April 22, 2024 • 33 mins
In this lively podcast episode, the DMs plunge into the Dungeons & Dragons universe, honing in on one of its most iconic and unpredictable creatures: the Mimic. The conversation kicks off with a fun chat about each host's beloved monster before delving deeply into the intricacies of Mimics.
The hosts share valuable insights into the Mimic's abilities, including its shape-shifting prowess, sticky nature, and tactical combat strategies. They highlight how Mimics can add an element of surprise and suspense to the game by masquerading as anything from a mundane object to a deadly threat. Emphasizing the role of creativity in game mastering, they discuss using Mimics to create psychological tension and present challenges that go beyond simple combat encounters.
The episode also explores various ways to enrich Mimic encounters through storytelling elements, strategic combat tactics, and interactions with other elements within the dungeon environment. Wrapping up with a call for listener engagement, the hosts invite feedback and anecdotes about their audience's most memorable Mimic encounters.
TheMonstersKnow Mimic Tactics: https://www.themonstersknow.com/mimic-tactics/
DM Dave's Mimic Museum One-Shot (free version): https://dmdave.com/free-adventure-mimic-museum/
Tell us your craziest mimic story! helloadventurerspodcast@gmail.com or helloadventurerspodcast.com/voice
The hosts share valuable insights into the Mimic's abilities, including its shape-shifting prowess, sticky nature, and tactical combat strategies. They highlight how Mimics can add an element of surprise and suspense to the game by masquerading as anything from a mundane object to a deadly threat. Emphasizing the role of creativity in game mastering, they discuss using Mimics to create psychological tension and present challenges that go beyond simple combat encounters.
The episode also explores various ways to enrich Mimic encounters through storytelling elements, strategic combat tactics, and interactions with other elements within the dungeon environment. Wrapping up with a call for listener engagement, the hosts invite feedback and anecdotes about their audience's most memorable Mimic encounters.
TheMonstersKnow Mimic Tactics: https://www.themonstersknow.com/mimic-tactics/
DM Dave's Mimic Museum One-Shot (free version): https://dmdave.com/free-adventure-mimic-museum/
Tell us your craziest mimic story! helloadventurerspodcast@gmail.com or helloadventurerspodcast.com/voice
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:21):
Hello Adventures, the podcast for roleplayers aim game masters to help level up
your game. We're done your masters, Jason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall and
Jim Craper, and today we're gonnasee if this is really my microphone or
not. We're talking about mimics.No fantastic. Jim got to do his
Nole's deep dive last month. Iget to his favorite monster. Joe got
(00:45):
to talk about Haggs, which Iassume is his favorite monster. If you
if you want to talk about itthat bad? Do you have a favorite
monster? Joe just has is likenot a bad answer, but like you
look a little I don't know ifthat's my favorite. I had just I
had just done a lot of researchon eggs, which is why I get
I don't know, come back tome on who my favorite? My favorite
(01:07):
monster? I feel like it's likehaving a favorite dinosaur. You just have
that answer ready to go. Ismost recently prepped monster? Yeah, I
have a favorite. You need togo get yourself favorite. What should Joe's
favorite monster be? Let us knowat Hello Adventures Podcast at gmail dot com,
or just yelled Joe's favorite monster athim at Hello Adventures Podcast dot com
slash voice. Yeah, or anytimeyou see me on the street. Yeah,
(01:30):
in the supermarket, youngs Joe yousyou can meet, you can yell
in front of Joe's house. Ifthe address in the show notes, I
am going to leave a link toyour address. Ten to fifty five way
Yes. In the Australia. Uh. But my my absolute favorite monster Uh,
not only just because they're just likethey're so fun to throw in a
(01:52):
game, but they can be likethey can just be so just iconic and
everyone kind of knows what they are, whether they play the game or not,
and like it's it's just a coollike identifier that you are, like
kind of on the end of thisgame, I have I have a bunch
of tattoos, but I do havea mimic tattoo Nom Nom Nomin on a
D twenty and it's right on mywrist. It's one of the one of
(02:13):
the most easily seen tattoos that Ihave, and I'm proud of it.
So we're gonna talk about just justhow cool mimics are. When we started
pitching this deep dive idea, wethought this is gonna be like a very
informative thing, and it's gonna bevery academic and we're all gonna learn something
today. And then and then Jim'slike, I'm gonna tell you my favorite
things about Knowles and like so thatthe Hags episode was like a very like
no high school level book report,Like I'm not gonna lie to you freshman
(02:40):
college. How about that? Iguess you know high school is fine.
Yeah, it was a high schoolmulde better, it was a it was
a research paper, and and andI was cool hundred tons from that episode.
And then Jim Brook pretts it rightdown to think, these are my
favorite things about Knowles, and Iwas, you know, this is this
is the energy that I want.So I'm gonna tell you my just some
really cool things about mimics. Andbut I would make sure that you learn
(03:04):
a lot about their their combat andhow they're used in games, because just
looking at their stat block is like, Okay, these are kind of cool,
but like when you really like dissecttheir stat block, they're awesome,
and they can really they're a lowcr but they can really kind of mess
up some low level of parties.So can I please and terrify your players?
Oh god? Yeah, let's justsometimes sometimes the combat is not the
(03:27):
payoff. I want the I wantthe ever looming threat of mimics out there.
So which is gonna get me tomy first point? So let's get
into it. So my first pointand like this is just like, let's
just get this off the bat.This is probably the coolest thing about them,
and the most iconic part of themis that anything can be a mimic
(03:49):
if you don't know what and whatkind of enemies to throw at your players
today, guess what that's a mimic. Now, Yeah, I was gonna
say, can you give us abroad sense of exactly what mimic is for
those Yes, I'll thousand foot viewof mimics. Let me back it up
a step. So, mimics areshape shifters, and in their true form
(04:10):
they're kind of like amorphous blobs.But their true form is not what makes
them interesting. In fact, rarelydo ever even see them in their true
form. In what is called objectform, they can perfectly take the form
of anything, and usually inanimate objects. Very generous DM could maybe even turn
them into like shape shifters, butthat's really kind of beyond beyond it,
So we'll just say inanimate objects mostclassically chests. You'll kind of always see
(04:35):
them in the treasure chest form,although that is not the only option that
they can be. They really canbe anything. In fact, I'm gonna
look at the stat block here thatI could have sworn I had up pa
saw one of the Facebook groups likethey were like spot the mimics in this
picture, and I think they endedup being a bail of hay a,
(04:57):
just like a support beam like ina barn. No, no, I
forget what the other thing was,like a rock or something to reading stript
from the stat block here. Sothis is the shape changer ability. The
mimic can use its action to polymorphinto an object or back into its true
amorphous form. Its statistics are thesame in each form. Any equipment it
is wearing or carrying is not transformed. It reverts to its true form if
(05:20):
it dies, which is usually theonly time you're going to see the true
form, and the other one isfalse appearance. While it's an object form
only, while the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object,
so it is a perfect copy.This isn't like Pokemon's ditto where it
still has the weird looking eyes thisis like a this looks just like the
(05:41):
thing that it's mimicking. Like Isay, the most classic version of it,
this goes back to to first editionwhere it's going to take the form
of a treasure chest and you throwit in your dungeon and the players don't
poke it with a ten foot pole. First, they don't throw a ball
bearing at it, and then allof a sudden, this treasure chest is
now nomin on them. Yeah theylose a hand yep, yeah, yeah,
or whole arm and like they're there'sa you can really get into maaming
rules and that's that's a that's anearlier edition thing, but their rules are
(06:04):
still out there and just throwing outthere. But yes, a mimic can
be anything, So not only justthe classic treasure chest, but some other
really like nefarious examples that I hearget thrown around a lot. A door
could be a mimic, the doorframe could be the mouth of a mimic.
(06:25):
The door knob, A lot ofdoor stuff gets thrown around. My
players can check the door, they'llknock on it and say, okay,
I'm pretty sure it's real. Thenthey reach for the knob and it's like
rolling a mimic. It could bea potion which is a really messed up.
