At low level the problem will be the drop-off in damage, and the lower AC. If your players know the game well enough they will know something is up, and that may grant them the a perception check vs the disguise check. If you are not the GM, it will be much harder to hide this, and I doubt it will work. Looking alike is not enough. You will have to be using the same equipment also.
More than likely the warrior will have to be bad at combat in order for the caster to be a replacement without anyone catching on.
What levels is this supposed to take place at, and are you the GM?
Oh, I don't really worry about the players figuring it out. It's just an interesting gimmick for those two, it's not meant to actually be anything significant.
Obviously he'd use the same equipment. He'd be pretty stupid if he didn't.
As I said, low to mid level. At what level do you think it would become more workable?
The lower the level, the easier it is to pull off. I would not try it past level 5, and I would make the warrior so that he did not do a lot of damage. If you go from +20 points of damage for every attack to not hitting, and only doing about 10 points or less then it will look suspicious. Now you can not tell the players how much damage is being done, but at that level monsters lasting too long is a give away when the caster comes in is still going to look strange.
I was going to suggest using monsters with lower HD when the caster is in, but then you would be expected to kill them in one hit if you are doing +20 points of damage per hit. <---That much damage even at low levels is not hard to do.
I will have to go back to my suggestion above, which is to make the warrior do decent to low damage, so the drop off is not as noticeable.
edit: I just read the part where you said you dont care if the players figure it out.
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So what you're telling me is that a caster (or at least a Wizard or Arcanist) can't be as good as a warrior at combat? I don't know much about casters, but I read everywhere that they can do anything, including outfighting the Fighter (thtough buffing). Is that incorrect?
Divine casters are great at buffing up their combat abilities. Arcane casters, not so much. With time to prepare, and no need to conserve daily resources, a 3rd level divine caster can self-buff at least +5 to hit and +7 damage (bless, divine favor, magic weapon, bull's strength, weapon of awe). Only a few of those are available to arcane casters. A fully-buffed divine caster can sometimes match or beat a Fighter at fighting.
Ultimately damage is metaknowledge, attack bonuses are metaknowledge. The trick to being a 'fighter' as a wizard isn't the mechanics, it's the bluffing. Be a wizard but don't be seen as a caster. Eschew Materials is a MUST. If you can take Still Spell, or Silent Spell, one of your feats should be Spell Bluff. If people don't know you're casting magic to befuddle them (I personally suggest focusing on illusion or enchantment magic), then you've got a huge advantage.
You can handle the weapon competence with Bestow Weapon Proficiency. So you won't take the -4 non-proficiency using a fighter's weapons.
Use Peacebond to get advantage, Adjuring Step to keep casting in combat, and Hold Person to finish off an opponent. None are terribly overt and if you hold your action and go just before an opponent you can chalk it up to 'good luck'. Also the Coup de Grace to a held person will make up for the damage offset (paralyzed = helpless).
Wizards -can- be stellar, you just have to go about it with smarts instead.
Slight nitpick: they can look strikingly similar, but a twin of each sex does not make an "identical" pair in the traditional sense. As far as prowess, buffs up to and including Transformation are probably going to be your best bet. Clufas makes some good suggestions, although I would think that something as overt as hold person/cdg would be fairly obvious.
On a similar but different note, I've been toying with the idea of a caster masquerading as a martial to throw off enemies who might target casters for quite some time.
A wizard can, with some spells, be ok at melee combat. However, they usually don't look like a fighter when they do it.
The real problem is that you want to not only be effective at melee combat, but you want to do that the same way the fighter is. If for example, your fighter goes around in heavy plate dual weilding sawtoothed sabres and favoring disarm attacks, your wizard is probably not going to be able to pull that off very well.
If he has buff-time where no-one can see him, and his physical stats aren't completely dumped, he should be able to pass off as a warrior. Remember he needs proficiencies, though.
For Pathfinder Society I made a Wizard who tries to be a Fighter. The Character is not trying to hide the fact, but I as the Player often feel the need to.
I started with the Half elf race so he could have the Ancestral Arms racial trait and get proficiency with a Martial or Exotic weapon. He is bonded with that weapon so he got a masterwork one at first level. He's also a Transmutationist so he effectively has a permanent bonus to Strength.
