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Primal Fury
2009-10-10, 10:05 PM
What would be the mechanical benefits/drawbacks of having two souls? Would this affect someones spell-casting? What about experience? What about incarnum? What would be different?

Logalmier
2009-10-10, 10:07 PM
Get twice as much gold when you sell them.

Crafty Cultist
2009-10-10, 10:53 PM
It would depend on how the souls co-exist. was the person in question born with two souls or did they absorb someone elses?

either way, a bonus against death effects would make sense

Primal Fury
2009-10-10, 11:24 PM
Well, in this case, the person was born with two souls. And yeah, a bonus to death effects would be nice.

Hat-Trick
2009-10-10, 11:31 PM
Depending on how you want to work it, your character may not need sleep, your souls just swap control while the other rests. You might think of giving him good spot and/or listen checks to simulate that both souls are alert. The Slippery Mind ability or something similar would be a good option, two souls are harder to control.

Fan
2009-10-10, 11:31 PM
"Weather it is impossible or laughable! Great men open up paths of battle! If there is a wall in our way we tear it down! IF there is no path we make one with these hands!

THESE TWIN HEARTS MAGMA BURNS WITH FLAMES!

ETERNAL COMBINATION!

GURREN! LAGANN!"

That my friend, is your benefit.

That, and I believe you could have 2 clones, and if you die per RAW (and not the silly kind that means you have no negative effects for being dead.) you also get 2 deaths before the character(s) actually die.

Primal Fury
2009-10-10, 11:47 PM
Depending on how you want to work it, your character may not need sleep, your souls just swap control while the other rests. You might think of giving him good spot and/or listen checks to simulate that both souls are alert. The Slippery Mind ability or something similar would be a good option, two souls are harder to control.

Okay, high spot and listen checks. Good, good. Maybe half the required rest time (two souls resting at once). Slippery Mind-esque ability. Interesting.


"Weather it is impossible or laughable! Great men open up paths of battle! If there is a wall in our way we tear it down! IF there is no path we make one with these hands!

THESE TWIN HEARTS MAGMA BURNS WITH FLAMES!

ETERNAL COMBINATION!

GURREN! LAGANN!"

That my friend, is your benefit.

That, and I believe you could have 2 clones, and if you die per RAW (and not the silly kind that means you have no negative effects for being dead.) you also get 2 deaths before the character(s) actually die.

And just how exaclty do I transfer that first part into something that isn't completely insane? :smalltongue: Having two deaths is rather... odd. They would need to keep their second soul. What about doubling the dying hit point level? (i.e. -20 hit points rather than just -10)

Fan
2009-10-10, 11:51 PM
The Burning Spirit of Kamina is not insane, it is only viewed as such by those not manly enough to understand the sheer bad ass, burning will, that is he who calls himself Kamina!

In all seriousness, making a Hotblooded type, would be fun with this, especially if he was partially Schizo.

I also guess you could take half the XP penalty on item creation due to the burden of the creation process being shared by the two souls?

I mean, it's not like doing that will unbalance the game in anyways, so it should be cool.

Hat-Trick
2009-10-10, 11:53 PM
Unless he's an artificer, and even then, you have to aim for the cheese.

AslanCross
2009-10-10, 11:55 PM
The Kalashtar race from Eberron has dual souls. For the most part it just gives them a chance to redo a will save and extra psionic power points.

Primal Fury
2009-10-11, 12:07 AM
The Kalashtar race from Eberron has dual souls. For the most part it just gives them a chance to redo a will save and extra psionic power points.

Well yes, but they share one soul with a large group of other kalashtar. In this case, both souls belong to one creature. And that is far too boring for what I'm going for. :smalltongue: I like Night Surgeon's way of looking at it. Very epic. :smallwink:

Hat-Trick
2009-10-11, 12:11 AM
Kamina raises everything to level fifty instantly and progressively levels up at a rate of one level per word.

You may consider a bonus to things like concentration as well, maybe a diverse language list, to show the souls aren't cut-and-paste.

Fan
2009-10-11, 12:18 AM
Well yes, but they share one soul with a large group of other kalashtar. In this case, both souls belong to one creature. And that is far too boring for what I'm going for. :smalltongue: I like Night Surgeon's way of looking at it. Very epic. :smallwink:

You gots to have your hot blooded spirit in here.

It works especially well if you have one soul that is strongly logical in contrast to the Hot Headed Manliness of the Kamina soul.:smalltongue:

Dixieboy
2009-10-11, 12:32 AM
No drawbacks?

Berserk Monk
2009-10-11, 12:40 AM
I actually thought of this weird thing to do awhile ago. Basically, what would happen if you turned someone to stone via a flesh to stone spell, cast animate object on them turning them into a construct, then returned them to living matter via stone to flesh?

Je dit Viola
2009-10-11, 12:46 AM
You could do what they do in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World. Have one be the evil, strong dude with red eyes, and have the other be a wimpy Emil who can't do anything...until he learns that he's not as weak as he thinks, while the Evil Strong Spirit is taking over slowly, especially whenever he gets close to angry.

