my wife is starting a campaign soon and has told us, (2 players, plus her having a dm character) to gestalt our characters,
the info i have is that the campaign is gonna be loosly based off of disney's newer movie Moana,
i dont think she is gonna follow the plot, but now you at least have a rough idea for the setting,
ive been told there will be water travel, and she wants to master an underwater campaign, so that means we will be spending alot of time either on top of water, or submerged in it,
my build will include witch, and i need some advice deciding what to mix with it. i was going to go with scarred witch doctor, but she said i cannot be an orc.
she said i am allowed to use another race as long as it wont break her game, that being said, im looking for some interesting and varied mashups of abilities, im thinking being able to heal and drain life, as well as having an aquatic theme to the character. lets see what you guys can come up with! help me out !
well... half-orcs are allowed to take scarred witch doctor if she allows those? I take it your using the original version (with Con as the casting stat) and not the nerfed version?
From a power-level perspective something like slayer is a great combination for witch: it gets you full BAB, d10 hit die, all good saves, 6+ skills per level, and talents to customize with. The downside here is action economy because you largely can't use your slayer goodies (fighting) in the same round with your witch goodies (spells/hexes) because they're all standard actions, although things like the hex strike feat can help with that. Actually, Brawler doesn't get quite as many skill points but its a more natural fit for hex strike and is probably worth looking at too.
If you want to really maximize your action economy, something like magus could be great. It's only d8/medium BAB with 2+ skills/level and a poor reflex save, but at 6th level you can take broad study to use your witch spells with spell combat/spellstrike. Combine that with hex strike and ascetic style and you can cast, attack, and hex all in the same round!
If you're more concerned with flavor, kineticists are also Con based... so a water kineticist would get great stat synergy, plus be very thematic. They're only d8/medium BAB, but you'd get 4+ skills/level and all good saves. You'd run into some of the same problem as a slayer with not having enough standard actions to do everything you want every round but it could be a cool character nonetheless.
How is she handling prestige classes? There's one other idea I had but I'd have to actually look a couple things up and it involves a prestige class, so if those aren't allowed it isn't worth doing...
prestige classes are allowed under the same rules as typical, no MTH, stuff like that, but i can level up how i want,
i started thinking a bit with doing a few different archtypes on the witch side, and leveling mindchymist alchemist, buff int and go to town.
It's too bad you couldn't take Scarred Witch Doctor (ARE you allowed to play a Half-orc? Because they can still take the archetype), because pairing that with a Telekineticist (Hydrokineticist) would be REALLY fun!
Otherwise, a really cool pairing could be an Occultist. The Witch's flavor of using her familiar as a Medium to channel her arcane magic synergises really nicely with the Occultist's flavor of doing the same thing with Psychic magic through objects. That actually fits the whole Moana universe really nicely, with Maui's hook in mind, giving him his powers. As my 4-year old daughter constantly shouts in her life-long commitment to quote the movie whenever possible: "Without my hook, I'm nothing!"
Humans with Racial Heritage (Orc) can also be Scarred Witch Doctors.
I would look toward the 6 level caster classes rather than another 9 level or martial. Martials can be anti-synergy with the armor proficiencies and urge to melee, other 9 level casters will add some versatility, but you aren't casting more spells per round really, its just extending your adventuring day potential.
A lot of the 6 casters have some wonky abilites that will synergize nicely though. Investigator for skills as an example + studied combat to up your to hit with any ray spells you choose. Hunter could be neat with a familiar AND animal companion. Witch/bard for maximum save or suck. the list goes on.
White-Haired Witch is a fun gestalt with a full-BAB class. Play as a martial character who just happens to also have full casting. As for the water theme, go with the Ursula vibes, perhaps?
For the Witch Side I personally like the Combo of:
Invoker + Winter Witch 9/Crossblooded Sorcerer Orc/Draconic Frost 1/Winter Witch PrC 10
But some tables do not allow PrCs to be used in Gestalt. If they do I highly recommend it because:
This combo is one of the best Blasters in the game as you can easily have a Cone of Cold with +4 damage per dice rolled. Or +3 per dice for any other Cold spell. It also overcomes Immunities to cold by Half. Add in other meta magics like Rime, Intensified, Empower and/or Dazing. At this point you are just leaving frozen corpses in your wake.
