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View Full Version : The Man who Wasn't there. (3.5)



Sillycomic
2010-04-17, 05:46 AM
I was inspired by a couple of stories I read online to create a schizophrenic... multiple personality spell caster who thinks he is actually two people.

Here is the situation... I want everyone in my party to think I am really playing two people. Not just the characters, but the players as well.

With a little help from the Dm, I will ask to create two character sheets. One for my spell caster (I think Bard or Sorcerer will work best for this one... I need lots of spells and bluffs to pull this off) I'll ask the GM if he could humor my second character, allowing him to have an initiative order in combat, and to make listen checks when other players get to make it... have him, for all intensive purposes be an actual character I am playing alongside my own.

So, everyone in my party will think I'm running this caster... as well as a fighter.

How do I pull this off? I want to try and keep it as realistic as possible. I'm thinking of spells that might help. Silent image. Minor image? Ventriloquism. A hat of diguise... so my spell caster can at times dress up like the fighter.

The story behind it, is they are twins... so the fact that they look and act alike won't be much of a problem.

Anyone know of items that would help?

I trying to think this would be a cross being Fight Club and Psycho.... somewhere along the lines of, the spellcaster is somewhat aware that his brother doesn't exist, but his brother talks to him and tells him to do things, to he uses spells and such to help out.

with the brother being an archery based fighter, that would make him mostly useless in combat without arousing too much suspicion.

Minor image has a concentration of duration. If he concentrated on his brother fighter following him around, could this last all day? Does concentrating on a spell for hours at a time fatigue a character? I think I would need feats or something to make the illusion last a few rounds afterwards.

I don't like that Silent image has a very small area of effect. Any way to make the spell more mobile?

Cogidubnus
2010-04-17, 06:00 AM
Speaking to your DM is probably your best bet, get him to give you some leeway with durations. Concentrating on the spell ought to last indefinitely, but you can't take any other standard actions, so it makes you a bit useless. Hmm :smallconfused:

Anasazi
2010-04-17, 06:00 AM
I'd go a different route with it. To be honest, what you're talking about would act and benefit as if it really was a second character. All you really need is the illusion of one. So I would say an innate mirror image and write up a background that has the 'brother' be a mute, but because of their close bond, is able to talk telepathically with his brother, ie your real character. therefore your real character speaks for both of them, believes that his 'brother' is actually there, and isnt reliant upon him continiously casting mirror image.
Just roll the dice for each roll, for both characters, but have one assigned to be the fake one and let the gm know which one it is. Also, you dont have to setup a elaborate scheme to get the other players to think he's really there, do the same thing with attacks as you did with the rolls. Have the mirror image attack as usual, and he can be anything you want, and just have the GM ignore the damage if it hits. If you really want him to seem like he's still trying, have your real be a sorc, and have the fake be a warlock. then, when you do absolutely no damage, nobody will ever notice because the warlock is so nerfed as is.

edit: another thing to note, your real character, if his mind believes that the brother 'died' then it could potentially work in the reverse and kill the real player even if he's full heath. The mind is a strange thing, and you have to assume downsides with things like that.

Optimystik
2010-04-17, 09:53 AM
A Dvati (Dragon Compendium) allows you to play as twins, but they have to share a class. If you do a gish class (e.g. a Duskblade) then you can alternate between casting and hitting.

Tinydwarfman
2010-04-17, 09:59 AM
It's a cool idea, but you're not going to fool the other players for a second unless they are seriously impaired. Buy lots of beer beforehand and it just might work.

Doc Roc
2010-04-17, 10:04 AM
Hello chameleon! What a great PrC! How did I not notice you?

[Chameleon, Races of Destiny, Human only PrC. You can emphasize the course of their sibling relationship as they trade skills and grow together as a team.]


OR!


Psion + Mindswitch?
Maybe your GM will allow you to research a consent-only version at a lower level?

Cogidubnus
2010-04-17, 10:07 AM
It's a cool idea, but you're not going to fool the other players for a second unless they are seriously impaired. Buy lots of beer beforehand and it just might work.

I'd quite like to see if he can manage it though! It'd be funny. It's certainly an intriguing character concept.

shadow_archmagi
2010-04-17, 10:23 AM
POSSIBLE: I seriously doubt it

AWESOME IF SUCCESS: Oh god yes.

