[D&D 3.5] Dragonborn Dvati?

[theonesin]

So, the way the Dragonborn "template" loses racial features has always kinda confused me. This is doubly so when thinking about using it with the Dvati race from Dragon Magazine Compendium.

Anyone happen to know(or easily figure out) how Dragonborn meshes with Dvati?

[OldTrees1]

The dragonborn ritual probably fuses both the Dvati bodies into a single Dragonborn body since the Twins racial trait is not one of the traits Dragonborn says remain.

[theonesin]

Oh, and a somewhat related question: If a Dvati acquires a breath weapon that has a recharge period, does it go on cooldown for both twins, or just one?

[Nettlekid]

Oh, and a somewhat related question: If a Dvati acquires a breath weapon that has a recharge period, does it go on cooldown for both twins, or just one?

Both, since the twins share resources from the same pool (like spells/day and bardic music and stunning fist attempts, etc). But, on the plus side, you'd have two breaths breathing together and so twice the damage, or more likely twice the area. (Ooh, back-to-back breath attack. That's a really cool image.)

As for the actual process, I'd agree that mechanically, as per the sidebar, the Dvati twins would be fused into one Dragonborn body, because they've only got the one soul. However, I think it's totally fair if a DM were to allow the dual bodies to stay separate as Dragonborn, basically keeping that aspect of the race. Not exactly rules legal, but it could go either way as far as RAI. I mean, who knows? Up to your DM.

[theonesin]

I have one more question, though more specifically related to the Dragonfire Adept class.

The rule on "you can't use the same breath effect in two consecutive rounds", how does that apply to the Dvati? Can they each use the same breath effect in the same round? Can only one or the other use it? Do they have to alternate every other round to use the same one?

[Nettlekid]

I have one more question, though more specifically related to the Dragonfire Adept class.

The rule on "you can't use the same breath effect in two consecutive rounds", how does that apply to the Dvati? Can they each use the same breath effect in the same round? Can only one or the other use it? Do they have to alternate every other round to use the same one?

Obviously the DFA rules weren't written with Dvati in mind, or vice versa, so it's all speculation. The way I would rule it though is that if any kind of breath effect is used in a round, it cannot be used in the next round. I think I would force them to use the same breath effect if they breathe together, though that might be different to your DM. So, any round, either one or both of them can breathe a breath effect, which would be the same effect, and then regardless of whether it was just one or both of them, that effect would be on cooldown for the next round. That's how I would rule it. But like I said, you're out of rules territory, so it's up to personal interpretation. Maybe only one can use any effect in a round, so they have to use different effects. Maybe if one uses an effect and the other doesn't, the other can use the same effect next round. Whatever your DM thinks makes the most sense.

[hisnamehere]

You need to stop thinking about your Dvati as two separate people. They are one person. If an ability is usable once/day, or once/2 rounds, you don't get any special advantage by being a Dvati.

If you want to use a breath weapon, the breath does not originate from both bodies at once; you choose which Dvati body will do the breathing.
You are still bound by the rules of successive breath use: you must wait AS NORMAL between breath uses. You are the same individual regardless of spacial representation of your soul.
Choosing to have your breath weapon originate from your other Dvati body in a consecutive round does not side-step the restriction of not using the same breath weapon in consecutive rounds.
Allowing a Dvati to get two breath weapon sprays per action because of their two bodies would be like giving an ogre wizard a 40ft. radius darkness spell because he's twice as big as a medium caster. It just doesn't work like that.

Pay attention to the LA of the Dvati. If you were allowed to overcome the rules by breathing twice as much and gaining multiple uses of abilities/feats/skills/spells, the LA of the Dvati race would be significantly higher.

I know the Dvati seems like a gift to munchkinhood, but it has been significantly nerf-ed so as to prevent most of the "awesome combos" that people immediately think about when envisioning having two characters at once. But it is just that wrongful thinking that gets you into trouble. It isn't two characters, it is one character that just happens to exist in two places at the same time.

Happy gaming!

[Nettlekid]

You need to stop thinking about your Dvati as two separate people. They are one person. If an ability is usable once/day, or once/2 rounds, you don't get any special advantage by being a Dvati.

