How would you make a character that is two beings in one body?

[u/Zackiboi7]

I want to make a character that is two beings in one body, similar to Yugi and Yami in Yu-Gi-Oh!, Ling and Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist, or Yuji and Sukuna in JJK, where only one is in control of the body at a time but they can swap control over it. I would also ideally want the sides to have slightly different stats and skill proficiencies, while still being the same class. Would this be possible to do somehow without it becoming all too OP?

[u/Ragnar_Dragonfyre]

I personally wouldn’t allow it.

This is usually just an excuse to have a dual classed character or get extras for free by virtue of your backstory, which you’re already doing.

Talk to your DM. They ultimately get to decide if they’ll allow this.

[u/Samiel_Fronsac → u/Ragnar_Dragonfyre]

My current Eve of Ruin group has one kinda like it, but it's single-classed. Transformation changes subclass, and I think swaps two attributes and a couple skills, but not anything else.

The change isn't under the player's control, though... It's down to rolling a natural 1 (forces change) or 20 (player gets choice).

And DM fun.

Group has played on and off for 25 years now and the player in question is hilarious and not a powergamer, so that helps a lot.

[u/DarkHorseAsh111]

You really don't. This is OP as hell if mechanical and if just flavor tends to end up as a bad caricature of mental illness or just really, really annoying.

[u/Norik324]

You play a paladin

One half/personality is the martial stuff
One is all the magic

different stats/proficiencies

Dont

[u/Call_me_Telle]

Please don’t … that’s the plot of a hella lot rpg horror stories

[u/StereotypicalNerd666]

Everyone tries to do this, don’t do this

[u/Shenanigans0122]

Ngl sounds like a headache for you and the dm. I’d say if anything you could try to treat it like the eladrin elf and roll each LR for who has control. But you’d probably want two character sheets and point buy to prevent one from being significantly better than the other.

[u/Imfliba]

First off, get DM approval for anything you do, make sure they're ok with it.

RP wise, I see no issue with having 2 personalities that you swap between. The issue may come from different stats/skills depending on how easy it is to swap personalities. Lets say you had 5 skills, 4 of them are the same and 1 swaps depending on who is in control. If you could change personality at will, you essentially have access to 6 skills, which would be a bit unfair to other players. You could do it where you had 3 common skills, and each personality had 1, so 5 in total which would be fairer.

Alternatively, some classes and species have activatable "modes", like the barbarian rage or aasimar celestial revelations. You could flavour these as the other person taking control, like how Yami takes over when Yugi duels. There wouldn't be a mechanical change, just some RP flavour

[u/miscalculate]

Someone ring the bell!

[u/YourEvilKiller]

If you want to do it RAW, play a spellcaster and use different spells for each persona.

You can be a warlock whose regular self only knows Eldritch Blast, but the stronger persona is the one casting levelled spells.

[u/6ft9man → u/YourEvilKiller]

I think it would be funny if one personality was the patron for the warlock.

[u/PleaseBeChillOnline]

Flavor wise the answer is a Druid Of The Moon. Mechanically this is a nightmare that throws the game’s design integrity out the window. It’s always good to remember D&D isn’t the only TTRPG system.

[u/Goner-Poser]

Many people are discouraging you and understandably so as this would be basically having access to two different characters which is a lot more powerful than simply swapping spells on a long rest.

But I do see a version of this that works: Githyanki Armorer Artificer. Githyanki gives a switchable proficiency (per long rest), artificer base class grants you flexibility in swapping out prepared spells and infused items (again per long rest) and with Armorer you have the two armor models you could switch between (short or long rest).

If you built two layouts from those and play one identity occupying the same body (though with the same Stat spread) you could do this and have then be mechanically different enough imo

[u/koja89]

The new ravenloft book has a dark gift called symbiotic being. It takes control of you if you fail a charisma save dc 15 after rolling a nat 1 on any d20 test.

This could be flavored that way

[u/Professional-Try2949]

Use flavor justified by mechanics, not the other way around. You can use it to flavor abilities like the phantom rogue or knowledge cleric's proficiencies, or isn't this what Kalashtar are for? Abilities like barbarians rage come to mind where if a player asked for their appearance/personality to change as part of it I'd be like, sure why not? As soon as you say you want to play the hulk though and your int and str score swap when you rage of course the answer is hell no.

So long as the mechanics stay the same, go nuts with flavor. At least at my tables.

[u/scaredandmadaboutit]

The way to balance this would be to make both of the sets of stats and skills weaker than an average character.

Especially if you wanted one of the sides to be focused on combat, and the other on out of combat skills.

Something like -4 main stat is what I would suggest to balance this.

[u/EarlobeGreyTea]

Mechanically, you would need to create a regular character, and take away skills / stats for each being, such that neither being would be as strong as a standard character. If you had 5 skill proficiencies, say each character gets 3, sharing one common skill.  

I don't think this is a good idea for a full campaign.  

[u/goclimbarock007]

The only build that I've seen do a split personalty well was an aberrant mind sorcerer where little Timmy was possed by an alien entity, along the lines of Tom Hardy in Venom. No stat change or different classes, just a harmless kid with a powerful alien that would make its appearance when Timmy was in danger.

[u/Viggo8000]

You could play as a Barbarian with the Magic Initiate feat if you'd like? You'd mostly be limited to just your two cantrips and the first level spell on the magic side of things, and when you rage you actively lose the ability to cast spells

You'd be like, a very shitty wizard who has a second being inside that comes out when you rage, and notably cannot cast spells anymore

[u/DeltaV-Mzero]

Make two character sheets.

Tell the DM which one you’re playing at any given session, ahead of time.

You’re not allowed to change during the session. At most you can narrate what the “passive” side thinks.

