Best gestalt combination?

[xanaphia]

What do you think is the best gestalt combination? I ask just out of curiosity.

I think that Barbarian/Druid would be okay, as would Paladin/Sorcerer. Ranger/Druid is interesting too.

[Serenity]

I got a lot of use out of a VoP Swordsage/Druid. Would've gotten more if Eberron materials were allowed. And I imagine a Warblade/Psion would be pretty powerful for the Intelligence synergy.

[Kizara]

Monk 1/druid 19//cleric 20 is pretty disgusting.

My current character is:

Side 1: Rogue 2/paladin of tyranny 3/hex blade 4/marshal 1/fighter 2/hexblade 1/heirophant 5/blackguard 2

Side 2: Cleric 10/contemplative 2/cleric 8

That's the build anyways, although she's only halfway through it currently (lvl 11).

[Demons_eye]

Our dm says as long as we meet the Preq. for PcR's we can go stright into them.


Sword Sage 20// Kensai 10/seting sun ninja 10

Of corse unarmed.

[namo]

There was a thread some time ago about this : search for "Favorite gestalt combinations" or something similar...

Factotum//Archivist

[Squash Monster]

Pun-pun // Chuck


More seriously, I think the question is a bit too open-ended. But casters are better than everybody so some form of double caster with some options to get extra castings per turn is going to be your best bet. And wizard//archivist is great due to single attribute dependency and massive spell list.

So with that in mind, one of the following:
Wizard / War Weaver / Legacy Champion // Archivist
Wizard / Swiftblade // Archivist
Wizard / Havoc Mage // Archivist / Arcane Archer

Or for a more martial feel:
Wizard // Duskblade / Swiftblade / Bloodstorm Blade

[The Necroswanso]

Barbarian/Warlock, even for a one level dip.

[Ganurath]

Beguiler/Rogue. Beguiler is the true Batman, while the Rogue's sneak attack deals with foes hindered by Beguiler magic and UMD provides healing and divinations. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Kira.

[Turcano]

My personal favorite is Wizard/Incantatrix//Archivist. You know, just in case your spellcasting abilities just weren't disgusting enough.

[Xefas]

I like plain Warblade//Wizard.

Full BAB, d12 HD, Full Spellcasting, Full Initiator level, All Good Saves**, Martial Proficiency, and the Armor Proficiency needed for a Twilight Mithril Chain Shirt later on. Not to mention Intelligence synergy.

It just gets more ridiculous if you tack on Prestige Classes.

**Fort and Will are Good Progression, and a Warblade class features gives you Int bonus to Reflex saves which makes them high as well

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd say Rogue/Druid would be the best combination due to it having all good saves, Wildshape, sneak attack, an animal companion, trapfinding, Divine Magic and tons of class skills and skill points.

[weenie]

Wizard/Incantatrix/Abjurant champion//Duskblade is my favourite so far. (unless you allow BoEF, then also throw some metaphysic spellshaper in the Wizard part)

[Armads]

VoP Factotum 8/Ur-Priest 10/Warblade (anything, really) 2//Wizard/Incantatrix

Trade out all your crappy exalted feats via Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos, get Font of Inspiration till you can't take it anymore, and abuse the huge amounts of standard actions you get in any way you want. Plus you can get Iron Heart Surge and White Raven Tactics (if you take Warblade levels), have Rebuking to fuel DMM (sadly you cant apply it to wizard spells), and are an incantatrix.

[Jack_Simth]

"Best" is whatever you have the most fun with without interfering with anyone else's fun.

There's some really effective combo's out there, though.

For instance, a Druid//Ninja (Complete Adventurer) gets sickening. All good saved, 6+Int skill points per level, swift-action invisibility (powered by Wisdom), Wisdom to AC, bonuses to jumping, and Sudden Strike to go with Pounce from Wildshape. Plus full casting (based on Wisdom). With Wildshape, you can ignore Strength and Dexterity. This build basically just needs Constitution and Wisdom.

