The purpose of the multiple character sheets is because they wanted one to be more like a spellcaster and one be to be like a fighter or barbarian.
This is the kind of thing that sounds cool until you actually sit down to do it and then it becomes a logistical nightmare, both for the GM and the player. It may not be so hard to juggle the sheets at 1st level but if you go through a long campaign and this character gets to significant levels it will become a management nightmare for the player.
Yep, this would likely be overpowered as heck too. To the point where the other players get upset because they can’t contribute as much. Any class with a focus split between spells and melee (such as Eldritch Knight) would be a better option.
Ok had time to think properly about this and all going to approach it from a different perspective.
Many years ago I played a character who had the soul of another trapped inside him. Sometimes the soul could take over. Now this was a very different system (Cthulhu) so very very different game mechanics and a setting and game that embraces this kind of story thread. Both characters had completely different sheets, where roleplayed as 2 distinct personalities.
The hardest thing was working out how to handle the swapping of personalities, Cthulhu has fear and insanity tracking as part of the game (when mortals look into the abyss and see a many tentacled monster the size of a house staring back it tends to leave an impression) so this acted as one of the mechanism to trigger a swap, there’re where others, I am trying to remember the details but it was almost 20 years ago lol. But the main thing is that I as the player had very little input into which character was alpha at any one time. This meant that at the most opportune moment the right one might pop up with the skill the party needed, or, mid action, it might swap over.
For our party it worked, was great fun and, Cthulhu being the game it is we kind of knew the character had a shelf life and would either die or end up back in a straight jacket in an institution somewhere (again part of the game mechanics) eventually. Characters don’t live old in a game of Cthulhu.
Now applying this to DnD where characters are long lived and gain massive abilities, where you can’t really apply the kind of impacts that a game like Cthulhu can is going to be hard. Some things I think you need to seriously consider if you are going to do this.
Leveling, if you are doing XP then does the character sheet in play that session get the XP, do you split the XP in 2 between both sheets, do you have both sheets level at the same rate regardless of which was active. of milestone leveling then does it make sense for a character who has only been present 50% of the time to level at the same rate? In my case Cthulhu uses a system that levels skills the more they are used, so both character sheets leveled at a slower rate.
Narriative, at some point you are going to want to resolve your story to split the beings. This feels almost like a tier one arc, you need your players buy in to this but, it could make for a great story and a great chance to roleplay the characters splitting. But it could also be a nightmare or make the entire first part of your campaign be about one player. You def need buyin from your players about this. But it can totally work, however you need to have a long think about some of the mechanics and issues you will come into. As I said in Cthulhu you barely understand what’s going on, it’s about survival but our Keeper of arcane knowledge (gm) told me that he had come up with a story to seperate out personalities if I could live long enough to get through this arc.
If the player classes and subclasses allow magic on both characters then how is this tracked, how does magic work in your world, are spell levels indicative of what you can learn and understand, or is it also an indication of physically what the user can wield before there body gives out and they need a long rest? If the latter then your spell slots are defined by the character with the most but, they are total for the whole. Mortals don’t wield magic in Cthulhu so I have no real life examples here but for me magic is as much physical as mental, yes a wizard can only remember so many spells each day from his book but there is also a physical drain each time they cast one.
On that point, a long and short rest, which character rests, or is the dormant character always resting with regards to regaining class abilities etc? This again I can’t help with other then to say despite not thinking it makes narriative sense I would have both characters gain all the benefits of rest
Mechanics, the really key thing to making this not just become a player with 2 characters is that the swap between characters is defined clearly with rules. What triggers it, which personality is stronger or are they equal, do they both talk, is one aware of what the other has done while it has control of the body or does it need to have things explained to it every time it swaps. is it parasitic or symbiotic in nature? Once you and the player define the trigger then you need to make sure you are consistent. Some ideas off the top of my head.
Every time the player takes damage the current character has to make a wisdom saving throw or the other takes over.
Every time the player falls unconscious they wake up as the other character.
Every time the player suffers the effect of a charm spell there is a chance the other character will take over and not be affected, or on the spell ending the other character uses the moment of confusion to take over.
Every time the player is in a high stress environment (needs to be defined) then they have to make a wisdom saving throw or be taken over.
