My favorite mix is Ranger/ Inquisitor. You get a perfect BAB, perfect saves across the board, martial weapons and armor use.
You mix a spontaneous divine caster thats Wisdon based, solid healing and spell buffs, teamwork feats and those beautiful Judgements with Favored Enemy and Combat style feats and you've got a fantastic base.
Add spells like Divine Power, Instant Enemy, Lead Blades or Gravity Bow and you've amped them up. And what about having both Evasion and Stalwart so its always save or nothing across the board!
There's so much more to add to the combo with great skills and bonuses to them for fun Roleplaying outside of massive combat. They're my fave!
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Dhampir undead lord/grave walker witch. tank your physical stats and create an army of unstoppable undead.
be sure to spell focus necromancy as your first level feat, and 3rd is undead master. the aura of desecration is so powerful with your negative energy healing. and then you can possess your undead (at 1st or 8th level still trying to work it out)
enjoy being a lich lord.
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Scared witch/ barbarian
Full BAB, full casting both give you all the reason in the world to boost your con. You'll have a lot of Hp.
this is the most game breaking stupid OP character i have ever played.
you hit like a barbarian, with pounce, and can use your hexes on ... everything while raging. you will make your gm pull his hair out trying to make encounters challenging enough for you.
Syntheist//anything that uses CHA
was the best one I heard so far. Dat old 'replace yer physical statz' is as broken as evar.
Right up until the first time you hit an anti-magic field and find yourself standing naked in front of something really nasty. Unable to move due to the weight of your own gear.
Then you need a new character.
I prefer to avoid terminal weaknesses.
You don't have to set yourself up that way.
Taking SR on your suit is a good start.Have enough STR to move with your gear. You don't wear armor so it's not that horrible.
The idea I like is a Monk/Inquisitor.
The Inquisitor powers pump up any Monk damage in flurry as well as boosting to hit enough to remove any concern in that regard. Once you pass 11th you will have both Stalwart and Evasion, so spells will mostly be a joke to you. With a 30 point buy, there's not much concern about MAD (and Wisdom is key stats on both). You would have good interpersonal skill tricks from the Inquisitor and good physical skill tricks from the monk. It's a very durable jack of all trades.
This is my favorite so far.
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I think that an Invulnerable Rager Urban Barbarian/Kensai Magus might be effective. You gain free proficiency with Light Armor from Barbarian and Urban lets you cast while raging, you could build a Dervish build if you like and DEX rage, or build a STR. build with nice dex and do damage with a Katana or Urumi or Rhoka.
Also there is Admixture specialist Wizard/Kensai Magus Which gives you enough spells to counter the Diminished Spellcasting, Your INT added to DEX for AC is great and you can take Broad Study Arcana to let you cast with wizard spells in spellstrike/combat. Choose Arcane Bond Weapon and take your favored weapon, be Bladebound Kensai if your paranoid about Sunder for Unbreakable, and Spont. cast a buff. Along with you can Shocking Grasp a Demon with an acid grasp due to school power.
Not sure if it has been mentioned but if possible:
Summoner(Synthesist, Blood God Disciple):Barbarian use CON and then Mentals and you can be a good support Unit that can tear it up alone.
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What about a TWFing Ranger/Titan Mauler Barbarian? You could by second level be Dual-Wielding Greataxes at a -6 penalty to hit and do 2d12 damage. Or greatswords if you prefer not rolling ones to rolling 12's 1/12 times. Is it completely optimal? Maybe not, but if you are a Dwarf (Nice synergy with stats as one is focused on wisdom and the other on con) you can have stats like
STR:18
DEX:12
CON:18(16+2)
INT:10
WIS:16(14+2)
CHA:5(7-2)
Rearrange as needed and be doing, while raging, 1d12+5 from your off hand attack with power attack. And you are proficient with Dwarven Longaxe/hammers so you have basically the best reach weapons in the game at your disposal.