Yukitsu
2010-04-17, 11:14 AM
Binder into Chameleon with a dash of montebank.

Binder fully changes your attitude depending on what you're bound to, chameleon lets you alter your class every day, and montebank has a multiple persona class ability, that lets you alter self into a set of predetermined other peoples.

As an aside, that's not what schizophrenia is. That's multiple personality disorder.

arguskos
2010-04-17, 11:22 AM
Play a dude. Take Leadership, but don't get any followers. Ask your DM if your cohort can be the same level as you and be your identical twin brother. The two of them switch out every day. :smallamused:

Cogidubnus
2010-04-17, 11:26 AM
As an aside, that's not what schizophrenia is. That's multiple personality disorder.

Which doesn't exist in real life, at least not the way it's portrayed in media. But still. Makes for fun RPing.

Sillycomic
2010-04-17, 03:04 PM
I thought schizophrenia was more or less paranoid with bizarre delusions and hallucinations. Unless you have a different definition of what it is?

I was going to actually have them be twins, but the twin died at a very young age. This just devistated the character, to the point that he just hand waved the death away and started making ways to have this person really exist again.

The illusions and spells and whatnot are more for him than for the rest of the party.

I was thinking of him being a mute, always by my characters side, whispering things to him. Well, not mute if he's whispering... but you know what I mean. I thought that would solve a lot of problems. Basically he could be a silent image at that point, just leaning over.

Hmmm. What about an unseen servant? Can you put a cloak around an unseen servant? The spell description says its shapeless, but I suppose you could command it to hold a cloak the way it would drape over a person.

The spell says it's centered around your current location... but I am sure my GM would allow me to make that centered on me instead.

Because of coolness awesome factors, and the fact that this is severely gimping my character, I'm sure he would allow that.

I do like going into the chameleon prestige class. I would like at some point to have my character switching between the two personalities.

Would you really think this would be so easy to figure out? I don't know, the fact that with a little help from the GM, he recognizes it at a character... would make me think at least for a while no one would know what's going on. I'm sure people will eventually figure it out (I'm counting on it... this is too awesome for people not to figure out)

MCerberus
2010-04-17, 03:10 PM
This got me thinking, what happens when you need to contact someone with multiple personalities from beyond the grave? What happens if you go visit this person in the afterlife? What if the personalities had different alignments?

Otodetu
2010-04-17, 03:54 PM
There are ways to maintain concentration on a spell as a swift action, its a skill trick in complete scoundrel, requires you to be level 9 or so i think, so not possible at low level.

a psi crystal can also be used to maintain concentration with a power, but i guess psi is a no go.

Savannah
2010-04-17, 04:38 PM
I thought schizophrenia was more or less paranoid with bizarre delusions and hallucinations. Unless you have a different definition of what it is?

Yeah, pretty much. There's actually 4 different types of schizophrenia, but you're description covers the main idea. However, part of the definition of schizophrenia is a disconnect with reality, which means that it would be extremely difficult to play in a party. (If you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the episode Normal Again, from season 6, is a pretty good representation of schizophrenia. Now imagine that in a normal group of PCs.)


I was going to actually have them be twins, but the twin died at a very young age. This just devistated the character, to the point that he just hand waved the death away and started making ways to have this person really exist again.

What you have described here is the media's definition of dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder). Makes for a cool story, but is very unlikely to exist, at least in the way the media portrays it. If he just believes that the twin is still alive, without actually thinking he is the twin, then I guess it could qualify as schizophrenia (but that does not usually come from a childhood trauma).

As long as you aren't going for realism, it's fine. Just don't call it schizophrenia if he has multiple personalities. /psychology major

AslanCross
2010-04-17, 04:42 PM
As an aside, that's not what schizophrenia is. That's multiple personality disorder.

This is what I was going to say. Schizophrenia is a different disorder from MPD altogether.

