Twin brother villains

[Elvenoutrider]

Playgrounders. I am designing a spelljammer campaign based on my player's backstories. My player has revealed that his character has twin brothers I would like to exploit. Anyone have any suggestions for class combinations that would be truly memorable for a pair of twins. I have a week to prep and I'm not feeling particularly inspired

[(Un)Inspired]

Archivist and Wizard, the Elric Brothers!

[Red Fel]

For villain pairs, you want to have them play well off of one another's strengths and weaknesses. The classic example is "The Brute" and "The Brain," which is easily accomplished by having, for example, a Crusader and a Wizard. But that's amateur stuff.

Be creative. Be dark. Give them a dichotomy of personalities, not abilities. For instance, make one a Bard, and the other, say, a Paladin of Tyranny or something like that. Then make them unexpected. The Paladin, for example, would be grim, quiet, but respectful and honorable. The Bard would be charming, and friendly, and giddy at times, but in fact would be a complete, monstrous psychopath. Fun combination.

The trick for making villains memorable, in my mind, has little to do with class, and almost everything to do with personality. So, first step is to pick two personalities that will really stick in the players' minds. The examples I gave above - the Noble Demon and the Complete Monster - are two examples. Then you simply choose classes that complement these abilities - or, if you're particularly sadistic, that conceal them.

Tl;dr: It's less about the class, and more about the character.

[holywhippet]

For villain pairs, you want to have them play well off of one another's strengths and weaknesses. The classic example is "The Brute" and "The Brain," which is easily accomplished by having, for example, a Crusader and a Wizard. But that's amateur stuff.



Plus you'd be accused of ripping off Raistlin and Caramon from Dragonlance.

Complete Arcane has the cooperative spell metamagic, but honestly don't think it is that powerful unless you are going up against something with awesome saves.

You could make them both rogues or some other class that gets sneak attack damage. Since there are two of them they can try to flank the PCs.

[Azoth]

What level are you building them for? What race is the player? What sources are open?

[(Un)Inspired]

Make them both lawful neutral variant paladins that sometimes help the party and sometimes oppose them.

[Kennisiou]

What's their race? What's the player's class/build? There's a lot of cool race/class theming and there's also the potential for triclass theming between the three characters.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Or the two brothers "Scry" and "Die", two wizards who work together as an assassin team to perfect their eponymous combat strategy.

[SoraWolf7]

If you really want to be screwy, make them the same build, and with slightly different names, and have them act like they're one person. As in you only see one of them at a time. So this "person" can be in two places at once, have a perfect alibi, or have one be the main blaster and the other act as backup by buffing him, if they're both spellcasters.

[Elvenoutrider]

This is great advice so far, game is pathfinder/3.5 with whatever sources I want available. PC in question is a home brew artificer who focuses on making constructs. He was lined up to be sacrificed in one of his own experiments and fled eleven space with his research notes in tow which makes him a fugitive.

As for what class, I'm more interested in building a great encounter. If I have to cheat or mix and match class abilities to do so than so be it. As gm rules are more of a guideline for me. I just want this to be memorable.

Currently thinking I may have had the government capture his family and subject them to magic experiments before sending them after him. Haven't decided if they will be merely enchanted, brainwashed, or turned into horrible abominations before being sent after him.

[(Un)Inspired]

Have you seen that Jeremy irons movie where he plays evil gynecologist twins? Model them after that.

[Segev]

The government experimented on the twins with necromantic magics meant to mimic the construct-research, but used their bond as twins to hold their souls from the afterlife. They wound up with a pair of wights and a pair of ghosts. The wight/ghost pairing represents a split body/spirit of a single entity, so there are now four beings where there once were two.

Make the Wights Warblades with White Raven Tactics and other "work together" tricks. Make the ghosts Psions. The ghosts possess the Wights (their own bodies, or each others') and use Vigor and Share Pain with their own psicrystals and each other. Then repeat the process as ghosts. The Wights use White Raven Tactics to give the ghosts extra actions when blasting or mind control or the like is useful, and to give each other extra actions when only one of them is strategically placed. Otherwise, the four work together to buff themselves and each other.

IIRC, wights have a massive "move silently" bonus, so this quartet can sneak really well, too.

Personality-wise, the two Wights are "extra bodies" puppetted by the ghosts. They are not who they once were, but think with the same mind as their ghostly counterpart when the ghosts are in the same encounter. They're just monsters otherwise.

All four are Commanded by a government cleric or necromancer, and twisted to evil by their undead transformation. They may have some qualms about attacking their brother...but they have no choice, and even if they do regret their orders, they're now evil and so might have fewer qualms about collateral damage. Their feelings for their brother are doubtless poisoned.

For added emotional turmoil, the two ghosts could haunt him for a little while, never quite being fully in view. Then the Wights could be under a Disguise Self (maybe hats of disguise?) or even a Gentle Repose that kept them from withering, so when they show up initially, they seem alive and hale and can use that to "reassure" their brother that he was "just seeing things." At least until they're close enough to start level draining.

Ghosts can use tactics to stay hidden and make the party wonder why two foes are so tough, at least at first, as well.

[Vaz]

Why not Dvati? One of the more popular "exploits" is the Divine Minion of Set template granting them Wild Shape and the Evil subtype, which gets them into Fiend of Possession, which allows Ethereal Form for movement.

They are twins; perfect twins, as it happens. A Bard with Intimidation Focus into Fiend of Possession, with something like Chameleon hacks can get them 9th level spells, and being as varied as you want them to be.

