Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of the Mimic is a bit unfair? It was literally created to "punish" players for opening chests for loot. Why should that be punished? Not to mention that players will want to open chests anyway, they'll just take longer now.
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The original mimic was intelligent and capable of conversation.
As far as I know all mimics in D&D are like that too. They just have an alignment of neutral hungry.
Cool. Every day I learn something new.
Even if they were, Mimics were always magic aberrations.
Versions vary if they are simply neutral entities based in survival or straight evil
not really
the save or die poison needle in the latch/lock of the chest is a lot more of a pain in the ass
This. Trapped chests in general are bullshit, and I've ended up destroying loot in an effort to be cautious more times than I care to admit.
I think you guys are the type to find grimtooth's traps funny to read through.
Especially the ones regarding doors and treasure traps, those guys at goodman games have crazy ideas.
> Stand in front of the chest? Safe!
> Stand far away from the chest?
> Time to Save Vs Death!
Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of the trapped chest is a bit unfair? It was literally created to "punish" players for opening chests for loot. Why should that be punished? Not to mention that players will want to open chests anyway, they'll just take longer now.
Instead of the chest being trapped they should just be unopenable unless the players buy keys from the DM with RMT.
The original trapped chest was intelligent and capable of conversation.
And that's how we learned that traps are, in fact, gay.
Drill open the back dipshit. You did buy a hand drill right Anon? Or use a saw, you brought a saw right? Oh you're going to smashing it open with your axe? Get fricked idiot you smashed through the chest but also throught the scrolls inside and the shock broke the potion bottles.
Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of the chest is a bit unfair? It was literally created to "reward" players for opening chests for loot. Why should that be rewarded? Not to mention that players will want to open chests anyway, they'll just take longer now.
>Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of the Mimic is a bit unfair?
This is kind of a worthless question because you're asking for an out-of-character (Doylist) explanation for an in-universe (Wattsonian) phenomenon. Sometimes adventures will feature things that are unfair for the player characters, especially if there is no reason for their rivals to act fairly.
Is it possible you saw a video from a nogames D&D-whiteroom youtuber, and wanted to gauge our reaction? Because I skimmed over such a video a few days ago, and it seemed like the youtuber was unaware that players are sometimes interested in getting lost in the fiction and don't play the same character over and over who always acts the same and always has the same knowledge of mimics.
It was meant to punish greedy thieves that stole from their party.
Scenario 1)Whole party is at the chest or near it as thief checks for traps and opens it. Mimic attacks, party wrecks it's day.
Scenario 2) Thief is alone and opens chest. Mimic eats thief.
See how it works now?
good point, I like mimics now
frick rogues
This is just that Pointy Hat video about mimics.
If you don't want to punish chest-opening, just use mimics to punish some other behavior.
-Rogue is getting too wienery, stealing everything in sight and thinking Sneak Attacks are acceptable substitutes to negotiation and bartering with NPCs? Make some of that loot into mimic eggs that eat his rogue-hoard while he's out, then have a mimic-doppelganger take his knife-hand off at the wrist John Carpenter style.
-Wizard screwing over people in order to get some Amulet of Yendor? That amulet is now mimic.
-Bard derailing the campaign to screw everything? Have a scandalized father-figure of a deflowered maiden honeypot the bard with MIMIC PROSTITUTES. "Teeth" that bastard into singing in choir.
Bring the mimic-hammer only if the behavior is truly aggravating and distracting from story/gameplay, but when you mimic... mimic like the pimp-hand of the gods.And never apologize.
>Make some of that loot into mimic eggs that eat his rogue-hoard while he's out
rocks fall and you all die but it targets one character's loot
not even gonna mention the other shit
cringe DM
if you dislike certain behaviors at the table talk to the players like a normal adult instead of planting petty payback into your game of play pretend
idk, that sounds fun and engaging if you arent a tryhard.
>This is just that Pointy Hat video about mimics
I hate that his "solution" was making an entirely unrelated reddit weasel that's even more of a time waster than regular mimics, a gimmick with literally no challenge to offer.
Some of his takes are ok like his Beholder video but most of the time he takes something interesting and takes away whats interesting about it. Like when he just made Warforged and Dragon born Human with Warforged or Dragon parts bolted on. Or just using the Fey constantly.
Do you have a link? I’m morbidly curious what that schmuck thinks is a “fair” alternative.
I’ve personally only used… well a mimic-like hostile and it made narrative sense. The new BBEG was a petty man-child so of course he’d send the party “peace offerings” that were “mimics” disguised as expensive baubles.
?si=shuiH0MMKkRn9Oxc
weasel starts at 10:30
it's basically a magic creature that annoys you until you're pissed and then gives you the reward. people complain about "mimic checking" being a waste of time but if you think about it for 2 seconds you realize every weasel encounter is literally "pretend to be annoyed until the weasel gives your reward".
