Hey everyone,
I will be playing in a Gestalt home-brew campaign soon and I would like to create the Ultimate Arcane blasting machine!
I was hoping for some advice/ideas. My thought process is that I can completely prepare all of my Sorcerer spells as Direct Damage and still have plenty of spells for utility from the Mage. I will have a lot of bonus feats to get metamagics early as well.
We will be starting with a 20 point buy.
I have a few ideas already.
A Crossblooded Draconic/Orc bloodline sorcer with the eldritch heritage feat: Primal / Admixture Wizard.
This would give me +3 dmg per die and I can change the element of my spells to suit the situation. Also being Gestalt would more than make up for the lost spells.
I am also considering a Sage bloodline Sorcerer / Divination Wizard. This would only rely on Intelligence and my initiative would rock.
I would LOVE to hear what everyone's ideas are!
Hey everyone,
I will be playing in a Gestalt home-brew campaign soon and I would like to create the Ultimate Arcane blasting machine!
I was hoping for some advice/ideas. My thought process is that I can completely prepare all of my Sorcerer spells as Direct Damage and still have plenty of spells for utility from the Mage. I will have a lot of bonus feats to get metamagics early as well.
We will be starting with a 20 point buy.
I have a few ideas already.
A Crossblooded Draconic/Orc bloodline sorcer with the eldritch heritage feat: Primal / Admixture Wizard.
This would give me +3 dmg per die and I can change the element of my spells to suit the situation. Also being Gestalt would more than make up for the lost spells.I am also considering a Sage bloodline Sorcerer / Divination Wizard. This would only rely on Intelligence and my initiative would rock.
I would LOVE to hear what everyone's ideas are!
I highly recommend not stacking 2 d6 HD, 2+int skill, same save progression, same spell list, classes for a Gestalt game. The strength of a Gestalt character is that they get to take the best parts of each class as they level up. Sorc/Wizard is almost identical.
In order to challenge your party, your GM is going to put you up against some CR+3 and CR+4 encounters, and you are really limiting your survivability and versatility with sorc/wizard gestalt. You are only going to be good at 1 thing (casting arcane spells), your spells DCs are not going to scale as well as CR+3 and CR+4 creatures saves, and unless you build for it, you will be splitting your primary stat between Int and Cha.
I would recommend sorc/bard, sorc/oracle, wizard/magus or wizard/alchemist, if you want double casters. All those combos get you better HP, better skills, better saves, better BAB (not that you care) and either a 3/4 caster or a full caster (with a different spell list) using the same primary stat.
Sorc/bard will give you all the skills you could ever need, and a good mix of blaster sorc and buffer/controller bard. And the Sandman archtype can give you bonus to your spell DCs if you get "sneak attack" conditions against the enemy. Check with your GM if it applies just to bard spells, or to bard and sorc spells.
A sorc/oracle can get its CHA to AC, gives you 3 good save progressions, +2 HP per level, healing potential if you need it (Invis+self healing will make you much more survivable. Healing isn't an attack, so you stay invis), and gives you access to some a whole new spell list. You could theortically go Empyreal Sorc/Cleric too, and get access to domains. Those are nifty.
Wizard/Magus gets you arcana, which are better than many feats, spell recall, and the ability to cast arcane spells in armor without spell-failure.
Wizard/Alchmest... with the many strange and wonderful discoveries Alchemest get, you can really do all sorts of crazy builds. I would recommend the mind-chemist. +4 Int, +2 armor, -2 Str for 10 min/level at level 1 for a wizard? Nasty boost to your DCs and survivability, and it only gets better with discoveries.
EDIT: The more that I think about it, I think Wizard/Alchemist is my favorite. You could build your wizard to be a controller and use bombs as your blasters. Bombs are ranged touch-attacks with no save that do elemental damage. They do (half your level)d6 + Int mod damage, and you can use multiple bombs per turn. They are count as ranged attacks for feats like Rapid Shot or Point Blank Shot. And the Alchemist is a 3/4 caster that focuses on self-buffs. That leaves your wizard to focus on control spells all he wants. And you get better saves, skills, and HP than a sorc/wizard.
What is this "mage" you speak of? ;)
What is this "mage" you speak of? ;)
Ah, Mage...
Ne'er a finer lass there's been but she. Eyes green as the heather. Her hair was o' flame, red as the Devil himself!
Wi' a temper to match!
Mage... Arr...
Gestalt = already optimized. You either are so versatile you can deal with anything, or, if the GM cranks up the heat to match your capabilities, have insufficient saves, AC, and HP to deal with the dramatic increase in challenge. Its an either /or issue in my experience. The challenge leve for Gestalt is much more difficult to balance.