Oh yeah, that's a good one, or the floor a tile on
the floor. Absolutely, there arelabels. Yeah, there is a there's
(06:46):
a campaign that I'll mention. Uhoh no, I might as well mention
it now. So I mentioned DanDave a lot on the show because he
I follow his patren and he comesdown with new campaigns like every week.
And I have run this particular oneshot I want to say, three or
four times at a different store gamesand even at my own table at home.
And you know, I might bebiased, but it was my favorite
one he's done. It is calledMimic Museum. And the the first thing
(07:10):
you want to do is not tellyour players what it's called. Kind of
kind of gives up the museums,musicum. And the first time that they
reach for that book on the shelf, it's the first one they're going to
run into. So mix in thatgame the book in Harry Potter, right,
and it looks like a book withteeth. I think a better Harry
(07:32):
Potter example is the Womping Willow.Yeah, it just looks like a tree
yep, until it starts until justin that game alone. Off the top
of my head, mimics can bea book, a chair, some some
sort of like weapon artifacts like that'slike behind glass I think in hire ornamental
(07:54):
shield hanging on the wall, theyep, I think one of the higher
levels, the one of the oneof the suit of Armors and fair skin
rug. I believe there's even amimic animated like wooing like mammoth skeleton.
That's that's part of that one.And my my favorite is is in you
know this this is kind of justfor the DMS here, ok, just
just like if you're a player,just fast forward like thirty seconds in the
(08:16):
in the final battle, it's acouple of cultists and their backpacks are mimics.
Oh geez, it's the they're carryingaround with them. They're swapping out
artifact from for mimics. Yeah,sure, so it's it's it's a really
fun andmpaign. I'm gonna have alink to that in the show notes.
I believe a single level version ofit is free, and if you subscribe
(08:37):
a Patreon you get all levels.But yeah, so it really literally anything
can be a mimic, and Iwant you to get creative. Okay,
we're done with cursed items. Okay, we're going mimic items. It's like,
all players, he's a sword stickingout in the in the middle of
there, and it looks like ait's like a shiny plus three sword.
Let's go, let's go check thatout. Nope, can't get big.
The not only the womping willow,but I mean the classic mimic is the
(09:00):
is John Carpenter is the thing?Yeah, anything and any one could be
could be the It could be thething. Yeah, maybe not any one
in the Inn D and D's case, but it's you know, you never
know what it's going to be.And then you start throwing enough mimics at
people and they start questioning everything.And this is the psychological torture that we
want. Yeah, that's what wewant to do to our player. The
fight itself is not that bad,and actually let's get into fighting. Hello
(09:28):
Adventurers, just stepping in here toremind you guys that we're actively looking for
submissions for our Hello DMS episode thatgets reported every month. Send us your
Burning D and D questions the Helloadventurerspodcast at gmail dot com, or send
us a voicemail by visiting Helloadventurers podcastdot com slash voice. Don't forget to
(09:48):
begin your message with Hello, DMS. You can't wait to get your questions
to talk about them on the show. Send us your questions today. That's
Helloadventurers Podcast at gmail dot com,poorly the voice at Helloa adventure podcast dot
com slash voice. Now let's getback to the show. So mimics are
(10:09):
only a challenge reading too. Sothis is you know, made for lower
level parties, but that doesn't meanhigher level versions of them don't exist.
There are there's a lot of Idon't know if cobol Press specifically has beefed
up mimics stats, but there arelots and lots of third party beefed up
mimic stats. So you can throwa higher level players or again, the
fight, the mimic fight is notthe main event here. It's the psychological
(10:31):
torture that anything could be a mimic. That's kind of kind of like a
jump scare when when you realize what'sgoing on with it. Yeah, and
I find that the the the theinverse bell curve of the same type of
bell curve that you'll see on likewhen you do like a dumb joke,
over and over and over again.Okay, it's very funny, and then
(10:52):
it's very funny, and then it'sless funny, and then it's less funny,
and then it's annoying, and thenyou hate the person that does it,
and then you just want to killthem, and then it's worse,
and then it's worse, and thenall of a sudden, it's funny again.
Yes, and the funnier than itever has. You just keep pushing
on through the part where they wantto kill you, mimics through the same
thing. You throw one or twoat them. They're having a good time.
(11:13):
You throw a bunch at them.They're like, okay, I can't
everything can't be a mimic ken it. And they're like, okay, it
just starts to feel like a rug, like like just just a rug pull
at some point, Yeah, butguess what that rug is? A mimics.
Then it's like, okay, yougotta throw something other mimics at us.
It's like, really, another mimic, Jason, really, and then
it's like okay, enough with themimics. And then finally it's like,
(11:35):
okay, I'm pretty sure this thingis a mimic then they start having fun
with it again, so just keepthrowing it at them, and so they
want to kill you and keep going. But mimics in in actual combat have
a couple of really cool things goingfor them, and that is their grappling
ability, which is just it's it'stops here and in such an unassuming type
of enemy. Not only do theyhave the grappler fee so that when they
(11:58):
are grappling you they have advantage ontheir byte attack, but they also have
the adhesive property, which means thatanything and anyone will stick to it as
soon as they touch it. Itdoesn't even have to be the pseudo pod
tongue. They can just try tounlock the fake chest and all of a
sudden there's stuff stuck. Wow,and anything stuck to mimic is instantly grappled.
(12:18):
Now, escaping from a mimic scrappleis only a DC thirteen strength However,
being grappled because you disadvantage on thestrength check. Yeah, so now
I gotta make a DC thirteen atdisadvantage, which is still not that difficult,
but you know your your chance tobasicly cut in half. And then
they have their byte attack on topof that, which is only a D
eight, but it's also not onlyis the piercing damage from the bite,
(12:41):
but it's also an additional D eightfor acid damage. So if you're going
against a bunch of level two's,like you're like a CR two monsters are
supposed to, that can really bekind of devastating for your low your low
HP classes like Wizards, Sorcerers thatyou know, start seeing a spell scroll
on the floor and then all ofa sudden, the pseudo pod is coming
out of it. On top ofthe bite attack, it does have a
pseudo pot attack, which I believethey flavor as the tongue, and it's
(13:05):
the damages finds a d A plusthree for bludgeoning. But the more important
part of it is that does subjectthem to the adhesive trait and it's less
about the damage. The damage isa bonus, but it's a way of
grappling something that hasn't touched it yet. Yeah, and these are also critters
that I think are ideally combined withother monsters, right like that situation you
(13:26):
described where the cultists have those mimicson their back because they've developed you know,
they've either like cut a deal withthem or developed some kind of symbiotic
relationship or something like that that's reallyinto an interesting use of them, Like
if they're like if there's a singlemimic at the end of a haul,
you get the jump scare, butthen the party just gets together and they
(13:48):
just you know, just mash itto pit, mash it to a pulp.
But you combine it with other monsters, then you start getting into some
interesting stuff. Mimics hold hold peopledown while you know, the orcs bashed
brains in that kind of thing.Yeah, or even just anything to just
distract the other players from saving thegrappled player, because if a mimic produces
you to zero, it then startsto digest you. Yeah, there we
(14:11):
go, and it will do aD eight of horrific. It'll do a
date of acid damage every turn.So even if you're making your death staves,
it's still going to give you one. Yeah, and that is a
real sense of urgency for the otherplayers to get you. I think it
would be really great to pair themwith like a trap slash puzzle, you
know, have a couple of mimicsand then trap happening at the same time,
(14:35):
or a trap that triggers that orsomething, you know. I mean,
there's a couple of things that jumpimmediately to mind for me. And
the first is that if they've gotthat acid secretion and the digestion and stuff
like that, you know, maybeyou'd decide, I don't know whether this
is like there's anything in the statblock to indicate this, not necessarily,
but maybe you decide that they areimmune to the acid image from a gelatinous
(15:01):
cube. Oh, they actually areimmune to acid damage. Gin there,
we mean to acid damage. Sothey take the form of a skeleton,
right, you know that is likehalf dissolved in a gelatinous cube with like
one hand with a ring on itjust out of the right. You know.
