21st level gestalt game.

[edwin1993]

ok my party is going to be starting a 21st level gestalt campaign. the dm is starting us as half dragons and theres only one of each kind. so far we have 3 player's one is a human half time dragon psion (nomad)/monk who specializes in moving around in combat attacking multiple foes, a human half battle dragon swashbuckler/fighter who is also movement based. and then theres me i originally was going to go elf half shadow dragon swordsage 21/fighter 21 focusing on tiger claw maneuvers and also being a movement based character until we each told each other our builds. now im trying to think of another build so we are not all bringing melee specialists to the table. my rolls 4d6 reroll 1's are after levels and magic are 28, 22, 20, 18, 18, 16 i know the psion monk is able to get 20 attacks in 1 round the swashbuckler fighter is around 14 and my original build is 15 with using raging mongoose boost. were allowed leadership so if i had a cohort what would fit the party mock up.

[DarkSoul]

Why wouldn't you just go some flavor of wizard on one side and cleric on the other?

[Draconium]

Why wouldn't you just go some flavor of wizard on one side and cleric on the other?

Adding to this: Instead of Cleric, why not Archivist? Take Academic Priest at 1st level, so your bonus divine spells are based off Intelligence (and making that the only ability score you base off of), and you can now pick spells from the Wizard/Sorcerer and Cleric lists, and you can research and add spells from any divine lists as well.

[Denomar]

Before answering. What sort of things do you typically like doing in D&D? I see no point in naming class pairs if they're going to specialize in activities you don't really enjoy.

[ExLibrisMortis]

How about a mailman? Something like: Human cloistered cleric of Mystra 3/Factotum 18//Wizard 5/Incantatrix 3/Halruaan Elder 3/Dweomerkeeper 10, taking another level of Halruaan Elder at 22, then continuing into Incantatrix. Domains: Knowledge, Magic, Rune. Pick orb of acid as your signature spell (level 10), and pick a nice set of action-economy spells for your mantle (levels 12, 14, 16, 18, 20).

Feats:
1) Halruaan Adept (Halruaan Elder qualification)
1) Scribe Scroll (Dweomerkeeper/Halruaan Elder qualification, cleric bonus feat)
1) Improved Initiative (Wizard bonus feat)
1) Knowledge Devotion (Cleric bonus feat)
1) Extend Spell (Flaw)
1) Persistent Spell (Flaw)
3) Empower Spell (Incantatrix qualification)
3-5) Iron Will (Incantatrix qualification, Otyugh Hole)
6) Twin Spell (Incantatrix bonus feat)
6) Spell Thematics (Halruaan Elder qualification)
9) Initiate of Mystra
12) Practical Metamagic (Twin Spell)
15) Arcane Thesis (orb of acid)
18) Maximize Spell
21) Enhance Spell
23) ... (Incantatrix bonus feat)
24) ...
26) ... (Incantatrix bonus feat)
27) Improved Metamagic
29) ... (Incantatrix bonus feat)

You can also get a metamagic feat from Wizard 5, but I'm assuming you take Spontaneous Divination instead. Epic Spellcasting is mighty broken, I don't recommend it. Other good feats include Divine Defiance and Energy Substitution + Energy Admixture.

The general idea is that you cast a twinned empowered maximized enhanced orb of acid, as a 4 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 2 = 9th-level spell. That should deal 2*(150 + 0.5*(25d6)) damage, or an average of 387.5. With Initiate of Mystra, you can cast this (and other things) in an antimagic field. From level 22 onwards, it's an 8th-level spell, thanks to Adroit Casting for Enhance. At level 27, you can cast it as 5th, with Improved Metamagic (4 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0), and at level 29, as 4th, because you get five metamagic reducers on Twin Spell (Dweomerkeeper 10, Incantatrix 10, Arcane Thesis, Practical Metamagic, Improved Metamagic).

Intensify Spell does not work with Empower + Maximize. It's better than the pair, of course, but it's much harder to reduce the cost. I'd go with Admixture instead of Intensify.