JaronK
2010-04-17, 05:52 PM
I actually had a character in one of my games that wasn't sure he was real. He was a Shadowcraft Mage/Earth Dreamer who kept phasing through walls and floating around and was never quite sure what was illusion and what was real, and whether it even mattered anyway. He would get into existencialist debates with my character, who was a nihilist DMM Persistent Cleric. That guy would just cast his group boosting buffs at the beginning of the day, then do absolutely nothing except ride around on his donkey in a persistent Obscuring Mist and debate the shadow guy.

Anyway, the point is you could take leadership and make a partially real character.

JaronK

Analytica
2010-04-17, 06:40 PM
I actually had a character in one of my games that wasn't sure he was real. He was a Shadowcraft Mage/Earth Dreamer who kept phasing through walls and floating around and was never quite sure what was illusion and what was real, and whether it even mattered anyway. He would get into existencialist debates with my character, who was a nihilist DMM Persistent Cleric. That guy would just cast his group boosting buffs at the beginning of the day, then do absolutely nothing except ride around on his donkey in a persistent Obscuring Mist and debate the shadow guy.

That's just awesome! Wish I had been in that campaign. :smallsmile:

Concerning the OP, Leadership is indeed a good idea. Otherwise, how about being a psion and metamorphosing your psicrystal into a humanoid? It is already just an extension of yourself, really. Or Polymorph any object on a familiar.

Analytica
2010-04-17, 06:42 PM
Also... could you have a minor image with an unseen servant inside it?

Doc Roc
2010-04-17, 08:49 PM
:: frustrated :: Look, the chameleon PrC was made for this, and with a quick reflavor, so was the Binder base-class.

Cogidubnus
2010-04-18, 07:03 AM
I thought schizophrenia was more or less paranoid with bizarre delusions and hallucinations. Unless you have a different definition of what it is?

I was going to actually have them be twins, but the twin died at a very young age. This just devistated the character, to the point that he just hand waved the death away and started making ways to have this person really exist again.



That basically is schizophrenia, but the impression you gave was of someone with two personalities, not just delusions.

Kobold-Bard
2010-04-18, 07:42 AM
Rather than playing 1 character who believes they are two, play Dvati who are convinced they're actually one person.

Have them get confused when people talk to the other twin, finish each other's sentences, if they split up have one of them randomly do something that the other was planning to do.

Make sure they're convinced that it was just them who did stuff, even if they're on opposite sides of a battle felling minions.

Mulletmanalive
2010-04-18, 08:29 AM
Leaving aside the real world, it's possible to play a character with more than one soul. It's doable in core, though i forgot how [it involves a bit of spell juggling so i just created a variant of Trap the Soul that uses a human and left it at that].

As one possibility, if your GM is willing to allow secondary sources, the Sword and Sorcery Ravenloft supplement, Legacy of the Blood, has rules for playing a spiritual magnet [you're another race but from this family that has such problems]. Then your brother is simply a Ghost companion [possibly Cohort] with the Selective Invisibility and False Tangibility abilities from Ghostwalk [i think those are what they're called].

Sillycomic
2010-04-18, 03:11 PM
Perhaps I wasn't clear when I described it.

I don't want there to be more than one personality. Schizophrenia seems to best describe a delusional person who thinks his twin brother is still alive, and uses magic (or whatever) to keep his brother around.

The personality of the brother talking and interacting with him shouldn't be a second personality... it should just be the delusional hallucinations fueling this lie that he's living.

Being as we have a bunch of psychology majors in here, perhaps we could find a more realistic version of this character to play.

Can schizophrenia manifest itself like this? All the delucsions, paranoia and hallucinations conjoin into a single concept that his brother is still alive? And he would use magic to make this come to life, maybe even at times dress up like his own brother to complete the illusion?

I'm thinking like Psycho, Norman Bates dressed his dead mother up... but also pretended to be her, and heard her talking to him... and at times talked through him. It seemed like that was more what I'm going for with this character.

Or perhaps I should have multiple personality disorder and be schizophrenic. Might as well. Seems like if we're going for disorders, the more the merrier. If his multiple personaliy could talk to him... how would he know when he's talking to the other personality, and when he's talking to a delusion?

Paulus
2010-04-18, 03:24 PM
I'd just have him pretend his best friend was invisible to everyone but him and give you advice and knowledge and what not. Using Unseen servant most of the time to prove he is "real" just really weak. Once the other players get use to this, and when the chips are down have him actually appear out of invisibility. To help you in a non combat way, like hand you a potion of healing etc then everyone will be like, "Woops he was real!"