A Paladin//Wilder can do very well. Play as a Wilder, and you can drop Strength and Dex to fairly minimal levels (ultimately, you'll want +3 Dex for the AC, but you'll be getting most your AC from Full Plate, a Tower Shield and Elude Touch). Full BAB, d10 HD, saves through the roof due to Divine Grace, Charisma-based casting, and if you pick up Psychic Reformation at 8th, you can spend ten minutes to retool if you find your power selection isn't doing what you'd hoped.

There's several others.

[shadow_archmagi]

Courtesy of http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=320889:

Swordsage 1 (with the Shadow Blade feat), Battlesmith 1,Cleric 2 (with the Divine Might feat)/ Swashbuckler 3, ??? 1.

A level 4 character that adds every stat but CON to damage.

Of course, I don't know what this'll do to his base attack bonus, and he'll only be able to apply his wisdom bonus while wielding a hammer, and only apply the dex bonus while wielding a shadow blade weapon. Ask your DM if you can make a shortsword-hammer combination. Call it a Sham, and bribe him by saying it'll only do 1d4 damage on account of being such a wierd weapon. 1d4 won't matter in comparison with the +10 you can easily be dealing.

All praise the point-buy and magic item cost system that allows one to buy five +2 items for roughly 1/5 the price of a +10 item!

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

VoP Factotum 8/Ur-Priest 10/Warblade (anything, really) 2//Wizard/Incantatrix

Trade out all your crappy exalted feats via Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos, get Font of Inspiration till you can't take it anymore, and abuse the huge amounts of standard actions you get in any way you want. Plus you can get Iron Heart Surge and White Raven Tactics (if you take Warblade levels), have Rebuking to fuel DMM (sadly you cant apply it to wizard spells), and are an incantatrix.

Except of course that your Wizard side can't cast spells, seeing as he isn't allowed to own a spellbook.

I like plain Warblade//Wizard.

Full BAB, d12 HD, Full Spellcasting, Full Initiator level, All Good Saves**, Martial Proficiency, and the Armor Proficiency needed for a Twilight Mithril Chain Shirt later on. Not to mention Intelligence synergy.

Except that the penalty for not having proficiency is a -0 penalty to all attack roles, meaning that proficiency is useless.


Personally, I'd go with the Wizard/Incantatrix//Archivist/Sacred Exorcist (just the one level) if I wasn't abusing Ur-Preist.

If I was?

Wizard 20//Bard 1/Duskblade 1/Wu-Jen 1/Warmage 1/Beguiler 1/Ur-Priest 10/Sublime Chord 5

For Wizard 20 with a CL of 25, plus Ur-Priest 10 at CL of either 25 or 85 (Rocking the Blasphemy Train either way since that's before items such as Ioun Stones and Pearls of Power).

[Kurald Galain]

Wizard 20//Bard 1/Duskblade 1/Wu-Jen 1/Warmage 1/Beguiler 1/Ur-Priest 10/Sublime Chord 5

I think the recent Gestalt Challenges can do better than that Omnicaster FTW!

[RTGoodman]

I haven't thought it out that much before now (and I'm AFB, so I can't look up a lot of stuff), but I think something like the following would be decent for a high damage output character.

Barbarian (Spirit Lion Totem) 1/Fighter X/Full BAB Class X//Rogue 19/Something with Sneak Attack 1

You get full BAB, good Fort and Reflex saves, 8+Int skills (from a big list), all the Rogue abilities (though you're limited to light armor for many of them), the abilities from your other full BAB classes (martial maneuvers, mettle, Supreme Power Attack if you work towards Frenzied Berserker, or other stuff), and the chance to full two-handed PA/Leap Attack/Pounce/Shock Trooper hell-charge on a full attack that also adds in 11d6 sneak attack damage on each hit if you go first or otherwise get sneak attack.

Throw on Improved Initiative once or twice, the charging feats, and Steadfast Determination (or whatever it is that gives you Con to Will, unless you want to be mind-controlled or something), and then whatever other feats you want. Neraph Charge works, too, if you can qualify, and keeps you from having to worry about winning initiative (since you probably won't need to charge an enemy more than once per encounter, seeing as how he's probably already dead by that point).