Not only do they grab you,they yank you into the gelatinous cube
(15:22):
and you know them and the youknow, the mimicing Jilt's cube and kind
of just digest you together as partof a you know, a happy family.
That's how you jump this up froma level two encounter up to like
six or so. Yes, yeah, that's great. Yeah, you have
that working with that critter. Theother thing that I that that occurred to
me is that, you know,mimics have to reproduce somehow, right,
there's got to be baby mimics outthere, and so maybe you've got a
(15:43):
big mimic in the form of atreasure chest, right, and all the
gold pieces that are layered in it, those are tiny little babys, right,
So you flip the lid open andyour hand is stuck there, and
then these things all just you know, and maybe they're only doing one point
of damage apiece, but there's adozen of them, you know, and
your buddies have to peel them offat you or stab them very carefully or
something like that, you know,as they're swarming around the place, stepping
(16:07):
into a red red ant hill,right, Yeah, they're all fighting you
at the same time. I'm suresomeone out there has like a cr one
quarter version of the mimic. Yeah, and then there's just a huge swarm
of them because they stick to you. Oh God, Now, I know
when you said baby mimic, youmeant like a mimic child. But like,
I have this horrifying image in myhead of a baby mimic. Oh
(16:29):
god, a human child with adoll. The doll yeah, but uh,
a baby I too. I tooka look at the monsters know what
they're doing, and there's another hordmimic where like if you're fighting a dragon,
it's horde could also be Yeah,there you go, a mimic.
(16:51):
Oh so now you mimic. Notonly are not getting a horde at the
end of this dragon battle, butnow you got mimics on. Now you
got mimics on your hands. Yeah, they are. They're one of the
most annoying monsters, which maybe youviolate them so much. Yeah, and
I guess you know so then Imean, my question, my question is
how do you make sure that they'rethat they're actually fun? I mean,
(17:12):
we joked a little bit about likeyou use them, you use and use
them, but like I feel likethey can't be like one hundred percent arbitrary
just out of the blue. Doyou clue in the party in advance that
they're that this is something they mightencounter the first time they they come across
it, is it just you know, do they just kaboom, there it
(17:34):
is and then they got to watchout for it for the rest of the
dungeon? How do you how doyou keep it from so in my opinion,
going off the rails in my opinion, and another dms will probably have
well, well, every dam isgoing to have their opinion on I'm sure
someone will differ from mine. Ithink these are the most effective as the
jump scare. I don't like tippingoff the players at all that there could
be mimis, and I think thattheir first encounter with it is what tips
(17:57):
them off that there could be more, which is why the first one should
be as simple just one on onemimicking or you know, a party on
one mimic encounter and say, okay, hey there's a mimic here. We
don't know how many there could be. So that's in the case of the
museum, you know, there's thethere's a book behind glass that has some
blood around it, and while whilethey're investigating what they think is the blood
(18:19):
from what they just know, there'sdisappearances. That's why I know and say,
oh, there's some there's some bloodaround this book. Maybe that maybe
whoever is doing this left this bloodhere, and then that's how they find
their first one. And then there'sthere will be clues. And I'm using
the same campaign as as examples here, there's clues on like where other ones
could be. For example, inthe cafe of the museum. There is
(18:42):
tables and chairs, and there's onechair that after an investigation check, they'll
realize does not have scuff marks aroundit hmm, indicating that it has not
been pulled out as often as theother ones. And then they can use
that if they if they get theirinvestigation check, then they can use that
for to give a surprise condition orsomething like that. What's their intelligence?
(19:03):
That's the thing we haven't talked about, like how sentient are they are?
They are like like can you negotiatewith them? If you can figure out
how to talk to them? Really? They like animal level intelligence. Yeah,
they have intelligence of five, soit's a minus three intelligence and they
do not speak any languages. Yeah, that's like that that's like somewhere around
like like where a dog would beor something. Yeah, so these are
these are very like feral instincts driventypes of monsters. Hiding is part of
(19:27):
their instinct and there and their attackplan is kind of the same. Across
the board, We're going to goover to Other Monsters noo dot com.
This is Keith a Man's blog andit's also going to be in I want
to say, even both of hisMonsters books have entries on mimics. I
think he's got a lot to sayabout them. So I always recommend these
books anyway, and they will bepart of the future of their party book
(19:48):
club. They almost seem like Venusfly traps in that way kind of.
So the fourth part, the fourthpart attack plan will say, is we
take the again. So according toKeith them On, the four part playbook
for a mimic battle goes in thisorder. One the mimic chooses the disguise
(20:10):
using shape shifter and lies in waitfor prey through approach using false appearance.
Two the mimic attacks using an actionwith surprise, using its pseudopod to grapple
its target, which has disadvantage onescape checks because of the Mimic's adhesive surface.
Three against a grappled victim, themimic switches to the bite attack,
on which it has advantaged due toits grappler ability and which does more damage
(20:33):
than a pseudopod attack. And fourthis is my own extrapolation. But once
this victim is reduced as your HP, the mimic swallows it and proceeds to
digest it, continuing to do oneD eight acid damage to the victim each
turn until he or she is dead. And that is how a mimic fight
should go, at least for themimic. Yeah, how do you feel
about Do you feel like they shouldfight, you know, all the way
(20:56):
to the death every time, oris it reasonable to have them, you
know, come in, take acouple of chunks out of you to chew
on, and then flee so thatthen you've got to worry about. Okay,
Now, later on in the dungeon, we gotta you know, we're
gonna come across this same mimic again. Fleeing is interesting from a mimics because
depending on your interpretation of how theywork. Now, based on the official
(21:19):
stat block, you have a speedof fifteen feet, which is very very
slow, and anything can out runand catch up. And some interpretations that
I've found on other blogs, stufflike CBR dot com and other sites like
that, saying that in object formthat they lose their movement and that their
way of moving is to use thepseudopod to drag themselves. Sure, and
(21:41):
it's in some like and you knowthat that could be part of your lore.
Joe's kind of shaking his head,doesn't really like that very much.
But like for for something that islying in weight and lose its feet,
Yeah, it's not gonna hop itdoesn't have feet. It's an amorphous blob.
It slithers, it can amorphosize itssome feet. I don't know.
Well, I'm saying though, itgets around the same way flatinous cube,
(22:04):
the same way black pudding made.It's showing to just kind of like slither
and that's why it's a fifteen footspeed. Someoneking at CBR dot com and
in its article here it's saying thatin the early days, it was said
that the pseudopods mimics used to lastsh out and beat their prey, were
also how they traveled. They wouldflop out their pseudopod excrete, a sticky
(22:26):
glue like substance to attach themselves andpull their bodies forward. This may seem
like an inconvenient way to move around, but mimics are constantly on the prow
and start to prey, and theyseem to get around just fine. I
mean that's kind of basically how likesnails and slugs move in real life,
kind of is they you know,like they sort of roll forward a little
bit of that sticky stuff you know, hits there, they and they kind
(22:48):
of roll forward like that. Soyeah, and maybe this is a generous
read, but the fifteen feet ofmovement that they have, maybe that's how
we're flavoring it. Yeah, yeah, because I always just kind of see
it as a as a hopping aroundtreasure chest. But it could be then
to the pseudopod dragging itself is mightbe more accurate. Yeah right, I'm
just saying that I think that evenin their form, whatever form of them
(23:10):
might be, they can should stillbe able to And to answer your question
from from earlier about like, youknow, how do we make this a
harder fight, It's it's kind ofin there, and that's the adhesive property.
You know, anything that that breaksit in melee gets stuck to it.
So, if you're a fighter withtwo attacks, your first attack is
to strike it. Your second attackhas to be too is an action actually
too mudge your sword? Yeah yeah, so no, if you have if
(23:32):
you're a two weapon fighter, I'lllet you hate it twice. But if
you're a single weapon fighter, that'sthat's going to be it. Your next
turns action has to be to dislodge, and then your next turns action history.
