Kingmaker Gestalt Advice

[Faceless Soul]

Ok so my group is only at 3 players but we want to play Kingmaker.

So my DM has decided to give us a chance as a gestalt game as we have heard some parts can be a little dicy and no we do not want to play two characters.

One player is playing a Shield Champion Brawler//Dune Drifter Cavelier (Based on Captain America)

I want to play a Half-Orc Invulnerable Rager Barbarian//XX
I dont know what is best to pair off with the Barbarian. I am also taking the Half-Troll Template and taking a huge drop in WBL to offset some of that CR I get half my money by class and I will be on NPC Heroic WBL till level 3 or possibly till level 6 whichever flows best.

I want my guy to be a hard to kill bruiser, but not be completely useless outside of punting the puny humans.

The third member of our little gang is a Swashbuckler//Warpriest who is focusing on the Rapier, and using Dynamic Priest from dragonlance, to make Wis to Cha Warpriest.

Any advice for us without SPOILERS?

Mostly help me find a partner class for when I hit level 2.
What traits are best, what gear is best to pick up.

[avr]

A lot of damage in that little party but nothing like control or support. If you're set on invulnerable barb you'll be more of the same, but ... you're going to have a great attack bonus. A level in maneuver master monk would let you add a combat maneuver to your full attack routine, and a simple trip would help you and help your party. You don't have to use monk weapons or be without armor to do a flurry of maneuvers. Maneuver Master can get maneuver feats without prereqs which you may not have, too.

[Faceless Soul]

Warpriest has good spells, 6 levels of cleric casting and all. I agree we are all heavy hitters.

[avr]

I'm not sure you understand the problem. Your party has people who are heavy hitters - they are individually good fighters. They are not a team, and the party is probably vulnerable to any of the following:

Archers up trees or on battlements.
Swarms.
Ambushes.
Lasting effects (a warpriest will probably focus on buffs, right? A 6-level caster is only a part timer anyway.)
One member of the party turning against the others briefly due to magic effects.
Focus fire from monsters.
Monsters kiting the party.

I'd suggested a minor use of combat maneuvers to help deal with the last two or three. I'd forgotten alignment restrictions which make my exact solution unworkable.

Some form of battlefield control is the thing your party is most in need of, and a barbarian can best do this via combat maneuvers. I'd now suggest a gestalt with either rogue or ninja. Get the Redirect Force ninja trick (as an invulnerable rager you should be able to take the hit) and feats supporting a maneuver like trip or dirty trick or grapple, and you can debuff or immobilise an enemy if you must. The rogue or ninja levels will mildy help your survivability and damage and significantly help your out of combat ability.

[avr]

Also you might find Tark's stuff on pathfindertactics.wordpress.com interesting. I've avoided his exact terminology because I don't think you've read it and I wished to avoid confusion.

Note that every situation I mentioned can turn up in Kingmaker.

[Renegadeshepherd]

My first thought was cross blooded sorcerer. I know that sounds ridiculous but hear me out. With the proper selection of bloodlines you could cherry pick having natural weapons, more natural armor, untyped strength bonuses, spell, bonus feats, and more that all scale pretty well. You could literally never cast a spell your entire career and not care because your martial prowess was so good. If your familiar with the high strength sorcerer builds, that's what you would look like but without the low health and with FULL BAB (you will not miss).

If memory serves an urban barb can be taken With invulnerable barb and you could then cast a spell while raging in emergencies.

[Jack Amy]

If building a gestalt character for use in a small party, I would look to meet the following criteria.

Full BAB
Perfect Saves (or at least good fort & will)
Full 9th level casting progression

I would also make sure that I communicate with my group to ensure that our weaknesses are covered.

I am unfamiliar with the troll template, but classes I like to pair with Barbarian are

Bard: Perfect saves, and multiple ways to buff but requires a passable charisma and only has 6th level casting.

Druid: Missing out on a good reflex save, but you're a full caster that combines rage and wild shape (engage those pesky flying foes in melee). The full animal companion is just gravy.

Sorcerer: Full arcane caster (take buffs mainly, and try to keep your charisma score tight). Orc bloodline is why you're here for strength of the beast (+2/+4/+6 inherent strength bonus), and power of giants. Enjoy having access to bull's strength, fly & haste. Arcane spell failure may be a problem for you.

Witch (Scarred Witch Doctor): Full caster where Constitution is your primary casting ability, plus you get half your class level as a natural armour bonus. If you can overcome arcane spell failure, this strikes me as a very powerful option.

Also, you can try to fit 3 level of Horizon Walker on the Barbarian side for immunity to fatigue. This will allow you to drop your rage to cast when you need to and re-enter without penalty.

[Jack Amy]

Oh, apologies if this isn't very helpful, but my ideal 3 player gestalt party would look something like this.

Leader
Class 1: Paladin
Class 2: Bard (Arcane Duellist)

Full BAB, perfect saves (plus cha mod to all saves) & 6+int skill ranks per level. Class features for both work heavily on Charisma, making this character the ideal party face who is capable of buffing, healing and dealing a lot of damage. Can eventually cast bard spells in medium and then heavy armour.

Archer
Class 1: Monk (Zen Archer)
Class 2: Cleric

3/4 BAB (although full with flurry of blows),perfect saves & 9th level divine caster. Zen Archery allows you to use your wisdom for attack rolls, armour class & casting.

Sage
Class 1: Wizard
Class 2: Alchemist

Only 3/4 BAB here, but perfect saves, 9th level arcane caster. Loads of skills from a high intelligence score, and should be able to cover all the knowledge skill needed for a campaign. Should also be capable of copying spells from his spellbook into his formulae book (this may cause problems in the morning having to prepare both spells and extracts).

Here are 3 characters that are all able to handle a variety of combats, all have access to healing in one form or another and have access to almost every spell in the game. Each character also focusses on a different mental ability score, giving each of them a strong identity for their out of combat role.

Ultimately, go with what works for you and your group, but from my personal experience this game is a lot more fun when everyone has identified their in and out of combat role and all have different strengths to work off of. It also helps prevent the lack of character satisfaction that can occur when one character does the exact same thing as you but better.