Paladin Sorcerer(maybe add Dragon Disciple)
Antipaladin/Sorcerer(use your negative Aura for powerful save or suck spells)
Monk/Druid(size increases for Unarmed Strikes or Feral Combat Training)
Lore Warden/Wizard(clever skillmonkey with full spells and figthing capabilities)
Barbarian/Scarred Witch Doctor(tanky full caster)
Barbarian/Bard (with a Courageous Weapon)
Order of the Staff Cavalier/Sorcerer(use your abilities that scale with Magic, make him a Kitsune Enchanter if you want the overkill)
wow- thanks for all the feedback! i'd already considered almost all of these combos (except monk/inquisitor) and had even built out quite a few of them (most notably archer/zen archer; alchemist/barb; and wiz/kensai) but it was awesome to read everybody's reasoning for the different combos and i think i'll definitely build a few more of them now (like paladin/inquisitor and a dex based urban barb/dervish dancer bard).
so, the verdict: one of the other players and i decided to build our backup characters together- a 2wpn fighter/knife-fighter rogue wielding kukris with the butterfly sting feat and a 2-handed fighter/invulnerable rager with a tetsubo... neither of these guys meet the criteria of my request but they'll both have decent damage output and survivability (plus a 4d10+84 damage crit something like 1/3 rounds), and more importantly they'll give us an opportunity to encourage/teach the other players to think strategically and work together better in combat.
i'll definitely keep an eye on this thread though- i'll need a new backup idea pretty soon (when the GM gets sick of major enemies dropping in one crit and asks us to switch guys, lol).
Wizard // Mindchemist. If you want to bomb, stop there. Otherwise, also add Vivisectionist and either Internal Alchemist or Beastmorph. You're now a wizard with d8 HD, all good saves, medium BAB, lots of skills and a nice list, and a massive amount of int-focus and the ability to bump up your save DCs for tough fights with the cognatogen. At later levels, you'll basically have two contingencies at all times - the normal one and delayed consumption - and can use Twin Form go on suicidal nova runs with a clone of yourself while the real you is invisible and hidden away safely. All the brokenness of the Wizard complemented perfectly by the alchemist's class features.
I'll also 2nd the Scarred Witch Doctor // Barbarian. You can still toss around Slumber and Misfortune hexes while raging, and they'll get a save DC boost for it (don't forget raging vitality feat!). d12 HD and LOTS of Con, full BAB, the important saves are both good, decent skills, and with Invulnerable Rager and the Superstition line (you'd ideally want to be a Human for Barb favored class bonus, qualifying for SWD via Racial Heritage) you're even tougher still.
Menhir Savant* Druid // MoMS Qingong Monk is also decent, to get Wis synergy and combine styles with the power of wildshape. If only flurry of blows allowed tacking on natural weapons at the end like normal TWF does... Ah well, get TWF for unarmed the normal way and then *pounce* (yay, wildshape!) with that and all your natural attacks 2ndary after it. Bonus points if you can get the Guided property for your Amulet of Mighty Fists (loaded up w/ properties; you have GMF spell for the actual enhancement) to get even more wis-focused and to get full ability mod to damage on all the 2ndary natural attacks. Sadly, BAB, saves, HD, and even skill points all are duplicated/overlap with this combo, so you gain basically nothing on that front. You pick this combo for the synergistic class features rather than plugging numerical gaps.
*Doesn't do anything in particular with this combo, its just...the best druid archetype, for anything.
Master Summoner // Bard: Both sides use cha for casting and have very different/complementary spell lists. Draw would obviously be creating a big army *and* buffing the bejebus out of them. Not much variance on the numerical stuff again, other than skills, which bard massively improves on the summoner.
(Half-Elf) Oracle // Paladin: Big cha-synergy. Can cast nearly all the spells thanks to Paragon Surge. Has full BAB, d10 HD, amazing saves, ...skills are a bit weak, but oh well. Very self-sufficient with proficiencies, multiple healing avenues, gaining spells on the fly, etc... Smite makes it murder to the BBEG, too.
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Syntheist//anything that uses CHA
was the best one I heard so far. Dat old 'replace yer physical statz' is as broken as evar.
Right up until the first time you hit an anti-magic field and find yourself standing naked in front of something really nasty. Unable to move due to the weight of your own gear.
Then you need a new character.
I prefer to avoid terminal weaknesses.
You don't have to set yourself up that way.
Taking SR on your suit is a good start.
Have enough STR to move with your gear. You don't wear armor so it's not that horrible.
1. The SR granted to an eidolon is going to be a 4 evolution point hail-mary at best.
You cap out at SR 31, but a CR 20 caster has a bare minimum of +20 to his roll to overcome. Many level 20 casters can beat SR 31 without rolling the dice.