I agree with Naedre though. I would choose a second class with one or more of the following: higher HP, more skill points, good reflex or fortitude saves.
Paladin/Bard would be quite the mix-up.
I played, essentially this (though it was in 3.5, so it's not exactly the same); While on paper it sounds good, since as a Wizard, you can essentially not have to bother with combat spells, and rely entirely on Sorcerer spells, and thus have the best of both worlds, I have to agree with the above; all it's doing is making the strengths of the classes stronger, without shoring up any of the weaknesses.
I probably shouldnt say anything because the last time I mentioned it I got a royal lambasting but i'm presently running a gestalt in RotRL of Universalist Wizard and Evolutionist Summoner, but my gm and I are handling it a little odd.
Instead of giving me 2 separate spell lists, one that i prepare ahead of time and one that I don't, and being able to cast twice as many spells per day, he's letting me combine the best features of both caster 'styles'...
My hd is 6, my skills is 2/Level, I get to pick a single attribute for which all my spells apply instead of having to split it between int and cha, I get to keep a spellbook and learn an infinite number of spells from spellbooks like a wizard, yet I don't have to prep spells in advance until I get up to 7th level spells which summoners don't get otherwise.
Combining the traits of 'able to learn every spell' and 'no need to prep ahead of time' with 'having an eidolon' is what these forums scream out as hideous powergaming wrongbadfun but the combination does suffer from what the folks above are talking about. No improved hit points, no improved saves, no better skills, and I still get casting penalties with non summoner spells if i'm wearing summoner levels of armor and in this particular case I don't get to cast twice as many spells per day which nobody here would call a weakness considering the 'infinite possible spells' and 'no need to prep ahead of time' and 'letting me choose a single attribute to focus my spells through instead of being MAD', and 'having an eidolon', these forums will tell you is unmitigatingly and raucously overpowered. Add into it the fact that our gm lets me take magic item crafting feats and you can almost hear the forums getting ready to ragelancepounce my build so odds are it wouldn't be an option for you but YMMV.
According to these forums my gm is a fool for allowing my gamebreaking build... I don't 'play it to the nines' like you could. My eidolon is just a humanoid with 2 claw attacks not a crazy pouncy scorpion or kali build, and for some reason I've just never picked things like tentacles and color spray because I didn't realize they're now game breakingly powerful... Apparently this combination is so romper stomper powerful that nobody in their right mind would allow it.
Somehow I got it past the sensor sweeps and i'll say its versatility makes it bar none one of my favorite characters of all time and I still feel like i've got a lot of achilles heels to exploit yet (we just hit level 5), but the forums here will tell you this should never have been allowed and somehow my gm has approved my character playing a god. Maybe he trusts me enough not to get ludicrous or maybe he thinks i'm not smart enough to do whatever it is that would make this class into a god, but so far I'm enjoying it and it hasn't broken the AP yet in either my mind or the gm's... Maybe he just trusts that if I cross whatever invisible line in the sand he consideres game breaking that he'll smite me on the spot... Only time will tell but I wanted to let you know what I'm up to even though theres a good chance your gm wouldnt allow it and the forums here will tell you he'd be right not to.
The fact that I even mention it will probably provoke some flamey bits but I offer it for your consideration nonetheless because I'm really enjoying it and so far its proven to have enough weaknesses to prove to be exciting still, at least at my table.
I appreciate the feedback and I do agree that putting Sorcerer/"Wizard" together is not the most optimized character. The more I have thought about putting the two together the more I have wanted to try it. I believe that with the correct build a Sorcerer/Wizard could completely destroy higher CR encounters and I was really hoping for some insight or clever ideas for what this build could look like.
I have read a few blaster builds where dipping wizard for a level or 2 to optimize damage was largely thought of as the best idea. I wanted to see what we could come up with if it was a straight gestalt Wizard/Sorcerer.
We have a while before we actually play this campaign and we have been play-testing a few builds. I have a few ideas that I have already come up with that synergize well together. So this is more of a "Can I build a arcane blaster that melts faces using gestalt?"
I have already built:
Staff Magus/Monk Flurry and Cast every round is delicious.
Gunslinger/Inquisitor Synergizes well and does tons of damage.
Synthesist Summoner/Paladin This guy is a just awesome.
We have also tested:
Witch/Rogue
Barbarian/Druid
Monk/Paladin
These are all as great as they sound. I was hoping to try testing out something a little more focused to see what happens.
I appreciate all of your feedback!
