One of my favorite characters/creatures from Magic: The Gathering is Riku of Two Reflections. His backstory being that he was a mage that was torn between his love of (in pathfinder terms) evocation and the summoning, and using powerful illusion and creature-magic, he successfully became two people, one devoted entirely to one evocation and the other devoted entirely to the study of life.
Is there any way mechanically for a single character to achieve this, or would this sort of backstory be reserved purely for the set of two NPC's? Has anyone every played in a group where one player was playing two weaker characters instead of one?
If you are backwards compatible, there was a race in 3.5 that was split in twain. Can't recall the name, but essentially it's two separate characters, but the HP is split between them
They have separate actions, saves, etc. Never seen a GM allow it, but it could fill your bill in this case
Most likely I'll save it fir an NPC, but I'm interested in this twain race.
I would go with a Clone spell that went horribly wrong somehow -- preferably in a way that a player character cannot easily reproduce.
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Most likely I'll save it fir an NPC, but I'm interested in this twain race.
The race was the Dvati, IIRC, and was reprinted in the Dragon Compendium.
Other options would be to take Leadership and have your 'otherself' be your Cohort, or to have your otherself be a Simulacrum. The cohort / simulacrum being weaker than yourself would be explained by it being a subset of yourself, representing, frex, all your knowledge on topic X (such as Evocation magic, in the original example), while your 'real self' has a much broader range of life experiences.
Simulacrum has the downside of never progressing, so Leadership/Cohort seems like the best bet. Since the Followers aspect of Leadership doesn't really fit this theme, you might even be able to use a lower level variation, such as the Squire rules from Knights of the Inner Sea, or the Mentor / Apprentice rules from the 3.5 DMG2.
I do kind of like the Summoner / Eidolon option, as well. That's pretty cool, your frustrated ambitions to be X as well as Y manifesting as an Eidolon, but, unlike Leadership, it does obviously choose your base class for you (Summoner) and limits your 'otherself' to the forms and abilities available to Eidolons.
Were I to allow such an option as a GM, depending on the class(es) chosen, and the feeling of other players on the matter, I might cut down the level of the PC. The otherself cohort would be the usual 2 levels behind, and the 'original' would be lose one level as part of the process of developing the otherself, so that, at 4th level, the soonest such a thing would be available, the PC 'splitting' would remain at 3rd level, purchase the Squire/Leadership Light option as a custom Feat and develop a 1st level cohort as his otherself. When the rest of the party hits 5th level, he'll hit 4th level, and his otherself will hit 2nd, etc. The divided focus may prove somewhat limiting at lower levels, but by the time the party hits 8th level, he's 7th level with a 5th level cohort, and action economy will tend to make up for this minimal delayed progression.
If the players don't like the idea of one of the players getting 'double actions' in this fashion, that's another situation entirely, and maybe this particular character idea should be shelved for a more receptive group.
If the class(es) chosen are considered by the table 'sub-optimal', it's possible that the level 'cost' won't even be perceived as necessary, and if multiple characters are already planning on taking 'Big Boy' Leadership, or using similar options (Broodmaster Summoners, Animate Dead focused Necromancers or Clerics), again, the 'cost' of a level might be totally uncalled for, since everyone is heading in various optimal and powerful directions, and won't be upstaged by player X getting a low level cohort slightly ahead of schedule.
One way to build a set of characters like this (most likely for the NPC role, not so much for the player role) would be to have them share a couple levels in Expert as a race with a spell-like ability or two, then have him class into Summoner and Wizard, diverting at that point.