Gestalt Character for all-out battle

[Serenity]

This weekend, I will be attending my college's annual gaming con, where I plan to take part in 'OGRE vs. Squirrel', in which the various players will do their best to create the most broken character they can and pit them against each other. Any D&D book made by Wizards is fair game, though my selection is limited to 3.5 Core, Expanded and Complete Psionics, Complete Adventurer, ToB, ECS, and MMII, plus the SRD. My plan is to make a Gestalt Warblade//Psion. The game's fully 20th level, and any help with optimization would be much appreciated!

My current thinking is a LG Githzerai Egoist//Warblade. Ability scores at 1st level, after racial ability adjustments are STR 16 DEX 20 CON 13 INT 15 WIS 13 CHA 12. Gold piece limit for items is 200,000, and no artifacts are allowed.

[Swooper]

1. Max Concentration, possibly getting an item to boost it.
2. Grab some juicy Diamond Mind maneuvres.
3. Start the battle by getting psionic focus (preferably, you should have the Psionic Meditation feat to speed this up to a move action).
4. Proceed to smack stuff so hard with your Greater Insightful Strike, using your psi-focus to take 15 on the Concentration roll.
5. ???
6. Profit!

[Serenity]

Update: I've just been informed that we will be using 32 point buy, making the ability scores I posted earlier not quite possible. Here's my current revised abilities. If you have any suggestion for how to rearrange the points, I'll be glad to hear them.

STR 15 DEX 17 CON 14 INT 15 WIS 12 CHA 8

My first thought is that I might drop Wisdom to 10 to boost my STR up a notch. I've got 4 +1 boosts for 4th, 8th, 12th, and 16th level (Gith LA keeps me from going to 20) still to apply. I'm guessing I should pump those into INT, along with grabbing a bunch of INT boosting items?

[Triaxx]

Personally I'd go with a Monk//Barbarian, but that's just me.

[Nebo_]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...9&postcount=37

Win, swap Wrath domain for Animal or Scalykind or something else with Shapechange(so you can persist it) if you really want the polymorph abuse to let you win.

[Tokiko Mima]

This sounds like a contest that Pun-Pun would automatically win, at least until he was banned, which would happen the second someone noticed you're using Pun-Pun.

Be sure to wear Heavy Fortification(+5) armor and a Third Eye: Conceal(200k, from MIC it's Perma-Mind Blank) because that kills a lot of your opponents options to really harm you.

[Serenity]

200,000 is my GP limit for all equipment--the guy DMing says that 760,000, the listed WBL for 20th level characters, is for 20th level parties. Doesn't make sense to me, but not something I'm in a good position to argue.

[Chronos]

3. Start the battle by getting psionic focus (preferably, you should have the Psionic Meditation feat to speed this up to a move action).

Preferably, you'd start the battle with psionic focus already up. It lasts until you expend it or go unconscious, and you can regain it as often as you want, so why would any character ever not have it at the start of a battle? Some way to regain it quickly would be good if you plan to use it multiple times in a fight, though.

[Douglas]

200,000 is my GP limit for all equipment--the guy DMing says that 760,000, the listed WBL for 20th level characters, is for 20th level parties. Doesn't make sense to me, but not something I'm in a good position to argue.

Er, what? The table quite clearly says Character Wealth by Level, not party wealth.

Also, point him to the table on page 54, which lists expected treasure gain per level and explicitly has columns for both the entire party and for each individual character. Then point out that the gain for level 20 alone, completely ignoring the entire rest of the character's career, is 180000 for a single character. Also note that the WBL table entries happen to exactly equal the sum of the expected gain column in this table for all levels 1 through the level you're looking up.

[expirement10K14]

Go Monk10/Barbarian10//Sorcerer10/PRC's10 and take Vow of Poverty and Ascetic Mage. You Win.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

GM screwing you out of gold? Fine.

PsiWar6/Slayer10/Pyrokeneticist4//Warblade20.