Have to watch out for see invisible though. Also you'd have to take Leadership, and make sure the person always had shrink person and what not to keep him super small so see invisibility didn't work much. He can even hide in your collar like a familiar! and make knowledge checks for you! tee hee!

Cogidubnus
2010-04-18, 03:25 PM
I just misunderstood your idea. Also, if the psychology major thing was directed at me, I'm not XD Family's just full of doctors (it's contagious). Looking at your explanation, it seems reasonable. People DO do things to convince themselves their delusions are real, and not know they've done them. It's realistic enough, you just need to see if you can play it. In fact, illusions make it more probable that in "real life".

Torvon
2010-04-18, 05:45 PM
Which doesn't exist in real life, at least not the way it's portrayed in media. But still. Makes for fun RPing.
Don't wanna get too offtopic here, but yes, it does exist, and I have been working with several patients with this disorder. It is called "dissociative identity disorder" and is considered a dissociative, and not a personality disorder (for everybody who's interested: there have been recent studies showing that different personalities do in fact actually have the possibiliy for different immune systems, to some degrees, e.g. different allergies).

To your character:
I love the idea. Please report if you were able to pull it off. Also interesting would be the concept of a dissociative fugue, to some degree. Those people have one main personality, but one day, they adopt another personality, take another name, move to another city, get a new family etc. Mostly due to traumata.

Then, after weeks, months or even years, the dissociative fugue ends and they're back to "normal".

You could play that, just with more regular switches. So you would play 2 characters, you would find reasons why only one is seen at a time (the other one is hunting ... - make it plausible! you might even use meta-gaming reasons like "i don't want to play 2 at the same time" :) ) ...
You'd have to be able to disguise yourself though, or change your looks. And speech. But taht's actually not uncommon. The second person in the fugue is usually more sociable, risky and outgoing.

ta-ta
Torvon, who can finally contribute here although he's a d&d newbie.

Yukitsu
2010-04-18, 05:49 PM
Perhaps I wasn't clear when I described it.

I don't want there to be more than one personality. Schizophrenia seems to best describe a delusional person who thinks his twin brother is still alive, and uses magic (or whatever) to keep his brother around.

The personality of the brother talking and interacting with him shouldn't be a second personality... it should just be the delusional hallucinations fueling this lie that he's living.

Being as we have a bunch of psychology majors in here, perhaps we could find a more realistic version of this character to play.

Can schizophrenia manifest itself like this? All the delucsions, paranoia and hallucinations conjoin into a single concept that his brother is still alive? And he would use magic to make this come to life, maybe even at times dress up like his own brother to complete the illusion?

It's that last part where he tries to step into the shoes of the subject of his delusion to compensate for the trauma over the death that makes it dissociative identity disorder rather than proper schizophrenia. If you want him to hallucinate and so on and so forth, that is all well and good for the condition, but they don't typically act in a manner of another person.


I'm thinking like Psycho, Norman Bates dressed his dead mother up... but also pretended to be her, and heard her talking to him... and at times talked through him. It seemed like that was more what I'm going for with this character.

Or perhaps I should have multiple personality disorder and be schizophrenic. Might as well. Seems like if we're going for disorders, the more the merrier. If his multiple personaliy could talk to him... how would he know when he's talking to the other personality, and when he's talking to a delusion?

Fight club is more along what you're looking for. Complete fabrication as to what you're doing sometimes, acting out as though you were someone else completely, and viewing someone else as being there etc. It's a hollywood representation, not a realistic one, but have fun with it anyway.

HunterOfJello
2010-04-18, 05:54 PM
multiple personalities would be far easier than schizophrenia unless you want a character to only have 1 specific delusional belief

Sillycomic
2010-04-18, 07:46 PM
I do enjoy how so many people think this won't be played realistically...

You guys do realize I'm playing a D&D game, right? I hope so. I don't want realism anymore than it can be used to up the "awesomeness" of the character and rule of cool for the disorder.

