beast in some book or another...

[Greenish]

Warlock//Totemist- Good HP and BAB, two good saves and decent skills.

Warlock has good Will, Totemist has good Fort & Ref, so all good saves.


Factotum//Duskblade is a solid magic knight with a bunch of tricks. (Feat) Rogue//Duskblade also works.


Ranger//Swordsage is pretty neat, especially if you go wildshape ranger or Revenant Blade on the ranger side.

[Darth Stabber]

The next time I get the chance to play with a lenient GM I am playing a druid//totemist, being an animal with all sorts of weird glowy extra limbs and such. Run away from the tentacle bear!

The actual build is a touch more complex:
pixie LA4/totemist9/barbarian1/warshaper4/swordsage2//druid20 with VoP (mostly because I don't want to figure out how to equip this guy). Not sure about the order of the non-druid part, and if forced I would just stick to druid//totemist, but there you go.

Other ideas in the hopper
samurai/ronin//dread necromancer - just something about a samurai signaling his undead hordes with his katana strikes me as amusing. Plus that fear synergy.

Paladin//rogue - played as an inquisitor. Probably going to have to mix grey guard in there for more flavor (and actually having a character that can use grey guard's features well).

Warblade//factotum - so many neat tricks, good synergy, mixing two of the best examples of T3 (Factotum is the "can do a lot of things well" type and Warblade is the "really good at their main shtick but can contribute meaningfully when that shtick is not appropriate" type). Has answers for every situation, and the one bad save (will) is covered by a first level maneuver. Add a barbarian dip and some charger feats and it could be terrifying.

Binder//totemist - so much day to day reconfigurability it's sickening. Even at low levels it works beautifully. Might make morning prep a bit of a chore though.

[Nightraiderx]

Duskblade//Spellthief/teflammar shadowlord

I shall port in and steal all the spells and then use them to fuel my full attacking
port combo.

Unarmed Swordsage/Sorcerer

magic powered kung fu fun.

I'll see your crusader/incarnate and raise you a

Crusader//Incarnate/Cleric/Sapphire Heirarch

I AM THE LAW.

[bekeleven]

Factotum
Warlock
Incarnate
Totemist
Monk
Swift Hunter
Rogue
Binder?
Dragon Shaman
[Or anything with sufficient chassis upgrades]

...Combined with anything that has similar attribute dependency.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wildshape Ranger//Psychic Warrior seems like it could be fun. Be a psychic bear! Four times the size of a normal bear!

[Beardbarian]

Wizard//Monk with kung fu genius builded for a 9X9 combo

Fear the Fisting Genius!

[sideswipe]

Note: dm has allowed LA and racial hit die to only come from one side of your levels.

I'm currently playing-
Synad half fey
Psion 6/ thrall herder 5/factotum 1/ dragon shaman 1/ cleric 1/ marshal 5

I took cleric for a couple of domains that either boost my aura effects or create effects like aura's.

factotum was for able learner so cross class skills disappear

I took all classes for fluff reasons and they have all proven to be useful :)
The idea is we are in a kingdom building campaign where we all rule a small kingdom and are coming together to build a bigger one.

so i'm a psion, full progression. and everything else i am is to gain the trust of people. have people follow me. and then boost said people to make them superior to others.

its not optimal but its really fun.

[Grizzled Gryphon]

I'm currently playing-
Synad half fey
Psion 6/ thrall herder 5/factotum 1/ dragon shaman 1/ cleric 1/ marshal 5

So, what is on which half of the build?

[Vortenger]

Wizard//Monk with kung fu genius builded for a 9X9 combo

Fear the Fisting Genius!

Nah, you got it all wrong.

Wizard//Psion with Tashalatora and no monk levels. All the awesome you mentioned with dual 9's keyed off Intelligence, and a crystal to hang out with your familiar!

edit: Swift Hunter, Daring Outlaw, Ascetic Stalker, Tashalatora and all the other 'combine these two classes features' become twice as nice as one side of a gestalt.

For example: Decisive Strike Monk// Scout 4/Ranger 16 takes the usual swift hunter and adds more defense and punch!

[sideswipe]

So, what is on which half of the build?