Abuse Spiked Chain, which is a two handed weapon. Abuse the hell out of Power Attack/Shock Trooper/Leap Attack/Karmic Strike when combined with Psionic Lion's Pounce and +100 damage maneuver. Particularly do this while augmenting Expansion for two size category increases for even more damage output. Just remember, your reach when expanded is like 20', so you don't actually need to get into melee with someone to lay the smack down, forcing him to come to you, or failing that, charging another 10 feet forward and repeating the previous round worth of attacks for even more damage output.

Slayer gives you immunity to mind-affecting. If you go Warforged, you can get immune to crits, and since you're no longer a humanoid, immune to a bunch of crap just by virtue of not being humanoid.

For Ultra-Cheeze:

You need: Warmind 5, a bag of helpless puppies, Great Cleave, a weapon of reach (I'd suggest a spiked chain again), and a sadistic personality.

In short: Warmind5 lets you hit a different opponent within reach if you hit an opponent. So, smack a puppy, also smack opponent. Oh wait, you killed a puppy, Great Cleave, kill another puppy, also smack opponent. You see where this is going...

[Zincorium]

Go Monk10/Barbarian10//Sorcerer10/PRC's10 and take Vow of Poverty and Ascetic Mage. You Win.

Er, by taking barbarian and monk, you do not win. You don't even come close. You lose the majority of your monk abilities just to qualify for barbarian, and then, once you are a barbarian, you can't rage and cast spells at the same time.

IF you are going to take vow of poverty, and it may be worth it in this situation, full druid on one side and fighter or ranger on the other, PrCing into warshaper for 4 levels and then some other melee-oriented class. Possibly take a level or two of monk, but don't prioritize it over druid.

[Draz74]

Oooh, if you can somehow snag access to Magic of Incarnum, Druid//Totemist with Vow of Poverty would be absolutely insane in this situation.

[Serenity]

I'd like to avoid out and out stinky cheese like the puppy trick. Also, I don't think I've got access to Shock Trooper or Karmic Strike.

I'll try to show him the table at lunch tomorrow, but he's a pretty stubborn guy, and I don't want to push it too much.

In the meantime, might we focus on the hypothetical Psion//Warblade? Not that I don't appreciate other suggestions, but I'm rather fond of the idea, and the synergy with INT seems very nice. Which Psionic discipline would be the best? How much should I look into boosting my other stats? Any rearranging you might suggest off the bat? Is Githzerai a good choice, or should I switch to a race that doesn't have the INT penalty?

[Chronos]

You lose the majority of your monk abilities just to qualify for barbarian,

Not so. The only thing a monk loses by becoming non-lawful is the ability to take more monk levels. All the abilities remain.

You can't, however, do Monk 20 // Barbarian 20 without a houserule.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'd like to avoid out and out stinky cheese like the puppy trick. Also, I don't think I've got access to Shock Trooper or Karmic Strike.

I'll try to show him the table at lunch tomorrow, but he's a pretty stubborn guy, and I don't want to push it too much.

In the meantime, might we focus on the hypothetical Psion//Warblade? Not that I don't appreciate other suggestions, but I'm rather fond of the idea, and the synergy with INT seems very nice. Which Psionic discipline would be the best? How much should I look into boosting my other stats? Any rearranging you might suggest off the bat? Is Githzerai a good choice, or should I switch to a race that doesn't have the INT penalty?

I would still suggest Slayer for the immunity to mind-affecting. Cuts out a lot of the save or loose crap. And I would still suggest Warforged for immunity to a hell of a lot of stuff.

So, as far as a specialty, I would suggest Egoist. It's full of self-buffs and augmentations. It also includes stuff like Greater Metamorphosis, which is kinda like Shapechange, only even more broken, although it does cost 200 xp.

[Omniplex]

Someone mentions druids. Here's what I think might be a fun idea. Use druid or wild shaping ranger to go into the Master of many forms, at least until you get to use the Extraordinary Powers of your form, and can shapeshift into abberations. then shapeshift into a Will 'O Wisp, which, as extraordinary abilities, has perma-invisability(not very useful at these power levels), Spell Immunity (more like infinite SR) and ridiculous dex. not sure what to do next, but that seems like a good start.