So if you're a fifth level fighterwith two attacks on your broad sword,
okay, single weapon, So insteadof getting two attacks in a turn,
now you're getting one attack every threeturns or one one attack every other
(23:53):
turn, which is more powerful thana slow spell. And you know,
any any ranged weapons that are goingto hit it, like your your rangers,
arrows or cross bolts are not goingto be retrievable after us. Now
I've got to keep tracking the inventory. Your monk that is not getting fluria
blows out of that, you know, and not if their hands are sticking.
Monks are going to find out realfast how adhesive works. So this
(24:18):
is how you have one c Rtwo monster be able to stave itself off
against a party. It's that isan interesting kind of counter to the action
economy problems that you have with tryingto do by taking away that. Usually
we fix that by adding in moreactions on the enemy side, But what
if we take away actions on theplayer side. Yeah, yeah, you're
(24:40):
going to frustrate the players if youdo it good more than I don't want
people to get so frustrated they sayscrew that and leave my table. Well,
no, you don't do it tothat you don't do it to that
level. But like the the wholepoint of using the adhesive and the pseudo
pod and everything is that they feelrestrained. Yeah, well, and and
then and then you know, andthen the smart thing to do is to
(25:02):
take a step back. And youknow, even though your best attack is
that broadsword, you want to throwhatchets at this thing instead. Of course,
that's how you're gonna And I say, your spell your spell casters,
you know, come to the forefrontthere. Yeah, you're your your firebolts
arena are going to be doing it. But the reason I say good so
enthusiastically is because now they have tolike, they can't just be in sword
swing mode. They can't. Youcan't just you can't just spam the sort
(25:26):
swing button. You got to dosomething about this thing, right, You
almost have to strategize a little bitand really kind of think about what's happening
instead of right, Because I feellike, to your point, sometimes parties
just go, okay, just killit, yep, just just slash slash
attack attack. You know. Me, you're looking around the room and say,
(25:47):
oh, there's a there's a fireportion over there. We would just
throw this thing at it and justjust immolate it. And then that's mimic
too. Now we got to that'salso the thing more like in your museum
set up, maybe they come across, you know, some kind of an
alchemy set up where you know,the sorcerer and the wizard can put their
heads together and come up with somethingthat will you know, let you get
(26:11):
a swinger, you coach your swordin it, your kind of version of
like oil of Slipperiness or something likethat. You can get a couple of
swings before it sticks or something.That's the kind of thing where like if
the party, let's say it's alow level party and they're struggling, Yeah,
I will absolutely let them find somethinglike that in a display in the
museum. Yeah, you really kindof like make us, make us feel
natural. But the first one isgoing to be a minu, you bet,
(26:36):
the first the first potion they findis going to be maybe the second
one here, I don't know,let's see like that. It's like those
videos of the guys give it outice cream, like they always Oh,
that's such a good metaphor for this. So in both of you guys,
how do you feel about players whoare grappled having or loose using the ability
(27:00):
to do somatic spell components. Imean, I don't grapple the players at
all. They get upset about that. But grappled characters should I see.
I say, let them get upset. They're they're in a dungeon. Okay,
they're not in a rainbow farm.They like things are going to frustrate
them. It's okay. So Ithink that that is one of those things
(27:23):
that you've got to make sure you'vehad a conversation about before, about how
you're going to rule stuff like that. It's not a thing that you want
to like, you know, howyou're going to handle somatic components and how
much of a stickler you're going tobe on all that spell casting stuff is
stuff that needs to be established beforethey run into a mimic for the first
(27:44):
time and suddenly realize, oh mygod, if I get grappled, I
can't cast spells. What that?What the hell? I didn't realize that
was a thing. You know,especially you're playing with new players, especially
if you're you know, if theseare rules that don't come up all that
often in your game, you gotto make sure that they know what's going
on with that. And then youknow, just as as long as you're
consistent about it and you've established thatthat that's how that works, and that
(28:08):
you don't mind that from that momentforward, whoever your fighter is is going
to start taking every feat and specialability that allows them to grapple an enemy
spellcaster that they possibly can. Course, you know, but I would,
and I was gonna give my ownmy own disclaimer here that rules rules as
(28:30):
does not shut off. It's somatic, right, So it's just movement rules
is written says it drops to zero, you'd have to be incapacitated or to
not be able to take an actionor a reaction. So that's where I'm
like, yeah, you can stillcast spells. It doesn't stop spells.
But this is something that we weretalking about. We were talking about the
idea of a beefed up mimic that'slike a c R six, you know,
that could be an improved suit ofpod. Yeah, maybe that does
(28:53):
that that incapacitates. Yeah, butthen you have to So that's where you
start looking at the homebrewing monster,and you got to kind of look at
again like action economy and stuff ofcourse, like does it make sense or
maybe it's a legendary action or somethingthat it can do something where they have
to the player has to roll ata disadvantage, or the mimic rolls for
(29:15):
something that it incapacitates the target.Yeah, and I wish I had thought
of it before right now to seeif there's any out there that already exists,
or there may be another monster thatyou can just borrow from that that
you know, is you know,a little bit higher cr that incapacitates on
something. Yeah, you just takejust kind of borrow that if it If
you're listening, know uh know ofany of these types of monsters, let
(29:37):
us know, Hello, Adventure ofpodcast at gmail dot com, or tell
me what page of the Tuma Beastsit's on. I'll just you know what
I mean, I joke about thisbecause one of my favorite monsters. But
I'm looking at the ot Jug andthe neo ot Jug, which are those
like trash monsters that have the likelike like the big sticky tentacles and and
maybe you know, grafting one ofthose onto a higher level mimic doing some
(30:00):
of the stuff they do, becausethat's what they do. They grab stuff
and you know, drop it intothat big mouth. Yeah, yeah,
looking at this stuff right right now, c R five this yeah, this
is this is a good like evolvedmimic. Yeah. So that's my general
thing about mimics. I just they'rejust so the threat of them is just
(30:21):
so interesting to me. And youknow, and people outside of the hobby
recognize them. Yeah, And there'sonly a few monsters that that that non
non gamers, non table talk Beholders, dragons of course. Yeah, I
would give I would give a Iwould give a small nods of mind flavors.
A lot of people can recognize those, well, especially now yeah,
(30:41):
well yeah they don't recognize right,Yeah. I think I like the iconic
the indie monsters, like you're goingyou're going dragons, obviously, you're going
Beholders. It's gonna be the big, big, big one, your low
level stuff at your goblins. Butthat's just general fantasy, and it's or
yeah, and then the mimics,and then and and rust monsters, which
(31:02):
are the other, you know,player frustrating critters that you can run into.
I think that is bad player offrustration. And we'll do as we
do, We'll do a rust MonsterBlack Oose like putting episode and talk about
if you can convince me that they'rea good thing for the game we'll do
next month. Fantastic. Now wegot some we got some homework to do,
which is good because I didn't knowwhat we're going to do next month.
(31:23):
We didn't plan that far. Excellent, That's what I got. Any
you guys, any cool and itsabout mimics? You got any any other
things that we want to say aboutthem. I mean, they are one
of the creatures that made the cutfor the D and D movie. Yeah,
just one of one of them lookslike it's it's right there. I
mean I think not even just themovie, not just the movie, but
(31:44):
the trailer. I think, right, when do they run into a mimic
in the movie when they're the otherthe other party goes around and sees a
chest and they're like, sweet achest in one of those it up and
it just right down. Yeah,and it makes a very satisfying Yes,
yep, this is right before theydo the the gelatinous cube thing. Yeah,
(32:07):
I like the gelatinus which you know, maybe I'll throw a gelatinous cube
in the Iconic Monster's pile. Ithink that's in there. But cool,
So tell me about your most satisfyingmimic jump scare. We're what you think
is an iconic monster that maybe wedidn't mention. Yeah, yeah, and
the other monsters you want us todo do episodes on because these are I'm
(32:27):
having I'm having a blast with these, and there's plenty Llennium monsters we'll talk
about. I think I think it'sgoing to be it. So go forth
and surprise your players with mimics anddon't tell them what's going to happen,
and maybe get a picture of theirreaction when you tell them, and maybe
maybe before you send us anything,or go to Hello Adventures podcast. Now
(32:49):
we know to poke it with afourth if they send them to make sure
it's just double check out the keyboardis the key Yes, if they tend
to postful thing at five years thatthey didn't they they knit that it is.
