An Arcane Dark Knight and her Good opposite of a brother Character Conception/ Build

[Awakeninfinity]

So I need a character for an anticipated evil game; I want to go Fighter and Wizard (Two highly disciplined classes; But I may be open to other options)

Predicted level is three (Ftr 2/Wiz 1); She is going to be human- and she is a worshiper of Hextor; while her brother worships Heironeous (they were separated during a disaster and are both adopted into their respective churches as young children; with both believing the other is gone.) Little do either of them know that they are (intended to be) effective proxies for their respective deity on the material plane.

The primary thing I want to do is have them fighting each other to a standstill (at least at first) the easiest solution is the same class and build but that feels... a little disatisfying.

So that's where I need help; I need my character to pull her own weight but is pretty much countered by her brother (and vice-versa) I don't want to go blackguard or other evil only prestige classes because I might just pull a heel-face turn.

For this character I have the following ability scores : Str 17; Dex 14; CON 16; INT 15; WIS 13; CHA 13 (I'd assume that my DM will just use my character's starting abilities as well)

[noob]

you take a level 3 martial wizard(the fightery variant of wizard) and your opponent picks a level 3 cleric then you. both agree to only swing swords at each other during duels.

[StevenC21]

That's a terrible idea...

It's 1/2 BAB + d4 HD vs 3/4 BAB + d8 HD.

The Cleric wins every time, under those conditions.

Plus, the Cleric is probably wearing armor.

[Efrate]

Hexblade v. soulborn? Both are pretty equally bad.

Abjurer vs. necromancer buffs vs. debuffs. Cleric vs. wizard works as well.

2 flavors of crusader with different maneuver focuses. Warblade vs. crusader works too, offensive vs. defense.

Alternately 2 different incarnates (good or law vs. necrocarnum).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Go Human Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#humanParagon) 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 1, and get a Fighter bonus feat instead of Scribe Scroll (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizard). Your BAB is lower starting out, but it should be the same in the long run if you go with a standard gish build. Max out Human Paragon and take one more Wizard level, then dip Spellsword 1 and go into Abjurant Champion. Plan to finish the build with either Eldritch Knight or Knight Phantom.

For your counterpart, a standard Sorcadin build should work. That goes Paladin 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 8. So your first six levels and your last eight levels will be different, but you'll both have a +16 BAB and 9th level spells by 20th level.

[noob]

That's a terrible idea...

It's 1/2 BAB + d4 HD vs 3/4 BAB + d8 HD.

The Cleric wins every time, under those conditions.

Plus, the Cleric is probably wearing armor.

the martial wizard pulls its own weight while in the party then when duelling the evil cleric then he loses which was what was asked.
the demand was to make a build that lose against the rival.
" I need my character to pull her own weight but is pretty much countered by her brother "

[StevenC21]

No, he explicitly said they should fight to a standstill.

[Awakeninfinity]

Yeah; maybe I should rephrase- my goal is that they should both be impractical for the other to stop (like the would exhaust each other's resources in doing so) It's utterly impractical for two individuals who primarily cast magic to sword fight to death; I want to make it so casting spells directly at each other/ self-buffing and then fighting is also impractical. Whether due to the aother members of each other's group or simply because they happen to be evenly matched. If it's not possible to do so without playing low tier characters then I will simply scrap the opposite concept.

[MisterKaws]

Yeah; maybe I should rephrase- my goal is that they should both be impractical for the other to stop (like the would exhaust each other's resources in doing so) It's utterly impractical for two individuals who primarily cast magic to sword fight to death; I want to make it so casting spells directly at each other/ self-buffing and then fighting is also impractical. Whether due to the aother members of each other's group or simply because they happen to be evenly matched. If it's not possible to do so without playing low tier characters then I will simply scrap the opposite concept.

If you have them swing spells at each other then it's just whoever loses the first save. Only at levels 10+ can you make Wizards who are utterly immune to each other. The only choice, really, is just going at each other's throats with swords, but you also don't want that...

[Awakeninfinity]

If you have them swing spells at each other then it's just whoever loses the first save. Only at levels 10+ can you make Wizards who are utterly immune to each other. The only choice, really, is just going at each other's throats with swords, but you also don't want that...