Though, warblade/psion sounds sweet too. Don't forget to pick up schism, so one mind can manifest powers while the other slices and dices.

[Chronos]

Someone mentions druids. Here's what I think might be a fun idea. Use druid or wild shaping ranger to go into the Master of many forms, at least until you get to use the Extraordinary Powers of your form, and can shapeshift into abberations. then shapeshift into a Will 'O Wisp, which, as extraordinary abilities, has perma-invisability(not very useful at these power levels), Spell Immunity (more like infinite SR) and ridiculous dex. not sure what to do next, but that seems like a good start.

The wisp wildshape is a near-perfect defense: Anything that tries to attack you with weapons needs to contend with invisibility, flight, and a very high AC (all of which is good vs. touch attacks), you're immune to most spells, and those few spells which can threaten you require attack rolls. The problem with wisps themselves is their offensive abilities are pretty weak, but Gestalt solves that problem nicely, since you can still attack with spells. Either continue with Druid on one side with MoMF on the other (with some utility class like Monk or Rogue on the other side, until you qualify for MoMF), or take Druid (or Wildshape Ranger) and MoMF on the same side, with Wizard or something similarly powerful on the other side.

[Zincorium]

I'd like to avoid out and out stinky cheese like the puppy trick. Also, I don't think I've got access to Shock Trooper or Karmic Strike.

I'll try to show him the table at lunch tomorrow, but he's a pretty stubborn guy, and I don't want to push it too much.

In the meantime, might we focus on the hypothetical Psion//Warblade? Not that I don't appreciate other suggestions, but I'm rather fond of the idea, and the synergy with INT seems very nice. Which Psionic discipline would be the best? How much should I look into boosting my other stats? Any rearranging you might suggest off the bat? Is Githzerai a good choice, or should I switch to a race that doesn't have the INT penalty?

I personally wouldn't recommend githzerai, you don't actually need dexterity for much with the classes you have (you can wear heavy armor without a hitch) and wisdom doesn't help you at all. Also, you lose good class features from the LA.

A better choice would be warforged, as a few people have mentioned, as you apparently already have the eberron campaign setting. No penalty to intelligence, plus to con, and very useful racial abilities without a level adjustment.

And Egoist is probably your best choice, it shores up your defensive abilities to go with your already effective warblade defenses.

[Supreme Geasser]

Wizard/Warblade specialty Iron Heart or Diamond Mind

Reasons why:

1) level 9 Iron Heart maneuver deals 100 damage (no save) + weapon damage
combo with finishing move which deals 4d6 if enemy has full hp, 6d6 if less than full but more than half, 12d6 if less than half.
2) Warblade recover maneuvers by a standard action paired with a single attack and do nothing for the rest of your turn
3) Diamond Mind maneuver Moment of Alacrity increases your Initiative by 20 for the whole encounter
4) Diamond Mind maneuver "Time stands still" allows 2 full-round attack actions paired with full BAB of Warblade and add haste equals 10 attacks
5) For broken wizard/sorcerer spells, go to this url
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500

[Illiterate Scribe]

Oooh, if you can somehow snag access to Magic of Incarnum, Druid//Totemist with Vow of Poverty would be absolutely insane in this situation.

YES YES YES.

The VoP druid could be awesome here.

You can pretty much work out the effect of a VoP from here, and, if you are looking for a very powerful character, Planar Shepherd, here. Go with whatever plane you can find angels from as your home plane. Run around wildshaped into a freakin' Solar.

For your other side, well, totemist would be made out of lulz and win (can you shape soulmelds on top of your wildshape, if it's vaguely humanoid?), but you don't have Magic of Incarnum.

You'd be looking at

Druid 5 / Planar Shepherd 10 / Something that advances casting and wildshape // Swordsage 20?

[Serenity]

Hmm....that could be interesting, but I don't have the Book of Exalted Deeds. I suppose I could try to pick it up from the local game shop, or buy a PDF...

