My party of 5 (and a potential summon creature) will soon attack the pirate ship, where they will find the duo behind a lot of trouble in the city. The 5 are all lvl 2 chars and the duo are both lvl 3 in PC classes.
I'm doubting between both of them at the same time, since that results in CR4, or just have 1 of them with a few pirate mooks of CR 1/2 each.
To main topic:
One's a wizard, so his AC is low enough for even the sorceress to smack him over the head. Lack of AC will likely be his demise. The swashbuckler on the other hand as a respective AC of 19. Now if some of the party members are buying potions of mage armor, like the monk, would it be unfair to set these two (swashy especially) up with a potion of their own?
I've not spent a great budget on their gear.
Instead of a potion, give the wizard a wand of Mage Armor. That way the sooner the party kills them, the more of the treasure is left for them.
Make it so that if the party is smart, they can get the two as separate battles. If they aren't so smart, a warning goes off, then they have to fight both together.
Those are some possibilities fair enough.
I had thought of the possibility of a scroll of alarm to be cast at some key points on the ship.
Well, the wizard could cast mage armor.
But in any event, it makes lots of sense for both to use consumables. Consumables are great (especially for NPCs) to increase their effective power without turning it into long term wealth.
As far being worried about two 3rd level characters it should be fine. Action economy is on the side of the PCs. No need to only do one with mooks.
3rd level NPC wizard and swashbuckler should have 1650 gp in wealth.
I would give the wizard a potion of mage armor and fly. Also, put him in haramaki armor. It might only be a +1 to AC, but it has no arcane spell failure chance so there is no reason for him not to wear it. Oh and a wand of Magic Missile
Potion, fly - 750 gp
Potion, mage armor - 50 gp
Haramaki - 3 gp
Wand, Magic Missile - 750 gp
Total 1553 gp - 97 gp in coins remains.
Between the defensive spells the wizard should have prepared and the potions he will be a credible threat all on his own. Best part is, but putting most of the wealth into consumables you don't run the risk of over powering PC's because the items are either used up, or only can be used once, or aren't particularly powerful in a few levels (the wand).
Not sure how I would gear out the swashbuckler, but hopefully you can come up with something. Potions of cat's grace and mage armor would probably be good. As well as Oil of Magic Weapon.
Well the following was the swashbuckler's:
Studded leather 25 gp 20lbs
Buckler 5gp 5lbs
Mwk Rapier 320 gp 2lbs
Blowgun 2gp 1lbs
2 Doses giant wasp poison (DC fort 18, 1d2 dex 1round/6 rounds, 1 save) 420 gp
1 Potion of CLW 50gp
1 potion of shield 50gp
The wizard is a debuffer, which can be nasty if they fail saves:
Sleep/glitterdust/color spray at lvl 1
Touch of idiocy & mirror image at lvl 2 (how i hated that on brownies)
Glitterdust is a second level spell.
Then put it there by accident, nonetheless not pleasant.
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They're NPCs, so they're assumed to have a certain level of wealth. If some of that goes toward consumables, that's fine--and consistent with a lot of Paizo-published modules. Give the guy a potion if you feel like it will make the encounter more fun, and have him drink it before the fight if he knows the fight is coming.