Need Help with Villainous Twins


Advice

Dark Archive

I'm working on two important villains (the twins in the title) for a homebrew world, which for flavor reasons need to be Anarchic wildblood Sorcerers.

I don't want them to be exactly the same, so I thought it would be nice to have one be a gish mechanically. In terms of personality the character is intended to be a dashing rake (so no heavy armor, more of a Swashbuckler than a Fighter).

I turned to the magus class and was delighted to find the Eldritch Scion archetype, but unfortunately it only offers access to the Bloodrager bloodlines. A Destined bloodline is an option because it grants free access to blur, which in a pinch is superficially similar to the Anarchic bloodline Reality Wrinkle power.

I then turned to the Eldritch Knight PrC, and while it may be able to work, like many Pathfinder PrCs it seemed a little boring.

I didn't see a Swashbuckler archetype that blended spellcasting with, err, swashbuckling.

I would like some advice on alternative options for this NPC. Thanks in advance.

Silver Crusade

Get The Ruby Phoenix Tournament module for villainous twins (v good adventure anyway)

A high-Cha Swashbuckler with the Eldritch Heritage feats can take Protean Bloodline to get Reality Wrinkle by 11th level (Anarchic Wildblooded cannot really be done, but they are NPCs, who cares)

Or just make them both Anarchic-blooded Sorcerers and give them different spells. One can take the Eldritch Scrapper Archetype (I forget if they lose the 9th level power) and there are now some Bloodline feats to swap for the other powers. They can share a Bloodline and you can change them to have very different powers. Give one an okay Str score and buy a weapon proficiency feat and Arcane Armour Training, some self-transmutation spells and you have a v different style to the sibling


Eldritch Knight may seem inherently 'boring', but mechanically it's ideal if you're starting Sorcerer and want combat ability. You're already going to have class features from your two base classes, so almost full spells + full BAB + free combat feats is a much better grab than more 'interesting' class features.

For an anarchic swashbuckling sorcerer villain, I'd consider going Urban Bloodrager 1/ Sorcerer 5/ Eldritch Knight and using Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus: Rapier, Fencing Grace, Mad Magic and Extra Rage to begin with. With Urban Bloodrager, Mad Magic and an Extra Rage, the character has 12 rounds/day of +4DEX Bloodrage that they can still cast spells through; with +4DEX, a Furious rapier, and the spell Heroism on long-duration, they'll have plenty of combat ability with the minimum loss of spell levels. They won't have the Swashbuckler Panache abilities, but Urban Bloodrage will make them faster and generally more dangerous with a rapier than a Swashbuckler would be.

If you really want to go the Swashbuckler 1/ path, consider using the Moonlight Stalker feat combined with Blur or Displacement.


Come to think of it, if you want a really nasty melee/spellcasting trick, you could go with a Rogue/ Sorcerer/ Arcane Trickster build where they use Dazzling Blade to blind a target and then mercilessly sneak attack it. Dazzling Blade is a swift action...

Also, you only need to give up 1 level of spellcasting to do it since you can use Accomplished Sneak Attacker to get 2d6 Sneak Attack right away to qualify for Arcane Trickster. With the ability to blind enemies and spells (especially Heroism and Blade Tutor's Spirit) to buff attack, hitting players should be pretty easy.


If you use both VMC Rogue (starts awarding Sneak Attack at level 7, then 1 every 4 levels after that) and Accomplished Sneak Attacker(*), you can even get into Arcane Trickster with no spellcasting level loss.

(*)Technically not absolutely required, but if you don't use this or a dip, you will be entering the prestige class REALLY LATE.

Another interesting possibility would be a dip into Vivisectionist Alchemist. This gives you some useful things: Alchemist Extracts, Brew Potion, Mutagen, and Throw Anything (Vivisectionist trades out Bombs but not this). You also get more useful stuff (including a Discovery) if you decide to go the traditional 3 level Sneak Attack dip with it. Since Alchemist is Intelligence-based, it synergizes well with any Intelligence-based caster (usually Wizard, although this won't help you so much since you want Anarchic, which is incompatible with Sage, although since you are the GM it, would be perfectly reasonable to house-rule Eldritch Heritage (Anarchic)(*) into existence and call it a day).

(*)I was going to say alternatively VMC Sorcerer (Anarchic) on a Wizard, which wouldn't even require a house rule, but this gives some of the Bloodline Powers REALLY LATE (up to 6 levels late) -- although you can compensate for this reasonably well by giving this twin a Robe of Arcane Heritage, if you don't mind this item eventually showing up in the loot.

Since you want non-Sage Sorcerers, Ninja/Sorcerer is also a perfectly reasonable entry into Arcane Trickster (Sorcerer's Charisma improves Ninja's Ki).

By the way, Eldritch Scrapper replaces the Bloodline Powers gained at levels 1(*), 9, and 15. This archetype doesn't really work, except maybe for some build using the Ghoul Bloodline, which doesn't help you since you need Anarchic (yes, you could house-rule in Crossblooded of Wildblooded, but this is going to be hard to make good -- better to do Eldritch Heritage on one of the Bloodlines).

(*)If your 1st level Bloodline Power gives natural attacks, you can replace your 3rd level Bloodline Power with it, which just might be workable with the Ghoul Bloodline.


An arcanist can get a sorcerer bloodline with the blood arcanist archetype (or a much lesser version via the bloodline development exploit.) Technically they can't get the wildblooded stuff but that's a tiny house rule away. They can also use exploits to counterspell as an immediate action, which I still wouldn't normally recommend but which actually works nicely with the anarchic 3rd level ability.

The easiest way to define them as different is simply taking different spells though. If one has Roaming Pit, Wall of Ice and Stoneskin and the other has Magic Jar, Animate Dead and Horrific Doubles they are going to play and look quite different.


Since this is a homebrew game and these are bosses, nothing is stopping you from making your own 'class'.

If you go about making your own class for them, design a story around it and drop foreshadowing hints to the players. Might even lead to a side quest or three.

Real question is, what levels do you want the twins at?
The higher their levels, the more options that can open up.

Then there's how powerful are the players characters?
Will the bad guys know the good guys (players) are coming and able to prep for them? Smart, prepped bad guys should be a royal pain.


Sorcerer 1/ Blade Adept Arcanist X taking the Bloodline Development exploit at Arcanist 3?

You'd have full bloodline advancement and he could spellstrike and enhance his weapon. his BaB and HP would be low for a melee character but with Arcane Cloak and such he might be a good skirmisher.

Dark Archive

Thank you all for the responses, I have a lot to think about.


Warlord/Wilder/Awakened Blade with Eldritch Heritage

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / Need Help with Villainous Twins All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.