It is if you want it tobe, brother, I suppose.
So that's going to wrap it upfor today. Thank you so much for
listening to Hello Adventurers. We areyour dungeon Masters. Jason Portiso, Jim
(33:09):
Crocker and Joe McCall producer and interviewer, or we might we might be producer,
editor, an engineer Jason Portiso andmusic by Nick Spurrier, art right
by Chris and Roderick. You canreach out to us as any feedback,
ford suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers Podcastat gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is
a JCV Audio Productions. Goodbye AdventuresVentres. Oh my microphone isn't hurt
Hello Adventures, the podcast for roleplayers aim game masters to help level up
your game. We're done your masters, Jason Portiso, I'm Joe McCall and
Jim Craper, and today we're gonnasee if this is really my microphone or
not. We're talking about mimics.No fantastic. Jim got to do his
Nole's deep dive last month. Iget to his favorite monster. Joe got
(00:45):
to talk about Haggs, which Iassume is his favorite monster. If you
if you want to talk about itthat bad? Do you have a favorite
monster? Joe just has is likenot a bad answer, but like you
look a little I don't know ifthat's my favorite. I had just I
had just done a lot of researchon eggs, which is why I get
I don't know, come back tome on who my favorite? My favorite
(01:07):
monster? I feel like it's likehaving a favorite dinosaur. You just have
that answer ready to go. Ismost recently prepped monster? Yeah, I
have a favorite. You need togo get yourself favorite. What should Joe's
favorite monster be? Let us knowat Hello Adventures Podcast at gmail dot com,
or just yelled Joe's favorite monster athim at Hello Adventures Podcast dot com
slash voice. Yeah, or anytimeyou see me on the street. Yeah,
(01:30):
in the supermarket, youngs Joe yousyou can meet, you can yell
in front of Joe's house. Ifthe address in the show notes, I
am going to leave a link toyour address. Ten to fifty five way
Yes. In the Australia. Uh. But my my absolute favorite monster Uh,
not only just because they're just likethey're so fun to throw in a
(01:52):
game, but they can be likethey can just be so just iconic and
everyone kind of knows what they are, whether they play the game or not,
and like it's it's just a coollike identifier that you are, like
kind of on the end of thisgame, I have I have a bunch
of tattoos, but I do havea mimic tattoo Nom Nom Nomin on a
D twenty and it's right on mywrist. It's one of the one of
(02:13):
the most easily seen tattoos that Ihave, and I'm proud of it.
So we're gonna talk about just justhow cool mimics are. When we started
pitching this deep dive idea, wethought this is gonna be like a very
informative thing, and it's gonna bevery academic and we're all gonna learn something
today. And then and then Jim'slike, I'm gonna tell you my favorite
things about Knowles and like so thatthe Hags episode was like a very like
no high school level book report,Like I'm not gonna lie to you freshman
(02:40):
college. How about that? Iguess you know high school is fine.
Yeah, it was a high schoolmulde better, it was a it was
a research paper, and and andI was cool hundred tons from that episode.
And then Jim Brook pretts it rightdown to think, these are my
favorite things about Knowles, and Iwas, you know, this is this
is the energy that I want.So I'm gonna tell you my just some
really cool things about mimics. Andbut I would make sure that you learn
(03:04):
a lot about their their combat andhow they're used in games, because just
looking at their stat block is like, Okay, these are kind of cool,
but like when you really like dissecttheir stat block, they're awesome,
and they can really they're a lowcr but they can really kind of mess
up some low level of parties.So can I please and terrify your players?
Oh god? Yeah, let's justsometimes sometimes the combat is not the
(03:27):
payoff. I want the I wantthe ever looming threat of mimics out there.
So which is gonna get me tomy first point? So let's get
into it. So my first pointand like this is just like, let's
just get this off the bat.This is probably the coolest thing about them,
and the most iconic part of themis that anything can be a mimic
(03:49):
if you don't know what and whatkind of enemies to throw at your players
today, guess what that's a mimic. Now, Yeah, I was gonna
say, can you give us abroad sense of exactly what mimic is for
those Yes, I'll thousand foot viewof mimics. Let me back it up
a step. So, mimics areshape shifters, and in their true form
(04:10):
they're kind of like amorphous blobs.But their true form is not what makes
them interesting. In fact, rarelydo ever even see them in their true
form. In what is called objectform, they can perfectly take the form
of anything, and usually inanimate objects. Very generous DM could maybe even turn
them into like shape shifters, butthat's really kind of beyond beyond it,
So we'll just say inanimate objects mostclassically chests. You'll kind of always see
(04:35):
them in the treasure chest form,although that is not the only option that
they can be. They really canbe anything. In fact, I'm gonna
look at the stat block here thatI could have sworn I had up pa
saw one of the Facebook groups likethey were like spot the mimics in this
picture, and I think they endedup being a bail of hay a,
(04:57):
just like a support beam like ina barn. No, no, I
forget what the other thing was,like a rock or something to reading stript
from the stat block here. Sothis is the shape changer ability. The
mimic can use its action to polymorphinto an object or back into its true
amorphous form. Its statistics are thesame in each form. Any equipment it
is wearing or carrying is not transformed. It reverts to its true form if
(05:20):
it dies, which is usually theonly time you're going to see the true
form, and the other one isfalse appearance. While it's an object form
only, while the mimic remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object,
so it is a perfect copy.This isn't like Pokemon's ditto where it
still has the weird looking eyes thisis like a this looks just like the
(05:41):
thing that it's mimicking. Like Isay, the most classic version of it,
this goes back to to first editionwhere it's going to take the form
of a treasure chest and you throwit in your dungeon and the players don't
poke it with a ten foot pole. First, they don't throw a ball
bearing at it, and then allof a sudden, this treasure chest is
now nomin on them. Yeah theylose a hand yep, yeah, yeah,
or whole arm and like they're there'sa you can really get into maaming
rules and that's that's a that's anearlier edition thing, but their rules are
(06:04):
still out there and just throwing outthere. But yes, a mimic can
be anything, So not only justthe classic treasure chest, but some other
really like nefarious examples that I hearget thrown around a lot. A door
could be a mimic, the doorframe could be the mouth of a mimic.
(06:25):
The door knob, A lot ofdoor stuff gets thrown around. My
players can check the door, they'llknock on it and say, okay,
I'm pretty sure it's real. Thenthey reach for the knob and it's like
rolling a mimic. It could bea potion which is a really messed up.
Oh yeah, that's a good one, or the floor a tile on
the floor. Absolutely, there arelabels. Yeah, there is a there's
(06:46):
a campaign that I'll mention. Uhoh no, I might as well mention
it now. So I mentioned DanDave a lot on the show because he
I follow his patren and he comesdown with new campaigns like every week.
And I have run this particular oneshot I want to say, three or
four times at a different store gamesand even at my own table at home.
And you know, I might bebiased, but it was my favorite
one he's done. It is calledMimic Museum. And the the first thing
(07:10):
you want to do is not tellyour players what it's called. Kind of
kind of gives up the museums,musicum. And the first time that they
reach for that book on the shelf, it's the first one they're going to
run into. So mix in thatgame the book in Harry Potter, right,
and it looks like a book withteeth. I think a better Harry
(07:32):
Potter example is the Womping Willow.Yeah, it just looks like a tree
yep, until it starts until justin that game alone. Off the top
of my head, mimics can bea book, a chair, some some
sort of like weapon artifacts like that'slike behind glass I think in hire ornamental
(07:54):
shield hanging on the wall, theyep, I think one of the higher
levels, the one of the oneof the suit of Armors and fair skin
rug. I believe there's even amimic animated like wooing like mammoth skeleton.