I don't have the character in front of me but he's up to 4th level now and I've been choosing feats to keep him on par with a Fighter. It is a struggle but I hope to make a decent Fighter out of him.
I recently received a boon that gives him proficiency with a breastplate. I'm not sure if it is just for that specific breastplate of for breastplates in general, but either way it was a great boon for him.
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I think sorc is easier. Human draconic sorc, spend first lv feats in light armor prof and still spell. Start with about 14 str as compared to his sister's 16/18 and have his sister favoring light armor (ie chainshirt). Use heirloom weapon to grant him (select family weapon profeciency) so they both can use the family's weapon. Later have him go into dd and the strength should make it up. (Assuming eldritch knight is not allowed for this challenge).
3.X
Polymorph, disguise self, done.
If he didn't need to be weak in the first place, I'd get at least 14 STR and build standard wizard/swiftblade/abjch gish.
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I recently received a boon that gives him proficiency with a breastplate. I'm not sure if it is just for that specific breastplate of for breastplates in general, but either way it was a great boon for him.
You'd still have to deal with the arcane check penalty. (rough) And frankly - you can wear a mithril breastplate sans armor check penalty if you take the armor expert trait. (All of my light armor chars pull this trick.) And unless said boon gives 'medium armor prof.', you'd need to either dip into a martial class & burn 2 feats or burn 4 feats to wear a mithril breastplate without any arcane spell failure. (light/med prof & arcane armor training/mastery feats) Plus you'd be burning your swift action whenever you cast.
It's intentially hard to do for balance reasons.
So what you're telling me is that a caster (or at least a Wizard or Arcanist) can't be as good as a warrior at combat? I don't know much about casters, but I read everywhere that they can do anything, including outfighting the Fighter (thtough buffing). Is that incorrect?
Well, yes, sorta. But shapechanging into an earth elemental or giant won't look like it is really the sister. Stone skin won't look like the sister's armor.
Here's what you can do. If the sister has a reputation for sometimes toying with opponents or using unusual tactics. You might be able to duplicate some of that. Especially against weaker opponents.
Ok, so you can't go toe-toe with the ettin. But you could decide you want to take the bugbear alive to be questioned. Truestrike along with a disarm attempt is likely to succeed. Then bluff/intimidate it to surrender. Yeah it takes you an extra round and you will be hurt more by eating the AoO. But you pass that off as a calculated risk to try and get information.
Also some of the buff spells are not obvious, but might be hard to set-up without anyone noticing. Bull's strength, cat's grace, and bear's endurance will get you in the range of a martial characters physical stats. But that's 3 rounds of buff casting for people to notice.
Maybe a stone fist (under your gloves) in a bar brawl so you can punch effectively.
A haste might look like the physical speed and iterative attacks of a trained martial if you don't turn into a track star.
When you are 8th level. You do have the BaB and HP of a 4th level warrior. So you are much better than the 1st or 2nd level typical schmucks running around. So they might well not notice the difference. But the 5th level captain of the guard is likely to notice 'you' are suddenly less skilled than 'you' were last week if he sees you fighting.
The armored caster feats along with a level or 2 dip in lore warden might be worth while in getting the proficiencies. OR the sister could develop a reputation for some times fighting with a staff or dagger just for the heck of it to show off how much better she is than everyone else.
Probably the best you could do is for the brother to be a lorewarden 2 / caster X and the sister to be a lorewarden x / caster 1. Then a buff spell / potion / scroll / wand / etc... won't look too out of character.
I was just thinking that maybe going the Brew Potion route and pulling a swig or two from your 'wine' skin to ready up for combat is a much more covert way of doing things. This takes at least one spell off the prep list, is easily concealed unless someone's always got the Detect Magic running. Downside being it's one spell, it is detectable, your mileage is limited to 3rd level spells (some decent wiggle room though), and your going to have to take an extra feat and have the time to actually craft.
IDK what sort of campaign your playing but I think that with some care put towards Sleight of Hand and Bluff you can handle a lot of this deception and just play a bit more conservatively (defensive fighting, etc.). Also what weapon would your characters sister use? IF it's a mace you could always use the 'fancy family heirloom' excuse for laying the smackdown with a metamagic rod. Just throw some Misdirection on it and it's an ordinary bit of gilded masterwork weaponry.