I was working on an idea for a gestalt character for an upcoming game. The concept is a character who wants nothing to do with the gods. He knows they exist and so forth he is not disputing that. He just follows the Lex Luthor style of thinking, that if we have these gods we rely on for things we will never become as powerful as we could be.
his disdain for the gods formed when his mother, a cleric, was killed by a group of bandits that had been raiding their village. The village had a few former adventures but they where getting up in years and while they where able to take care of quite a few they where overrun and killed leading to him having to flee. During the whole ordeal he had been praying for the gods to save his mother but to no avail. This began his deep dislike for the gods for not helping those that are their chosen on earth.
He doesn't like divine casters but he doesn't hate them he pities them their blind faith and knows where it will get them. He doesn't understand why people pray to the gods or ask for their favor since when the time comes that you could use their help the most they turn a blind eye.
Basically think a more likable version of Mickey Rourke's character from Immortals.
But I am not sure what to gestalt him with I just have the background set up. I considered Arcanist, basically he turns from the divine to follow the arcane because the arcane is about the person wielding the powers.
I also considered giving it a double slap of making one side one of the Godling classes from Super Genius Games making it so that he is in fact descended from a god and has utterly turned his back on them due to his new belief in individual power.
I do have access to flaws and their bonus feats. Figured I might invent one, Heretic gains half healing rounded down from any divine healing source.
Something That's Not A Divine Caster // Something That's Not A Divine Caster is my recommendation.
Seriously, this fluff concept will work with virtually any mechanical concept with ease. If you really want to work the "no one needs the gods" angle it might be good to go for a buff-based arcane caster; the Brown Fur Transmuter Arcanist is a pretty effective replacement for the cleric in terms of a party buff bot.
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Sounds good. Arcanist is a solid choice for turning away from the Gods, as would be Alchemist and Investigator.
A Gestalt Arcanist//Investigator (Empiricist) with the Student of Philosophy Trait would actually be borderline broken, given his skills, spells, and ability to use Int for almost everything. He could also rely on Extracts for self-healing, minimizing his need to rely on divine healing, and could be a fair hand-to-hand combatant as well as a spellcaster if you wished [especially with one level of Investigator, probably level 3, replaced with Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade)].
I was considering that.
Go straight Arcanist on one side, and mix in some class abilities from other Int focused classes on the other side.
I think later he will be focused on breaking himself from the cycle of life and death, not wanting to be judged by beings he doesn't feel should be judging anyone.
Psionics are a favorite of mine, I honestly considered a STP Erudite before Arcanist. There is a 3rd party class called Scholar 1 level dip gets you INT to AC and free Skill Focus, 3.5's Knowledge Devotions might be nice if going into melee.