[Draz74]

In the meantime, might we focus on the hypothetical Psion//Warblade? Not that I don't appreciate other suggestions, but I'm rather fond of the idea, and the synergy with INT seems very nice. Which Psionic discipline would be the best? How much should I look into boosting my other stats? Any rearranging you might suggest off the bat? Is Githzerai a good choice, or should I switch to a race that doesn't have the INT penalty?

All right. Let's see.

Definitely pick a race without an INT penalty. My three recommendations are Elan, Raptoran, or Warforged.

Elan is great because Psions get a lot of PP, especially for an arena setting where you won't need to go through multiple encounters per day (right?). And Elans get extra cool ways to use their PP, besides just manifesting powers, which could save you in an emergency. If you want to go crazy you could even pull off a King of Smack sort of build. You would go Ranger 1/Warblade 19//Psion (Egoist) 10/Slayer 10, and pick up the Improved Rapidstrike feat from Draconomicon at Level 15. (That is the part where being an Elan is important.) This feat would enable you to make a lot more attacks using your Claws of the Beast power (which you'd have to pick up via feat), which will be 7d6 damage attacks (or more, if you use Metamorphosis or Expansion to make yourself bigger). Even if you don't use the whole King of Smack thing, Elan is a solid choice on its own.

Raptoran: it has no penalties to any ability scores, and it flies. It's probably not the best choice, but it's a particular favorite of mine, especially for Warblade builds, since they have so little abilities with ranged attacks in case they run into flying opponents.
On the other hand, it's not too hard for you to get flight through the Psionic Fly or Psionic Overland Flight power. So maybe you want a race with more features.

Warforged I'm recommending, not so much because of its immunities, but because you can have very efficient self-healing, as a Warforged, via the Psionic Repair Damage power. Unfortunately it's a Shaper discipline spell, so you either have to be a Shaper or spend a feat on it.

Definitely focus your maneuvers on Diamond Mind the most. It's already a decent discipline, and it just gets better when you add Psionic synergy (more reasons to max your Concentration skill, and the ability to "take 15" on Concentration checks).

What are you planning in terms of PrCs? Bloodstorm Blade would take away some of your melee-only weakness as a Warblade. It's ridiculously cheesy, fluff-wise, but in an arena you may not care about that. But that's just one PrC idea; I'm sure people have other suggestions.

Psionic Disciplines ... Egoist is a strong option, as others have said. Hustle is a great power, especially when you want to recover your Psionic Focus (to "take 15" on another Concentration check) and you have Psionic Meditation (the feat, which, you should note, requires 13 WIS). Metamorphosis and Greater Metamorphosis are, of course, broken if you know what you're doing with them.

Nomad isn't too appealing except for Psionic Fly. Oooh, although Psionic Dimensional Anchor could definitely put a wrench in some opponents' plans. Seer ... meh. Telepath is a strong discipline, but not so much in an arena setting, except for Schism. If you're not a Telepath, you definitely have to save a feat to get Schism.

Shaper is an interesting option too. Astral Construct is really a good summoning power, especially if you get the Boost Construct feat and the Ecto Protection power. And the PrC that was from a Mind's Eye article on the Wizards web site, which gave you extra powers as a psionic specialized summoner.
If you go this direction, go all-out. Be a Warforged Shaper/PrC, who fights mainly with his Astral Constructs (depending on whether your DM accepts the Complete Psionic errata about only-one-Astral-Construct-at-a-time). Heal them, and yourself and your Psicrystal, with Psionic Repair Damage. Get a Psicrystal and the feat that lets it hold a second Psionic Focus for you. Manifest the power Solicit Psicrystal and find a power that is very powerful, except for the way you have to concentrate on it continually; your Psicrystal can do that power for you while you keep doing other stuff.

... but the whole Shaper idea takes you pretty far from the "Warblade" concept, so you may be best off just sticking with Egoist.