That's that's part of that one.And my my favorite is is in you
know this this is kind of justfor the DMS here, ok, just
just like if you're a player,just fast forward like thirty seconds in the
(08:16):
in the final battle, it's acouple of cultists and their backpacks are mimics.
Oh geez, it's the they're carryingaround with them. They're swapping out
artifact from for mimics. Yeah,sure, so it's it's it's a really
fun andmpaign. I'm gonna have alink to that in the show notes.
I believe a single level version ofit is free, and if you subscribe
(08:37):
a Patreon you get all levels.But yeah, so it really literally anything
can be a mimic, and Iwant you to get creative. Okay,
we're done with cursed items. Okay, we're going mimic items. It's like,
all players, he's a sword stickingout in the in the middle of
there, and it looks like ait's like a shiny plus three sword.
Let's go, let's go check thatout. Nope, can't get big.
The not only the womping willow,but I mean the classic mimic is the
(09:00):
is John Carpenter is the thing?Yeah, anything and any one could be
could be the It could be thething. Yeah, maybe not any one
in the Inn D and D's case, but it's you know, you never
know what it's going to be.And then you start throwing enough mimics at
people and they start questioning everything.And this is the psychological torture that we
want. Yeah, that's what wewant to do to our player. The
fight itself is not that bad,and actually let's get into fighting. Hello
(09:28):
Adventurers, just stepping in here toremind you guys that we're actively looking for
submissions for our Hello DMS episode thatgets reported every month. Send us your
Burning D and D questions the Helloadventurerspodcast at gmail dot com, or send
us a voicemail by visiting Helloadventurers podcastdot com slash voice. Don't forget to
(09:48):
begin your message with Hello, DMS. You can't wait to get your questions
to talk about them on the show. Send us your questions today. That's
Helloadventurers Podcast at gmail dot com,poorly the voice at Helloa adventure podcast dot
com slash voice. Now let's getback to the show. So mimics are
(10:09):
only a challenge reading too. Sothis is you know, made for lower
level parties, but that doesn't meanhigher level versions of them don't exist.
There are there's a lot of Idon't know if cobol Press specifically has beefed
up mimics stats, but there arelots and lots of third party beefed up
mimic stats. So you can throwa higher level players or again, the
fight, the mimic fight is notthe main event here. It's the psychological
(10:31):
torture that anything could be a mimic. That's kind of kind of like a
jump scare when when you realize what'sgoing on with it. Yeah, and
I find that the the the theinverse bell curve of the same type of
bell curve that you'll see on likewhen you do like a dumb joke,
over and over and over again.Okay, it's very funny, and then
(10:52):
it's very funny, and then it'sless funny, and then it's less funny,
and then it's annoying, and thenyou hate the person that does it,
and then you just want to killthem, and then it's worse,
and then it's worse, and thenall of a sudden, it's funny again.
Yes, and the funnier than itever has. You just keep pushing
on through the part where they wantto kill you, mimics through the same
thing. You throw one or twoat them. They're having a good time.
(11:13):
You throw a bunch at them.They're like, okay, I can't
everything can't be a mimic ken it. And they're like, okay, it
just starts to feel like a rug, like like just just a rug pull
at some point, Yeah, butguess what that rug is? A mimics.
Then it's like, okay, yougotta throw something other mimics at us.
It's like, really, another mimic, Jason, really, and then
it's like okay, enough with themimics. And then finally it's like,
(11:35):
okay, I'm pretty sure this thingis a mimic then they start having fun
with it again, so just keepthrowing it at them, and so they
want to kill you and keep going. But mimics in in actual combat have
a couple of really cool things goingfor them, and that is their grappling
ability, which is just it's it'stops here and in such an unassuming type
of enemy. Not only do theyhave the grappler fee so that when they
(11:58):
are grappling you they have advantage ontheir byte attack, but they also have
the adhesive property, which means thatanything and anyone will stick to it as
soon as they touch it. Itdoesn't even have to be the pseudo pod
tongue. They can just try tounlock the fake chest and all of a
sudden there's stuff stuck. Wow,and anything stuck to mimic is instantly grappled.
(12:18):
Now, escaping from a mimic scrappleis only a DC thirteen strength However,
being grappled because you disadvantage on thestrength check. Yeah, so now
I gotta make a DC thirteen atdisadvantage, which is still not that difficult,
but you know your your chance tobasicly cut in half. And then
they have their byte attack on topof that, which is only a D
eight, but it's also not onlyis the piercing damage from the bite,
(12:41):
but it's also an additional D eightfor acid damage. So if you're going
against a bunch of level two's,like you're like a CR two monsters are
supposed to, that can really bekind of devastating for your low your low
HP classes like Wizards, Sorcerers thatyou know, start seeing a spell scroll
on the floor and then all ofa sudden, the pseudo pod is coming
out of it. On top ofthe bite attack, it does have a
pseudo pot attack, which I believethey flavor as the tongue, and it's
(13:05):
the damages finds a d A plusthree for bludgeoning. But the more important
part of it is that does subjectthem to the adhesive trait and it's less
about the damage. The damage isa bonus, but it's a way of
grappling something that hasn't touched it yet. Yeah, and these are also critters
that I think are ideally combined withother monsters, right like that situation you
(13:26):
described where the cultists have those mimicson their back because they've developed you know,
they've either like cut a deal withthem or developed some kind of symbiotic
relationship or something like that that's reallyinto an interesting use of them, Like
if they're like if there's a singlemimic at the end of a haul,
you get the jump scare, butthen the party just gets together and they
(13:48):
just you know, just mash itto pit, mash it to a pulp.
But you combine it with other monsters, then you start getting into some
interesting stuff. Mimics hold hold peopledown while you know, the orcs bashed
brains in that kind of thing.Yeah, or even just anything to just
distract the other players from saving thegrappled player, because if a mimic produces
you to zero, it then startsto digest you. Yeah, there we
(14:11):
go, and it will do aD eight of horrific. It'll do a
date of acid damage every turn.So even if you're making your death staves,
it's still going to give you one. Yeah, and that is a
real sense of urgency for the otherplayers to get you. I think it
would be really great to pair themwith like a trap slash puzzle, you
know, have a couple of mimicsand then trap happening at the same time,
(14:35):
or a trap that triggers that orsomething, you know. I mean,
there's a couple of things that jumpimmediately to mind for me. And
the first is that if they've gotthat acid secretion and the digestion and stuff
like that, you know, maybeyou'd decide, I don't know whether this
is like there's anything in the statblock to indicate this, not necessarily,
but maybe you decide that they areimmune to the acid image from a gelatinous
(15:01):
cube. Oh, they actually areimmune to acid damage. Gin there,
we mean to acid damage. Sothey take the form of a skeleton,
right, you know that is likehalf dissolved in a gelatinous cube with like
one hand with a ring on itjust out of the right. You know.
Not only do they grab you,they yank you into the gelatinous cube
(15:22):
and you know them and the youknow, the mimicing Jilt's cube and kind
of just digest you together as partof a you know, a happy family.
That's how you jump this up froma level two encounter up to like
six or so. Yes, yeah, that's great. Yeah, you have
that working with that critter. Theother thing that I that that occurred to
me is that, you know,mimics have to reproduce somehow, right,
there's got to be baby mimics outthere, and so maybe you've got a
(15:43):
big mimic in the form of atreasure chest, right, and all the
gold pieces that are layered in it, those are tiny little babys, right,
So you flip the lid open andyour hand is stuck there, and
then these things all just you know, and maybe they're only doing one point
of damage apiece, but there's adozen of them, you know, and
your buddies have to peel them offat you or stab them very carefully or
something like that, you know,as they're swarming around the place, stepping
(16:07):
into a red red ant hill,right, Yeah, they're all fighting you
at the same time. I'm suresomeone out there has like a cr one
quarter version of the mimic. Yeah, and then there's just a huge swarm
of them because they stick to you. Oh God, Now, I know
when you said baby mimic, youmeant like a mimic child. But like,
I have this horrifying image in myhead of a baby mimic. Oh
(16:29):
god, a human child with adoll. The doll yeah, but uh,
a baby I too. I tooka look at the monsters know what
they're doing, and there's another hordmimic where like if you're fighting a dragon,
it's horde could also be Yeah,there you go, a mimic.