If you want to use a breath weapon, the breath does not originate from both bodies at once; you choose which Dvati body will do the breathing.
You are still bound by the rules of successive breath use: you must wait AS NORMAL between breath uses. You are the same individual regardless of spacial representation of your soul.
Choosing to have your breath weapon originate from your other Dvati body in a consecutive round does not side-step the restriction of not using the same breath weapon in consecutive rounds.
Allowing a Dvati to get two breath weapon sprays per action because of their two bodies would be like giving an ogre wizard a 40ft. radius darkness spell because he's twice as big as a medium caster. It just doesn't work like that.

Pay attention to the LA of the Dvati. If you were allowed to overcome the rules by breathing twice as much and gaining multiple uses of abilities/feats/skills/spells, the LA of the Dvati race would be significantly higher.

I know the Dvati seems like a gift to munchkinhood, but it has been significantly nerf-ed so as to prevent most of the "awesome combos" that people immediately think about when envisioning having two characters at once. But it is just that wrongful thinking that gets you into trouble. It isn't two characters, it is one character that just happens to exist in two places at the same time.

Happy gaming!

I'm not so sure about some of the things you said. I do agree that it's one soul in two bodies, so it's one person, with the same pool of resources. But so is a Hydra, or a Dread Linnorm. A creature with more than one head, as the Dvati has, unleashes a breath weapon through both heads at the same time. The Dvati just has the extra advantage of having a long distance between those heads.

Alternatively, based on your interpretation, they absolutely must not use the SAME breath effect, but can use two different ones. The racial description is vague, but it does look to me like Dvati get two sets of actions. Two moves, two standards. The exception is in the casting of spells, where one Dvati must not take actions while the other casts the spell. But if both spend their standard action to breathe a breath attack, then you get two breath attacks. And because the DFA's breath weapon is usable at will, with no recharge time except for that of the breath effect, if one uses say, a Cold Breath, then that effect is put on recharge, and the other Dvati twin's standard action draws from the same pool of available DFA breaths, like Slow or regular Fire. It's a bit like if a non-Dvati DFA used a Belt of Battle to get a second standard action. Cold Breath with one, Slow with the second. Or double Fire. Or Fire and Cold. Whatever. Just not Cold and Cold.

What I would really like to see is an initiator Dvati. Could one of the twins use maneuvers, while the other one recovers those same maneuvers?

[Alex12]

What I would really like to see is an initiator Dvati. Could one of the twins use maneuvers, while the other one recovers those same maneuvers?

Gods, I love Dvati. I'm currently playing a Dvati swordsage (with a single level each in Cobra Strike monk and Crusader- I'm going for Master of Nine) and the way we've got things going, it's awesome.
Since you can't perform a maneuver on the same round you recover maneuvers, you can't have one body spam maneuvers, and have the other refilling them. However, since you can use as many maneuvers as you have appropriate actions, you can have both bodies use maneuvers. This is especially fun with the Island of Blades stance, which makes it so that as long as you and an ally are both adjacent to an enemy, you are flanking that enemy. Remember that Dvati get increased bonuses from flanking with themselves.

On-topic, though, Twins isn't one of the things that's retained by Dragonborn. Thus, there's no point to Dragonborn Dvati, because you eat that +1 LA with nothing to show for it. Our houserule/setting rule is that Dvati trying to do stuff like that tends to not work, at best. At worst, well, ever seen conjoined twins? Like that, but worse.
A useful general rule of thumb for Dvati is that mental effects and abilities (positive or negative) are shared, and physical effects are not.

[theonesin]

Good information from everyone, thanks. Sorry if this kinda devolved into a topic for general Dvati questions, but I figured I may as well keep them to one topic.

I did come up with another Dvati question though. I reread that their HP isn't just done like a normal PC's and cut in half. Instead, each twin takes half of the Hit Die result, but still gets the full benefits of Con mods. So in dealing with their HP, do feats like Dragontouched and Toughness give the extra HP to both twins, or just one?

[OldTrees1]

I did come up with another Dvati question though. I reread that their HP isn't just done like a normal PC's and cut in half. Instead, each twin takes half of the Hit Die result, but still gets the full benefits of Con mods. So in dealing with their HP, do feats like Dragontouched and Toughness give the extra HP to both twins, or just one?

In General: hp is increased by Toughness, Hit Dice and Constitution.
In Specific: Dvati benefit from half the Hp from Hit Dice.
So Toughness benefits both bodies.

[hisnamehere]

So:

6hp (HD) + 3hp (Toughness) = 9hp / 2 = 4.5 hp, rounded to 4hp per twin?