Of course, in gestalt there are probably a ton of ways to do a lot of damage, but this one seemed pretty easy.

[expirement10K14]

Barbarian 2/Fighter 4/Frenzied Berserker 10/X 4//Druid 10/Planar Shepard 10
OR
Be a Centaur
RHD 4/Fighter 8/Hulking Hurler 3/Master Thrower 5//Cleric 10/Warhulk 10

Pure Win.

[Chronos]

Omnicaster? Pshaw, I can do better than that. Presenting the Master of the Nine Magics:

Spoiler

Show

Azurin Bard 1/Warlock 1/Ardent 1/Cerebremancer 9/Ur-Priest 1/Psychic Theurge 3/Sublime Chord 1/Mystic Theurge 3 // Binder 5/Chameleon 2/Anima Mage 10/Mystic Theurge 2/Shadowcaster 1 (not in that order)

1: Bard//binder (2 flaws, Precocious Apprentice, Able Learner, Iron Will, Spell Focus: Evil)
2: Warlock//binder
3: Ardent//binder (Practiced Manifester)
4: Cerebremancer (War2/Ard2)//binder
5: Cerebremancer (War3/Ard3)//binder
6: Ur-Priest//Chameleon (Alternate Spell Source)
7: Cerebremancer (War4/Ard4)//Chameleon
8: Psychic Theurge (Ur2/Ard5)//Anima Mage (bind6/war5)
9: Psychic Theurge (Ur3/Ard6)//Anima Mage (bind7/war6) (*metamagic*)
10: Sublime Chord//Anima Mage (bind8/war7)
11: Cerebremancer (sub2/ard7)//Anima Mage (bind9/war8)
12: Cerebremancer (war9/ard8)//Mystic Theurge (ur4/sub3) (Improved Binding)
13: Mystic Theurge (ur5/sub4)//Anima Mage (bind10/war10)
14: Cerebremancer (sub5/ard9)//Anima Mage (bind11/war11)
15: Cerebremancer (war12/ard10)//Mystic Theurge (ur6/sub6) (Truename Training)
16: Mystic Theurge (ur7/sub7)//Anima Mage (bind 12/war13)
17: Psychic Theurge (ur8/ard11)//Anima Mage (bind 13/war14) (Chaos shuffle bard weapon proficiencies) (Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind x2, Utterance of the Crafted Tool, Utterance of the Perfected Map, 3 Incarnum feats, Expanded Knowledge: Open Chakra)
18: Cerebremancer (sub8/ard12)//Anima Mage (bind 14/war15) (Martial Study)
19: Cerebremancer (war16/ard13)//Shadowcaster
20: Mystic Theurge (ur9/shad2)//Anima Mage (bind15/sub9)

OK, so technically, he's only a master of six magics, but he at least dabbles in the other three.
Arcane spells: Casts as a Sublime Chord 9, for 9th-level spells
Divine spells: Casts as an Ur-Priest 9, for 9th-level spells (assuming a Wis of 28)
Psionics: Has an Ardent manifester lever of 17, for 9th-level powers.
Invocations: Invokes as a Warlock 16, for Dark invokations
Incarnum: Has ten soulmelds shaped, any of which can be bound to a chakra and have up to four essentia invested
Pact magic: Binds as a 15th-level binder, with vestige choices as 17th level, for 8th-level vestiges
Truename magic: Can max ranks in True Speech, and has Perfected Map utterances
Shadow magic: Casts mysteries as a 2nd-level shadowcaster (the weakest magic in the build)
Sublime way: Has a 5th-level maneuver (IL 10)

More seriously, though, for raw power, it's hard to beat some combination of Wizard, Archivist, Factotum, and your casting-advancing PrCs of choice. Everyone knows how powerful the full casters are, and the factotum levels give them more of that most precious resource, actions in combat. Depending on how many levels of factotum you take, and how many feats you spend on Font of Inspiration, you can get between one and ten extra actions in each encounter, which you use to cast more of your devastating spells of choice. And you also gain all sorts of other nifty effects to use your Int mod for: Add it to your attack roll, to be certain you hit with a ray, or to your Armor Class, or to a saving throw, or to a wide variety of skill checks, or your initiative, or probably a couple of others I'm forgetting. The optimum build is probably either wizard (or equivalent) 20 // factotum 8/archivist 12 or archivist 20 // factotum 8/wizard (or equivalent) 12, depending on just what spells your DM lets archivists get ahold of.