A mix of all of the above probably makes sense but as you can see you now have more stuff to track.
I would have the player become stunned or paralysed for a round when taken over to represent the moment of confusion working out what’s going on in the world in that moment. Maybe also suffer psychic damage (yes if they just woke up with 1 hit point this means that are out again, and switched again).
There is much much more to consider here, but the thing to realise is that you are now adding homebrew and additional complexity into the game. I think this could be a fantastic idea with the right table and the right player playing it, but, it would need to be an experienced table who are fully into the rules and a player who has played both classes seperetlay so they can switch quickly between the 2 mid combat.
Only you know your table and players so if you think it can work go for it but, narratively I think you need to consider that it can’t be a choice thing for he player, otherwise you have a Swiss Army knife player who just tailors each character to get the right skill for the right task in the moment, or you have a player who at higher levels just doesn’t get to enjoy her class properly because she is only playing it 50% of the time.
This is the key right here. It is really up to the DM.
As a DM, I would say a hard no to this concept, because it is too complicated and I don't want to deal with it. And DMs do have that right... same as their right to say no to Feats or multi-classing, both of which are optional by RAW.
The decision on making up a character and playing it is not just the player's -- it is a result of negotiation between the DM and the player. That is the key. If the OP, the DM, is OK with multiple character sheets and capable of handling it well, then great, do that.
I, personally, would not be OK with it, and would probably not handle it all that well, so my answer would be "just RP it." But that's up to each DM to make that call.
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I was once a player in a short-duration game (a few months) with a character like this.
It sucked.
"*tired sigh* Oh, yay, what personality is X going to have this session?"
Please make sure you think of the impact the character has on all of the other people at the table.
If that's taken care of, then cool.
Mechanics-wise, it was a lot simpler in practice than any of us thought.
The player had two seperate character sheets. Different classes, different races (sort-of - if I remember right, one personalioty was an elf who was upset to be in the human body). XP was divided between the two characters. One Hit Points number shared by both, it was half the hit points for the seperate characters. Essentially, they were a D&D 1E dual-class, except that the dual-classes switched back and forth.
At times of stress, the player picked up one piece of paper and put down another.
In 5E it would be a little more difficult, because there are resources (like spell slots and "once per rest" things that 1E didn't have. Still, not insurmountable.
Let us know how it goes.
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Yep, this would likely be overpowered as heck too. To the point where the other players get upset because they can’t contribute as much. Any class with a focus split between spells and melee (such as Eldritch Knight) would be a better option.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Ok had time to think properly about this and all going to approach it from a different perspective.
Many years ago I played a character who had the soul of another trapped inside him. Sometimes the soul could take over. Now this was a very different system (Cthulhu) so very very different game mechanics and a setting and game that embraces this kind of story thread. Both characters had completely different sheets, where roleplayed as 2 distinct personalities.
The hardest thing was working out how to handle the swapping of personalities, Cthulhu has fear and insanity tracking as part of the game (when mortals look into the abyss and see a many tentacled monster the size of a house staring back it tends to leave an impression) so this acted as one of the mechanism to trigger a swap, there’re where others, I am trying to remember the details but it was almost 20 years ago lol. But the main thing is that I as the player had very little input into which character was alpha at any one time. This meant that at the most opportune moment the right one might pop up with the skill the party needed, or, mid action, it might swap over.
For our party it worked, was great fun and, Cthulhu being the game it is we kind of knew the character had a shelf life and would either die or end up back in a straight jacket in an institution somewhere (again part of the game mechanics) eventually. Characters don’t live old in a game of Cthulhu.
Now applying this to DnD where characters are long lived and gain massive abilities, where you can’t really apply the kind of impacts that a game like Cthulhu can is going to be hard. Some things I think you need to seriously consider if you are going to do this.
Leveling, if you are doing XP then does the character sheet in play that session get the XP, do you split the XP in 2 between both sheets, do you have both sheets level at the same rate regardless of which was active. of milestone leveling then does it make sense for a character who has only been present 50% of the time to level at the same rate? In my case Cthulhu uses a system that levels skills the more they are used, so both character sheets leveled at a slower rate.
