On one side of this gestalt build is a witch with the Winter Witch and Ashtifah archetypes, later going into the Winter Witch prestige class.
Eventually, this will turn you into a full arcane caster specialised in cold spells with the ability to tear through cold resistance and immunity.
To pursue my idea you take this hex-
Frozen Caress (Su) Whenever the winter witch casts a touch spell, she can infuse the magic with cold as a swift action. This grants the spell the cold descriptor, and adds 1d4 points of cold damage to the spell’s effect. If the touch spell allows a saving throw, a successful save negates this additional cold damage.
You get this ability at level 2-
Ghostwalk (Su): Starting at 2nd level, as a move action after using a hex, an ashiftah can become invisible as per vanishAPG and can then take a 5-foot step. Using ghostwalk doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.
This ability replaces the hex gained at 2nd level.
And you take this feat, the hex being Slumber.
Hex Strike (Combat)
Chanting and cursing, you put a hex on your enemy as part of your unarmed strike.
Prerequisite: Hex class feature, Improved Unarmed Strike.
Benefit: When you gain this feat, choose one hex that you can use to affect no more than one opponent. If you make a successful unarmed strike against an opponent, in addition to dealing your unarmed strike damage, you can use a swift action to deliver the effects of the chosen hex to that opponent. Doing so does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you take it, you apply it to a different qualifying hex.
On the other side, you take 4 levels of Slayer, Executioner Archetype. And one level of Magus, Esoteric Archetype. This gives you spell strike on unarmed strikes from one level of magus, which reads-
Spellstrike (Su)
[See FAQ]
At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon’s critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifier.
At level 4 Executioner gives you-
Painful Strike* (Ex): At 4th level, a Sczarni executioner automatically gains this talent. Sczarni executioners are trained to cause excruciating pain when striking targets, often leaving them reeling in agony or completely incapacitated as they slowly bleed out. A creature that takes sneak attack damage from a Sczarni executioner must make a successful a Fortitude save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the Sczarni executioner’s class level + his Intelligence modifier) or become sickened for 1d4 rounds. This ability alters the slayer talent received at 4th level and replaces swift tracker.
For race, you want one with a good int and natural attacks. Suitable is a Changeling with the Witchborn and Kitsune Parentage alternative racial Traits.
On a 25 point build that will give your character-
Str 14
Dex 14
Con 12
Wis 10
Int 18
Cha 12
With 2 claws and one bite all doing 1d4 + str mod.
Now how this is intended to work.
First sneak up on an enemy and study them for studied target using ghostwalk. Say you are level 5 and your target is a humanoid.
You then as a standard action cast a touch spell, say touch of blindness. You then add frozen caress as a swift action and hex strike as a move action. Then belt the target.
The effect will be-
1d4 bite damage
+2 from str
+3 from studied target
1d6 precision damage
And the target must save vs blindness for 1 round plus 1d4 cold damage, then make a second save against being put to sleep for 5 rounds and finally a third save vs painful strike or be sickened for 1d4 rounds.
You have 5 rounds of touch of blindness in total, 4 more. In these rounds you can make full attack actions which will be 3 attacks as above without the precision damage and slumber hex.
This should be enough to allow people to see what the character is intended to do.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
That sounds really annoying to play at an actual table. No idea if it works as intended.
I think you mean by "really annoying" too effective. You may well be right.
As to does it work as intended I am pretty sure about most of it.
To sneak up on an enemy using ghostwalk you first need to use a hex. There are hexes you can use without targeting an enemy, but you probably do want to make sure you have one of them.
Hex strike requires a swift action. Move actions are not normally fungible with swift actions, though there's a corset which lets you do so 1/day. Of course std attack, swift caress, move ghostwalk again is viable.
I think you're going to break the game. Gestalt characters are already powerful enough that munchkin'ing your character with multiclass dips isn't necessary, and your GM is going to consider nuking you from orbit every time he has to make 3 saves whenever you attack, so my suggestion would be that you come up with something else that's equally effective and 3 notches less annoying for your GM, because only the gods know how annoying this is going to be levels 10+. I'm currently running a lvl 15 Gestalt campaign with 5 PC's, and I'm about 1.5 years into it already, and I can't imagine having to do combat making 3 saves every time someone attacks.
1 round of combat in Gestalt takes about a month already, it's much longer and harder to get through than a normal PF game because PC's have many more options to consider and more effects happening, and, since everyone is Gestalt, there's no possible way to challenge a group of Gestalts without a small army of enemies who all need to take their turns too. And your build is purposefully full of lots of effects happening, and each one of your DC's are different, so slogging through the math of all your attacks and saves is going to bring your combat down to a crawl.
TLDR: Do something else that is equally effective but more time efficient in combat.
To sneak up on an enemy using ghostwalk you first need to use a hex. There are hexes you can use without targeting an enemy, but you probably do want to make sure you have one of them.
I know I just didn't type it. Another Ashtifah character I play uses cackle for that purpose, even when I have hex up to extend. This build is rather short of hexes early as the 2 archetypes eat a number of early hexes.
Hex strike requires a swift action. Move actions are not normally fungible with swift actions, though there's a corset which lets you do so 1/day. Of course std attack, swift caress, move ghostwalk again is viable.
I am not 100% sure what you are saying here.
"Of course std attack, swift caress, move ghostwalk again is viable."
I don't think so. I believe the wording of frozen caress reqires the ability to be used as the touch spell is cast.
I can go spell combat, touch attack spell and attack at -2, swift caress, then move ghostwalk.
Also I think I can go full attack action when I have a touch spell up and then swift action hex strike, adding the hex to one attack.
@Ryze Kuja]I already said the build may be too effective.
Permit this evil genius to at least dream up characters of limitless power and gloat at length about doing so, if not to actually play them.
Such a character would be a gross pain in your gestalt campaign. The gestalt campaign I am in only has 2 PCs. We both have dips into more than 2 classes. Turns take forever, but that isn't due to the PCs. It is way of the wicked and there are many foes. So we have recruited allies and minions bolster our strength,so it is a multitude vs another multitude.
It is up to the GM what they consider an acceptable character, and I would tell an innocent GM what this build is intended to do.
Controlling excessive PC power is something all GMs think they do. But many fail to do so sensibly and consistently.
And players can be very subjective about such things, and I don't mean you Ryze Kuja. If I do it it is good character design, if
you do it it is gross power gaming.
And finally, you realise I can eventually add a save vs assassinate?
Actions. Spell combat requires a full round action, casting a touch spell without spell combat requires a standard action (with or without spellstrike), hex strike requires a swift action, frozen caress also requires a swift action, ghostwalk requires a move action.
You can't do hex strike and frozen caress in the same round as they both require a swift action. You can't trade a move action in to get a second swift action normally.
You can't do spell combat and ghostwalk in the same round as spell combat takes both your standard and move actions, ghostwalk requires a move action.
Is that any clearer?
Yes, it is clearer.
And thanks, you have pointed out a couple of things I was wrong about, being-
Spell combat requires a full round action
and
You can't trade a move action in to get a second swift action normally.