I messed up my original post slightly.

one half.
Psion 6/ thrall herder 4 (just gone to 5 for level up)

other half. (LA must be first)
1.LA - half fey
2.LA - half fey
3. Factotum
4. Dragon shaman
5. Cleric
6. Thrall herder
7. Marshal
8. Marshal
9. Marshal
10. Marshal
11. Marshal (from recent level up)

I took the first level of thrall herder on this side as it does not improve Psion casting at first level.

Feats -
1 - Able learner
Flaw - vunerable - Inquisitor
Flaw - weak will (i really could afford it!) - empower power
Psion 1 - overchannel
3 - narrow mind
Psion 5 - talented
6 - psionic meditate
Marshal 1 - skill focus diplomacy
9. expanded knowledge

we started at level 10.

[Rebel7284]

Sorcerer 20
//
X 5 / Eldrich Master 10/Y 5

Not the best of chasis, but you know so so many spells spontaneously while getting spell acess earlier than a wizard. Also, you cast off of 3 spell lists. Also double caster level.

[Fouredged Sword]

I like

Rogue 20 // Factotum 9 / Chameleon 10 / Spellthief 1

[kardar233]

I got most of the way through building an Archivist//Sha'ir with Spelldancer and Incantatrix for the ability to persist nearly every spell in the game.

I also like Sorcerer/Dread Witch//Paladin of Tyranny/Ghost-Faced Killer/Avenging Executioner for Fear-based Gishery.

[XmonkTad]

Wu Jen/Void Disciple//Monk/Warlock. You get the wonders of "body outside body" plus warlock SLAs. Also the unblockable scry from Void Disciple and Sun School's "Flash at Sunset" so you can scry and fry like few can.

[Socratov]

Well, in my opinion Gestalt is all about supplementing and synergy. You will often find that one side fo the gestalt could be considered your 'main' tree. It will be be core of the build and reflect what you want your role to be. The main build is what you will base your ability scores on and (most of) the feat selection. The other tree is the support tree (let's call this side tree). This part of the build you will take to supplement anything the main tree is missing (think about saves, hp, bab, or classfeatures that will really help you). The second tree can be used to either broaden your expertise, or to boost and focus your expertise.

Now the big problem with gestalt is that no matter how many classes and option you have, yo uare still bound to the action economy. So if your main tree does not give you action economy abuse, your side tree should supplement it or give you a way to spend your actions with more efficiency. A good example of this is making sure you have certain buffs up (Warlock's invocations like Fell Flight to give you 24 hours of flying so you don't have to prepare it in your spellslots and won't have to waste time at the start of combat to cast flight) or factotum to give you more actions. Another way is to take cleric and DMM: Persist to walk around with buffs all day without burning spell levels of your main tree. The side tree is also the tree with the most multiclassing (again, to supplement what you lack in your main tree).

As for synergy: let's say you want to be a dual wielding rogue. You have the Sneak attack form Rogue, but you don't want to burn all your feats on TWF and so on. So you might take ranger on the side tree to get you those feats for free. This opens up a bit of divine casting, an animal companion, combat style feats and favored enemy. All things that could help you kill faster and better as a rogue. As a bonus you have to burn to improve your rogueness. By the way, a good tip is to seek for classes that utilize roughly the same ability scores. the sidetree does not neccessarily need to comply, but it helps a lot in inching out just that extra bit of power or versitality.

You will find that some classes are fantastic side tree material, while some are more main tree material. To give some guidelines on what goes well with what I'll post some rules of thumb (at least, for base classes). Remember they are not absolute, but tend to work well.

Good main tree classes:

Anything with a full spellcasting/manifesting/initiating progression. They are powerful enough in their own right and can benefit greatly from some side action to improve HD, saves, BaB and other basic things.

Anything devoted to martial prowess (think fighter, warblade, barbarian, and so on). With a few classes like binder, Marshall, Factotum or warlock you can trick yourself out so you can save on equipment or have just a bit more tools in your toolbox.

Good side tree classes:

Factotum - Get ALL the skills, with a boatload of skillpoints, and ways to get extra standard actions and a bonus to pretty much everything. Also, for martial characters: Ijatsu focus.