2. If your not dumping your strength, the initial complaint never applied.
Syntheist//anything that uses CHA
was the best one I heard so far. Dat old 'replace yer physical statz' is as broken as evar.
Right up until the first time you hit an anti-magic field and find yourself standing naked in front of something really nasty. Unable to move due to the weight of your own gear.
Then you need a new character.
I prefer to avoid terminal weaknesses.
You don't have to set yourself up that way.
Taking SR on your suit is a good start.
Have enough STR to move with your gear. You don't wear armor so it's not that horrible.1. The SR granted to an eidolon is going to be a 4 evolution point hail-mary at best.
You cap out at SR 31, but a CR 20 caster has a bare minimum of +20 to his roll to overcome. Many level 20 casters can beat SR 31 without rolling the dice.
2. If your not dumping your strength, the initial complaint never applied.
Agreed. You have to think a bit more but it is still a great combo in many ways.
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I'm actually shocked that no one brought up the combination that I was thinking of; Kensai/Wizard.
Once you hit level 6, your Spell Blending will let you use any of your wizard spells for Spell Combat, which makes you pretty terrifying. Combining that with a Wizard's defensive spells, you can basically wade into melee with complete safety.
The biggest loss for a gestalt build is that you can't do both things that either class offers, but with this, you can completely negate that penalty, which really does make you crazy versatile.
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*cough*
I'm actually shocked that no one brought up the combination that I was thinking of; Kensai/Wizard.Once you hit level 6, your Spell Blending will let you use any of your wizard spells for Spell Combat, which makes you pretty terrifying. Combining that with a Wizard's defensive spells, you can basically wade into melee with complete safety.
The biggest loss for a gestalt build is that you can't do both things that either class offers, but with this, you can completely negate that penalty, which really does make you crazy versatile.
Also there is Admixture specialist Wizard/Kensai Magus Which gives you enough spells to counter the Diminished Spellcasting, Your INT added to DEX for AC is great and you can take Broad Study Arcana to let you cast with wizard spells in spellstrike/combat. Choose Arcane Bond Weapon and take your favored weapon, be Bladebound Kensai if your paranoid about Sunder for Unbreakable, and Spont. cast a buff. Along with you can Shocking Grasp a Demon with an acid grasp due to school power.
wow- thanks for all the feedback! i'd already considered almost all of these combos (except monk/inquisitor) and had even built out quite a few of them (most notably archer/zen archer; alchemist/barb; and wiz/kensai)
*cough*
What no monk/gunslinger love?
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*cough*
I'm actually shocked that no one brought up the combination that I was thinking of; Kensai/Wizard.Once you hit level 6, your Spell Blending will let you use any of your wizard spells for Spell Combat, which makes you pretty terrifying. Combining that with a Wizard's defensive spells, you can basically wade into melee with complete safety.
The biggest loss for a gestalt build is that you can't do both things that either class offers, but with this, you can completely negate that penalty, which really does make you crazy versatile.
Also there is Admixture specialist Wizard/Kensai Magus Which gives you enough spells to counter the Diminished Spellcasting, Your INT added to DEX for AC is great and you can take Broad Study Arcana to let you cast with wizard spells in spellstrike/combat. Choose Arcane Bond Weapon and take your favored weapon, be Bladebound Kensai if your paranoid about Sunder for Unbreakable, and Spont. cast a buff. Along with you can Shocking Grasp a Demon with an acid grasp due to school power.wow- thanks for all the feedback! i'd already considered almost all of these combos (except monk/inquisitor) and had even built out quite a few of them (most notably archer/zen archer; alchemist/barb; and wiz/kensai)*cough*
Sorry man, I kind of scanned over things a bit too quickly. Now I kind of want to think of a different combo.
Can someone offer a sample build for wiz/kensai? Maybe to 10.
What no monk/gunslinger love?
From someone who watched an Unoptimized Monk/Slinger Out-Nova a Optimized Magus/Fighter... Yeah...
I'm not seeing the appeal for Monk/Gunslinger. Besides using wisdom there isn't any real synergy. The only archetype that seems worthwhile would be Zen Archer if it worked with firearms... but it doesn't. Could you give an example of how it would work?
Monk Grants excellent Defenses and Melee Capability without dropping the guns.
Yeah...that's not much synergy.