(16:51):
Oh so now you mimic. Notonly are not getting a horde at the
end of this dragon battle, butnow you got mimics on. Now you
got mimics on your hands. Yeah, they are. They're one of the
most annoying monsters, which maybe youviolate them so much. Yeah, and
I guess you know so then Imean, my question, my question is
how do you make sure that they'rethat they're actually fun? I mean,
(17:12):
we joked a little bit about likeyou use them, you use and use
them, but like I feel likethey can't be like one hundred percent arbitrary
just out of the blue. Doyou clue in the party in advance that
they're that this is something they mightencounter the first time they they come across
it, is it just you know, do they just kaboom, there it
(17:34):
is and then they got to watchout for it for the rest of the
dungeon? How do you how doyou keep it from so in my opinion,
going off the rails in my opinion, and another dms will probably have
well, well, every dam isgoing to have their opinion on I'm sure
someone will differ from mine. Ithink these are the most effective as the
jump scare. I don't like tippingoff the players at all that there could
be mimis, and I think thattheir first encounter with it is what tips
(17:57):
them off that there could be more, which is why the first one should
be as simple just one on onemimicking or you know, a party on
one mimic encounter and say, okay, hey there's a mimic here. We
don't know how many there could be. So that's in the case of the
museum, you know, there's thethere's a book behind glass that has some
blood around it, and while whilethey're investigating what they think is the blood
(18:19):
from what they just know, there'sdisappearances. That's why I know and say,
oh, there's some there's some bloodaround this book. Maybe that maybe
whoever is doing this left this bloodhere, and then that's how they find
their first one. And then there'sthere will be clues. And I'm using
the same campaign as as examples here, there's clues on like where other ones
could be. For example, inthe cafe of the museum. There is
(18:42):
tables and chairs, and there's onechair that after an investigation check, they'll
realize does not have scuff marks aroundit hmm, indicating that it has not
been pulled out as often as theother ones. And then they can use
that if they if they get theirinvestigation check, then they can use that
for to give a surprise condition orsomething like that. What's their intelligence?
(19:03):
That's the thing we haven't talked about, like how sentient are they are?
They are like like can you negotiatewith them? If you can figure out
how to talk to them? Really? They like animal level intelligence. Yeah,
they have intelligence of five, soit's a minus three intelligence and they
do not speak any languages. Yeah, that's like that that's like somewhere around
like like where a dog would beor something. Yeah, so these are
these are very like feral instincts driventypes of monsters. Hiding is part of
(19:27):
their instinct and there and their attackplan is kind of the same. Across
the board, We're going to goover to Other Monsters noo dot com.
This is Keith a Man's blog andit's also going to be in I want
to say, even both of hisMonsters books have entries on mimics. I
think he's got a lot to sayabout them. So I always recommend these
books anyway, and they will bepart of the future of their party book
(19:48):
club. They almost seem like Venusfly traps in that way kind of.
So the fourth part, the fourthpart attack plan will say, is we
take the again. So according toKeith them On, the four part playbook
for a mimic battle goes in thisorder. One the mimic chooses the disguise
(20:10):
using shape shifter and lies in waitfor prey through approach using false appearance.
Two the mimic attacks using an actionwith surprise, using its pseudopod to grapple
its target, which has disadvantage onescape checks because of the Mimic's adhesive surface.
Three against a grappled victim, themimic switches to the bite attack,
on which it has advantaged due toits grappler ability and which does more damage
(20:33):
than a pseudopod attack. And fourthis is my own extrapolation. But once
this victim is reduced as your HP, the mimic swallows it and proceeds to
digest it, continuing to do oneD eight acid damage to the victim each
turn until he or she is dead. And that is how a mimic fight
should go, at least for themimic. Yeah, how do you feel
about Do you feel like they shouldfight, you know, all the way
(20:56):
to the death every time, oris it reasonable to have them, you
know, come in, take acouple of chunks out of you to chew
on, and then flee so thatthen you've got to worry about. Okay,
Now, later on in the dungeon, we gotta you know, we're
gonna come across this same mimic again. Fleeing is interesting from a mimics because
depending on your interpretation of how theywork. Now, based on the official
(21:19):
stat block, you have a speedof fifteen feet, which is very very
slow, and anything can out runand catch up. And some interpretations that
I've found on other blogs, stufflike CBR dot com and other sites like
that, saying that in object formthat they lose their movement and that their
way of moving is to use thepseudopod to drag themselves. Sure, and
(21:41):
it's in some like and you knowthat that could be part of your lore.
Joe's kind of shaking his head,doesn't really like that very much.
But like for for something that islying in weight and lose its feet,
Yeah, it's not gonna hop itdoesn't have feet. It's an amorphous blob.
It slithers, it can amorphosize itssome feet. I don't know.
Well, I'm saying though, itgets around the same way flatinous cube,
(22:04):
the same way black pudding made.It's showing to just kind of like slither
and that's why it's a fifteen footspeed. Someoneking at CBR dot com and
in its article here it's saying thatin the early days, it was said
that the pseudopods mimics used to lastsh out and beat their prey, were
also how they traveled. They wouldflop out their pseudopod excrete, a sticky
(22:26):
glue like substance to attach themselves andpull their bodies forward. This may seem
like an inconvenient way to move around, but mimics are constantly on the prow
and start to prey, and theyseem to get around just fine. I
mean that's kind of basically how likesnails and slugs move in real life,
kind of is they you know,like they sort of roll forward a little
bit of that sticky stuff you know, hits there, they and they kind
(22:48):
of roll forward like that. Soyeah, and maybe this is a generous
read, but the fifteen feet ofmovement that they have, maybe that's how
we're flavoring it. Yeah, yeah, because I always just kind of see
it as a as a hopping aroundtreasure chest. But it could be then
to the pseudopod dragging itself is mightbe more accurate. Yeah right, I'm
just saying that I think that evenin their form, whatever form of them
(23:10):
might be, they can should stillbe able to And to answer your question
from from earlier about like, youknow, how do we make this a
harder fight, It's it's kind ofin there, and that's the adhesive property.
You know, anything that that breaksit in melee gets stuck to it.
So, if you're a fighter withtwo attacks, your first attack is
to strike it. Your second attackhas to be too is an action actually
too mudge your sword? Yeah yeah, so no, if you have if
(23:32):
you're a two weapon fighter, I'lllet you hate it twice. But if
you're a single weapon fighter, that'sthat's going to be it. Your next
turns action has to be to dislodge, and then your next turns action history.
So if you're a fifth level fighterwith two attacks on your broad sword,
okay, single weapon, So insteadof getting two attacks in a turn,
now you're getting one attack every threeturns or one one attack every other
(23:53):
turn, which is more powerful thana slow spell. And you know,
any any ranged weapons that are goingto hit it, like your your rangers,
arrows or cross bolts are not goingto be retrievable after us. Now
I've got to keep tracking the inventory. Your monk that is not getting fluria
blows out of that, you know, and not if their hands are sticking.