[edwin1993]

i mainly am put in the scouting/ main tank place at the table. i dont play casters often due to the fact one dm has purposely had my character get stolen from as a spell caster. last session my wizard in another campaign died due to the fact the dm before combat while we were in town had a rogue steal my spell component pouch he had been targeting him for a while

[Demidos]

It seems you guys are all staying away from casters--probably a good idea, since one caster with a bunch of melee is probably a poor idea. On the other hand, you want a non-melee brute. Why not a rogue of some sort? Factotum 21/Warlock or Binder 21? Not likely to break the game or make your allies feel bad about themselves. Alternately, swap Factotum for bard to make them even more awesome!

[Draconium]

If you want to stay away from fullcasters, I recommend having something like Warlock on one side -Warlock's not super-dependant on any one stat, since they can pick up plenty of no-save invocations. As for the other side... That's pretty much up to you. If you guys use Tome of Battle, I'd recommend one of those classes, as they're usually pretty fun for melee.

[Denomar]

While I think its another issue entirely. I think you need to talk to your dm. If you feel that your dm is targeting you than that's a problem. The Dm is supposed to challenge you. Not make you feel like he's after you because you're playing a wizard.

So, if you are going to play the tank than you want to get the enemies attention and not die. That means something that rewards you for high con and heavy disruption. I say disruption because in 3.5 you get aggro by being annoying enough, and perceived as enough of a threat that the dm decides that they have reason to attack you over someone else. That...usually means magic.

If you are going to play the "scout" than you want to be able move unseen, Which typically takes the darkstalker feat and a high dexterity/hide in plain sight kind of stuff. Or the ability to remotely gather enough information about what you are getting into to form a plan before combat breaks out.

So, to recap. You don't want to play a full casting class (either because other members of the group don't like it when you do. Which is dumb and shouldn't be relevant to how you enjoy the game. Or, you don't want to deal with annoying complex characters (Also fine, I usually fall into that boat myself). You are being voluntold into a position at the table that I don't know whether you actually enjoy or not. All of this points to an underlying discomfort at your game table. So I can make a couple suggestions about how to make a usable character but I can't really answer whether you're going to enjoy playing it.

I am going to recommend a Bard//Warlock. There's a few reasons.

Firstly, Bards give you a lot of class skills that can help you do lots of interesting things when you are not in combat. You get to be the encyclopedia of the group if you'd like too. Further, you are a Half Dragon which means you should easily qualify for Dragonfire Inspiration. Bringing that side of your gestalt into something like seeker of the song means that your first turn of combat is probably dropping a dual music echoing song that uses dragonfire inspiration and inspire courage to give some hefty bonuses to your primarily physical damage party. Enjoy being a large part of the reason why everyone annihilates the opposition in short order. Your party feels strong and awesome, and you know its because of you. You have some spells that you will probably want to sink into divination spells which you can use to scry into dungeons and therefore be a scout. Your spells are keyed of your charisma which is also a benefit to be the voice of the party if necessary. You also have use magic device, and probably a high charisma so you have the option to take wands and scrolls of spells that you think would be useful. More on this later.

Secondly, Warlock is a super low maintenance class. It doesn't do a lot of damage necessarily, but it makes up in reliability what it loses in flexibility. My suggestion is, you are not going out there to try and optimize eldritch blast, that is one dimensional and your party is already primarily composed of people playing the hammer. Instead with your high charisma you have reasons to take blast essences and invocations that force saves. You aim to be disruptive. Which means your most common invocation cast is probably going to be black tentacles, disrupting as many things as you can and helping your party once again beat people up but good.

In order to stay alive you are going to want to use Mirror Image and Displacement. You've got 21st level so these spells should last long enough to get through most of your engagements on a given day (if your combats are going to 21 rounds than that's impressive). Supplement this with darkness invocations, shatter's and other stuff to do your best to make the enemy want to hurt you. Than keep a record of how many enemies you face have true sight. If its 90% your dm is a jerk and there's nothing I can do for you.

