Hey all,
So my group is going to be starting a gestalt campaign, level 8 to begin. I'm trying to think of some combinations, and two immediately came to mind: a Kensai Magus/Arcanist, and a Ghoul Bloodline Sorcerer/Ninja. A third one soon came to thought: a Magus/Fighter with a Mithral Folding Plate (essentially be Iron Man).
Knowing nothing of the campaign I'm going into or the classes of the other characters (we are all making our characters a surprise to the others) I really do not know what to expect. That being said, I just want to play something that will be fun in and out of combat, not really caring TOO much about optimization outside of usability.
With that, what do you guys think would be the most fun to play?
The most fun character is a character you can get behind irregardless of the mechanics behind the class. That being said, classes who have similar stats often work well together.
One of my favorite characters is a ranger/druid who got 3 wolves as animal companions (he would be hunter/ranger made today). He is from a tribe who most have animal companions and one of his animal companions was his sister's ac before she died.
Another of my favorite characters is a kobald who claims to be a dragon. He is a Sorcerer(Dragon Desciple)/Paladin. If he was any other race he would be much more powerful and much less fun to play.
Some of my gestalt characters can be found here.
http://gonegestalt.blogspot.com/
Magus//Int Full Caster is very strong and very fun; my absolute favorite character is a Kensai|Sage Sorcerer. So I'm biased, but that's what I'd go for.
Having run a gestalt campaign, at level 8 combination of different casting (like Magus/Full Caster) are still pretty good. But above level 10 classes where they are using their abilities at once rather than having more options in the same limited action economy start to get ahead. Paladin/Battle Oracle and Barbarian/Ninja both get pretty obscene. More passive powers come in to play a lot more in high level gestalt, so you want one of your classes to be doing something that buffs the actions taken using the abilities of the other.
Mighty Squash wrote: Having run a gestalt campaign, at level 8 combination of different casting (like Magus/Full Caster) are still pretty good. But above level 10 classes where they are using their abilities at once rather than having more options in the same limited action economy start to get ahead. Paladin/Battle Oracle and Barbarian/Ninja both get pretty obscene. More passive powers come in to play a lot more in high level gestalt, so you want one of your classes to be doing something that buffs the actions taken using the abilities of the other. The value of the Magus is that it does put both classes' action economies to work every turn.
You don't care about Magus casting. I mean, it's there and that's nice, and you'll use it a lot at low levels. But at level six you take Broad Study, and then what you care about is applying Wizard spells to one guy while stabbing another in the gut. That's a pretty significant difference in combat potential. You take the typical "squishy Wizard" image and totally subvert it by being a capable frontliner-- while still casting everything you would as a Wizard, every turn. Magus is pretty much the definition of "better action economy" in gestalt.
Depending on the Int caster you can get a lot of passive abilities going too. Arcanist isn't the best for that though, barring School Specialist, but it can do it. Wizard can do it with some schools (Admixture springs to mind; Diviner would but you're going Kensai and there's some redundancy there-- though it's still certainly not bad). Sorcerer can do it with a lot of bloodlines, though it'd require Crossblooding.
Outside magus/caster (I think that there's a Paizo spontaneous magus archetype that uses CHA as of the UCG) a good gestalt generally uses one side or the other for passive effects.
Synthesist Summoner is good for bulking up charisma casters. Monk is good for improving the defenses of wisdom casters. Warpriest and Magus are good at getting buffs on martials. Martials are good for beefing up combat builds of bards, druids, clerics, and oracles. Rogues are good for getting skills on paladins or clerics. Bards and investigators are good for getting skills on martials that also need a better will save.
In general you pick a class you think you'd like to play, ask yourself what its weaknesses are, and then look for how to best fill those weaknesses.
Magus/Arcanist is fine. Sorcerer/Ninja isn't.
A sorcerer's weaknesses are her poor fortitude save, getting stuck in melee, and not knowing enough spells. What she wants is I think caballist magus. A ninja's weaknesses are her fortitude and will saves and being a rogue alternate class. She wants something like paladin or antipaladin to shore up her terrible saves and BAB or at least cleric or warpriest or magus for the saves and rely on spells for accuracy.