Abilities: STR 12, DEX 12, CON 12, INT 18, WIS 12, CHA 8 before racial adjustments.

Equipment: if you focus on Diamond Mind, then a Third Eye Concentrate from the XPH is certainly worthwhile for 10000 gp. Also, CON-boosting items become more valuable than usual in this case.

Note that, while people have been saying you need Slayer or an item to give you immunity to mind-affecting abilities, you can also learn the Personal Mind Blank power to get the effect. Although it can be dispelled or take a precious action to activate, it's still an option.

[Serenity]

Well, having just picked up the BoED, and having confirmed that the DM will definitely be using the 200,000 GP limit, I think I might just go with that VOP Druid/Planar Shepherd//Swordsage build after all. Wisdom synergy, Wild Shape into a Solar, lots of skill points, Swordsage nets me a free Weapon Focus for Sanctify Weapon, and oodles of bonuses from VoP, while the other characters will be at sub-par WBL...I think it should work very nicely. I think I'll go for Human, which will give me a couple extra skills, and the bonus feat to pick up Sacred Vow and VoP right at 1st level. So now to distribute 32 point buy for a Solar swordsage....

[Draz74]

Well, considering how one of the main broken things about Wild Shape is how you can dump STR and DEX:

STR 8, DEX 8, CON 16, INT 12, WIS 18, CHA 10

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, having just picked up the BoED, and having confirmed that the DM will definitely be using the 200,000 GP limit, I think I might just go with that VOP Druid/Planar Shepherd//Swordsage build after all. Wisdom synergy, Wild Shape into a Solar, lots of skill points, Swordsage nets me a free Weapon Focus for Sanctify Weapon, and oodles of bonuses from VoP, while the other characters will be at sub-par WBL...I think it should work very nicely. I think I'll go for Human, which will give me a couple extra skills, and the bonus feat to pick up Sacred Vow and VoP right at 1st level. So now to distribute 32 point buy for a Solar swordsage....

Of course, the only downside is Swordsage is only a 3/4 BAB. You'd get full BAB out of Warblade, but the Wis to AC thing is pretty nifty. See if you can get the 'monk variant' Swordsage. In short, you ditch light armor proficency (pointless with this build) for monk unarmed damage progression. It's on page 20 of ToB.So now you'll be doing 2d10 (as a medium size, appropriately sized up) on every unarmed attack. Stack up on maneuvers with favored weapon: Unarmed. Win.

[Serenity]

Hmm, that might also be benefit snapping up Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap Kick somewhere along the lines.

For the bonus Exalted Feats I get from VoP, do I have to meet all the prerequisites? 'Cause a number of the good ones are powered by the CHA I've dumped.

Also, are the save and BAB progression of the Planar Shepherd the same as the Druid?

[Illiterate Scribe]

Hmm, that might also be benefit snapping up Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap Kick somewhere along the lines.

For the bonus Exalted Feats I get from VoP, do I have to meet all the prerequisites? 'Cause a number of the good ones are powered by the CHA I've dumped.

Remember the +6 VoP stat-boost. It doesn't have to be dumped too much.

Also, for extra cheese, remember that you don't have to take the vow at first level; you could live a normal life, just buying tons and tons of stat tomes, and then take VoP as your 18th level feat - repudiating wealth later in life. Sure, you lose the feats, but everything else is retroactive.

Also, are the save and BAB progression of the Planar Shepherd the same as the Druid?

I cannot elucidate on copyright matters, but the answer is 'wink'. I hope you catch my meaning.

[Swooper]

Personally I'd go with a Monk//Barbarian, but that's just me.

And how do you plan to do that? You can't be both lawful and non-lawful at the same time, can you?

[Swooper]

Preferably, you'd start the battle with psionic focus already up. It lasts until you expend it or go unconscious, and you can regain it as often as you want, so why would any character ever not have it at the start of a battle? Some way to regain it quickly would be good if you plan to use it multiple times in a fight, though.

True - but it depends on the rules of the arena. The only arena I've played in didn't allow people to start the battle focused.