A Three villian team up!

[Laucorn]

Well I've decided to pester my group with a three villian ambush! But I'm going to need some help with them so lets get started. Basically what I need is suggestions for feats, and equipment besides their weapons I want to make these guys nasty and fun their going up against five level 10 characters fighter (Tank), ranger(Damage), druid(Wild Shape), cleric(Healing), and sorcerer (Nuke). Each one of the pc's have been optimized to do certain things really well.

First:

Paladin of Tyranny 10/Marshal 5
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Age: 30
HP: 270
Str:16 (3)
Dex:14 (2)
Con:22 (6)
Int:14 (2)
Wis:18 (4)
Cha:20 (5)
Weapon: Purple Wurm Queen/Medium +3 Long Sword/When a command phrase is spoken the blade is automatically covered in Purple Wurm Poison.

Second:

Paladin of Tyranny 10/Blackguard 5
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Age: 20
Hp: 225
Str: 22 (6)
Dex: 14 (2)
Con: 20 (5)
Int: 14 (2)
Wis:16 (3)
Cha:18 (4)
Weapon: Wyvern Fang/Medium +3 Greatsword/When a command phrase is spoken the blade is automatically covered in Wyvern Poison.

Third:
Hexblade 10/Paladin of Tyranny 5
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Age: 20
HP: 210
Str: 18 (4)
Dex: 16 (3)
Con:18 (4)
Int: 14 (2)
Wis: 14 (2)
Cha: 26 (8)
Weapon: Deathblade/Medium +3 Scimitar/When a command phrase is spoken the blade is automatically covered in Deathblade Poison.

[Runestar]

Ugh! What's with all the paladin levels? What exactly is their area of expertise again?

[Laucorn]

Originally Posted by Runestar

Ugh! What's with all the paladin levels? What exactly is their area of expertise again?

Basically mess with saves and use poisoned weapons, minor spells, and buffs from the marshal levels plus paladin of tyranny and blackguard have synergy. The idea for these guys though is their commanders in an army unit.

[Flickerdart]

The thing about those builds is that one character of 5 levels lower (Hexblade 4/Paladin of Tyranny 3/Blackguard 3 with Master of Poisons and a bucket of poison) does their entire thing by himself. To this one guy I would add a straight Crusader and a Paladin of Tyranny 4/Fighter 2/Crusader 1/Divine Crusader 7 - the Crusader should slap them around with maneuvers that have saving throws, and the Divine Crusader should do the same using his spellcasting.

[Runestar]

Are you open to the idea of using monsters as npcs? One build I have in mind is a medusa hexblade6 (cr10 using non-associated rules). She can debuff with curses, petrify the party, makes a decent archer and has a racial cha bonus.

[navar100]

Name them Jason, Fred, and Michael.

[Treblain]

Cleric and Druid can take care of poison reeeaaallly easily. If they know what's coming, they can cast Delay Poison, a measly 2nd level spell, on the whole party every day and not worry about it until they can prepare Neutralize Poison the next day.

[Flickerdart]

In that case, be sure to slap some dispelling capability on your guys. Dispelling in general is a good idea when facing Clerics and Druids.

[bluthunda]

Throw in an evil cleric in there instead of one of the paladins full plate good melee and full caster levels just even the fields a little

[Treblain]

Originally Posted by Flickerdart

In that case, be sure to slap some dispelling capability on your guys. Dispelling in general is a good idea when facing Clerics and Druids.

Sure, I guess. But that wastes one or more combat actions from the bad guys to remove a previously-cast buff of a lower spell level. Some kind of dispelling screen might work.

In general, a more diverse trio of villains might be more challenging. You don't have to have evil paladins as your evil commanders. You can just put an evil sorcerer or a shapeshifting monster in a uniform and tell your players he's an evil paladin commander. It might surprise them if they're expecting to face something different.