Monks are going to find out realfast how adhesive works. So this
(24:18):
is how you have one c Rtwo monster be able to stave itself off
against a party. It's that isan interesting kind of counter to the action
economy problems that you have with tryingto do by taking away that. Usually
we fix that by adding in moreactions on the enemy side, But what
if we take away actions on theplayer side. Yeah, yeah, you're
(24:40):
going to frustrate the players if youdo it good more than I don't want
people to get so frustrated they sayscrew that and leave my table. Well,
no, you don't do it tothat you don't do it to that
level. But like the the wholepoint of using the adhesive and the pseudo
pod and everything is that they feelrestrained. Yeah, well, and and
then and then you know, andthen the smart thing to do is to
(25:02):
take a step back. And youknow, even though your best attack is
that broadsword, you want to throwhatchets at this thing instead. Of course,
that's how you're gonna And I say, your spell your spell casters,
you know, come to the forefrontthere. Yeah, you're your your firebolts
arena are going to be doing it. But the reason I say good so
enthusiastically is because now they have tolike, they can't just be in sword
swing mode. They can't. Youcan't just you can't just spam the sort
(25:26):
swing button. You got to dosomething about this thing, right, You
almost have to strategize a little bitand really kind of think about what's happening
instead of right, Because I feellike, to your point, sometimes parties
just go, okay, just killit, yep, just just slash slash
attack attack. You know. Me, you're looking around the room and say,
(25:47):
oh, there's a there's a fireportion over there. We would just
throw this thing at it and justjust immolate it. And then that's mimic
too. Now we got to that'salso the thing more like in your museum
set up, maybe they come across, you know, some kind of an
alchemy set up where you know,the sorcerer and the wizard can put their
heads together and come up with somethingthat will you know, let you get
(26:11):
a swinger, you coach your swordin it, your kind of version of
like oil of Slipperiness or something likethat. You can get a couple of
swings before it sticks or something.That's the kind of thing where like if
the party, let's say it's alow level party and they're struggling, Yeah,
I will absolutely let them find somethinglike that in a display in the
museum. Yeah, you really kindof like make us, make us feel
natural. But the first one isgoing to be a minu, you bet,
(26:36):
the first the first potion they findis going to be maybe the second
one here, I don't know,let's see like that. It's like those
videos of the guys give it outice cream, like they always Oh,
that's such a good metaphor for this. So in both of you guys,
how do you feel about players whoare grappled having or loose using the ability
(27:00):
to do somatic spell components. Imean, I don't grapple the players at
all. They get upset about that. But grappled characters should I see.
I say, let them get upset. They're they're in a dungeon. Okay,
they're not in a rainbow farm.They like things are going to frustrate
them. It's okay. So Ithink that that is one of those things
(27:23):
that you've got to make sure you'vehad a conversation about before, about how
you're going to rule stuff like that. It's not a thing that you want
to like, you know, howyou're going to handle somatic components and how
much of a stickler you're going tobe on all that spell casting stuff is
stuff that needs to be established beforethey run into a mimic for the first
(27:44):
time and suddenly realize, oh mygod, if I get grappled, I
can't cast spells. What that?What the hell? I didn't realize that
was a thing. You know,especially you're playing with new players, especially
if you're you know, if theseare rules that don't come up all that
often in your game, you gotto make sure that they know what's going
on with that. And then youknow, just as as long as you're
consistent about it and you've established thatthat that's how that works, and that
(28:08):
you don't mind that from that momentforward, whoever your fighter is is going
to start taking every feat and specialability that allows them to grapple an enemy
spellcaster that they possibly can. Course, you know, but I would,
and I was gonna give my ownmy own disclaimer here that rules rules as
(28:30):
does not shut off. It's somatic, right, So it's just movement rules
is written says it drops to zero, you'd have to be incapacitated or to
not be able to take an actionor a reaction. So that's where I'm
like, yeah, you can stillcast spells. It doesn't stop spells.
But this is something that we weretalking about. We were talking about the
idea of a beefed up mimic that'slike a c R six, you know,
that could be an improved suit ofpod. Yeah, maybe that does
(28:53):
that that incapacitates. Yeah, butthen you have to So that's where you
start looking at the homebrewing monster,and you got to kind of look at
again like action economy and stuff ofcourse, like does it make sense or
maybe it's a legendary action or somethingthat it can do something where they have
to the player has to roll ata disadvantage, or the mimic rolls for
(29:15):
something that it incapacitates the target.Yeah, and I wish I had thought
of it before right now to seeif there's any out there that already exists,
or there may be another monster thatyou can just borrow from that that
you know, is you know,a little bit higher cr that incapacitates on
something. Yeah, you just takejust kind of borrow that if it If
you're listening, know uh know ofany of these types of monsters, let
(29:37):
us know, Hello, Adventure ofpodcast at gmail dot com, or tell
me what page of the Tuma Beastsit's on. I'll just you know what
I mean, I joke about thisbecause one of my favorite monsters. But
I'm looking at the ot Jug andthe neo ot Jug, which are those
like trash monsters that have the likelike like the big sticky tentacles and and
maybe you know, grafting one ofthose onto a higher level mimic doing some
(30:00):
of the stuff they do, becausethat's what they do. They grab stuff
and you know, drop it intothat big mouth. Yeah, yeah,
looking at this stuff right right now, c R five this yeah, this
is this is a good like evolvedmimic. Yeah. So that's my general
thing about mimics. I just they'rejust so the threat of them is just
(30:21):
so interesting to me. And youknow, and people outside of the hobby
recognize them. Yeah, And there'sonly a few monsters that that that non
non gamers, non table talk Beholders, dragons of course. Yeah, I
would give I would give a Iwould give a small nods of mind flavors.
A lot of people can recognize those, well, especially now yeah,
(30:41):
well yeah they don't recognize right,Yeah. I think I like the iconic
the indie monsters, like you're goingyou're going dragons, obviously, you're going
Beholders. It's gonna be the big, big, big one, your low
level stuff at your goblins. Butthat's just general fantasy, and it's or
yeah, and then the mimics,and then and and rust monsters, which
(31:02):
are the other, you know,player frustrating critters that you can run into.
I think that is bad player offrustration. And we'll do as we
do, We'll do a rust MonsterBlack Oose like putting episode and talk about
if you can convince me that they'rea good thing for the game we'll do
next month. Fantastic. Now wegot some we got some homework to do,
which is good because I didn't knowwhat we're going to do next month.
(31:23):
We didn't plan that far. Excellent, That's what I got. Any
you guys, any cool and itsabout mimics? You got any any other
things that we want to say aboutthem. I mean, they are one
of the creatures that made the cutfor the D and D movie. Yeah,
just one of one of them lookslike it's it's right there. I
mean I think not even just themovie, not just the movie, but
(31:44):
the trailer. I think, right, when do they run into a mimic
in the movie when they're the otherthe other party goes around and sees a
chest and they're like, sweet achest in one of those it up and
it just right down. Yeah,and it makes a very satisfying Yes,
yep, this is right before theydo the the gelatinous cube thing. Yeah,
(32:07):
I like the gelatinus which you know, maybe I'll throw a gelatinous cube
in the Iconic Monster's pile. Ithink that's in there. But cool,
So tell me about your most satisfyingmimic jump scare. We're what you think
is an iconic monster that maybe wedidn't mention. Yeah, yeah, and
the other monsters you want us todo do episodes on because these are I'm
(32:27):
having I'm having a blast with these, and there's plenty Llennium monsters we'll talk
about. I think I think it'sgoing to be it. So go forth
and surprise your players with mimics anddon't tell them what's going to happen,
and maybe get a picture of theirreaction when you tell them, and maybe
maybe before you send us anything,or go to Hello Adventures podcast. Now
(32:49):
we know to poke it with afourth if they send them to make sure
it's just double check out the keyboardis the key Yes, if they tend
to postful thing at five years thatthey didn't they they knit that it is.
It is if you want it tobe, brother, I suppose.
So that's going to wrap it upfor today. Thank you so much for
listening to Hello Adventurers. We areyour dungeon Masters. Jason Portiso, Jim
(33:09):
Crocker and Joe McCall producer and interviewer, or we might we might be producer,
editor, an engineer Jason Portiso andmusic by Nick Spurrier, art right
by Chris and Roderick. You canreach out to us as any feedback,
ford suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers Podcastat gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is
a JCV Audio Productions. Goodbye AdventuresVentres. Oh my microphone isn't hurt
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