Help with a gestalt debuffer build

[mr.pink]

My DM wants to run a gestalt campaign and i want to try out a build based on debuffing my enemies and save or die effects. My general concept is an agent for the goverment who is a pathological murderer, he really enjoys and feels a need to kill everything however he refuses to harm anyone who he feels doesnt deserve it. So whenever he sees someone break any of the "big laws" or get in the way of the mission he is assigned he debuffs them until they cant do anything, then tourtures them.

As far as builds go I am thinking halfling(strongheart) so i can go into the luck stealer prestige class. I am also thinking sorcerer/hexblade as his base classes however im not married to any of these ideas. I would love some suggestions that you guys would think would help me effectivley pull this off.

My DMs house rules are as follows:

• No Dragon Magazine
• No Unearthed Arcana aside from Gestalt
• No Dragons associated with dragons except for Dragon Heart Adept and Dragon Disiple
• The following races are playable races: All races from the PHB (and variants thereof with LA=<1), Catfolk, and Changelings.
• No Web Enhancements
• A Character is only allowed to have two PrCs
• The Leadership Feat is Banned

 

[milo]

Hexblade/rogue makes a nice melee debuffer. You can use the feats that let you drop sneak attack damage for other effects and you have the hexblade curses. Gives you mettle and evasion, D10 HD, Full BAB, good reflex and will saves, Arcane resistance to help out with the saves too. Gives you the ability to go into assassin later on also. So that you can still get your save or die effect later on in life. Not sure what book the luck stealer prestige class is in so can't help there.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Hexblade with the Shadow Companion PH2 Alternate class feature is good for single target debuffing, and later on gets some area. More importantly, it gives full BAB and d10 HD, which combines nicely with wizard/sorc, who are the unparalelled masters of the debuff. Since Hexblade works off cha, I'd go with Hexblade//Sorcerer. My friend made a Dread Witch prestige class build with one of his sorc gestalts recently, it seemed good. Lots of intimidate and fear boosters, and eventual ability to make things immune to fear vulnerable to it. It's a shame about the no dragon restriction. Part of my friend's build used draconic feats along with spells to hurl out up to 3 fear effects per round! He had the Draconic Presence and Frightful Presence feats to help with that, I do not recall which book Dread Witch is in.

Warlock could alternatively be good for single target debuff, but doesn't combine with sorcerer as nicely as Hexblade, IMO.

In the same game as that character (dragonfire adept // sorcerer/dread witch) was another dedicated debuffer, a Spellscale Harbinger // Warlock. I also don't know where she pulled Spellscale Harbinger from, but I think it was dragon mag, unfortunately. That class was like a debuff variant Bard. She could toss out save penalties and fear like candy, and had some nasty bardic music to make enemies take damage everytime they attacked.


If you do end up making a Cleric, for some reason (arcanists get way more debuffs), absolutely make sure to grab the spell Mark of Doom from PH2. It has no save, and everytime the enemy takes an aggressive action, he suffers d6 untyped damage. Needless to say, the spell basically ends any encounter with anything that gets a large full attack routine.

On that note, I would try to avoid save or dies if I were you, and save-dependent spells in general. In gestalt in my (limited) experience, enemies tend to have higher saves than normal. Either the Dm uses them straight from the MM and just awards less xp, in which case you're fighting a few CR above your level and thus encountering higher saves... or the enemies are also gestalt or otherwise beefed up. On the other hand, gestalt does little to nothing to help your save DCs. If anything, it dilutes them slightly, because you need more ability scores for 2 classes potentially.

So, in both gestalt games I've played now, my group found saves to be made very frequently, and never assumed anything with a save allowed would work to full effect. I'd reccommend you to look into the debuff and battlefield control spells with no save or that still do something on a save, and rely mainly on those spells.

 

[mr.pink]

Hexblade/rogue makes a nice melee debuffer. You can use the feats that let you drop sneak attack damage for other effects and you have the hexblade curses. Gives you mettle and evasion, D10 HD, Full BAB, good reflex and will saves, Arcane resistance to help out with the saves too. Gives you the ability to go into assassin later on also. So that you can still get your save or die effect later on in life. Not sure what book the luck stealer prestige class is in so can't help there.

Hexblade/Rouge seems nice. But I think Sorcerer will give me more debuffing options, plus the death attack from the Assasin is only against one save and it is also INT based, where all my Hexblade abilities are CHA based. And Luck Stealer is in Races of the Wild

Hexblade with the Shadow Companion PH2 Alternate class feature is good for single target debuffing, and later on gets some area. More importantly, it gives full BAB and d10 HD, which combines nicely with wizard/sorc, who are the unparalelled masters of the debuff. Since Hexblade works off cha, I'd go with Hexblade//Sorcerer. My friend made a Dread Witch prestige class build with one of his sorc gestalts recently, it seemed good. Lots of intimidate and fear boosters, and eventual ability to make things immune to fear vulnerable to it. It's a shame about the no dragon restriction. Part of my friend's build used draconic feats along with spells to hurl out up to 3 fear effects per round! He had the Draconic Presence and Frightful Presence feats to help with that, I do not recall which book Dread Witch is in.

Warlock could alternatively be good for single target debuff, but doesn't combine with sorcerer as nicely as Hexblade, IMO.

In the same game as that character (dragonfire adept // sorcerer/dread witch) was another dedicated debuffer, a Spellscale Harbinger // Warlock. I also don't know where she pulled Spellscale Harbinger from, but I think it was dragon mag, unfortunately. That class was like a debuff variant Bard. She could toss out save penalties and fear like candy, and had some nasty bardic music to make enemies take damage everytime they attacked.


If you do end up making a Cleric, for some reason (arcanists get way more debuffs), absolutely make sure to grab the spell Mark of Doom from PH2. It has no save, and everytime the enemy takes an aggressive action, he suffers d6 untyped damage. Needless to say, the spell basically ends any encounter with anything that gets a large full attack routine.

On that note, I would try to avoid save or dies if I were you, and save-dependent spells in general. In gestalt in my (limited) experience, enemies tend to have higher saves than normal. Either the Dm uses them straight from the MM and just awards less xp, in which case you're fighting a few CR above your level and thus encountering higher saves... or the enemies are also gestalt or otherwise beefed up. On the other hand, gestalt does little to nothing to help your save DCs. If anything, it dilutes them slightly, because you need more ability scores for 2 classes potentially.

So, in both gestalt games I've played now, my group found saves to be made very frequently, and never assumed anything with a save allowed would work to full effect. I'd reccommend you to look into the debuff and battlefield control spells with no save or that still do something on a save, and rely mainly on those spells.

I never thought about what you said with the saves, thats an extremley good point, but I think all the Debuffs to saves will lower their saves to a point where I will still have a decent chance.

I will need to look at the Dreadwitch PRC.