Narriative, at some point you are going to want to resolve your story to split the beings. This feels almost like a tier one arc, you need your players buy in to this but, it could make for a great story and a great chance to roleplay the characters splitting. But it could also be a nightmare or make the entire first part of your campaign be about one player. You def need buyin from your players about this. But it can totally work, however you need to have a long think about some of the mechanics and issues you will come into. As I said in Cthulhu you barely understand what’s going on, it’s about survival but our Keeper of arcane knowledge (gm) told me that he had come up with a story to seperate out personalities if I could live long enough to get through this arc.
If the player classes and subclasses allow magic on both characters then how is this tracked, how does magic work in your world, are spell levels indicative of what you can learn and understand, or is it also an indication of physically what the user can wield before there body gives out and they need a long rest? If the latter then your spell slots are defined by the character with the most but, they are total for the whole. Mortals don’t wield magic in Cthulhu so I have no real life examples here but for me magic is as much physical as mental, yes a wizard can only remember so many spells each day from his book but there is also a physical drain each time they cast one.
On that point, a long and short rest, which character rests, or is the dormant character always resting with regards to regaining class abilities etc? This again I can’t help with other then to say despite not thinking it makes narriative sense I would have both characters gain all the benefits of rest
Mechanics, the really key thing to making this not just become a player with 2 characters is that the swap between characters is defined clearly with rules. What triggers it, which personality is stronger or are they equal, do they both talk, is one aware of what the other has done while it has control of the body or does it need to have things explained to it every time it swaps. is it parasitic or symbiotic in nature? Once you and the player define the trigger then you need to make sure you are consistent. Some ideas off the top of my head.
Every time the player takes damage the current character has to make a wisdom saving throw or the other takes over.
Every time the player falls unconscious they wake up as the other character.
Every time the player suffers the effect of a charm spell there is a chance the other character will take over and not be affected, or on the spell ending the other character uses the moment of confusion to take over.
Every time the player is in a high stress environment (needs to be defined) then they have to make a wisdom saving throw or be taken over.
A mix of all of the above probably makes sense but as you can see you now have more stuff to track.
I would have the player become stunned or paralysed for a round when taken over to represent the moment of confusion working out what’s going on in the world in that moment. Maybe also suffer psychic damage (yes if they just woke up with 1 hit point this means that are out again, and switched again).
There is much much more to consider here, but the thing to realise is that you are now adding homebrew and additional complexity into the game. I think this could be a fantastic idea with the right table and the right player playing it, but, it would need to be an experienced table who are fully into the rules and a player who has played both classes seperetlay so they can switch quickly between the 2 mid combat.
Only you know your table and players so if you think it can work go for it but, narratively I think you need to consider that it can’t be a choice thing for he player, otherwise you have a Swiss Army knife player who just tailors each character to get the right skill for the right task in the moment, or you have a player who at higher levels just doesn’t get to enjoy her class properly because she is only playing it 50% of the time.
This is the key right here. It is really up to the DM.
As a DM, I would say a hard no to this concept, because it is too complicated and I don't want to deal with it. And DMs do have that right... same as their right to say no to Feats or multi-classing, both of which are optional by RAW.
The decision on making up a character and playing it is not just the player's -- it is a result of negotiation between the DM and the player. That is the key. If the OP, the DM, is OK with multiple character sheets and capable of handling it well, then great, do that.
I, personally, would not be OK with it, and would probably not handle it all that well, so my answer would be "just RP it." But that's up to each DM to make that call.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
A personal observation.
I was once a player in a short-duration game (a few months) with a character like this.
It sucked.
"*tired sigh* Oh, yay, what personality is X going to have this session?"
Please make sure you think of the impact the character has on all of the other people at the table.
If that's taken care of, then cool.
Mechanics-wise, it was a lot simpler in practice than any of us thought.
The player had two seperate character sheets. Different classes, different races (sort-of - if I remember right, one personalioty was an elf who was upset to be in the human body). XP was divided between the two characters. One Hit Points number shared by both, it was half the hit points for the seperate characters. Essentially, they were a D&D 1E dual-class, except that the dual-classes switched back and forth.
At times of stress, the player picked up one piece of paper and put down another.
In 5E it would be a little more difficult, because there are resources (like spell slots and "once per rest" things that 1E didn't have. Still, not insurmountable.
Let us know how it goes.