Since you are epic I'd highly recommend aiming for Shadowmaster if all else fails. Give your party some shadow fiendish tyrannosaurus mounts every few encounters and I'm sure everyone will have a good time.

So you're a half shadow dragon rock god invested with the powers of darkness and a voice that makes the universe wanna check you out. Sounds like fun to me.

[AvatarVecna]

Alternatively, if you're open to some slightly weird builds, here's an interesting pairing: Swift Hunter//Bardblade (or Bardsader), who combines Slippers of Battledancing, Snowflake Wardance, Swift Hunter super-skirmish, continuous Wraithstrike, dual-wielding, and a barbarian dip for pouncing into a super-fast, super-powerful offense that gets double cha to attack Touch AC, Cha to damage, skirmish, bardic inspiration for either attack or damage bonuses, Bard casting, and maneuvers. You can also dip Paladin for Cha to saves, or Swordsage with Ascetic Mage for Cha to AC.

[ExLibrisMortis]

i mainly am put in the scouting/ main tank place at the table. i dont play casters often due to the fact one dm has purposely had my character get stolen from as a spell caster. last session my wizard in another campaign died due to the fact the dm before combat while we were in town had a rogue steal my spell component pouch he had been targeting him for a while

In that case, trade away your familiar for the Eidetic wizard ACF, and take Eschew Materials. You do lose Improved Initiative, and one other feat, but you're pretty much guaranteed to have spellcasting, no matter what.

That said, if you simply don't like to play spellcasters, then don't go for one, of course.

[DarkSoul]

Take Eschew Materials early, and Ignore Material Components for your level 21 feat. 10 levels of Incantatrix or Dweomerkeeper will replace your epic feat you spend on IMC, and give you 10 levels of awesomeness each. Incantatrix slightly more so, considering it can make better use of Improved Metamagic. With Ignore Material Components you only need to worry about focuses, not material components, no matter how expensive they might be. True Resurrection without having to spend 25k on diamonds per casting will be a big help at epic levels.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Take Eschew Materials early, and Ignore Material Components for your level 21 feat. 10 levels of Incantatrix or Dweomerkeeper will replace your epic feat you spend on IMC, and give you 10 levels of awesomeness each. Incantatrix slightly more so, considering it can make better use of Improved Metamagic. With Ignore Material Components you only need to worry about focuses, not material components, no matter how expensive they might be. True Resurrection without having to spend 25k on diamonds per casting will be a big help at epic levels.

I don't think IMC is going to be very useful, because Dweomerkeeper already grants Supernatural Spell, for those rare expensive spells. That doesn't normally help true resurrection any, due to the casting time, but if you really want to bring someone back, you can use a supernatural wish instead.

Ten levels each of Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper won't 'replace' Improved Metamagic, because there are plenty of worthwhile +4 or higher metamagics (Quicken, Admixture, Twin, Enhance, Persist, perhaps Intensify) that benefit from IM.

[DarkSoul]

I don't think IMC is going to be very useful, because Dweomerkeeper already grants Supernatural Spell, for those rare expensive spells. That doesn't normally help true resurrection any, due to the casting time, but if you really want to bring someone back, you can use a supernatural wish instead.

Ten levels each of Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper won't 'replace' Improved Metamagic, because there are plenty of worthwhile +4 or higher metamagics (Quicken, Admixture, Twin, Enhance, Persist, perhaps Intensify) that benefit from IM.

It's not replacing Improved Metamagic. Incantatrix 10 and Dweomerkeeper 10 both give you Improved Metamagic as a class ability that exactly duplicates the epic feat. It's giving you the equivalent of an epic feat (six levels earlier than the actual feat) to replace the one the OP would spend on Ignore Material Components, which I only suggested in response to the reservations about playing a caster because the DM steals their component pouch.

[Aleolus]

If I might throw out a different idea, how about a Rogue/Incarnate? The Rogue side gives plenty of damage output so you. an keep up with your teammates, while the Incarnate side gives enough flexibility to be able to tackle almost any challenge. The best part, though, is that thanks to Rapid Meldshaping, you can adapt in the field!