Then maybe I should go for melee in the early game; with near invulnerability in the mid to late game? Could it work that way?

[MisterKaws]

Then maybe I should go for melee in the early game; with near invulnerability in the mid to late game? Could it work that way?

Infinite power is delayed in as many levels of Fighter you take. You need Wizard 10+ with full batman-wizard style abuse for it to work, and if they ever meet before that there is absolutely no way they can NOT kill each other with sleep/color spray/any other SoD.

Unless, of course, we start taking Pazuzu and Sarrukhs into account. But I'm sure you don't want that.

D&D Wizards are very poorly balanced when you take into account lethality. Unless they're powerful enough to start preparing a ton of contingencies, they can be easily killed by a mirrored Wizard. And after they get strong enough to prepare said contingencies, they are virtually immortal, even against each other.

[Particle_Man]

Warmages might fit the bill. They both could worship gods of war and their spell lists make them blasts but not immortal.

[MisterKaws]

Warmages might fit the bill. They both could worship gods of war and their spell lists make them blasts but not immortal.

They are lower-tier than Wizards, though.

[Particle_Man]

What about a social restriction? They are both conjuror wizards and both see themselves as generals and use summoned critters to do their fighting? Typically the summoned critters would fight each other to a standstill but if one side wins then the other side’s general by social convention accepts the loss and retreats from the battlefield to safety, as there will be other battles. Also by social convention the victorious general allows the losing general to leave unharmed. Indeed the wizards never attack each other and are never attacked by each other, even by the other side’s summoned critters. That would breach the social convention. The wizards might even have tea before and after the battle sometimes.

Both Hextor and Hieroneous are lawful, so having such social conventions among some of their followers might make sense. And the generalship of using summoned monsters does not require charisma, just intelligence, a wizard’s best stat.

[Zaq]

What if the “counter” character were actually all about countering, by which I mean counterspelling?

Shouldn’t be impossible to make a cleric who mostly leans towards the weapon-using side of things (especially early on) but who takes the standard package of “better at counterspelling” available to clerics, by which I mostly mean the Inquisition domain and the Divine Defiance feat (at least, I think that’s the name—the one that lets you burn a TU attempt to counterspell as an immediate). (Big H gets the Inquisition domain, right?)

By focusing on the martial side for this person’s on-turn actions (with a cleric-y buff here and there), that’ll stick to your theme and not be too OP to feel unfun to the party, but being able to counter many of the party’s spells (which is not the same as just overwhelming them with magic) will help with the “fight to a standstill” feel you’re aiming for.

[Lapak]

I like the Crusader suggestion from earlier a lot. The class can go mid-hig T3, it can explicitly represent a god but the mechanics of that are different enough from Cleric that you can easily fluff a heel-face turn with conversion to a new deity/cause, and two of them with the appropriate maneuvers wailing on each other would be hard-pressed to stop the other with exhausting themselves in the process.

[DMVerdandi]

WELLLLLL. Honestly, If Arcane is the way you want things, then you need to tie in either the reason for worship, or something, because Arcane magic is very...Individualistic on a cosmic level. You are tapping into the mysteries, but nothing is truly given like divine magic, so worshiping hextor is in a way kind of forcing a difference IMO.
Not writing your backstory for you, but nothing is more satisfying than individual agency in a revenge story, rather than two people being trotted along and acting as agents for some institution.

How much more satisfying if your character knew about her brother, [Who doesn't need to change in story], and saw him blessed by the gods, and loved by the people, and raised on high like a golden child, and she gets...well...beaten. Much better would be say a Criminal Family. Living on the streets as a mongrel, until the life of banditry and assassination gives her a chance. Sure you could say that they are linked with the church of hextor, but whatever your character is doing has to do with the brutality of the now. Not musing on it, but living that life of an enforcer. No time for prayer when you are breaking someone's face.

All that considered, Make her a Battle Sorcerer, and make him a favored soul. Both are similar in casting, but one gets the cleric list, and the other the sorcerer. They are essentially twin sides of the same coin.

Have her focus on self buffs, and maybe grab a reserve feat for consistent ranged damage.