Ogremindes
2009-10-11, 01:17 AM
The psychic power Schism (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/schism.htm) seems a good place to start, as its effect is to give the manifester a second mind.

TheOOB
2009-10-11, 01:46 AM
Well, your second soul gives you the power of the gods, turning you into a super powerful killing machine.

Oh wait, that's Exalted.

Protection from Soul Jar I guess?

Rixx
2009-10-11, 02:43 AM
Two souls - this can mean a lot of things. Does in infer two minds or two personalities? Is it just one personality that manifested from the influence of two souls?

I would say that in the latter case, whenever there's a situation in which your soul would be separated from your body, have only one soul separated. The effects would be noticeable - you become kind of unsettling, incomplete. You seem to be lacking in some emotions and have some others in overabundance - you retain your memories but your emotional associations with them become vague. You feel incomplete, and you seem incomplete to everyone around you - to those who know you, the feeling is very, very unsettling. Everything about you becomes unnatural and hollow.

Primal Fury
2009-10-11, 11:50 AM
Well, your second soul gives you the power of the gods, turning you into a super powerful killing machine.

Oh wait, that's Exalted.

Actually... that might work in this situation. :smallbiggrin:


Two souls - this can mean a lot of things. Does in infer two minds or two personalities? Is it just one personality that manifested from the influence of two souls?

I would say that in the latter case, whenever there's a situation in which your soul would be separated from your body, have only one soul separated. The effects would be noticeable - you become kind of unsettling, incomplete. You seem to be lacking in some emotions and have some others in overabundance - you retain your memories but your emotional associations with them become vague. You feel incomplete, and you seem incomplete to everyone around you - to those who know you, the feeling is very, very unsettling. Everything about you becomes unnatural and hollow.

...I only had the whole, two souls=two minds scenario in mind, but your idea is also very awesome. Lotsa roleplaying potential there.

And Dixieboy is right. Where are all the drawbacks? Not just the prospect of losing one soul and becoming "hollow", but the whole condition of having two souls in the first place. Hm... :smallconfused:

The Glyphstone
2009-10-11, 12:18 PM
The flipside of having one soul missing, maybe? When you've got both your souls in your proper place, you're more there than a normal person - more alive, so to speak. People notice you more, even if they don't want to, or when you don't want them to, as you're unusually vibrant and/or energetic.

Siosilvar
2009-10-11, 12:21 PM
The flipside of having one soul missing, maybe? When you've got both your souls in your proper place, you're more there than a normal person - more alive, so to speak. People notice you more, even if they don't want to, or when you don't want them to, as you're unusually vibrant and/or energetic.

+4 Charisma?

Prime32
2009-10-11, 12:23 PM
At high levels you could use Leadership to pick up a Fiend of Possession cohort. This thread (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3364.0) might give you some idas.

The Glyphstone
2009-10-11, 12:26 PM
+4 Charisma?

More like a bonus to, say, Diplomacy/Intimidate, but a penalty to things like Hide and Bluff. People unconsciously want to pay attention to you and what you're doing/saying, despite your best efforts to make them either ignore you entirely or accept what you're saying unquestioningly.

Primal Fury
2009-10-11, 12:59 PM
More "there" than a normal person? Very interesting. :smallbiggrin: So a high charisma would be vital to portay that. But a penalty to subtle things would also be needed to show that people pay attention to them regardless of their willingness or desire to do so. Very nice. :smallsmile:

MOAR IDEAS! MUCH MOAR!!

Zaq
2009-10-11, 01:44 PM
How powerful do you want this to be? Should this be on the level of what you get from your race? What you get from a feat? What you get from a defining class feature? What you get from a capstone? What you get from an artifact? I'm basing my suggestions off the assumption that this is about what you get from a race, or maybe a race and a racial feat.

The Synad, from Complete Psionic, has three minds (or three "parts" to their mind... just read it). That might be a good jumping-off point. Twist that around to be two instead of three... I know they're minds instead of souls, but it's a good place to start.

For Incarnum, I'd say that it would let you rearrange your essentia as a free action (not swift action) X times per day, perhaps once for every 2 HD you had. The idea is that your second soul is handling the soul energy for you.

I could also see allowing a slippery mind effect. Either allow it once per day, or perhaps usable at will at the cost of some minor ability burn (yes, burn (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicPowersOverview.htm#abilityBurn). Perhaps 1 point of burn to the mental stat of your choice per use.) Damage and drain are too easy to mitigate. Well, that, or you could have it be first time per day = free, second time = 1 point wisdom damage, third time = 1 point wisdom drain, fourth time and up = 1 point wisdom burn. The idea is that having your second soul interfere with the first soul is challenging and exhausting, but you can do it when you really need to.