There's one more synergy build I'm aware of similar to the magus and that's to put scout rogue with a wildshape focused druid. Pounce and roll a lot of d6s. Then let someone else finish that enemy and pounce another. Some archetypes can also hide in fog and exploit reach to sneak attack, though not with very many attacks until quickwood becomes available. Well, scout rogue with unchained monk may also work, though depending on how flying kick is worded it may not work until level 8.
A Sorcerer Ninja is fine; there is decent class feature synergy there, though not optimal since it lacks a good Fort save or good BAB as you said. However, being a full caster, the Sorcerer can mitigate both of those problems with access to the right spells. It's entirely possible to get a caster with better martial ability than a full martial once transmutation and polymorph schools are in effect.
That said, Magus is a good staple of Gestalt builds because he's the ultimate caster-martial gish right out of the box, synergizing well with any caster or any martial, so long as stats are taken care of. But there are better combinations.
One of the best combinations, in my opinion at least, is the Master Summoner || Skald Gestalt. The Master Summoner allows you to summon a horde of creatures to fight for you, while the Skald can buff them to ludicrous heights. In all honesty, it can get really overbearing with the amount of action economy the Master Summoner can get, so it is best suited to single player campaigns.
Atarlost wrote: Outside magus/caster (I think that there's a Paizo spontaneous magus archetype that uses CHA as of the UCG) a good gestalt generally uses one side or the other for passive effects. We don't talk about the Eldritch Scion. Forget it exists and you'll be happier.
Atarlost wrote: Magus/Arcanist is fine. Sorcerer/Ninja isn't.
A sorcerer's weaknesses are her poor fortitude save, getting stuck in melee, and not knowing enough spells. What she wants is I think caballist magus. A ninja's weaknesses are her fortitude and will saves and being a rogue alternate class. She wants something like paladin or antipaladin to shore up her terrible saves and BAB or at least cleric or warpriest or magus for the saves and rely on spells for accuracy.
Eh... I'm going to disagree with you on this front. It's not ideal-- Ninja//Oracle would do it better-- but using the right spell picks can massively amplify what the ninja can do. Monstrous Physique into a Calikang to give you four or five more swings with your Sneak Attack, for an obvious example.
Atarlost wrote: There's one more synergy build I'm aware of similar to the magus and that's to put scout rogue with a wildshape focused druid. Pounce and roll a lot of d6s. Then let someone else finish that enemy and pounce another. Some archetypes can also hide in fog and exploit reach to sneak attack, though not with very many attacks until quickwood becomes available. Well, scout rogue with unchained monk may also work, though depending on how flying kick is worded it may not work until level 8. From experience, Unchained Rogue//Unchained Monk gets hilarious. Lack of casting will hurt, especially in the high levels, but there's a lot of mobility to set up flanks and a lot of little synergies. Pulling Str as a requirement for the Monk to function is nice too.
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Monk/Feral Hunter, wild shape, flurry of blows, wisdom casting, and all day unlimited animal aspect.
Thanks everyone for the responses! I had an odd idea I wanna run by y'all, though. I know consensus is that Eldritch Scion archetype of the Magus is a bag of turds, but what about that with Ninja?
Risen Demon wrote: Thanks everyone for the responses! I had an odd idea I wanna run by y'all, though. I know consensus is that Eldritch Scion archetype of the Magus is a bag of turds, but what about that with Ninja? Better with Paladin
Barbarian Invulnerable Rager / Vivisectionist/Beast Morph Alchemist
mutagen + rage DR Nat Armor Pounce Flight Sneak Attack
Risen Demon wrote: Thanks everyone for the responses! I had an odd idea I wanna run by y'all, though. I know consensus is that Eldritch Scion archetype of the Magus is a bag of turds, but what about that with Ninja? You're still pretty terrible.
I'd rather run straight Magus/Unchained Rogue. Having a caster negates most of the bigger edges of the Ninja (things like its ability to turn invisible).
Kensai/unchained rogue would be awesome, or sage sorcerer instead of rogue.
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