[JoshuaZ]

Chronos, you can't use cerebemancer in a gestalt build.

[Chronos]

Ordinarily, no (nor Mystic Theurge, nor Psychic Theurge, nor Anima Mage). One also can't ordinarily take two prestige classes at once in Gestalt. But that build was a response to Kurald Galain's Omnicaster, which also uses such classes. The Omnicaster was originally written up for one of Duke of URL's contests, which merely strongly discourage dual-progression classes, rather than outright banning them.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

@Chronos, technically, you have a manifester level of 18.

@Kurald, every time Gestalt comes up, you are not required to tell everyone else that their builds, which follow the actual rules, suck because you made a build for a challenge once that ignored all the rules of gestalt.

Also, my build would annihilate the Omnicaster using Foresight/Celerity or his likely higher Init and then instagibbing with a Blasphemy/Quickened Holy Word.

So please stop explaining why everyone else's builds are pathetic.

[D Knight]

i am supized that no one here said warlock20/rouge20 or warlock 15/ hellfire warlock 5// rouge 20 for the epic win and the trophy.its nothing unless you always hide with in 30 ft of the door or a spot that no more that 30 ft away from a certian spot.Pluse you get great skill points and a large slection of skill and empower and maximize SLA. you just roast any one or thing that you do not like.

[Kurald Galain]

@Kurald, every time Gestalt comes up, you are not required to tell everyone else that their builds, which follow the actual rules, suck because you made a build for a challenge once that ignored all the rules of gestalt.

Whoa, dude, can we do this without the flaming please? I didn't say anywhere that anybody's build "sucked" or is "pathetic", and I'd sincerely appreciate it if you would refrain from putting words into my mouth in the future. Seriously, lighten up.

[shadow_archmagi]

Courtesy of http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=320889:

Swordsage 1 (with the Shadow Blade feat), Battlesmith 1,Cleric 2 (with the Divine Might feat)/ Swashbuckler 3, ??? 1.

A level 4 character that adds every stat but CON to damage.

Of course, I don't know what this'll do to his base attack bonus, and he'll only be able to apply his wisdom bonus while wielding a hammer, and only apply the dex bonus while wielding a shadow blade weapon. Ask your DM if you can make a shortsword-hammer combination. Call it a Sham, and bribe him by saying it'll only do 1d4 damage on account of being such a wierd weapon. 1d4 won't matter in comparison with the +10 you can easily be dealing.

All praise the point-buy and magic item cost system that allows one to buy five +2 items for roughly 1/5 the price of a +10 item!

Apparently I'm not cool enough to even be insulted. :-(

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Druid 20//Fighter 2/Barbarian 1/Swordsage 2/Warshaper 5/MoMF 10

Not necessarily the most powerful, but 16 BaB, MoMF wildshape, Wis to AC, Rage, 2 bonus feats, +4 str, +4 con, +5 ft reach, and 20 levels of spellcasting. Yeah, it's not the most powerful, but my mother would be able to kick butt playing that.

Plus, who doesn't want to turn into a raging bear that's even bulkier than normal ad has the bite of a collassal creature?

[Nohwl]

i have heard artificer 20/archivist 20 is really good.

[Trizap]

I haven't played Gestalt yet but I figured Favored Soul/Sorcerer would be great since they both use CHA to cast spontaneous spells, therefore you just need one stat to cast both Divine and Arcane Spells and such a character would be a great candidate for a Mystic Theurge.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Whoa, dude, can we do this without the flaming please?

And how is anything that I said even remotely like flaming? If you think I was flaming report me for it so that the moderators can get a good laugh.