Adding drawbacks would let you add more benefits, of course. Perhaps requiring two Will saves against compulsion effects, taking penalties against creatures with the Incarnum subtype (only appropriate if you have an Incarnum-heavy campaign, otherwise we have the Noncombatant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm#noncombatant) Wizard.), or taking huge penalties on Concentration checks due to the difficulty of trying to get two souls to act in harmony. I could also see an argument for making certain kinds of healing magic more difficult, but I'm not sure how.

Primal Fury
2009-10-11, 02:02 PM
Well Zaq, I'm actually making a base class off of the idea of having two souls. The only problem I was having was the mechanics of simply having two souls to begin with. I suppose you could just make it a race/template thing, but I've got to many ideas in my head for something on such a small scale. As to how powerful I want it to be... I don't know yet. I need to get everything down on paper so I know what I've got first.

Sinfire Titan
2009-10-11, 05:47 PM
@Primal Fury: Just use the Binder base class, and reflavor or adjust some minor mechanics.

Primal Fury
2009-10-11, 07:50 PM
Wow, feels like I've got me a catch-phrase now: That's boring. :smalltongue: No offense Sinfire, but it feels like I'd be "phoning it in" if I took that course of action. Beisides, I love homebrewing. :smallwink:

Thurbane
2009-10-11, 08:46 PM
Gain Indomatiable Soul as a bonus feat?

Primal Fury
2009-10-12, 10:06 AM
Hm. So it wouldn't be a one-time bonus, it'd be more like a transformative thing. I like that idea. I was a little worried that I might be making a class that required essentia for every single one of it's abilities. They'd be useless if they lost access to that energy for whatever reason. And I think higher vulnerability to necrocarnum would work nicely, since they have more soul to be "necrotized".

Cyrion
2009-10-12, 10:35 AM
Is control of the body tandem or mutually exclusive? Stealing an idea from Dave Duncan's "A Man of His Word", only one soul can control the body at once. The switch is voluntary and has some physical manifestation. The original character physically changed bodies, but that may be more dramatic than you're looking for. The two souls are completely separate and have separate classes and perhaps slightly different alignments, INT, WIS or CHA scores. The soul in abeyance does not gain experience or and shares only limited memories and information and does not age while the other soul is in control. Maybe that's the physical manifestation- the aging of the body.

From an adventure hooks perspective, this character would be a divine magnet. Two souls for the price of one makes the character a magnet for every demon, devil, planetar, solar, etc. in the area. I think this begs for something related to a favored soul- some form of spontaneous divine casting from mixed sources.

Zeta Kai
2009-10-12, 10:49 AM
I'm amazed that this hasn't been brought up yet, but I must ask: Do both souls have to be of the same alignment? If they can have differing personalities/alignments, what consequence would there be to having such an internal conflict?

I'd say that each soul would receive a free Will save every time the other soul wanted to perform an action that the first soul objected to. This could result in a lot of cancelled actions though.

Also, since this is an idea for a base class, I'd say that you should use all of the ideas presented so far, in an escalating progression of power. The most powerful benefits should wait until higher levels, but the drawbacks should be present from the beginning, to prevent class-dipping.

Ashes
2009-10-12, 11:06 AM
I must say, the route you've chosen, with having different personalities, is neither a very new and original one, nor one I have ever seen work satisfactory.

Many people, including myself when I was a teen, have tried playing a character with multiple personalities, and it usually ends up silly and confusing.

I'm not saying you can't make it good, I'm just saying that I really doubt it.

The idea I thought this thread was about when I entered it, was a lot more interesting. It was along the same lines as what Rixx posted, with the single personality, that was just more "there". And less of the silly stuff that has been presented otherwise. I would prefer it much more as a mostly fluff thing.

Also, the things you mention wanting seem sorta, I don't know, munchkinny to me. Very powerful without making much sense.

Paulus
2009-10-12, 11:27 AM
Two souls? are they aware of each other? In any case...


+2 cha, +2 Wis, The extra soul increases your own willpower and force of personality.
-4 int, two souls makes it hard to focus on things, as keeping the awareness of two different beings separate within.

Or are they fused together?

+2 to will saves, because you have twice the 'power' of a normal person.
-2 fortitude saves, your body is under strain from trying to house two life times.

Immune to sleep, paralysis, etc (elf immunity)... maybe some stuff from the fey template too...

jiriku
2009-10-12, 11:38 AM
Serious answer: definitely the slippery mind class ability. Perhaps immunity to magic jar.

Not-so-serious answer: if you also have associative personality disorder, then you may go to two different planes when you die!

Primal Fury
2009-10-12, 01:08 PM
@Ahses: That is most certainly NOT that route I have chosen. :smalltongue: It seemed like it was going to be that way at first, but Rixx mentioned the idea of both souls soming together to form the mind of the creature they inhabited, which I find most exquisite. :smallbiggrin: And what things seem munchkinny to you exactly? :smallconfused:

@Zeta: In the event that the two souls form two separate minds, they would most certainly not have to have the same alignment.