I feel like the chest weasel might feel more dickish than a simple mimic. Which could result in your players not wanting to go into the dungeon at all.
absolutely. I would suggest literally just beating the shit out of them but...
>Chest weasels have not been conceived to be fought, but rather to be fun encounters in dungeons. As such, and keeping to the theme of generating frustration, a party that decides to try to kill the chest weasel is in for a particularly frustrating fight
what a fricking load of crap. does he really think this solves his proposed problem of mimics being either a waste of time or a punishment? because that's exactly what he made here.
Ya know what? I wouldn’t even call mimics a “punishment” because at the end of the day, a mimic is a surprise combat encounter, something the players are extremely likely to be kitted out for, so I’d say that a mimic is a rude reminder to not get too complacent while in the dungeon. And I emphasize “while in the dungeon”, because generally speaking, mimics aren’t usually found outside dungeon environments, so players have a clear delineation for where they can drop the paranoia.
This ‘chest weasel’ creature can show up anywhere, at anytime, for any reason because it all but outright tells the GM “use this whenever you bored”, and believe me, few things can turn a band of PCs into chaotic murderhobos as quickly as unrelenting paranoia.
yeah I don't have many problems with mimics personally, that's just the argument the video makes. I assume the "chest weason" is supposed to be a "fix" but it comes with the same exact problems, arguably more.
if he wanted a le funny roleplaying interaction couldn't he have made something like a "smart" mimic that talks to the players and asks for favors in exchange for its treasure? then at least it could be an interesting side-quest type scenario instead of le annoying weasel that just wants to annoy.
>weason
weasel****
the whole weasel take is moronic, a gimmick you can only use once or maybe twice before your players have absolutely had it with your BS
>. The new BBEG was a petty man-child so of course he’d send the party “peace offerings” that were “mimics” disguised as expensive baubles.
No Necklace of Strangulation? Pathetic.
Well it wasn’t actually a true fantasy setting. So I had to work with the tools I had.
it was Star Wars and the mimics were buzz droids whose outer shell was bedazzled with gold leaf and israeliteels so they’d look like golden baubles when closed, then when taken aboard the PC ship were supposed to spring to life and begin dismantling the ship from within the PCs were suspicious from the start because the BBEG was already established as a petty man-child so instead they sprung to life in a warehouse where they were trying to crack them open to see what the trap was
This is some of the worst shit I have ever heard.
I'm counting 10 mouths, maybe more. Imagine!
Why do play with people that aggravate you?
That's debatable but 'unfair' doesn't automatically mean bad. It's all about how interesting a scenario is and what the players make of it.
>Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of the Monster is a bit unfair? It was literally created to "punish" players for exploring dungeons for loot. Why should that be punished? Not to mention that players will want to delve dungeons anyway, they'll just take longer now.
>Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of rolling dice is a bit unfair? It was literally created to "punish" players for not being lucky. Why should that be punished? Not to mention that players will want to play the game anyway, they'll just take longer now.
>It was literally created to "punish" players for opening chests for loot. Why should that be punished?
Back in the day, people used to respect trapped dungeons
>It was literally created to "punish" players for opening chests for loot. Why should that be punished?
No, you're supposed to punish players for being players. It's like you're never played.
They're no more unfair than a poison needle trap or an ambush predator. They punish people for getting too comfortable in a dungeon delve.
As unfair as going to someone's home to loot chests.
That's why you flip the script and punish the GM. Have everyone in the party check every item as if it was a mimic, combo as many investigation and dice rolls as you can. Drag the game to a painful crawl from the dysfunctional paranoia that anything could be a mimic and attack at anytime.
That’s how you become nogames
maybe the GM shouldn't encourage this behavior by using mimics
The GM's position is unfair by nature, and is required to be so.
> When you make the 20th dice roll in one room of a big ass megadungeon because your paranoia got better of you.
> GM rolls random encounter.
> Oh its a Cube....
The real GM punishment comes from when you stop caring about this shit and the GM eventually gets bored of killing you.
The GM killing you is the GM not fudging dice rolls
The GM putting intant death traps all over the place with no tells is the GM killing you
Life isn’t fair
If you think mimics are bad, how about disenchanters and rust monsters, and level drain?
"oh no you asked the wrong question without doing the thing guess your character dies now haha"
It’s called player skill
basing character success on player skill is metagaming
and?
only moronic homosexuals think metagaming is bad
Agreed
But then the GM is free to metagame too and is going to be better at it than you on account of having no restrictions.
mimics are literally an attention check, why can't zoomers understand that?
I think mimics are fine it's non descript 5e magical traps that are kind of a pain.
