We're thinking about making a run through this using two gestalt PC's. I'd be interested to see what suggestions experienced players might offer. Any races, classes or party roles that are an absolute must?
Generally I figure with only two players both need to be martial-capable and it seems like this AP might be trap heavy. Apart from that I'm not sure...
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I haven't actually played it (indeed, I'm playing through it as an Investigator starting soon), but I hear (and the player's guide indicates) that undead are a big thing, and it's implied that Fort Saves and Saves vs. Fear are as well...so a Paladin seems tailor-made. We're certainly having one.
Paladin//Oracle is a very nice Gestalt and potentially very powerful, so I might go with that. Go Oracle of Life and all your necessary healing is now this guy, and you can go Oath of Vengeance to Smite all day. This also handles melee combat and social stuff in general, and buff spells at need. Flavor-wise, I'd go Heir To the Pharaohs, and think of myself as a resurrected God-king...maybe follow Ra or Horus.
Traps are also definitely an issue, so a way to handle them is necessary. Going Seeker on the Oracle half of the above build, and they can do that, too.
The other character should obviously do ranged combat (though melee wouldn't be terrible) and/or arcane spellcasting if going with that, So...maybe Ranger//Wizard or Slayer//Wizard or something like that. That'd handle the Knowledge Skills, potentially do Trapfinding (Urban Ranger or the Trapfinder Slayer Talent), and can handle Survival (which the Player's Guide advises you'll need). For Traits, Foreign Opportunist provides a boost to party GP that no other Trait can duplicate, and would make sense, potentially.
there are a fair number of traps, but there's a campaign trait that gives you trapfinding as a rogue so that's easy to manage.
the biggest issue with a 2 person run is action economy. 2 players versus 6 skeletons would mean 2 actions for you and 6 for them... the best gestalt combos will maximize their action economy (making sure they should have useful things to do with a swift, a move, and a standard action every round). normally in gestalt parties I encourage people to avoid companions because they don't scale to the power level but when you're using gestalt to try to get a very small party up to 'standard' power level they become a really good option... if both players have an animal companion (for example) the party goes from having 2 turns to functionally having 4. familiars can be useful too either as an optimized mauler or by getting one that can UMD wands asap.
you've also got a lot of roles to cover with only 2 people... you probably both need one of your classes to be at least a 6 level caster, 9 would be better (and one of you should be arcane and the other divine). Unchained Monk/Druid doesn't have the best skills but its full BAB, all good saves, good stat synergy, decent action economy, 9 level divine caster, and an animal companion. The biggest draw back would be not having spontaneous healing (but wands can help with that). Slayer/Witch is also full BAB with all good saves, has better skills, can grab trapspotter, is a 9 level arcane caster (that can help with healing), has great resource management, and gets a familiar. They might be light on swift action options though. There's lots of other ways you could do that (even more so if you feel like one or both of you could get away with only being 6 level casters), but those are the first two that jumped to my mind.
also, the AP is supposed to have a pulpy, Indiana Jones-esque feel to it (maybe The Mummy would be a better comparison really), so try to keep that in mind when creating characters...
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If you don't have someone for traps, this AP is gonna become a "hard time." Very potent traps abound, with anything from poisoned blades, symbols of insanity, and death trumpets filling the dungeons.
Undead aren't as big a focus as you would think. Book 2 is *mostly* undead, but humanoids (both regular and monstrous) and outsiders fill the majority of the memorable enemies slot. I don't think there's more than a handful of encounters with undead (counting bodak as outsiders) in the entire book 3-4 span.
I would suggest one side of a gestalt being an investigator. We had one in our party, and it pretty well covered all the knowledges and traps without issue. You *can* make it through the whole campaign without a strong arcane, but teleport comes in handy in the butt end of the game (need to go sell loot bt book 5 and 6? have fun with a 2 month caravan ride). If you do gestalt, encourage someone to take Leadership so you can get a cohort (if you want to keep action economy low, flavor him non-combat) who can take care of crafting and teleportation needs. Melee is a must, and ranged is preferred in places, but don't expect to have very many opportunities to pick off enemies from 2 range increment longbow vantages. You will need access to the Fly spell, imo.
The Life Oracle is certainly a good suggestion. Our oracle was a fire, but she learned all those healing spells to keep the party from *too many* deaths.
Looks like I'm going to go with a Tiefling Paladin (Oath of Vengeance) / Seeker Oracle (Life). Some good synergy there, both between the classes and in the campaign.
Thanks for the advice!
One thing - I'd strongly suggest using the Hero Point system if you're doing this with only two PCs. Without spoiling anything too heavily, the monster referenced in the AP title is prevalent in this campaign and has an AoE paralysis effect. While Gestalt characters typically have good saves, with such a small party you're two bad rolls away from a TPK at any given time. Being able to drop a hero point to reroll a failed save will help smooth out this side of things.
One thing - I'd strongly suggest using the Hero Point system if you're doing this with only two PCs. Without spoiling anything too heavily, the monster referenced in the AP title is prevalent in this campaign and has an AoE paralysis effect. While Gestalt characters typically have good saves, with such a small party you're two bad rolls away from a TPK at any given time. Being able to drop a hero point to reroll a failed save will help smooth out this side of things.
That bit of advice is appreciated. Fortunately, though not deliberately, both characters will be immune to fear and that paralysis is a fear effect unless I'm mistaken. Still, good point about how one bad save shuts down half of the party... we've had a few discussions about that with the GM already.
We're thinking about making a run through this using two gestalt PC's. I'd be interested to see what suggestions experienced players might offer. Any races, classes or party roles that are an absolute must?
Generally I figure with only two players both need to be martial-capable and it seems like this AP might be trap heavy. Apart from that I'm not sure...
Run two regular characters each instead. More survivable if one hero goes down, and gestalt does not make up for the loss in action economy.
Run two regular characters each instead. More survivable if one hero goes down, and gestalt does not make up for the loss in action economy.We're thinking about making a run through this using two gestalt PC's. I'd be interested to see what suggestions experienced players might offer. Any races, classes or party roles that are an absolute must?
Generally I figure with only two players both need to be martial-capable and it seems like this AP might be trap heavy. Apart from that I'm not sure...
We're just not a multi-character type of crowd, I'm afraid.