Gestalt Sorcerer / Antipaladin Advice

[Hawktitan]

I'm currently in a gestalt Way of the Wicked campaign as a draconic sorcerer / Antipaladin. Please keep spoilers to a minimum.

Currently I'm just level 1 so there is a long time before anything is set into stone. I'm just trying to think ahead and I know that I will be going into the prestidge class Dragon Disciple. Antipaladin by GM requirement can never change.

I'm wondering about fighting style. Before level 6 I'll be using my claws as much as I can. After level 6 I am wondering what the best way to fight would be. I could just continue to focus on natural attacks using shapeshifting if claws run out (alter-self/beast shape/and eventually form of the dragon). However I am wondering if it would be a good idea to take advantage of the full BAB antipaladin side to go something like longsword w-iteratives/claw/bite.

Apparently the adventure path will have an option to become a lich and that is sorely tempting. I think that a if I get a longsword enchanted with channel along with an amulet of mighty fists enchanted with channel, that it would be pretty devasting. If my attacks land I'd be able to use both the Lich's Grave Touch and the Anti-Paladin's Touch of Corruption while still dealing strength based damage.

I'll end my thoughts there for now and I'm open to what other people think.

[Hawktitan]

It's the gestalt thing scaring people away isn't it :).

[soupturtle]

The thing is that if you go from all natural weapons to manufactured plus natural weapons, all the natural weapons become secondary attacks. Thus, I would guess that if you can take the multiattack feat to reduce the penalties on secondary natural weapons from -5 to -2 it's worth it to get a weapon in your main hand for the iteratives, and if you can't it probably isn't. That isn't based on any math though, just gut feeling, so I might be completely wrong. And any precise calculations would also depend heavily on your strength score.

It does make enchanting your attacks even more expensive than using natural weapons already is though, but that doesn't have to be a huge issue. A +3 sword and a +2 AoMF are about as expensive as a single +3 amulet, for example, or you could use greater magic weapon to not have to upgrade the sword at all.

An added advantage of wielding a one-handed melee weapon in one of your hands is that you can put your other hand on it for extra damage on standard action attacks and AoOs.

edit: Lets do a quick example calculation. Say you are debating between bite, claw, claw and scimitar, scimitar-5, bite-2, claw-2 (you have multiattack), and that on a full BAB attack you have a 75% chance to hit (so you hit on 6 or higher). For simplicities sake I'll assume scimitar, bite and claw all have the same base damage. Then a full attack with all natural weapons gives you 3*(0.75+0.05*0.75)=2.36 hits per attack, where the extra 0.05 comes from criticals, which has to be multiplied by hit cahnce again for the confirmation. A full attack routine with a scimitar meanwhile comes to: 0.75+0.15*0.75(scimitar) + 0.5+0.15*0.5 (iterative) + 2*0.65+0.05*0.65 (naturals) = 2.80 hits per full attack. Thus, in this case, the scimitar increases your damage on full attacks. And actually, even without multiattack the scimitar option is better in this case, giving 2.49 hits per round. Note that this will change in favor of all natural attacks if your to hit chance at full BAB is less than 75%. With multiattack the scimitar vs all natural attacks options become equal at about 40% base to hit chance.

[Hawktitan]

Thanks Soup, it helps having another person look at it.

Getting multiattack is a great idea if I am allowed - I will have to ask. Greater Magic Weapon is another neat trick although I really want I want to get a +1 sword enchanted with channel. Still going beyond +1 will be handy if the campaign gets up to high levels. If I won't be able to get channel on the weapon than yeah I can just go with a base sword and epically soup it up with Greater Magic Weapon + Fiendish Bond.