I am sure someone has done this, and surely it would be up to the DM, but what about having a "split personality" character?
Quick story: The Sherlock Homes audiobook read by Steven Fry is awesome, so I was looking for a Sherlock type book and I found Warlock Homes. If you read the description it looks amazing, but by god is it stupid and horrible in every way. Anyways, in that version, Sherlock has a split personality (not a spoiler), Moriarty (which is a cool idea). Then leap forward to another book set call Emotional Intelligence Mastery, (this will all make sense in a second), that book calls your hidden self a "Shadow". The part of you that you hide that you aren't proud of. Anyways...
... what if the split personality was the part of you that you didn't like? I am new to DND and my first character is everything I want to be (brave, athletic, relatively honest), this would be the parts that that are not so flattering. So, let's pretend here. If you tried this in DND what limits would you use? Such as:
It makes sense that your inventory would be the same
perhaps the DM tells you to roll to see if your second personality pops up?
Maybe the second personality can even turn against your party, or be selfish when you usually are not, etc.
If you were a Fighter, could you be say a Druid?
Would your ability scores be different or be the same?
Would the two sides know about each other?
I was mowing the lawn when I thought of this so, it isn't the most detailed idea. :)
What are your thoughts? Is there any way this could be you know, fun?
This sounds entertaining if nothing else, though enough people struggle to manage one character let alone two. However, if you're dedicated enough I'd say it could absolutely work, and the occasional stealth roll to see if your second personality takes over would be a fair way of going about it.
Of course the second personality should be radically different from the "prime" personality. What fun is it if the two personalities are both reasonable, level-headed dudes with different accents? That's boring.
If I had any major gripe about it, it would be the idea that one personality is a fighter and the other could be a druid or a wizard, because then the player could just oscillate between whichever personality is most beneficial at the time. If you and the DM ensure this isn't the case and swapping becomes far more inconvenient then sure, but I feel like late campaign it would be more of a combat mechanic than a social one.
It would take a lot of working with your DM to set up. But I do think both characters would have the same inventories and ability scores, HP, etc. However, I would rule that they could be two separate classes, with different proficiencies and everything. So if the player's stat block is built to favor one class over the other, there's nothing the other personality could do about it. Things could get complicated with Ability Score Improvements... I would say that you only get the benefit of one each time, and whichever personality is in control when a level up occurs would choose that stat increase (or feat). So if you have a character that's a druid with a monk alternate personality, the druid might choose to take Warcaster as a feat, and the Monk would have access to that same feat, even if that personality gets no benefit from it. HP growth would also be determined by the active persona.
I would also say that you should discuss with the DM what could trigger the personality change... maybe the Druid panics at the sight of fire and has to make a Wisdom check to see if they could change. Although it would probably be best to come up with multiple triggers, since otherwise there's a real possibility that you simply won't encounter something that calls for a check.
Hello, mates!
I am sure someone has done this, and surely it would be up to the DM, but what about having a "split personality" character?
Quick story: The Sherlock Homes audiobook read by Steven Fry is awesome, so I was looking for a Sherlock type book and I found Warlock Homes. If you read the description it looks amazing, but by god is it stupid and horrible in every way. Anyways, in that version, Sherlock has a split personality (not a spoiler), Moriarty (which is a cool idea). Then leap forward to another book set call Emotional Intelligence Mastery, (this will all make sense in a second), that book calls your hidden self a "Shadow". The part of you that you hide that you aren't proud of. Anyways...
... what if the split personality was the part of you that you didn't like? I am new to DND and my first character is everything I want to be (brave, athletic, relatively honest), this would be the parts that that are not so flattering. So, let's pretend here. If you tried this in DND what limits would you use? Such as:
I was mowing the lawn when I thought of this so, it isn't the most detailed idea. :)
What are your thoughts? Is there any way this could be you know, fun?
This sounds entertaining if nothing else, though enough people struggle to manage one character let alone two. However, if you're dedicated enough I'd say it could absolutely work, and the occasional stealth roll to see if your second personality takes over would be a fair way of going about it.
Of course the second personality should be radically different from the "prime" personality. What fun is it if the two personalities are both reasonable, level-headed dudes with different accents? That's boring.
If I had any major gripe about it, it would be the idea that one personality is a fighter and the other could be a druid or a wizard, because then the player could just oscillate between whichever personality is most beneficial at the time. If you and the DM ensure this isn't the case and swapping becomes far more inconvenient then sure, but I feel like late campaign it would be more of a combat mechanic than a social one.
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It would take a lot of working with your DM to set up. But I do think both characters would have the same inventories and ability scores, HP, etc. However, I would rule that they could be two separate classes, with different proficiencies and everything. So if the player's stat block is built to favor one class over the other, there's nothing the other personality could do about it. Things could get complicated with Ability Score Improvements... I would say that you only get the benefit of one each time, and whichever personality is in control when a level up occurs would choose that stat increase (or feat). So if you have a character that's a druid with a monk alternate personality, the druid might choose to take Warcaster as a feat, and the Monk would have access to that same feat, even if that personality gets no benefit from it. HP growth would also be determined by the active persona.
I would also say that you should discuss with the DM what could trigger the personality change... maybe the Druid panics at the sight of fire and has to make a Wisdom check to see if they could change. Although it would probably be best to come up with multiple triggers, since otherwise there's a real possibility that you simply won't encounter something that calls for a check.
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Might work really well for an Eladrin Elf. Take a look at that race if you haven't already.
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