D&D 5E Multiple personalities PC

[Glomb175]

Hey guys,

One of my players wants to make a character that has an evil alter ego. His back story is that an evil sorcerer cursed him with his soul and he takes control every now and then. He'd be the same class with the same spells and levels so its really just a question of changing his alignment from good to evil.

Anyone got any suggestions regarding how to determine when to switch? He wants to roll a dice every half hour or so, but I saw on ENW someone suggesting every time the PC falls asleep.

Maybe someone suggests against this entirely?

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[CydKnight]

Either of those if it's OK with you or you can decide on any other trigger you wish if it fits in your game. It could be anything really. Seeing a certain color, encountering certain monster types, and certain helmets or hats come to mind. It could even be a combination of off-the-wall things.

 

[wedgeski]

An Angelus type? You potentially have a guy who wants to play an evil PC with impunity ("It wasn't me! It was the other guy!"), so watch out for that if it hasn't already occurred to you. Otherwise, sure, roll at the end of a Long Rest. Or, decide on the trigger, and keep it to yourself. Do not allow him to roll "every half hour or so" because that just seems like he wants to be able to play however he wants, whenever he wants.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

First decide whether you're happy to have an evil PC in the group in the first place, and that you trust the player to play it without disrupting the group.

 

[iserith]

Perhaps the character's alter ego surfaces when the character is under great stress. So for example once the PC slips below half hit points for the first time in a scene. The alter ego surfaces to help keep the character alive.

More importantly in my view, you'll want to hash out what "evil" means to the player and how that can work with the others in the group. You may also want to work with the player to set up a long term goal to achieve that will cause the alter ego to go away.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Sounds fine to me if he hands his character over to the DM when the evil sorcerer takes over. It nearly always doesn't enhance the game to have another player who is working against the interests of the rest of the group.

 

[Glomb175]

Cheers for your input guys,

The player has now since decided he's going to create a new character. What happened was, he played with his dual personality wizard for one session, during which time he thoroughly annoyed the rest of the party by trying to kill Sildar Hallwinter (lmop) in the Cragmaw Hideout, at one point they wanted to fight Him but I managed to sidestep that.

So now he's going to kill of his character and make a new one. So cheers for your thoughts, they would've been useful if he kept his character!

 

[redrick]

I'll assume you can trust the player to have the interests of the group and the table in mind, and to want to keep things fun rather than disruption for disruption's sake. Obviously, check in with them about expectations, but there's no reason this has to be a Bad Player thing.

That being said, some sort of incidental trigger all the way. A color. A particular word. A symbol. Something that is not so unique to never be encountered, but also not something you'd see every 5 minutes. A particular shade of purple, for instance. I think the duration should be short-ish. Maybe 2d6*10 minutes. The player should be good more than evil.

The nice thing about having a trigger is that now you have a little control over when the trigger comes up. The good character would never want to keep something on their person that would trigger an evil split personality, so the PC would never knowingly trigger this. Instead, you get say, "oh, and the shop-keeper is wearing a lavender scarf..." Alternatively, one of the other player characters might decide to keep the trigger on hand in a backpack, just in case they need Evil Bob to do some dirty work nobody else will do.

Lots of fun to be had if done well. And if it ends up not being fun, lift the curse!

-EDIT-
Oh well, looks like the character didn't live to this comment!

 

[Caliban]

Hmm....now I have an idea for a wild magic sorcerer whose personality changes every time he has a wild magic surge, as the unrestrained magic scrambles his synapses.

 

[woonga]

Hmm....now I have an idea for a wild magic sorcerer whose personality changes every time he has a wild magic surge, as the unrestrained magic scrambles his synapses.

This is the first thing I thought of. I love this idea.

To OPs question, I agree with the above that determining something random (color? command word? enemy type? someone casting a specific type of magic?) is the way to go. Keeping it unpredictable for the PC on when they're going to change sounds like a blast, assuming they're ok with that.

I also think, to get around the concern others expressed of dealing with an evil character going against the rest of the party, it would be good to emphasize the symbiotic nature of the relationship. The evil side may want to run things a certain way, but if they lose their "host" by being too reckless, endangering the party, etc, they'd be hurting their own goals. This would force the PC to get creative around playing evil within the constraints of the rest of the party.