Mimic Thread, or how do you make an interesting fight with Mimics?

Been watching some dark souls gameplay, and playing some Red Rogue, and it's got be wondering how to make mimic fights interesting in a table top game.

Veeky Forums do you have any good mimic fights you can recall in any medium?

Figured I post my good examples.

Mostly in vidya, but whatever.


For Dark Souls MImics, they have an interesting design and some funny tells and interactions, and mostly fight like a weird lanky martial artists.

Note that actually falling for the mimic just means that the game is over, so it isn't actually that great as a trap that doesn't auto kill you.

Red Rogue has Mimics both as a normal wandering enemy., and as basically chests and get up and attack you using their contents (which I think is cool)

Posting Dark Souls mimics...

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in my campaign, mimics are minor demons that have invaded the world over the years. They are just common enough to be wary in a strange place, but uncommon enough not to slaughter everyone every time. and they can actually function like containers if they so choose. They can also take any form they wish, as long as it is a "furnishing" of some sort. I had one where an Inn the PCs were staying at was filled with them. then it turned out the entire building was one. the great cathedral is supposed to be one, but it hasn't awoken in a thousand years.

Make a chest-mimic who, instead of attacking adventurers, has random loot from the dungeon for sale. So, rather than eating flesh, it actually eats gold coins.

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Someone post the mimic island cap.

See

"House hunters are large relatives of mimics. They have lost some of the latter’s camouflage versatility, but they have gained the ability to live above ground.
House hunters form hard shells that look like stone, wood, or thatch, lending the appearance of a building. Young house hunters look like smaller structures such as outhouses and sheds, adults are the size of cottages and small houses, while ancient creatures are larger still, with elaborate shells that can resemble inns, temples, or ruined towers. All three sizes of this monster can produce dim, flickering light (bioluminescence), resembling candle or lantern light, at any body opening, and they can imitate domestic noises (muffled voices, clucking hens, the tolling of a temple bell, etc.)
Bony plates resembling doors and shutters cover the shell openings, protecting and hiding their mouths, eyestalks, and huge tentacles – each specimen has a tongue that is 2 feet long per Hit Die, two eyestalks that are 6 inches long per Hit Die, and two tentacles that are 1 foot long per Hit Die. The bony plates are opened and shut by the use of strong muscles that function like those of clams. These apertures can be forced open by making a successful open doors roll. There is a wide variety in the locations of these openings: Some of these creatures have them all along the fronts of the “buildings”, while others have mouths and eyes at the front, but tentacles at the left and right sides. Ancient house hunters often have extra tentacles, which may be arrayed on all sides of the structure.
Adult and ancient house hunters can talk, but they only speak a crude form of Common. Sages speculate that they communicate telepathically within a 10-mile range."

Maybe Mimics that aren't chests! But something more insidious, like a well in a hot and dry area.
As the adventurers approach to lower the bucket, a tentacle flares out and attempts the drag them into the well.
Or maybe it's more like a pitcher plant, and they sort of fall in and digest

Whete is this mini from ?

Beasts of War

That seems like a fun time for an encounter.

Gunna post mimics here and there to keep thread alive. I fucking love mimics.

>there is a large conspicuous chest in the room
>it's not a mimic
>every other piece of furniture in the room is

My favorite part of my current campaign is leaving small details about different kinds of containers and furniture in my descriptions of rooms.
>A fair sized chest is tucked away in the corner, it appears to have a broken padlock on it's front.
>Besides ______ is a large wardrobe closet. It's doors bend into a pair of more of a curved rather than flat panels.
>There is a queen sized bed in this room. It has a bed skirt that, instead of a ruffled or tapered design, instead appears to have sharp angles like flags or pennants.
>There is a ruddy looking barrel with a large, dirt and grime covered jar or bottle on top. You can not make out the contents of this bottle, although you think you saw something sparkling just inside.

Three years of these subtle hints and none of my players have figured out the minor giveaways about what is and isn't a mimic. There is at least one in most major dungeons that the party goes into.

Oh, and in red rogue, mimics have a chance to steal/copy your form.

Given that you only know which characters you control directly or indirectly because they have unique sprites and gear, a mimic with gear copying you or your skeleon minion leaves a lot of confusion potential, particularly if they copy your minion.

I love everything about this thread.

OP here.

Really?

Woman comes to party distraught, claims her house is haunted. Explains that she is constantly losing things and that her pets always wind up dead and mutilated in strange circumstances.

Turns out her house is infested with baby mimics who are copying random stuff and gaslighting her making her slowly go crazy.

I really like this idea.

Novel set-up ups are good stuff.

Party must apprehend / gets duped by rogue who is repeatedly selling the same tamed / dominated mimic in the form of golden urns and silver candlesticks and other valuable goods, only for it to sneak away and return to him afterwards.

