Trying to make a nasty, nasty pair

[Quietus]

My friend and I have been given free reign to break the world in a PbP game we've been invited to play in, and we'd like to explore some of the options that we personally don't allow, just to see how far off the wall broken we can get them. We're looking to pair our characters together to do this more effectively, and I'd like to try and stay away from too much "evil" fluff - we already have a pair that are looking at demon summoning and assassinism, I think I'd like to keep away from that.

It's been cleared that we have access to all books, including the ToB, which my friend and I have never tried before. I was thinking that a pair of unarmed variant swordsages focussing on shadow hand could be a lot of fun, see how far we could take that - I like the shadow blade feat, that could save on a lot of problems, potentially. It also works itself nicely into gloom razor, particularly considering as a 3/4 BAB class, if we pick up gloom razor at level 9 and have the dex to use Shadow Blade effectively, we basically can't fail the DC 20 tumble check - and the idea of a pair of shadowy swordsages striking an opponent from flanking positions, switching (and moving 10 feet as a result) for free, and automatically confusing the target enough to keep them flat footed, always... it just seems fun.

One other idea I've been having was to go with the Vow of Poverty - yes, I am aware it's generally seen as a bad idea. I don't know how this DM is with gear, however, and the people we normally play with can be stingy. It'd also be nice to be able to apply the actual magic traits to our unarmed strikes, as unarmed variants, though I haven't finished reading the ToB - there might be something in there to cover that.

Outside of that, though, there's any number of other classes that we could play with... anyone have suggestions for a powerful two-man team?

[Foolosophy]

wizard / druid :p

[Quietus]

wizard / druid :p

That's one thing I considered... I also considered wizard/cleric, but we've done the cleric deal before. Part of me wants to think about wizard/fighter, simply because a fighter with a wizard's backup eliminates many of the fighter's weaknesses. Flying creature with high SR? No problem, third level spell - now the fighter can fly too.

[Rachel Lorelei]

One of you could be a Warblade//Archivist. The other could be a Crusader//Wizard (better casting) or Sorcerer (some CHA synergy). That should pretty much do it--except for the lack of rogue.
Have the Archivist take two Rogue levels and the Able Learner feat and you're set in that regard! Illumian might make for a nice race--take the sigils that let you key bonus spells off of strength.

[Quietus]

One of you could be a Warblade//Archivist. The other could be a Crusader//Wizard (better casting) or Sorcerer (some CHA synergy). That should pretty much do it--except for the lack of rogue.
Have the Archivist take two Rogue levels and the Able Learner feat and you're set in that regard! Illumian might make for a nice race--take the sigils that let you key bonus spells off of strength.

Only problem with that is that it suggests gestalt... which we aren't using. And our groups tend not to adjust fights up or down for having a lack of people, so we need to be slightly above the power curve without using the gestalt variant.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Oof! I saw "two people" and immediately assumed Gestalt.

In that case, an archivist (either dipping Cleric for Turn Undead and two domain abilities at the cost of a CL, or waiting until he can enter Sacred Exorcist) with Divine Metamagic and a Rogue 1/Wizard 5 or 4/Unseen Seer 10/Arcane Trickster 4 or 5 are probably your best bet.

Edit: actually, make that a Rogue 1/Artificer 19 with Able Learner. Artificers are hardcore. The other one can be an arcane or divine caster, whichever. Maybe a gish build? Fighter, wizard, Abjurant Champion, et cetera. Or use ToB--Crusader 1, Wizard 4, Jade Phoenix Mage.

[Raolin_Fenix]

Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker, for the first character. Add a few Monster templates (insectoid, multi-armed, maybe looking at starting his base class as Thrikreen). Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, all the Frenzied Berserker boosts to Power Attack, and throw in the fact that he cannot be killed, and you're looking at a walking lawn-mower.

Add a Cleric or Favored Soul with the Protection domain, to grant the Barbarian a Mind-Blank spell. Not to mention Spell Immunity (so forget any insta-kill spells short of Power Word: Kill), Spell Resistance (so even then the caster has to beat a caster-level check), and Freedom of Movement, and all the other fun buffing things the cleric can do. Now the Barbarian can't be killed by damage, can't be stopped by mind spells, can't be harmed by "Screw You, Die" spells, and can't be confined. Oh, and right before Deathless Frenzy wears off, Heal a couple times and he'll be fine. If not, True Resurrection, and for the price of 25k gold you can obliterate an army. Meanwhile, while the barbarian goes psycho, the cleric buffs himself to nigh-invulnerability, maybe takes a couple cross-class ranks in Use Magic Device and invests in a few Otiluke's Resilient Sphere spells to keep himself out of harm's way. Win.

A Forcecage might beat the barbarian, so he'll have to buy an item to compensate.

[Quietus]

Well, we're playing at ECL1 to start with, so no monster races or anything like that if they have LA or racial hit dice. Of course, if we make a frenzied berserker and a full arcane caster of some sort, we can cheese it up with Polymorph spells. What? Of course that frenzied berserker is a giant/dragon/thri-keen/whatever. And yes, he's flying.

Also, protection from evil will cover most any mind affecting stuff that gets thrown at us.

One thing I do particularly like is the Exalted, good-aligned end of things - in which case I'd probably take (or suggest he takes) Righteous Wrath somewhere along the way, so that we have a built-in control mechanism. Quietus does not like the idea of a highly optimized frenzied berserker turning on his friends.

[The Valiant Turtle]

Edit: actually, make that a Rogue 1/Artificer 19 with Able Learner. Artificers are hardcore. The other one can be an arcane or divine caster, whichever. Maybe a gish build? Fighter, wizard, Abjurant Champion, et cetera. Or use ToB--Crusader 1, Wizard 4, Jade Phoenix Mage.

Why the rogue level on that Artificer? Artificers have disable device and open lock as class skills and they get Trapfinding (they call it Disable Trap instead, but the mechanics are identical). Are you wanting stealth that much?