The other side of the Gestalt is completely up to you.
If your looking for some Melee potential Inspired Blade Swashbuckler, Kensai Magus (or any other Magus), Investigator, or Alchemist would all be viable for the other side of your Gestalt. Or you could go old school and do Fighter (Mutagen is good), and if PrCs are allowed look at Eldritch Knight option.
My go-to gestalt for most Int-based casters is Ranger. D10 hit dice, all good saves, martial weapon proficiencies, and a shedload of skill points.
The other advantages that Ranger gives is that it's largely self-supporting in terms of feats (through the combat styles) and eventually gives you a useful pet. It even gives you the favored terrain and enemy bonuses.
You still have issues with attribute dependency (since Int is one of a ranger's few potential dump stats), and also with action economy (because you can't cast a spell and shoot a bow at the same time), but I deal with this by simply ignoring many of the ranger actions, so it doesn't matter if I'm mediocre with a sword -- I can still use it in an emergency, and in the meantime, I've doubled my hit points, skill points, and Fortitude save.
Slayer would do much the same, except that I think it's too melee-focused. So ranger remains my first choice.
Cleric/Warpreist + Magus. Grab the level 6 Magus arcana that lets you use your spellstrike with cleric spells. Can definitely get very drain tank from there. Also you can get a channeling weapon to use with the bad touch build. Think domain power+ spellstrike(bestow curse) + spellstoring(bestow curse)
So this isn't like a super optimized build but I love the new stargazer prestige class (from paths of the righteous) for this kind of game. It's a good fit for a witch too because it advances your casting and your hexes; you could actually exploit it a little bit too to squeeze a little more benefit from it...
The simple, straightforward build would be to go witch 5/ stargazer on one side and any of the things I suggested above for the other. The slayer would have the easiest time with the skills (or even a ranger to pick up favored terrain too), but a magus would probably be the most effective- go with a kensai and take the temple sword for your chosen weapon; take improved unarmed strike @1, hex strike @3, and ascetic style @5, and at 6th get the broad study arcana (that way you can spell combat to cast and still attack and if you hit you can apply a hex as a swift action). Plus kensai has good defensive synergy with Int to AC.
The more complicated and possibly a little bit exploitive approach would be to start as a cleric/hexcrafter. I know you wanted to be a witch but between these two classes I think you get pretty much all the witch spells, and you'd still have hexes, but you'd be able to cast in armor (and could use the hex strike combo mentioned above). Also the stargazer PrC stacks with cleric levels to determine the powers of your domains and revelations so those will be at your character level as well as it stacking for your hexes. You would do 5 levels of cleric/magus then one level of magus/stargazer to get broad study; after that stay stargazer on the one side and pick something else on the other... you could take one more magus level and then go into eldritch knight if that's allowed, or you could just switch to ranger or some other melee class.
Race: Undine. mainly for the aquatic theme (plus the swim speed is nice).
Class: Oracle(waves)= obvious water theme; Cleric(Gozreh) = tridents are cool...and thematically appropriate, but mostly just cool; Alchemist = INT synergy +mutagens for combat buff; and If psionics are allowed, the Cryptic is a really cool psionic rogue-type character.
I would also suggest a ranger, beast master if having multiple pets suits you. Even if it doesn't the larger selection of animal companions is probably worth the bonus talent at 6th level. All the passive bonuses are what really make the ranger shine as a gestalt with witch.
Druid would be a lot of fun in an aquatic setting as well. Most campaigns you don't get to turn into many aquatic animals, so I'd probably take this opportunity and run with it.
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You've seen the sea witch archetype? And the water lung hex?
Do you know what the other player is interested in, and whether the GM has plans for her character? With a small party it's a good idea to make sure that your gestalts cover all the major bases.
i started thinking a bit with doing a few different archtypes on the witch side, and leveling mindchymist alchemist, buff int and go to town.