Give them personality.

Have a bunch of dangerous and safe mimics.

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Urban mimics that copy trash bins or replace the tiles atop rooftops, just as hostile to humans but much more subtle, they like to slide roof-tiles onto people heads or throw trash at them when they're not looking

And toilet ones, too.

I like this a large amount.

Great set-up and the basis for a decent combat encounter if you need it.

"Nee, adventurer-kun! I have so much gold in me! Can you please take some?

I have porn of this thing.

Giant hermit crab with a treasure chest shell. He'll clamp you and scuttle away until you bring it a barrel to move into. Simply killing it would destroy the treasure.

Someone posted an encounter here once about a gelatinous cube with a chair inside it that turns out to be a mimic trapped in object form by the larger ooze.

I had an idea for a dungeon that has an old, previously sprung trap near the entrance and then a couple of them still unsprung in the dungeon for the party to notice and disarm, and then, towards the end, a trap that's a little bit more obvious... except the triggering mechanism isn't real, it's a mimic that attacks when the rogue tries to disarm it.

A single goblin approaches the party in a panic wielding and waving a ridiculously extravagant longsword.

The sword is a mimic and glued itself to the goblins hands, it wasn't actually aggressive.

A mad wizard who fancies himself an artist has one room of his tower set up as a studio, where he's got a bunch of in-progress canvases set up. The model for his portrait is a caged princess the party is supposed to rescue. Between her and the door is the easel where he's set up a still life-- except, instead of being made of wax, the artificial fruit in his bowl are all mimics.

Put the players into a dungeon or a storehouse full of objects. Tell them that there is a mimic they have to destroy. There isnt, the quest giver is paranoid.

The party needs to break into a place, and happen to know a shady merchant who is selling a hand of glory. The hand is actually a dormant mimic encased in wax, which will wake up angry as soon as any of the "hand's" fingers has burned down sufficiently.

Remember that, at least in D&D and Pathfinder, mimics neutral aligned, fairly intelligent and capable of speech. There's no need for them to be inherently hostile.

We got an interesting subject, brainstorm of interesting and original ideas, art of said subject, minimal shitposting . What's not to like?
I'm not even a Veeky Forums fanatic but threads like this is why I lurk. I'm not btw.

>some guy hires the party to go into his warehouse, saying "there's some kind of monster in there that disguises itself as a crate or a barrel or even a bowl, it's different every time. I'll pay you [amount] to get rid of it. I don't even care about the stuff in there. Better have some things destroyed than lose my warehouse to that... thing!"
>there is no mimic
>it's not his warehouse; it's his rival's

Have you considered making them hermit crabs?

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>That reference

Pretty good visual gag. How is this series, anyway?

Amazing, you should pick it up.

Since mimics rely on camouflage so much, if someone actually IS dumb enough to reach into one, it should hurt. Like, a lot.

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I'm fine with there being a punishment for touching the mimic, but "character dies" and close approximations thereof generally pulls players out of the game. It can feel like (well, you didn't say your character was breathing, so your character suffocates to death).

In DND, a mimic can be just about any item - smaller items might require the use of younger or smaller mimics.

Therefor: a doppelganger equipped with mimic armor, and a mimic weapon.
This way, a doppelganger can look like anyone and even copy their apparel and weaponry.

Also, a bitch to fight with two mimics grappling and pseupodding and biting the enemies while the doppelganger attacks normally as well.

The party needs a scroll of ancient lore from a wizard's tower. In his study, a massive and ornate scroll rests closed on a pedestal. The scroll turns out to actually be a mimic wrapped around a bare scroll rod-- that actually contains the much smaller real scroll inside a hidden compartment in the rod.

I actually used one of these in an introductory D&D campaign last weekend.

Basically treat their ability to mimic like it gives them the ability to travel through their surroundings unseen, so they disappear for a round or so - do this in a room with lots of random stuff in it, like a storage room for suits of armor, chests, that the mimic can transform into, and the only reason the mimic was discovered to begin with was because a torch carrying PCs walked too near it, so the PCs have to carefully go around to each item after the mimic has fought them for a round or two and try to flush it out into fighting again.

Mimics are also unique in that the ones with animal intelligence have a good reason for being full of treasure.

Calm down, satan. Are you trying to wipe the entire party?

I'd be interested in designing a fight where the DM uses mimics and other shapeshifters to voltron up and down.

The character as you describe him seems just Soul of Cinder without the metaplot to make it interesting.

Tactical invisibility seems cool.

Not sure if a DoW 2 Boss fight is the most fun way to do it.

I remember our DM using a huge mimic as a broken down house in the woods on a group. Hilarity and death ensued.