>alarm spell is an invisible region that sets off enemies, it can be placed for free but requires a third level spell to disable
>glyph of warding can do pretty much whatever you want and has no physical triggers to bait out the trap or mechanisms to detect or disable it.
I've seen extremely complicated mechanical traps and pretty much always thought "this is something I can work with" but placing a couple glyph in a few hallways that are necessary to go through to progress and only trigger when a person gets near them has completely grinded games I've been in to a halt. The fact that there are also no rules on disabling magical processes like large rituals or other complex multi step magical processes is very annoying; I can't remember the amount of times I've killed a room of cultists trying to make an evil portal only to have no way to interact with it to make it stop.
>I break the inscriptions on the ground
it's magic and already under way
>uh cleric cast dispell magic
it fails
I'm sure plenty of DMs invent systems for magic traps rituals and complex spell systems but 5e RAW they are invisible and not something that can be interacted with unless you have the specific anti magic spell which only works sometimes.
If your DM has no homebrew, situational rules, or reasonable contextual ways to disable or avoid magic traps and rituals, then their goal is to railroad you into the encounters they trigger and you should stop playing with them if that's a problem for you.
it's mostly something I encounter with new DM's who read a magic trap spell and think it's cool, and then don't realize there is literally no rules to deal with them. I agree with you but I also think there should be rules for something that feels pretty typical to higher fantasy games
as a follow up utterly massive spells like Permanent Forbiddence and Hallow can be taken out by a single cast of dispell magic just the same, so the tool is both too specific and expensive to use in a dungeon full of traps and way too easy/strong in the context of taking out spells that take a whole year of consistent casting to finalize. The solution is once again homebrewing but doesn't change the fact that the designer truly just didn't think it through which seems to come up a lot in 5e; coming from someone who generally plays and enjoys 5e for the record
>go into cave in real life
>cave-in
>get stuck
>lose leg
>no loot
>ugh, so unfair!
Black person it's supposed to be a dangerous adventure fraught with stuff that will end your fricking life if you take a wrong step, that's what makes video/tabletop games fun.
Here, I found you a fun dungeon to play with your friends! pic related
>try to leave cave
>cave entrance that the party came through when we entered the cave was actually a mimic all along
>it waits until we're on our way out to attack
>DM spends the rest of the campaign wondering why the party avoids caves
We wound up with the fun combination of these. Moonbeam was used in combat while inside a "haunted house" and our DM got creative with the spell's interaction with shapeshifters. Now we have a talking house as thanks for freeing it from the BBEG''s control/bio-alchemical experiments/etc and successfully avoiding a horrible acidic TPK.
Wrong. It's supposed to be a number go up simulator, dumbass.
Mimics usually contain loot in themselves, they are not frustrating and not suppose to frustrate. Just a mob with gimmick. Of course any GM can misuse them, but you can misuse any mob like that.
>It was literally created to "punish" players for opening chests for loot.
No, it was created to punish players for being stupid and careless.
remember my friend was telling me her kinda low empathy sister was in a local comic shop's d&d group her dad ran; and she would try at every single turn to ninja the loot. A real
>I rush ahead and roll slight of hand to take and equip all the loot before my group notices
type. Anyways so her dad (once again the GM) eventually just put a ring in a chest that upon wearing would turn the bearer's skin and organs inside out, killing them instantly. When my friend asked her dad why he'd build an item specifically to kill his teenage daughter's character he just laughed and said "because she's an butthole!"
Kek. This is why I automatically divide up the loot between my players and tell them how much money to add to their sheet. Let them debate on who gets magic items and roll for it if they can't agree. It's a great filter for this type of player.
I also watched that youtube video
You don't understand, it's meant to reward great adventurer who did not leave any chest unchecked
ps: don't bother checking that manga, only some meme are worth any interest
soon
You were warned.
Opinion noted, and discarded.
>Does anyone else think that the traditional concept of the Mimic is a bit unfair
That's the entire fricking point, you dumb homosexual
Now that we've finally admitted this thread is about some youtuber's dogshit take, the sheer abundance of D&D 5E youtubers with stupid opinions has me wondering what it would be like to have my own channel dedicated to deconstructing them.
It's actually bizarre, because I remember a time years ago when Spoony sat in front of a camera and made videos (better than anyone's today) just by talking about his experience playing the game. Nowadays it feels like youtubers draw from a lack of experience when talking about D&D- even when they are specifically talk about past games they've played in their takes and opinions sound like they should be playing an entirely different game than D&D. It makes me want to dedicate more of my time to making fun of them and pointing out the solutions to all their fake problems
Save yourself the trouble, even on the slim chance you gain an audience you're locking yourself into the role of a drama channel who can only operate in reaction to things other people say and do. You'll quickly find yourself making "response to X's response to my response" video and will have become the very cancer you wished to fight.