I think I love the idea of Paladin/Sorcerer with oath of vengeance. Being able to add smite damage to all of my single target rays on my smite targets would be pretty awesome! I also like the idea of the Oracle/Sorcerer. Charisma to AC would just rock!
Atarlost, I know it would not be the "best" class choice. I am really just curious to see what numbers I could pull. I will probably not play this character. This is strictly a "What if" situation that me and some friends want to play test.
The unbreakable rule of gestalt: Thou shalt not have a weak will or fortitude save or d6 hit die.
Have a backup character ready to go. One that isn't a failure waiting to happen. If you want to double up on full casters use Cleric or Druid for one of them. If you want to double up on arcane casters use Magus for one of them.
Your action economy and defenses will be no better than a single classed character. You'll have extra top level spells, but that's not going to make you a decent character for a gestalt game. Unless you're running a low op gestalt with no CR increase.
This is pretty much whats going on with my build... 6hd, fort and reflex saves are bad still. At least my will save is good. Lots of weaknesses to exploit.
I probably shouldnt say anything because the last time I mentioned it I got a royal lambasting but i'm presently running a gestalt in RotRL of Universalist Wizard and Evolutionist Summoner, but my gm and I are handling it a little odd.
Instead of giving me 2 separate spell lists, one that i prepare ahead of time and one that I don't, and being able to cast twice as many spells per day, he's letting me combine the best features of both caster 'styles'...
My hd is 6, my skills is 2/Level, I get to pick a single attribute for which all my spells apply instead of having to split it between int and cha, I get to keep a spellbook and learn an infinite number of spells from spellbooks like a wizard, yet I don't have to prep spells in advance until I get up to 7th level spells which summoners don't get otherwise.
I like this unique set of rules. Its less "Gestalt" and more "Hybrid." Based upon the rules you have outlined, your hybrid Wizard/Summoner is not that much stronger than a straight wizard or a straight summoner. You have some of the advantages of both, but most of the draw-backs of both.
.Also, more importantly, it sounds like you and your GM have a good relationship.
Your GM is working with you to build a fun custom class to play, while trusting you not to abuse the custom rules. You are making a fun flavorful character, while trusting that you don't need to optimize to survive.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure your situation applies to everyone. There are lots of GMs that don't trust their players, and lots of players that don't trust their GMs. And, in some cases, this lack of trust is justified. Too many munchkins and killer GMs destroy that trust, especially in pick-up games.
I am interested to know a) what the rest of your party looks like in RotRL, and b) your level vs the of the encounters you are fighting. Unless you have a munckin somewhere in your group, there is probibly no need for you GM to put you up against a CR+3 or CR+4 to challenge you. In a pure Gestalt game, you almost have to have CR+3 and CR+4 or the party will walk over every encounter.
So let's say I want to try out this idea of Bard/Sorcerer. Do you guys think it would be a good idea to take crossblooded Orc/dragon and still take the eldritch heritage feat for the Primal bloodline arcana? That would give me +3 dmg per die on my element of choice.
I will also have great party utility with the bard.
I am interested to know a) what the rest of your party looks like in RotRL, and b) your level vs the of the encounters you are fighting. Unless you have a munckin somewhere in your group, there is probibly no need for you GM to put you up against a CR+3 or CR+4 to challenge you....
Our group sort of noted that there are certain jobs nobody seems to want to take. Not having a trapfinder rogue can be a big problem. Someone has got to be the healer but nobody really wants to do that either, so we came up with the idea that everyone gets to be a gestalt, but half your gestalt is something 'core' like a frontline fighter/healer/wizard/cleric so that the basics are covered, and the party has to make sure they know who's doing what so that all the bases are covered, while the other half of your gestalt gets to be whatever wacky thing you actually want to play. We get to have a party full of wierdness but also cover all the bases.
Misaki: Cleric monk (this guy usually plays a ranger/thief type but he's trying something outside his comfort zone)
Reswin: Inquisitor monk (essentially our frontline fighter/scout. he's got a very lets stop talking and go kill something attitude. I think his diety's weapon is a glaive... Something with reach)
Tal Evershine: Rogue Alchemist (the 'engineer' and 'bomb fanatic' of our party who has recently gotten the 'gang up' feat and is making a decent ranged archer (that glaive reach really helps keep the 2 way threat wide...)
And of course Vincent Takeda my funky evolutionist summoner/universalist wizard with a katana as his arcane focus.