That being said, the more I know about it the better I can play the character. I'm thinking perhaps I'll just combine disorders. Some dissociative identity filled in with schizophrenia, if for no other reason than the being delusional and having hallucinations.

I love the dissociative fugue idea as well. Playing the same character who actually becomes someone else. I have heard of that, I think on an A&E special somewhere. That would be awesome to play as well.

Sigh, right now my group is still getting schedules worked out, so it might be a while before I can test run this guy out. Still, I am loving the idea. Thank you for everyone who's been helping out. This is great stuff.

Yukitsu
2010-04-18, 07:55 PM
Yeah, we know. It's just that the "schizophrenia/multiple personality disorder" thing is a real sticking point for people that study psychology. Not sure why it's that thing in particular, you'd think all the psychoanalysis would bother us more.

The Cat Goddess
2010-04-18, 08:43 PM
While not (3.5)...

GURPS has the disadvantage "Split Personality". It even allows you to have different skills, stats & advantages!

As for delusions... A friend once played a charater who believed (and told people) that he had a group of Ninjas that followed him around, ensuring his safety.

No one in the party ever saw any Ninjas, or even saw any real sign they existed at all... but the character always attributed things like "perfect campsites", "stray horses" and anything fortuitous as being caused by his Ninjas.

Eventually, one of the other characters (the big dumb half-ogre fighter) asked if he could be a Ninja too! He really hammed it up... "sneaking" around in half-plate.

Later in the campaign, the party went to the character's homeland... and discovered that he was, in fact, third in line for the throne and really did have Ninjas following him around (thanks to the Leadership feat that he and the GM never told anyone else about).

Deth Muncher
2010-04-18, 08:50 PM
for all intensive purposes

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! INTENTS AND PURPOSES. INTENTS AND PURPOSES. NOT INTENSIVE PURPOSES.

/Englishrant.

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 08:55 PM
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! INTENTS AND PURPOSES. INTENTS AND PURPOSES. NOT INTENSIVE PURPOSES.

/Englishrant.

Intestine purposes?

Deth Muncher
2010-04-18, 09:02 PM
Intestine purposes?

-facepalm-

Actually, no, that's not even enough.

http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/picard-facepalm.jpg
:P

Eldariel
2010-04-18, 09:07 PM
-facepalm-

Actually, no, that's not even enough.

http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/picard-facepalm.jpg
:P


Let me help you; you're looking for this:
http://zaba.pl/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/double-facepalm.jpg

To whit. Just for you.

EDIT: I'm just trying to get evil alignment to become an Ur-Priest.

aivanther
2010-04-18, 09:08 PM
Wouldn't an egoist be able to pull this almost perfectly? Transform your psi-crystal and BAM, there you go. And it actually IS your personality.

Oh, and if you're curious about Disassociative Identity Disorder google "DSM IV Disassociative Identity Disorder"

El Dorado
2010-04-18, 09:53 PM
I like the idea and it would be very cool if you could pull it off. That said, you would have to be very canny wizard to fool your party if all of you spend any great length of time together.

It seems like a psion would handle this concept pretty well. Some combination of a psicrystal, schism, and false sensory input.

My other thought was that you could focus less on fooling your party and more on just having your character believe it. As long as you alternate your actions (spellcasting one round, archery the next, etc)---that is, your character only receives the legal number of actions per round---it should still be fun and the other players will be more apt to go along with your idea.

You could use illusions to reinforce your delusion. For example, when you cast mirror image, one of the figments is your brother. Or when you fight bad guys, you create a minor image of one who was killed by arrows. Depending on your power level, you could use a hat of disguise to look like an archer and a project image spell to look like a wizard.

Great idea. Hope it works out.

retkin
2010-04-18, 10:21 PM
A swiftblade who dipped psychic war or pison for a few levels and took hustle would have 2 full round actions to use for a large portion of the day. Share a Disguise/Alter self with familiar to create the twin who would be the caster, then just cast the spells yourself with your 2nd move / standard action as needed.

Pluto
2010-04-19, 12:24 AM
A Psion who ocassionally Mind Switches with a human-looking Construct companion could be all sorts of fun for a character like this.

The only problem is rules, but those can be changed.
(Or you could search out the work-around that inevitably exists within the tangled ruleset, if that's your preference.)