Better would be Gunslinger//Alchemist. Buff dex (which you use for attack and damage, cause gunslinger is broken) even more and grow extra arms so you can hold and reload more guns.
I'm doing a Paladin//Monk/Oracle.
2 levels in Monk mostly for evasion, but hey let's also flurry with the temple sword. Oracle for Cha to AC/Reflex. I'm gonna advance oracle for spells, but could as easily advance monk for full flurry smite evils.
I ran a Synthesist Summoner/(monk/ninja) once. He specialized in invisible sneak attack dimension door pounces. And yes, of course he was modeled after Naruto.
...yea, that character was a bit absurd, for many reasons.
Hmm, casters are OP, wizards are gods, but most combos suggested are melee. Are you all trying to say gestalt is the only way melee is good?
The two big issues with gestalting casters are action economy and casting stat. Even when you take two casting classes with the same casting stat (like Sorcerer/Oracle) you still run afoul of the basic action economy of one spell/round (2 if you can quicken). Having a larger spell list and more slots is nice, but the overall boost to ability is a bit low. On any given turn, a Sorcerer/Oracle is still casting a single spell from list, at about as much power as a single-classed Sorceror or Oracle would be doing.
Melee tends to gestalt much more neatly, since most of the class features don't take actions. A Fighter/Rogue has no problems stacking all the features from both of this classes on any given turn. Rogue Sneak Attack not only stacks with Fighter BAB and Weapon Training, but is actually enhanced by it since the Fighter/Rogue gets more sneak attacks that hit more accurately and deal more damage.
For some reason, i have the idea of Magus/Inquisitor, Magus/Bard, or Bard/Inquisitor floating in my head.
Definitely not the best, but has the all-around idea. Would almost pay money to see it
What no monk/gunslinger love?
We're actually not using gunslingers (GM banned guns- since there was already a lot going on with being gestalt and none of us are super familiar with them). if he hadn't i might have gone gunslinger/alchemist just for the flavor, though i do think 3 levels of gunslinger/sohei followed by 3 levels of weaponmaster/sohei would be pretty awesome... monk unarmed strike for brawling, buffs to any mount to reinforce the cowboy theme, and at 6th you can flurry with a gun (sohei can flurry with any weapon they have weapon training in at 6th and a 3rd level weaponmaster can pick weapon training for firearms... i think you need a pillbox or some kind of revolver though to be able to iterate- or fast draw and a lot of guns)
Hmm, casters are OP, wizards are gods, but most combos suggested are melee. Are you all trying to say gestalt is the only way melee is good?
It's because most of the people on these boards don't actually know how to make an overpowered character and think martial classes are king of the roost. Repost the OP on minmaxboards, ENWorld, GiantITP, basically any other forum that discusses pathfinder, and see the things people suggest.
Now, I'm not saying doing dual casting classes is best. The point about action economy is solid. You still have the same amount of actions, so other than versatility, a whole 2nd spell list isn't that great a help. The best combos have full spellcasting on one side and a more "passive" class on the other. Classes that give abilities that are always on or don't take an action (other than free; even swift is a cost), boost your hp/BAB/saves/etc..., give immunities, and so on.
Note how nearly all of my suggestions fit into that mold. Some of the "passive" classes has casting of their own, but the focus was always on using the 2nd class to augment the casting class.
Gestalt does also tend to mean enemies have higher saves (either they're advanced in level/HD or they're gestalt themselves; either results in better saves), so the all-or-nothing save or suck/die spells tend to be less useful in gestalt. Likewise, summons are weaker because everything else is buffed and they are not. Part of the reason I love gestalt, really... Makes some of the most powerful caster options weaker. There's still plenty of buff, battlefield control, no-save-just-suck, and utility spells to be had, though.
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Well with an Assimar or Tiefling as the race, consider an Eldritch Knight build...
1) Ftr 1/Wiz 1
2) EK 1/Wiz 2
3) EK 2/Rogue 1
4) EK 3/Rogue 2
5) EK 4/Rogue 3
6) EK 5/Rogue 4
7) EK 6/Rogue 5
8) EK 7/Rogue 6
9) EK 8/Rogue 7
10) EK 9/Rogue 8
11) EK 10/Rogue 9
12-20) Ftr/Wiz
Using the SLA (Daylight) to qualify for early entry into EK.
