Greetings folks,
I have played D&D in it's various manifestations for years but this is only my second real attempt at a gestalt character and I would be very grateful for some assistance if you have the time 
I am not so much interested in min/maxing as not doing anything really stupid . We have some very lenient rules for creation and it is almost too much for me to keep up with.
*Use ONLY allowed sources. Requests otherwise will be rejected, no negotiations. Books subject to GM approval
will have to be requested on a case by case, item by item basis. Do not assume if a book is allowed but restricted,
that that is the same as fully open.
*40 point buy
*Double standard (1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18) feats. Bonus feats are not doubled.
*Whenever you gain an ability score boost (4, 8, 12, 16, 20) two (instead of one) abilities go up by 1.
*Two extra skill points per level. Eight bonus for first level.
*Limit yourself in mundane items that would be cumbersome. If you're carrying a ladder on your back, and wooden
chest on your back you may be strong enough to carry it but you'll be cumbersome. Carrying load is a loose guide
line. You will suffer the penalty for having too much, but may be penalized if what you carry may be perceived as
cumbersome even if in medium load. If you want big and clunky items, feel free to get them. Just be prepared to
have to divest them, or take a bag of Holding and remove the problem all together.
*Racial and Class bonus languages will be enforced.
*Races must be ECL +0. No exceptions. NO! Do NOT ask if you can play something with a ECL +1 or greater.
Templates may be assigned in game at no penalty for special award for exceptional roleplaying. Must be from
allowed sources. Dragonborn MAY be allowed if you get it approved.
*Prestige classes MAY be taken simultaneously. But each side must meet prerequisites independently pertaining
to class derived requirements. Meaning if you take Monk on side A, and Fighter on Side B. Your Drunken master
MUST be on the Monk side, since you need flurry of blows and evasion. No class crunching! You can't take the same
class or PrC on two sides to maximize your class choices. I'm already being generous.
*No evil alignment. I'm sorry, but this isn't the game for it. You may be neutral. If you are you should be prepared to
fight for the good cause, and at the very least not have evil tendencies.
*Alignment requirements for classes are loose. You can be a barbarian//monk if you can pitch it to me. The names
of the classes are purely for labels. A knight-like character could be any number of classes (Paladin, Fighter, Knight,
Samurai). You can have western brawlers that manifest as the monk class with respective manifestations of powers.
You cannot however be a blackguard with an undead and be good. Just check with me. I've found the argument "it's
for balance" to be ridiculous. It's for flavor and theme. Some requirements do make sense and I will adhere to. Many
will be only loose with some play allowed.
*MAX HP at all levels.
*Fractional BAB (Base Attack Bonus) and Saves. (Meaning you don't just add the bases together. I'll explain if needed)
*Staring level 13
*Starting gold is 110,000. No epic items. You also get 35,000 gp worth of mundane supplies. If you come down to the
wire you can use this gold to buy the mundane components of magical gear. This extra 35,000 is intended for a house,
or jewelry, or trained beast, or other defining accoutrement.
So, what I have been thinking of:
Race: Elf (because it was one of the legion options - we are commanders of a legion)
Weapons: Lance, Cutlass, Bow
Armour: Mithril Scale
Mount: Celestial Unicorn
Paladin of Freedom 10/Wild Plains Outrider 3 // Bard 10/Sublime Chord 2/Virtuoso
Feats: Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Battle Casting, Skill Focus: Concentration, Skill Focus: Cutlass
I welcome thoughts and suggestions on better choices (for everything but race - she is an elf) as there is SO much to go through at these kinds of levels - I see her as a powerhouse mounted and still good with spells/buffing.
Thank you very kindly for your assistance
You probably want to skip Virtuoso unless you can cram it in before Sublime Chord. You can qualify for it at Bard 7, Bard 8 or even 9 being an OK break point. I'm personally not a giant fan of the PRC at all, but it isn't horrible. Taking your first level in it before adding Sublime Chord allows you to still get level 9 spells out of Sublime Chord eventually.
Your primary issue here is that you've got Active/Active classes. Paladin brings a fair bit of passive stuff to the game, defensively, but it's nothing to write home about. Bard, especially as a Sublime Chord who is going to focus on casting a lot of powerful spells will have you wanting to, well cast spells. The Paladin side wants to be in melee, hitting people. You can't do both at once really, you'll have to do one or the other, each turn. So then what?
I suggest finding a nice medium of the concept. Stick with just Bard, maybe even go Dread Pirate on the Paladin side (no class feature reqs from Bard, so you can by this house rule). You'll have to spend one round starting your Inspiration, but after that it's all gravy. You can go melee, or even use a Bow just fine for lots of damage.