Warlock - It's NAD, has great self buffs, you can pick some utility and it's fantabulous at using magic trinkets (decieve item, lol). Good stuff is see the unseen, baleful utterance, Beguiling Influence, Fell Flight, Flee the Scene, and so on.

Bard - great social skills, nice utility casting, ways to boost damage through DFI and fantastic support in splats. It's been commented upon that threre is very little a bard cannot do or help with

Spellthief - if you are a caster, get spellthief, get the master spellthief feat and you are good to go.

Initaitors - diamond Mind and Shadow Hand are very popular here. They can give you just the ultility you need to boost saves, attacks, sneak attack, etc.

Incarnum users - Free equipment-ish stuff!

Notable builds and combinations:

Swift hunter (scout+ranger+swift hunter feat)//rogue: "What do you mean it's immune to sneak attack? I hate it too much for it to be immune to it"

Sorcerer//spellthief 1/wizard 19: Metamagic synergy. This is what you get if you mix Batman and the mailman. there is no way you will catch him/her unprepared and what the Sorcerer side doesn't solve, the wizard side will fix. Als, steal just about any spell you want. Doesn't really matter.

Barbarian X/fighter 20-X//Bard: a bit mad (nothing that can't be fixed with a little +stat items), but imagine a barbarian shouting, his sword bursting into flames and him powerattacking you for so much damage that not even disintegrate can copy it's results. The X depends on how many fighter feats you want and how much barbarian you want. Needless to say the Barbarian is of the Lion totem variety.

[Zombulian]

Something I was just rolling over in my head was Artificer//Truenamer. Skill Enhancement and Item Alteration plus all your crafting to boost your Truespeak check into the stratosphere. They're also just two really cool classes to me and both run on Int, so that's cool.

[Vortenger]

I got most of the way through building an Archivist//Sha'ir with Spelldancer and Incantatrix for the ability to persist nearly every spell in the game.

I also like Sorcerer/Dread Witch//Paladin of Tyranny/Ghost-Faced Killer/Avenging Executioner for Fear-based Gishery.

A couple of you have done this so may I point out you aren't allowed to have 2 prestige classes going concurrently?

From SRD:

Spoiler

Show

A gestalt character follows a similar procedure when he attains 2nd and subsequent levels. Each time he gains a new level, he chooses two classes, takes the best aspects of each, and applies them to his characteristics. A few caveats apply, however.

Class features that two classes share (such as uncanny dodge) accrue at the rate of the faster class.
Gestalt characters with more than one spellcasting class keep track of their spells per day separately.
A gestalt character can’t combine two prestige classes at any level, although it’s okay to combine a prestige class and a regular class. Prestige classes that are essentially class combinations-such as the arcane trickster, mystic theurge, and eldritch knight-should be prohibited if you’re using gestalt classes, because they unduly complicate the game balance of what’s already a high-powered variant. Because it’s possible for gestalt characters to qualify for prestige classes earlier than normal, the game master is entirely justified in toughening the prerequisites of a prestige class so it’s available only after 5th level, even for gestalt characters.

edit: Artificer//Factotum is my dream setup, I just haven't been allowed to play gestalt since my archivist//wizard/dweomerkeeper hit level 15... (In my defense, back then we didn't understand tiers, not sure they existed yet.)

[Grizzled Gryphon]

Sorcerer//Battle Dancer. Just make sure you have the last spell you cast be an illusion of a disco ball, so you can properly dance the enemy to death! Seriously, they do mesh together nicely, and you can still be quite useful when your out of spells or can't cast. Nasty surprise for the enemy grappler, too.

I entirely agree with the idea of the gestalt having a main tree and support tree. That seems to happen a LOT. I find that fighter makes a great support tree to almost any class. X//Fighter is almost always a good build.

[Scow2]

Something I've been wanting to try is Catfolk Barbarian 4/Warblade X//Scout 20

No, the Barbarian is NOT a Lion Totem.

[gorfnab]

Shadowcaster // Rogue/ Swashbuckler/ Swordsage/ Telflammar Shadowlord - lots of pouncing
Dread Necromancer // Paladin of Slaughter - Cha focused Death Knight
Crusader // Bard 8/ Virtuoso 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Virtuoso 8 - Cha SAD battlefield leader/ party buffer
Warforged Warblade // Artificer - Int based self repairing Tank.