[ExLibrisMortis]

It's not replacing Improved Metamagic. Incantatrix 10 and Dweomerkeeper 10 both give you Improved Metamagic as a class ability that exactly duplicates the epic feat. It's giving you the equivalent of an epic feat (six levels earlier than the actual feat) to replace the one the OP would spend on Ignore Material Components, which I only suggested in response to the reservations about playing a caster because the DM steals their component pouch.

You're not really saving a feat, are you? You're taking a level, which gives you an ability, and completely unrelated to that, you're spending a feat on IMC, which could also be IMM, instead. Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper are irrelevant to the whole 'I need another feat for IMC' problem, because they don't solve your metamagic problems - you still need IMM for that.

In other words: my sample build uses Dweomerkeeper 10 and Incantatrix 10, so you can't save a feat by counting those levels as equivalent to epic feats. They're already included. I did happen to forget to assign the human bonus feat, for some reason.

On an unrelated (but interesting) note: the class abilities are not duplicating the feat. Improved Metamagic and Cloak of Mysteries are both (Su) abilities, which IMM is not. That means that if you try to cast something with Initiate of Mystra, IMM still works, but the other abilities do not.

[DarkSoul]

You're not really saving a feat, are you? You're taking a level, which gives you an ability, and completely unrelated to that, you're spending a feat on IMC, which could also be IMM, instead. Incantatrix and Dweomerkeeper are irrelevant to the whole 'I need another feat for IMC' problem, because they don't solve your metamagic problems - you still need IMM for that.

In other words: my sample build uses Dweomerkeeper 10 and Incantatrix 10, so you can't save a feat by counting those levels as equivalent to epic feats. They're already included. I did happen to forget to assign the human bonus feat, for some reason.

On an unrelated (but interesting) note: the class abilities are not duplicating the feat. Improved Metamagic and Cloak of Mysteries are both (Su) abilities, which IMM is not. That means that if you try to cast something with Initiate of Mystra, IMM still works, but the other abilities do not.

At no point did I try to "save" a feat in my recommendations. The OP simply stated that their aversion to casters comes from the fact that they get their spell component pouch stolen. I provided a solution to that, while recommending either of the prestige classes to grant an epic-equivalent ability to make up for the fact that they spent their one epic feat on what I consider a useless feat, but a necessary one in their particular situation. Ideally the character would have IMM and both Dweomerkeeper 10 and Incantatrix 10. I agree with you completely on that. Given that we don't know how long the game will last, getting one of those abilities early allows for some flexibility in choosing their level 21 feat.

Also, no the feat you're spending on IMC cannot be IMM. Improved Metamagic can't be taken before level 27. This is a level 21 character.

The end result of Improved Metamagic and Cloak of Mysteries are both identical to the feat, and the fact that they're supernatural abilities is completely irrelevant unless the character prepares their spells inside an anti-magic field for some reason. If your DM decides that being inside an AMF and casting a spell via Initiate of Mystra suddenly causes all the metamagic feats you used when you prepared your spells hours prior to go up a spell level or two each... well that's a completely separate issue that needs to be worked out. In that situation I'd ask to either consider the class abilities extraordinary or ask to choose a different feat than Initiate of Mystra, because clearly the character concept was flawed from the outset in the DM's game. As a DM in that situation, I'd probably hit myself with a book before the player had a chance to do it, for making such a ruling. By that logic your own recommendation doesn't work, because suddenly all the feats you applied to the orb of acid go up at least one spell level if you try casting inside your AMF. So, again, (Su) status is irrelevant and I'm not sure why you brought it up.

For the OP's situation, Ignore Material Components would solve his stolen spell pouch problem, while Incantatrix or Dweomerkeeper 10 would provide a suitably-powerful ability. IMC works on 72 sorc/wiz spells between the PHB and the Spell Compendium. I didn't look at the divine lists to see how many it applied to there, but it's definitely a non-zero number. IMC is far from an optimal choice; I'll be the first one to say that. If the OP decides to play a caster, though, it's worth considering to address their problem.