Non-core Gestalt Options

[Corsair]

(The Paladin/Bard one just to be a LG Bard? C'mon. You can just play a Pal of Freedom.)

Except then they wouldn't be LG.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I never knew being LG was of such high value. ^_^

IME, it's mostly an annoying burden placed upon the party's guiding ethos of "kill them and take their stuff." I mean, lengthening it to "prove them evil, then kill them and take their stuff." is like a +33% workload increase.

 

[szilard]

Beguiler/Swashbuckler would be a ton of fun... and pretty effective.

Warblade/Beguiler with arcane strike would be terrifying.

Dragon Shaman/Crusader would be cool as well.

Warlock/Crusader?


-Stuart

 

[Kat']

Soulknife 5/Illumine Soul 5/Soulbow 10 // Cleric 20 with Zen Archery and eventually Intuitive Attack. Awesome archer, full cleric casting, all good saves, and purely WIS-based. Groovy.

Warlock/Soul Knife - never needs a weapon since he always has access to a ranged and a melee weapon. Combining the right invocations can yield a very potent melee fighter (especially with the the right "enhancements" in the mindblade).

Dex and Cha are the primary attributes. With Dex - you can better used the mindblade as 2 short swords with weapon finesse.

Yeah well... there's still the little problems called "damage output" and "survivability". With light armor and a poor Fort save, Soulknives make poor frontliners. Combining them with a class that does not fix this weakness is not the best idea IMO. Sure, you get Hideous Blow... so what? +10d6 at level 20, average 35 damage, on a standard attack? Wow. How... terrifying. Plus Soulknives are already MAD enough, they don't need yet another stat to care for.

However, Duskblade/Soulknife...

 

[irdeggman]

Soulknife 5/Illumine Soul 5/Soulbow 10 // Cleric 20 with Zen Archery and eventually Intuitive Attack. Awesome archer, full cleric casting, all good saves, and purely WIS-based. Groovy.



Yeah well... there's still the little problems called "damage output" and "survivability". With light armor and a poor Fort save, Soulknives make poor frontliners. Combining them with a class that does not fix this weakness is not the best idea IMO. Sure, you get Hideous Blow... so what? +10d6 at level 20, average 35 damage, on a standard attack? Wow. How... terrifying. Plus Soulknives are already MAD enough, they don't need yet another stat to care for.

However, Duskblade/Soulknife...

Only if you treat them as front line fighters. They are not.

If you focus on dex based mind blade attacks (which is why I said go with weapon finesse for a better to hit chance) then your MAD is greatly reduced. You will need a 13 Wisdom to get Speed of Thought though (which is really good to have) but then only Dex and Charisma are truely prime abilites for the combo.

With invocations like:

Retributive Invisibility (Dark) – like greater invisibility

Walk Unseen (Lesser) – like invisibility only 24 hr duration.

You will also gain a bonus on attacking.

Then with things like:

Psychokinetic (and burst), wounding or collision you do that extra damage with each attack of the mindblade (or confirmed critical).

Add in Psychic strike on the first successful attack - you can do a whole lot of damage with one blow (and wounding or mindcrusher/mindfeeder for psionic foes or supression (with magic/psionics transparency) for the gifts that keep on giving.

 

[Will]

Yeah, but how often is the party killing nonevil/sentient enemies?

I'm in a gestalt TT game playing a paladin/Monte Cook variant bard. (DM waived bard alignment restrictions on ground that the combination sounded cool/sensible)

The Monte Cook bard folds bardic music/spellcasting into 'songs,' which have a number of advantages and disadvantages. The biggest downside is that nearly all bard PrCs or feats don't really work with it.

Unfortunately, because of MAD, I've ended up with a paladin who is kind of 'meh' in melee, particularly since the attack spells of the variant Bard are actually pretty damn powerful: at 10th level, I can make two ranged touch attacks a round, each potentially doing 6d6 sonic damage; I can do this pretty much all day if I conserve my higher level songs.

I suspect the class is a little unbalanced in certain respects, but on the other hand, it keeps my character vital.

I got my DM to let me swap out paladin horse for mettle, which is great considering the variant bard also grants Evasion by this point. My char only has 10 Con and an ok AC, but his saves are through the roof (+15-+16) and if he makes nearly any save he ignores partial effects.

Oh, and of course, with bard skills (and Perform Oratory), my character is pretty much the smooth talking diplomat of the party; sometimes between PCs.

Variant bard is in one of the Books of Eldritch Might.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Warmage/Scout - this combo makes Acid Splash painful (1d3 + warmage edge + 1d6 skirmish right off), and the Orb spells become even more broken.

 

[Zurai]

Bard//Battledancer can be a surprisingly effective melee combatant on top of being a great party support/buffbot/healer. Plus you have great CHA synergy.

 

[Andor]

I realize that this is a non-core gestalt thread, but the Fighter/Rogue is always worth a mention as the ultimate swashbuckler build.

Psiwarrior/Monk is a whole pile of synergy. For extra cheesesauce you can make him a vow of poverty type character. Then buff yourself up anyway with Inertial armour and other psiwarrior goodness and go to town. Plus Expanded Knowledge can get you Psionic flight which patches the one real weakness of the VoP character. Mmmm... Cheese.

 

[Kat']

Psiwarrior/Monk is a whole pile of synergy. For extra cheesesauce you can make him a vow of poverty type character. Then buff yourself up anyway with Inertial armour and other psiwarrior goodness and go to town. Plus Expanded Knowledge can get you Psionic flight which patches the one real weakness of the VoP character. Mmmm... Cheese.

Yeah, well... PsyWar/Swordsage is better. Same HP, save saves, better AC, better skills, and maneuvers beat the monk's unarmed damage and Flurry of Blow anytime. VoP is suboptimal at higher levels. And compared to Swordsage, it is even suboptimal at lower levels...