Epic Gestalt Character Help

[MTGDad]

Hey folks, first time posting here, and I need some help please.

My Group is running an Evil lvl 25 Gestalt campaign.

The DM is going to drop us into random places, and essentaily let us either take over cities, or just kill everything.

The part constists of
 a druid shifter
A trunames
and a dread necromancer.

I have bounced around a few ideas, but everything so far seems underpowered, or unfun, or does nothing to help the group makeup

Im not looking for anythign super cheesy, all 3.5 books ar eopen, but no pathfinder.

I would appreciate any help or ideas in this, thanks in advance.

[Nytemare3701]

Sounds like you are going to be missing a lot of versatility since Dread Necro and Truenamer are both small-list casters, and unless the Truenamer is abusing the hell out of consumable recovery utterances and skull talismans, he's going to be pretty much useless at epic levels.

The go-to answer IMO is shadowcraft mage stapled to a cleric. You get full divine casting (which means full BAB due to Divine Power), Heavy armor proficiency if you want it (or you can just trade it out to be a cloistered cleric, AC is a trap by that point anyway unless you can jack your touch AC into the stratosphere), and still get spontaneous access to most of the Arcane Evocation/Conjuration list. Also, divine metamagic for all-day buffs from the arcane list. It's a character that can do almost anything, but usually not all at once, so you can just fill in the party gaps and keep the game going when it stalls out.

- Shadowcraft Mages get the ability to emulate conjuration (summoning or creation) and evocation spells by using [figment]-descriptor illusions (which become [shadow]), similar to the shadow conjuration and shadow evocation spells.
- The maximum level of the spell to be emulated is one lower than the level of the illusion used.
- Heighten Spell allows you to increase the effective level of a spell. Silent Image is allowed as one of the base spells for shadowcraft, so you can just heighten it to the correct level for the spell you actually want.
- Earth Spell allows you to Heighten a spell by one more than you normally could, which overcomes the -1 spell level penalty of shadow evocation/conjuration effects.

Used together, a SCM can effectively spontaneously cast anything shadow evocation/conjuration can create, using any spell slot, while also ignoring material and XP components, AND casting long-duration spells in a standard action.

Early entry into SCM using heighten and divine metamagic to get a 4th level shadow spell early from your shadow domain means you have a LOT of wiggle room, with even casual entry being something like Cleric5/SCM10/Another Prc10

If you use Domain Spontaneity you can spontaneously cast your illusions using any of your spell slots, or you can take a single level of Dweomerkeeper and choose Silent Image as your Mantle spell.  DK is MUCH better at it, since DS costs either a turn attempt or a higher spell slot.

Side note: if Dragon Magazine is included in "all 3.5 books", then the War Spells section in #309 has some hilarious options for shadowcraft mages. Stuff like a 25-target/level version of magic missile as a level 2 spell. Normally it costs 600gp in material components, requires a special feat, and takes a full minute to cast, but as a SCM you get to ignore all of that. 1 missile per target is absolute trash in epic, but the SPECTACLE is worth it.

[MTGDad]

So this is where i am atm build wise

Race- Tiefling
Build- warblade 17, enlightned fist 3, abjurant champion 5// wizard 1, monk 1, duskblade 13, enlightend fist 4, ???? 6

Not the actual progression, But this gives me lvl 9 maneuvers, lvl 9 spells, can turn ray spells into touch spells, and can apply a touch spell to every attack each round.

Im not sure on what to do with the last 6 lvls, but they need to increase caster lvl so I can get the lvl 9 spells.

Does this help some?  ANy ideas?

[KellKheraptis]

Few quick questions:
1) Are mythal seed epic spells on the table?  If so, game changer.
2) Are NODES on the table?  Also game changer.
3) Going for a gish?  Are you opposed to psionics, if so?
4) If keeping arcane, are you familiar with the Swiftblade?

I can break this wide open, especially at 25th level gestalt, if you're wanting something that can curbstomp deities when they take the kid gloves off (and do so 10 levels earlier at that, non-gestalt).  Just let me know how far down this rabbit hole you want/need to go

[MTGDad]

Few quick questions:
1) Are mythal seed epic spells on the table?  If so, game changer.
2) Are NODES on the table?  Also game changer.
3) Going for a gish?  Are you opposed to psionics, if so?
4) If keeping arcane, are you familiar with the Swiftblade?

I can break this wide open, especially at 25th level gestalt, if you're wanting something that can curbstomp deities when they take the kid gloves off (and do so 10 levels earlier at that, non-gestalt).  Just let me know how far down this rabbit hole you want/need to go

1. I mean yes, but we try not to go to much into that stuff, we know its broken, but if one toon severely outpaces the others then its not as much fun, so we tend to stay away.
2. Not gonna lie, dont even know what that is.
3. yes the goal is a gish, not opposed to psionics, never played one thoug.  But Im likign hte rough build i have, the ability to make 2 full attacks at full BAB with lvl 9 ray/touch spells attached to each attack seems super fun
4.  I have seen the swiftblade, is it worth the loss of caster levels?  with my current build, i could take 6 levels of it, which would only make me a lvl 15 caster.

I know the other toons int he party dont seem that broken, but i Know the players well, they will have them min maxed to the extreme. SO i want somethign that can compete, but not get overshadowed, or overshadow itself.