This is a pretty darn good option. All good saves, d8 HD (fine since you're staying out of melee), 4+Int skills on a combo with lots of Int synergy. Full casting, extracts, hexes, bombs. Cognatogen and many of your extracts are long-duration; pre-buffing helps with action economy.
In terms of party roles you'd be a good scholar, controller/debuffer, and buffer. You could cover healing pretty well, too, since between the two classes you can access the important condition removal stuff, even without the healing patron as a witch.
Not much good at weapon combat, but if you choose your spells/extracts/hexes carefully that shouldn't cause you much trouble. (I don't think my party's sorc//bard has ever felt the need to attack something with a weapon.) If you want to hedge your bets, a half-elf with an elven branched spear and Weapon Finesse should at least stand a chance of poking something that gets too close - AoO are good action economy. If your GM is amenable you could reflavour it as a "kelp spear." You could add a bit more of an investment by getting Combat Reflexes, Arcane Strike, and the Agile enhancement - but that's quite a bit more opportunity cost.
Slayer would do much the same, except that I think it's too melee-focused. So ranger remains my first choice.
Slayer is a bit more melee-focused than ranger, but not by much - mostly it's just easier to sneak attack in melee. Studied Target works at range, and you still get access to ranged combat feats. You have less issues with attribute dependency because Slayers use Int for save DCs - and you can take Weapon Finesse as a talent in case you want to improve your "melee backup" option without investing in Str or spending a feat.
Undine with the Amphibious alternate racial trait if you can; otherwise, half-elf with the Water Child alternate racial trait.
Gunslinger (bolt ace*) 5/magus (eldritch archer*, hexcrafter) X//witch
*- light crossbow, use an underwater version
I just realized that I never commented on your mindchemist idea (although I see that Weirdo already gave some good comments). There is a lot of synergy there. You don't gain much durability from it (though having all good saves is nice), and you don't gain much combat ability... bombs are nice though because they can account for most of your blasting which frees up some spells, and you have hexes you can use for control and debuffs which frees up even more spells. You'd get a lot of mileage out of cognatogen too because it'll up the DCs of hexes and spells as well as bomb damage. Medium BAB shouldn't be too big a challenge either since pretty much all of your attacks (bombs and spells) will be vs touch AC. Action economy will still be an issue- each round you'll have to pick one spell/extract or a bomb (eventual bombs, plural, if you take the fast bomb discovery) or a hex.
The biggest problem I see with this combo is the flavor... I haven't actually seen Moana yet but from the trailer/commercials it doesn't seem like the kind of setting where someone's going to be setting up a bunch of glass vials and chemicals and start carefully measuring and mixing? There are a couple of alchemist archetypes that are much more herbalism/nature oriented that could fit the flavor better but none of them (afaik) can be stacked with mindchemist. Still, if your GM/wife will let you reflavor alchemy as more of an herbalism thing it could be a pretty solid combo.
eventually the DM changed the campaign setting to a game of thrones style world, with a little higher magic content, and i settled as a human wildling from the north, with the racial heritage(orc)
my dm let me go scarred witch doctor with the first printing rules. also my other half is spell eater bloodrager,
starting game at level four
my alignment is leaning towards evil,
i picked the hedge witch and scarred witch doctor archtypes,
i am using 2h weapons mostly, greatsword, earth breaker and lucerne hammer to mix up some damage types.
bloodrager bloodline is abyssal
bloodrager spells chosen are bloodbath, and line in the sand isnt that good since my cha is 15. so im looking for another 1st level bloodrager spell to make the most nasty with.
first level witch spells chosen (up to change this list if offered smarter choices for my build)
beguiling gift
and i forgot the rest (cant find my notepad)
my second level witch spells are:
hold person
enemy's heart
sentry skull
vomit swarm
looking for fun and slightly optimal ideas, my ability scores are as follows:
str15
dex15
con20
int12
wis14
cha15
took the cauldron hex, so i can make potions and poisons and beguilers gift them to people. i can also keep on hand potions of cure, and otherwise, im happy with the choice,
of my 3 available feats i chose:
reverse-feint
extra hex (havent chosen)
toughness