Normally i'd make my arcane focus a ring and put sustenance on it but I thought i'd try something different this time. I wasted a starter feat on the katana and i like the idea that it repairs itself overnight so it never needs sharpening and is masterwork for free which is a big deal considering how starting wealth normally works and I like the idea of being able to put enhancements on it earlier than i'd get the craft arms and armor feat. My usefulness with the katana is pretty low unless i'm using arcane hand universalist trait where i get my int bonus to strike, so most of the time its a showpiece. I ended up buying a sustenance ring since i'm a few levels short of crafting it yet. So far I do wondrous items and weapons/armor though we dont get much crafting time. My starting traits are hedge apprentice and favored son of sandpoint with the Amiko as a longtime friend which greases the wheels for plot devices in town. Appearance wise i'm going for a sort of Mads Mikkelson's 'tristam' from King Arthur sort of a thing even though in the movie he was using samurai fighting style and aa chinese Dao in england which is just all sorts of anachronistic funky and I loved it...
I spend most of my spells doing what I should be doing which is keeping my eidolon alive so she's kind of another front line fighter and aesthetically our party's third monk (so many monks is probably what made our gm roll his eyes the most)...
He's chaotic neutral and my eidolon was initially headed in the direction of being a succubus but after meeting Nualia (and ironically discovering that my plans with my eidolon were very similar to what was going on with Tsuto and Nualia and how badly that turned out for them) he's changing her up a bit and going for 6'4 asimar/angelic instead. At the moment she's sort of a tall Ali Larter with iridescent eyes that change color, her pupils dont contract in bright light, though she does have eyelids she never blinks, weighs half as much as she should for her size, smells of wintergreen and refers to everyone else in the world other than my character as 'it' instead of he or she, even when speaking with them directly. Her name is Jhdurievdrioshka Ilyananov.
The rules for summoner state that whatever you're trying to make looks a little 'off' and i didnt want the dm dictating what was off about her so i picked all that stuff myself and the gm thought it was hilarious enough to keep it.
As far as encounter strength I cant say exactly what our gm is doing to the things we fight but our whole team agreed Malfeshnekor was above our powergrade, my eidolon nearly died falling off mount ripnugget and if Vincent had fallen instead he'd have died outright from it. We've almost cleared out all the upper floors at Aldern's place and the haunts have been very challenging. We're supposed to head into aldern's basement tomorrow but Misaki will be showing up about an hour and a half late to the campaign and i'm not sure alderns basement is the kinda place I want to be without a cleric so we'll see how it goes.
So let's say I want to try out this idea of Bard/Sorcerer. Do you guys think it would be a good idea to take crossblooded Orc/dragon and still take the eldritch heritage feat for the Primal bloodline arcana? That would give me +3 dmg per die on my element of choice.
I will also have great party utility with the bard.
Personally I believe I prefer style over variety, variety over utility, and utitlity over power, though the forums mostly react to my build and think I choose power over anything since both of my gestalts are first or second tier... By either measure a bard/sorcerer has a lot of options. Bard has tons of options and sorcerer can pull things out of his @ss with no planning so it meets at least the core of the criteria I shoot for when I'm gestalting. What your gm will deem as too powerful or not depends on their ability to trust your build, and your ability to build a gestalt thats not so powerful that the rest of your party wants to drop you in a volcano. Give it style and try hard not to make your gestalt the thing your gm wants to drop an arbitrary thermonuclear smite on and I think you're good to go. Thats a tightrope that moves a lot from table to table.
I think that the primary concern when creating a gestalt (admittedly little experience in this) Is statistical synergy and save synergies. You want one ability score that you can focus on that improves both sides of the equation and save progression that doesn't overlap. I don't think it is necessary to be great at everything, but you should be bringing more than one thing to the party, that's the point.
I would say that a bard/sorc can function well as long as you are aware of your weak fortitude save. If you maintain your bardic performance to shore up that save and take the fortitude feat you should be "okay".
You will certainly have the skills and the spells to cover two sides of the equation. You will also have access to some healing, which is never bad.
I believe that there is also the potential to make up for your spontaneous casting shortfalls by simply making a human and taking additional spells at each level. In fact, I believe there is a feat that allows humans to take a second favoured class, which would allow for more spells known in both classes.
I would also recommend taking the human alternate trait that grants three skill focus feats as opposed to one feat at level one. You can spend those feats on your versatile performances and it will improve every associated skill.
Finally, think about a couple of paladin levels to shore up your saves. Its not the end of the world if you cant handle the dip and the RP restrictions though, bards are pretty great for saves anyway.
Anyone have any thoughts on a Druid/Sorcerer? I could have the Empyreal bloodline and have Wisdom as my 1 casting stat? Can you think of any fun concepts for this?
I made one of those. (This profile).
Didn't get to play him long, but it was a lot of fun.
Sor/Mage Gestalt is what I'd want to be "IRL" given the option. ;-) It's the perfect combo.