You can have them fight and retreat, turning Ethereal every so often when they take too much damage.

You could introduce it as a single opponent at first, but a party member with See Invisibility could see the Ethereal Twin nearby, while depending on how the fight is going, the twin could either buff his visible twin, or jump into the fight.

[Segev]

Just to be clear: I believe the OP is asking for the twins to be siblings of one of the PCs. He would have to house-rule "dvati" as a race-change onto the existing race of the PC's brothers. Doable, if he wanted to really reinforce the twin-bond idea, but it should be made clear that's what he's doing. (Although the dvati, as a race, have horrid mechanics, which are hard to interpret for what, precisely, they do and could easily be so weak as to be almost unplayable.)

[Slipperychicken]

They could be the ultimate melee duo, empowered to heroism by fierce brotherly love: A pair of Crusaders using the white raven and devoted spirit disciplines to keep each other safe. On the battlefield, they always stick together (i.e. remain adjacent, delay initiative to act as one), no matter what. Their usual tactics include things like White Raven Tactics (to get combo-turns until one of them doesn't refresh it) and Iron Guard's Glare (enemies take -4 melee tohit against both of them because they're sternly watching each others' backs).

Both of them (or just one) might be "Bardsaders" (i.e. Bard1/CrusaderX) with Song of the White Raven and some IC-boosters. Mechanically, only one should be a Bardsader unless the other has DFI. In fluff, they could be singing in perfect harmony while fighting, giving themselves and all their allies a +N morale bonus to hit and damage, and setting their weapons alight for +Nd6 fire damage. Obviously, their allies benefit because they're inspired by such a heartwarming display of comradery.

The required stance to activate Song of the White Raven might be Tactics of the Wolf, so the twins can benefit further from being adjacent to each other. To maintain IC, a Bardsader might want a +1 Harmonizing weapon, so he could spend his Swift actions on other boosts.

One or both of them might also have a Warblade dip to gain the Wall of Blades counter and maybe Iron Heart Surge too.

The Shield Block and Shield Counter maneuvers would help with the "brotherly mutual protection" motif.

If they have the cash, some items to help: Wrathful Healing weapon enhancement (+3, Enemies and Allies), Retributive Healing amulets (MiC, 2000gp), Badge of Valor (+1 to IC),



So yeah, the builds I'm thinking of:

Bard1/CrusaderX/Warblade1
Important feats: Power Attack, Song of the White Raven

Bard1/CrusaderX/Warblad1
Feats: Power Attack, Song of the White Raven, Dragonfire Inspiration.

[Kioras]

Mix things up.

Combine a bard/crusader/warblade like Slipperychicken suggested, with DFI, with a minion summoning/creating evil caster. Either a druid, necromancer or sonjuration focused wizard.

They always engage the party when they have a good selection onf minions near by, and will bail one way or another if there minions are defeated, story depending.

[Azoth]

I kind of like the idea of an Unseen Seer Build and a RKV or mele gish build. Thor and Loki it up a bit. Unseen Seer controls the field of battle with illusions and difficult terain spells while the mele gish goes in dropping a beat down to get their attention. Then someone eats a sneak attack fueled spell in the backside.

Great spells for the Unseen Seer to control things with are Nightmare Terrain and Legion of Sentinals. The gish has various options depending of whether arcane or divine base.

[Elvenoutrider]

Alright I figures it out. A government agent is going to hire the party to transport two crates and tell them not to open them, mentioning they are rigged to blow, party will receive no payment if the crates are delivered open, and as a bonus I'll have them delivered to a planet that fire into another Pcs backstory.

On the way the party is going to be harassed by doors locking on them, crates falling on them, things breaking, illusions, sleepwalking before they find dire rats devouring the rigging, crippling their spelljammer. Then the ghosts of the twins they took aboard the ship will launch their attack on the pcs using sorcerer spells and corrupting touch before releasing the two brutish undead the pics were inadvertently carrying. Meanwhile an elf ship tracking them will begin pursuit so the pcs will have to win the encounter in board and repair the ship to escape And the fugitive PC will have to come to grips with the pain he has caused his family.

Thank you playgrounders for the inspiration, this was much beyond anything I would have come up with on my own.

[(Un)Inspired]

Have one brother be a daelkyr half blood and the other be a symbiot

[Neknoh]

What happens if a player sneeks a peak?
What happens if a player throws the crates overboard?

You don't have to have the bodies of the twins being animated brutes of mass destruction, you could simply have them being bodies and have the twisted ghosts only be destroyed by beheading the bodies or impaling their hearts with a silver nail (the crates will be sealed by silver nails, an early, random perception check could have established this and somebody stealing a nail from the boxes could even start the whole subtle haunting if your party is inclined to cleptomany). Third option is burning.

However, if the players behead the bodies, the souls will be destroyed.
If the players pierce the still beating hearts (which will beat no matter what is done to them other than crushing completely, which also destroys the souls.), using the silver nails, the undying souls will be forever trapped in the bodies and never feel release and peace unless they burn the bodies later.
If they burn the bodies, it will first seem as if the souls are burning in ghostly flame, but end up just being the corruption burning away.

You'll want a way for the player to at least save a part of his siblings, otherwise you'll just work against players incorporating names and people in their backstories or befriending NPC's in the future. Let him free his brothers from the corruption. Merely destroying undead husks of his twins will give the players very little sense of victory, it'll be false and hollow and filled with grief if he rp's well, let him save them.

Remember to keep the combat focused on the ghosts, give the players little time to think, at least at the start, so that they don't emmediately realise the connection to the bodies.