[Nytemare3701]

3. yes the goal is a gish, not opposed to psionics, never played one thoug.  But Im likign hte rough build i have, the ability to make 2 full attacks at full BAB with lvl 9 ray/touch spells attached to each attack seems super fun
4.  I have seen the swiftblade, is it worth the loss of caster levels?  with my current build, i could take 6 levels of it, which would only make me a lvl 15 caster.

I know the other toons int he party dont seem that broken, but i Know the players well, they will have them min maxed to the extreme. SO i want somethign that can compete, but not get overshadowed, or overshadow itself.

Where do you get the second full attack action from?

You are gestalt, you can just put normal class levels at 1/4/7/10 on the other side of your gestalt to ensure your spell levels don't tank. Also, you are level 25, you have some wiggle room while still getting level 9 spells.

I'm struggling to figure out what the other characters are doing here, since truenamer is (and I say this as a huge fan of truenamers) a terrible class with almost no potential for significant abuse beyond the skull talisman exploit, and unless the dread necromancer is going HARD into level draining or minionmancy, he's going to fall behind most other casters.

Can we get some sort of benchmarks for what you want to be able to to? It's hard to tell what "compete but not overshadow" means when we don't know if they are throwing around 15d8 or 150d8 for example. At level 25, a well-built martial character can be one-shotting GODS with minimal resource expenditure.

[MTGDad]

Where do you get the second full attack action from?

You are gestalt, you can just put normal class levels at 1/4/7/10 on the other side of your gestalt to ensure your spell levels don't tank. Also, you are level 25, you have some wiggle room while still getting level 9 spells.

I'm struggling to figure out what the other characters are doing here, since truenamer is (and I say this as a huge fan of truenamers) a terrible class with almost no potential for significant abuse beyond the skull talisman exploit, and unless the dread necromancer is going HARD into level draining or minionmancy, he's going to fall behind most other casters.

Can we get some sort of benchmarks for what you want to be able to to? It's hard to tell what "compete but not overshadow" means when we don't know if they are throwing around 15d8 or 150d8 for example. At level 25, a well-built martial character can be one-shotting GODS with minimal resource expenditure.

TIme Stands Still, the lvl 9 maneuver, gives me a second round full attack action.

I dont know everything but the dread necromance manceris dread necromancer//marshall, horned harbinger, palladin fo tyrnanny, dread master

The Shifter is a were bear monk/warblade/warshaper natures warrior master of nine

And i was wrong hes not a truenamer, hes wizard 5/malconvoker 9/ paragonstic apostle1/ thaumaturgist 5/master specialsit 5// binder 25

Not sure how much that helps.

[Nytemare3701]

I dont know everything but the dread necromance manceris dread necromancer//marshall, horned harbinger, palladin fo tyrnanny, dread master

The Shifter is a were bear monk/warblade/warshaper natures warrior master of nine

And i was wrong hes not a truenamer, hes wizard 5/malconvoker 9/ paragonstic apostle1/ thaumaturgist 5/master specialsit 5// binder 25

Not sure how much that helps.

Alright, so an army buffer/charisma caster, a natural attack specialist, and a summoner (who is probably your wildcard since summons come with big spell lists).

I'd suggest something that combines all 10 levels of swiftblade and psionics, so you can break action economy over your knee and push those 2 full attacks up to 3 or 4, or at least do multiple moves a the same time. If you can get Daze immunity, Celerity->Haste->Subsume haste for a time stop is a great way to interrupt ANYTHING.

Schism lets you take purely mental actions, and spells cast through it (with silent+still to make them purely mental) don't suffer CL penalties like powers would. You can also use Synchronicity to ready actions to happen as the time stop ends, including things like casting another time stop.

[Endarire]

Have you seriously considered getting your casting/manifesting stat to all or many things?

X to Y

[KellKheraptis]

Wizard 6/Swiftblade 9/Abjurant Champion 5|EPIC| Swiftblade +5 (4 levels of which are the epic progression)
Erudite 6/Thrallherd 10/Anarchic Initiate 4|EPIC| Thrallherd +5 (5 levels of which are epic progression)

AFB but I believe you can get into Thrallherd at level 6 even (and likely earlier with the right early entry shenanigans).  This gives you an always replenishing army, access to free rewritable pillagable cohorts, endless possible additional abilities to subsume via Fusion, and even unbuffed, virtually unassailable defense in the form of always-on action economy rapage detailed above.  Furthermore, you can literally sacrifice thralls for XP if you want to Psy-ref item creation feats (using their XP even for the casting) for any item you can muster the CL/ML for at basically no cost, including Psychic Psurgery to grab every power ever known.  Spells, same way, only even easier, as you just recycle cohorts until you've learned every spell in the game.  Theoretically, every spell and power exists as an arcane spell and a power with the right thralls, so you'll have some nice redundancy as well.

Don't forget to include a high-powered metaconcert in your mythal, and don't forget to include a planar bubble to a mutable time trait plane (such as a demiplane you've created akin to one of the more insane ones from Eberron, with 20-1 turn ration or something insane), and THEN put your Node there.

Last but not least, don't forget to pillage feats from your psicrystal and/or thralls and/or familiar(s).

This guy is the epitome of versatility, and also EXTREMELY easy to skyrocket into absolutely untouchable territory.  There is a reason the next build behind Pun-pun uses Thrallherd to acquire the same power, albeit not as quickly and without eating brains.