Lastly, creating content inherently based on negativity instead of positivity is bad for the soul. This may not seem important to you now, but it's the most important thing I've said here.
While I'm daydreaming about the idea I may as well add to it.
1) I wouldn't ever respond to other Youtubers or their response videos because drama and engaging with these people doesn't interest me in the slightest. I'd laugh at their opinions and sponsorships from a distance and discourage any further contact since I'm aware how e-celebrities weaponize audiences.
2) If I had such a channel then I would still be interested in discussing the topics that actually interest me. I think Genesys isn't talked about enough, and I could do hours upon hours worth of videos comparing all the character options in Pathfinder 1e comparing the trap options to the powerful ones. I could talk about my obsession with making oddball weirdo characters, like that one time me and my friends played L5R and learned about all the clan politics... only for me to roll up a disgraced ronin hermit character.
3) I don't see mocking the opinions of others as necessarily negative. It can easily be based on negativity, but I think criticism and satire can be very good for the soul, and that sometimes it's better to say something controversial rather than let something go unchallenged. I think it would be extremely cathartic to make videos talking about how a lot of the problems with TTRPGs come from the fact that they require imagination which lots of people have in short supply.
Normalgays ruining the hobby even further, anon. That's what you're seeing.
Imagine thinking anything spoony did was good kek
I love mimics. I wish I had a pet one.
I want mimic pants that would suck and frick
That's a cloaker.
what if you just shoot every chest with a crossbow?
don't forget to shoot the doors too, just in case.
In 5e people just use Eldritch blast or Ray of Frost, since they can only target creatures.
If the spell can’t be cast then it is an object which you can safely open to get a poison needle trap in the face. If it works then it is a mimic or some other creature.
Good game design right?
It should be punished because some people don't want you opening chests.
what are some fun things for mimics to be besides treasure chests?
latrine
adventurers just go in the corner.
the corner is also a mimic
>what are some fun things for mimics to be besides treasure chests?
what manga
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/85906546
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/98560364
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/105290862
you know, i wasnt expecting penis mimics today
>penis mimics
You mean traps?
If you were expecting them, they wouldn't be very good mimics, now would they?
>Golly it's so unfair that this dungeon has danger in it!
Git good or play something for pussies
It should be punished because of what you did to that poor chest. The mimic was just minding its own business, bothering nobody, when your group of depraved perverts appeared and started manhandling it, even trying to force it open! Of course you have to get eaten for that.
You do realize that mimic chest is just softer and lighter version of The Thing?
If DM gave beginning adventurers the actual Thing from the movie, I'm sure it'd end just as well.
Mimics in my setting are more benign. They still disguise themselves as chests, but what they do it grab materials from nearby and use it to make stuff. Weapons, armor, etc, that the then leave inside themselves. They're basically emotional vampires and feed off the positive emotions like happiness and surprise, like the sort when you find a weapon in a chest.
Younger Mimics are still figuring shit out so ones in a cave you'll probably just find daggers and armor made of solid stone or whatever material they can find where older ones will seek out stuff they know will make useful weapons and armor. Some adventurers have a tradition where they'll "pay" the Mimic by leaving metal or other raw materials where they found the weapon to give the Mimic something to work with, especially if they plan on coming back later. Very rarely a Mimic might take a liking to a specific person and follow them, which can make them function as a source of nonmagical weapons and armor, provided you have the materials.
Very rarely you have Archivists, incredibly old Mimics who have even learned to create magical items. But most of these tend to be found in Wizard's towers or any other placed with high concentrations of magic.
>destroying the mimic gets you the best treasure
Incorrect. Feeding the mimic gets you the best treasure.
>Party loot drops
Mimics are why Boru the Half-Orc always had a ham shank at the ready. We thought he had it just in case he got peckish.
Genuinely feel sorry for any DM so unimaginative that they have to resort to gimmicks like this to challenge their players. Hopefully you improve yourselves eventually. I doubt it though.
In Corsair, the PDF that I posted, there is a group of giant mimic type creatures called the Linyati that spawn humanoid clones which are slowly taking over the fantasy world. It's actually a pretty fun read as well.
Mimics are so much better than "uh oh you didn't touch that random object with a 10 foot pole it was actually uh a disguised mass of um super deadly brown mold no save you lose your arm permanently"
>muh mimics unfair wah wahh wahh
Stop being a little b***h, you cry baby homosexual.
Mimics are much more fun when they're obvious.
No, the most fun is when there's an obvious mimic that turns out to be just a regular chest, and when the players are relieved and start looting the treasure itself turns out to be a mimic.