The upside: lvl 20, with full BAB and full casting plus at lvl 3 to 11 you can pump up your skill monkey side (and some SA and evasion & rogue tricks are never a bad thing either).
The downside is that you won't get any of the specific class abilities for higher level (no lvl 20 keystone abilities).
Now to take advantage of the EK's spell critical ability you will want a weapon with a high crit range (like a rapier or scimitar).
You're explicitly not allowed to take hybrid prestige classes like Eldritch Knight in gestalt. The whole point of gestalt is that if you want to play a fighter and a wizard...you can!
Even if you were allowed NO DM IN HIS RIGHT MIND would let you take EK and Wizard on opposite sides of the gestalt to cherry pick other class dips on each side while the other picks up the CL slack.
@john hare-
stream is right, hybrid prestige classes are banned in virtually all gestalt campaigns. ours actually takes it a step further... if you take a prestige class you don't get a second class at that level! on top of that, if they were allowed i think you could be more creative/abusive than that:
1 - pally 1/sorc 1 [draconic]
2 - pally 2/sorc 2
3 - pally 3/sorc 3
4 - pally 4/sorc 4
5 - eldritch knight 1/sorc 5*
6 - dragon disciple 1/EK 2*
7 - pally 5/DD 2*
8 - pally 6/DD 3
9 - pally 7/DD 4
10- DD 5/EK 3
11- pally 8/DD 6
12- pally 9/DD 7
13- pally 10/DD 8
14- DD 9/EK 4
15- pally 11/DD 10
16- pally 12/sorc 7
17- pally 13/sorc 8
18- pally 14/sorc 9
19- pally 15/sorc 10
20- pally 16/sorc 11
* for races other than base Aasimar 5=pally5/sorc5; 6=DD1/sorc6; 7=DD2/EK1... this results in a +19 total BAB (no increase @6th)
full BAB, 20 caster levels, all the bloodline powers of a 20th level sorcerer, all the powers of a 16th level paladin- no good ref save (though you add Cha to all saves...) and only 2+ skills/lvl, but half d10s and half d12s for hp. start with 20 str and invest 4 of 5 leveling points in it; spend the feats to get improved eldritch heritage [orc]; by 20th, buy a +6 str item... that will put your Str at 40 all the time (and you can use transmutations like monstrous physique to boost it even higher)! and with a 30 point buy you can still start with 16-18 Cha (especially if you take the Aasimar variant that starts with +2 Str/+2 Cha)- put one leveling point in it and easily afford an item to bump it a little higher (he’d be primarily a self-buffing melee guy, with some utility spells, so DCs don’t matter). if you really wanted to be a douche, you could even drop pally from one of the dragon disciple levels and pick up one level of lore oracle to add your Cha to AC and Ref instead of Dex. with 4 eldritch knight levels, you would qualify for weapon specialization, if you wanted (though depending on how much shape changing you’re going to do that might not be worthwhile).
1- archer (fighter) 1/empyreal sorc 1
2- zen archer 1/sorc 2
3- ZA 2/sorc 3
4- ZA 3/sorc 4
5- ZA 4/sorc 5
6- eldritch knight 1*/sorc 6
7- arcane archer 1/sorc 7
8- AA 2/ZA 5
9- AA 3/ZA 6
10- AA 4/ZA 7
11- AA 5/sorc 8
12- AA 6/ZA 8
13- AA 7/ZA 9
14- AA 8/ZA 10
15- EK 2/ZA 11*
16- EK 3/ZA 12
17- EK 4/ZA 13
18- EK 5/ZA 14
19- EK 6/ZA 15
20- EK 7/ZA 16
* if you don't want to be a base Aasimar you can take archer 2/sorc 6 @6th level and EK 1/sorc 9 at 15th, the only real difference is that you lose the benefits of the 16th monk level.
this build has full BAB, full arcane casting, saves that are a headache to calculate but are mostly all good (ref might be slightly behind, d10 HD for 16 levels, 4+ skill points for 18 levels, and tons of special abilities. with quicken spell it can cast and full attack basically every round ever- it gets 7 arrows/round normally (with flurry), 8 if you spend 1 ki point, and it threatens with its bow (out to 15' if you pick up imp snap shot, which you'll have plenty of feats for), and all of those arrows gain all the benefits of 16 levels of Zen Archer and 8 levels of Arcane Archer! plus Wis is used for casting, AC, and attack rolls :)