P.S. Has any race instigated this much debate?

[Nettlekid]

So:

6hp (HD) + 3hp (Toughness) = 9hp / 2 = 4.5 hp, rounded to 4hp per twin?

P.S. Has any race instigated this much debate?

Not at all. For one, you can't look at HP from HD as a single unit, you must look at the roll and the Con separately. If you have a d8 HD, and roll a 6, each twin gets 3 HP. If memory serves, you round up, so if you rolled a 5, each twin still gets 3 HP. Then you add Con to each twin separately, so if they have a Con of 14, now both twins have 5 HP. Both twins have access to feats you take, so take Toughness and get 3 HP, added on to each twin's HP, for 8 HP each, as opposed to the 11 HP you'd have if you weren't a Dvati. So really, bump up the Con and you're golden.

Hahahaha, yes, yes a certain race has instigated this much debate. Kobolds. Specifically Dragonwrought Kobolds, and whether or not they are True Dragons, and thus qualify for Epic Feats and the like. They have instigated MUCH debate.

[Vaz]

I thought it was ((HD Result)/2)+Modifier.

So, a Barbarian 5 Dvati with 20 Con would have ((12+6.5+6.5+6.5+6.5)/2)+(5*5). In other words, 19+25, or 46 HP each. Give them Toughness, and each one gains +3, so 49 HP each.

[Segev]

Using the absolutely most restrictive reading, Dvati actually have only one set of actions between them. This reading doesn't actually make sense, since there are special rules giving them extra bonuses when one uses Aid Another on the other, but...

Running from that very restrictive interpretation, it still is valid to say that Dvati are one creature with four manipulator limbs (arms and hands in this case). This qualifies them for Multiattack.

They also should likely count the range for any effect as originating with whichever of them they prefer. In fact, I believe that, since both can make the gestures simultaneously, a Dvati who has one twin "at home in town" and the other "out adventuring" could use Benign Transposition to swap the locations of people in town with people out adventuring, since the distance from the spellcasting Dvati is measured from the nearest of the twins.

They also do threaten every square that either twin threatens, so while they rely more heavily on Combat Reflexes (since they share their AoO pool between the two bodies), they can cover a fair bit of ground with AoO-happy builds.


Oh, and given how hp and self-buff sharing works with them, they can pull off the Share Pain/Vigor trick without needing a psicrystal.

[Erik Vale]

That last point makes me want to play Psionic Dvati who laugh as someone tries to kill the two while ineptly trying to punch up the attacker because it's more entertaining if painful.

Also, that strictest reading also allows multivoice [allowing savage species though], which makes for a devistating low-mid level warlock.
Flee the Scene, Blast/Invocation*[Number of Arm Pairs-1, use Girilions Blessing and size increasers for bonus attacks], Flee the Scene.

Which means that reading helps them more than a looser reading allowing them to instead get two seperate sets of actions... For warlocks at least.

[Segev]

I'm unfamiliar with Multivoice. What does it do?

[Erik Vale]

TLSR As a full round action, two your heads can cast two spells, however your additional head/s can only use ones with only vocal components (http://dndtools.eu/feats/savage-species--47/multivoice--2012/) [and hands only somatic with multitasking, so combining the two gives you a lot of spells cast or [DM willing] the ability to cast multiple spells with any component with a full round action].

So in this [the warlock twins] case, flee the scene could work twice, and other invocations are mostly just somatic, and EB is only somatic.
Additionally, Multivoices requirements are easier [in that it's easier to get improved two weapon fighting], but there are only two ways I know to get multiple heads [multiheaded template, and multiheaded races. Ok, theres wish/miracle but they don't count], whereas there are plentiful ways to get hands that last all day or are permanent.

[Nettlekid]

That last point makes me want to play Psionic Dvati who laugh as someone tries to kill the two while ineptly trying to punch up the attacker because it's more entertaining if painful.


You know what might be fun for a Psionic Dvati? Schism. Not just because it's good for the action economy, but to have the fun of having "the third twin" between them. Maybe it's the evil twin. Or, well, depends how Schism works for Dvati. Since they're both affected by personal spells/powers, does Schism give them one additional mind and an additional standard action, or does it affect both of them personally and give each of them an additional standard action? That might be an interesting character. Either the Schism in each mind is a splintered personality of the other, or each Schism is malicious and whispers that it can replace the other. OooOOOooo~