For feats look into Song of the Heart, Words of Creation and maybe even the Dragonfire Inspiration feat and Dragonblood feats required to get it.
Hope this helps. I'd say more probably but I don't know what books are allowed and or specifically disallowed.
Thank you kindly Andarious! I had thought the two sides (spellcasting vs melee) would simply be as options for her and dependent on the situation.
I will definitely switch about the Virtuoso/Sublime Chord. Will go read up on Dread Pirate too
Duh - guess the source list would help
Open Sources
*PHB
*DMG
*Complete Warrior
*Complete Divine
*Complete Arcane
*Complete Adventurer
*Magic Item Compendium
*PHB 2
*Spell Compendium
Restricted Sources. Case by case basis. Do not assume to you can use it from cover to cover. Ask before assuming something.
*MM1
*Complete Mage
*Complete Champion
*Complete Scoundrel
*Arms & Equipment (Most of the mundane equipment will be approved, as well as wondrous items. Past that it's likely NOT to be approved)
*Races of Stone (Pretty much only Feats, PrCs, Racial Substitution entries will even be considered)
*Races of the Wild (Pretty much only Feats, PrCs, Racial Substitution, and equipment entries will even be considered)
*Races of Dragon (Pretty much only Feats, PrCs, Racial Substitution, and equipment entries will even be considered. And dragonborn)
*Races of Destiny (Pretty much only Feats, PrCs, Racial Substitution, and equipment (if there are any) entries will even be considered)
*Book of Exalted Deeds. (Only a few vows, including vow of Poverty, will even exist. Drug use and sexual content are irrelevant. Some PrCs are fine. Feats other than vows will probably be fine. Magic items will not be allowed. What ones are allowed are in MIC anyway.)
*Unearthed Arcana (Pretty much only the Gestalt system, and class variants such as paladin of freedom, or Druid with monk-like unarmored AC, and Speed. Most of the rest will be denied.)
*A very select few Dragon and Dungeon Magazine articles.
*Heroes of Battle (mostly for spells and certain feats)
*Draconomicon (mostly for dragon feats, but also for cohorts and paladin mounts)
*Monster Manual V (Mostly for polymorphing forms)
Thanks again!
With a smile,
Chantrea
The thing with gestalt isn't so much the options - you're still held in check by your available actions. The dirty secret of melee/spellcasting builds is that in most cases, on any given round, they can only swing their sword or cast a spell, not both, and on those rounds they may as well just be melee or spellcasters. This is why most melee/casting non-gestalts use long-duration buffs or quick-cast effects - they let them apply their magical talents on the same round that they swing a sword. You see this mentality as the books get younger: more and more characters got swift-action effects, several of those swift-action effects were spells expressly designed for fighting mages, and eventually it culminated in things like the Duskblade and the Tome of Battle classes (the former seamlessly putting spellcasting and fighting together (where its biggest shortcoming was its overemphasis on damage, rather than anything inherently bad about its overall design) and the latter extending the action economy management into melee classes).
In gestalt, when we say "active" and "passive", we refer to that same sort of mentality: An Active ability requires your actions to use, while a Passive ability does not. Normally, having passive abilities is something that just "happens" for an existing class (much as the warrior Paladin gets Divine Grace), but in Gestalt, you can directly build for it. Passive abilities that are useful but not terribly satisfying become go-to abilities, because you can pick them up with one of your gestalt classes while using the other to get more effective active abilities. The classic example is dipping Marshal for auras - marshal is a terribly unsatisfying class to play even though it can provide killer numeric advantages, but in gestalt, you grab another Charisma-centric active class (paladin, binder, warlock, bard, wilder, sorcerer, whatever) on the other "side" of every marshal level, and things just go a lot smoother.
Inspire Courage is mostly passive - since once triggered it lasts more or less forever, but it also eats up your voice, so you don't generally trigger it until battle... and it's usually a standard action in battle. (There are ways to speed it up, but they're not on the allowed book lists.) So the choice here is to find ways to make the round where you start singing count - either by attacking using a swift action, or by using the rest of your turn to make sure that Inspire Courage is a truly epic performance. (A wand of Inspirational Boost from the Spell Compendium and a Badge of Valor from one of the sets in the Magic Item Compendium are the usual starting points on your guaranteed book list.)
Also, a minor quibble, but your DM is not actually using gestalt. There are no "sides" in gestalt. What you're doing is basically building two characters (complete with doubled-up primary feats) and then fusing them together so long as those characters don't have overlapping classes. This alters things a bit.
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
Chantrea wrote: