Protection of Another

[Ramaloke]

So I am in a game where I play a Matron Mother for a drow house, the idea of the game was that each house would have two champions to support the matron mother, well one of my houses players flaked and now I have to come up with an NPC to shore up my house.

Im looking for an interesting melee build to protect the matron mother. The game is level 14 gestalt, 32 point buy, money appropriate for the level with the caveat that anything below 15k is free due to a "wish based economy".

Any ideas? So far Ive got just a strait melee bruiser with levels of hexblade, blackguard, and paladin of tyranny for 3x cha to save and then on the other side some undead template with tons of evolved undead.

[PhaedrusXY]

The special ability of the Ardent Guardian mantle is interesting for a bodyguard type of character. As an immediate action, you can take the damage of an attack against an adjacent ally. I have a few different versions of Ardent-based "bodyguard" builds here, but they only go up to around 7th level (because that's what level I was playing one at).

Share Pain + a psicrystal + Linked Power + Vigor + Hustle + Psionic Meditation will let you grant yourself a ton of temporary hit points every round as a swift action.

[woodenbandman]

^I made a 15th level Psychic Warrior/Crusader that might be applicable for half of your gestalt. Link to the character is here: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=128292 To downgrade, just drop the monk level. Alternately, drop one other level, and take tashalatora.

Basic idea is that this guy never ever dies. He works best as an Elan, but he can work as any race. He just soaks up a ton of damage every round. Here's a round by round:

First of the day, get some Claws of the Beast, Share Pain with your Psicrystal. Before going into danger, use Thicken Skin and Emphatic Feedback

Link power Expansion + Grip of Iron, for a huge boost to grapple check, link power Hustle to Strength of my Enemy. Somewhere in there, put on Claws of the Vampire, possibly on round two linked to a hustle.

Next round, you have a ton of grapple check. So use it. One enemy (unless freedom of movement) is out of the combat (I suggest you add in Scorpion's Grasp to get improved grab, this one doesn't have it because it was built with limited splats), and the others may want to attack you. The first enemy just plain can't hit you, and the other ones probably do hit you. You have delayed damage pool 5 or 10 (I forget) and stone power. So that's 10hp/round healed. You've got improved Elan Resistance, so you can pay 1 pp to negate 4 damage. You have Biofeedback for damage reduction. All of this is halved and sent to your psicrystal, by the way. Be sure that you periodically activate a stone of, like, body adjustment, or something, so that your psicrystal doesn't die.

Also you do a decent ability to do the "Lockdown" thing. You've got Iron Guard's Glare, Thicket of Blades, and Crushing Weight of the Mountain (for constrict), and Stand Still. This guy's job is to control the battlefield, get targeted, and take damage so other people don't have to.

Strength of my Enemy is also cool, because the more you grapple, the lower your enemy's strength gets.

Cool trick # 1: Psycarnum Infusion + Azure Talent = free power points, during any time you have downtime. You get 8 power points for expending your psionic focus (10 with improved essentia capacity), which you use to manifest your all-day buffs.

Edits to hack in to this character: replace some of the Illithid grapple feats with, say, Scorpion's Grasp. This lowers the HP a bit, due to loss of psionic feats to power psionic body, but you'll overall have a better damage output due to gaining improved grab, meaning you can dish damage with the claws and begin the grapple in the same action. Superior Unarmed Strike is not necessary, because you have constrict for 2d6 (this really should increase by size, check with DM), +1 1/2 Strength Bonus.

I dunno what you'd wanna gestalt this guy with. An option would be to move the ToB all to one side, giving you full BAB, full initiator progression, and all that jazz. If you go with that, you may actually be better off with Wilder or Psion on one side, because you get full manifesting to dump more into your Elan Resiliance, but the problem is that a lot of powers are Psiwar exclusive. PsiWar//Crusader/Warblade could work. Maybe add in a level of monk onto your psiwar and go Tashalatora.