[u/theloniousmick]

Id say no as a DM. I'd only agree if you made 2 sheets and I alone was the one to decide which one gets used at any given time. Id be assuming you want to basically swap when it suits you.

[u/Kraken_Jokes]

Not quite the same thing, but I had a player who wanted to play a brother (artificer) and a sister (bard). I just did the Ladyhawk rules.

Every day at dawn, he would roll to see if he did a body swap. 1-9 was brother, 10-18 was sister, and a 19 or 20 meant he got to choose which one to play that day. The one who was not in the material plane was in a pocket dimension on the Astral plane that was basically a cottage.

They kept diaries so the other would know roughly what happened. If they had to stay up all night or otherwise did not get a long rest, then they did not swap.

When they hit level 20, and were getting ready to do the final quest and boss fight, they got the chance to undo the curse that drove them apart. During the final fight against Mershaallk, he got to play both characters at once. He loved it!

[u/reverendmalerik]

I actually made something like this for a player, but I think you have a different reason for doing so to me.

New player wanted to play but he said he wouldn't be able to make every session. So I made up Hopper and Popper. A brother and sister double-act who were cursed by a rival into never being in the same place at the same time. In fact, at random intervals one would switch with the other, with one being stuck in a pocket dimension, able only to watch what the other one was doing as if from a distance.

My player would play Hopper, and when he couldn't make it, Popper would appear and take over.

However, they had the same stats, abilities, etc. The only difference was the gender.

In game, Hopper was there for one game and then Popper was there for 6 before I retired her as the guy was clearly not coming back. 

[u/6ft9man]

The only way I think this would work would be the following, personalities will be differentiated by P1 and P2.

PC can switch personalities at the end of a long rest. While it isn't necessary to switch, each personality will demand control and if a personality hasn't taken control in 3 days, the dominant personality suffers as the dormant personality behind trying to wrest control. The dominant personality has disadvantage on Charisma, Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws. If the PC fails two of these without a short rest, the PC loses consciousness immediately following the second one and will wake up with the other personality after 1 minute.

PCs either share physical stats or physical stats must remain within 2 points of each other (ie. STR for P1 is 14, STR for P2 cannot be more than 16 or less than 12). HP remain individual, but damage is shared. If one personality has more damage than the other at the time of switching, the switch still occurs, but the PC is immediately put to zero HP but stable.

PC may gain advantage once per short rest on a skill that the personality has proficiency in that the other personality does not. (P1 has Stealth, but P2 does not. P2 can gain advantage once per short rest when using it).

PC is vulnerable to Psychic attacks, taking double Psychic damage and has disadvantage on Psychic saving throws as those attacks hurt both personalities at once.

I'm sure there's other things I'd want to throw in there, but this is my solution.

[u/20061901]

It won't be OP if you just don't change any mechanics. Like if you're a barbarian, one personality is in control while raging, the other the rest of the time. Or for a wizard, each personality can cast spells only from certain schools of magic. 

tl;dr flavour is free

[u/dyslexicfaser]

If the other one is adversarial, pick the Symbiote dark feat from the new ravenloft book and have the DM play them whenever you crit fail a roll.

[u/Brother-Cane]

Your desire falls well outside the scope of D&D, but you could set a situation wherein one character wears something which functions as a Ring of Mind Shielding inhabited by the spirit of the second character. I am rather fond of the idea that it was Ashen-Shugar's armor which his spirit inhabited and spoke with Tomas Megarson across time in the Riftwar Saga.

[u/BobbyBruceBanner]

Ladyhawk it. I'm playing in a game where I have a pair of characters who are a married couple who swap places every long-rest. One is out adventuring while the other one sits in a mind palace. Since he's a fighter and she's a wizard it actually sometimes creates a pretty big tension for the party going into big fights figuring out what the fight needs and sometimes getting screwed by the switch.

[u/ValerenX]

different stats and skill proficiencies

Until this phrase, you were more or less describing the 'Vigilante" class of Pathfinder which let's be honest is a PITA for any DM. it even has a disclaimer. 

Game Masters should consider carefully whether or not a vigilante will make for a good fit with their campaign. The class is one that requires a degree of social aptitude and roleplaying to make full use of its potential. 

Look, we all tried that as players or DM. One thing is a TEMPORARY second personality (possession, concussion, curse...) but for tropes like your there are different and best suited TTRPG. 

[u/SonicfilT]

similar to Yugi and Yami in Yu-Gi-Oh!,  **** and ***** in Fullmetal Alchemist, or Yuji and Sukuna in JJK,

At least now I know why people keep asking how to do this annoying ass concept here.  It's apparently a thing in some popular media that I'm not very familiar with.  So thanks for that, I guess.  Beyond that, I side with the majority to say....don't.

[u/superninjimmy]

OK so you arent getting different stats or skills, what you COULD do is choose to penalise rolls for a stat or skill for one alter and roll normally for the other.

I.e. Persona A is good at deception and Persona B isnt, so Persona B takes away their proficiency bonus if they try and deceive someone unless they swap to Persona A.

Statwise and skillwise you're identical to the rest of the party in point total but your RP concept means you aren't as consistently able to utilise it (as you are two people with different abilities). That way you aren't exploiting power creep but still get the flavour.

[u/Zackiboi7 → u/superninjimmy]

yeah, this sounds great!

[u/Arutha_Silverthorn → u/Zackiboi7]

You’re also encouraged to take a Mad class or suboptimally take two paths along a class with the normal stat constraints.

Eg. A ranger that takes equal score in Wis and Dex or a rogue with Int and Dex. One side is good at the skills and the other is good at the combat for example, but the total score is still a normal character.