Monster of the Week: Mimic

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The Mimic is a classic monster dating back to the beginning of D&D. It’s a creature that, in standard Gygaxian fashion, tries to kill you despite looking like a piece of furniture. It can assume the shape of just about anything, and the “standard” Mimic looks like a treasure chest, as shown.

Like many monsters, including the Gelatinous Cube, the Mimic is a trap: it just happens to be a living trap. Players who carefully poke every treasure chest they find will normally not be surprised by one (which is why every adventurer should carry a 10 foot pole). As such, as DM, you should award the players full experience if they intelligently and purposefully avoid it, or solve the encounter without killing it (more to come on that).

The first item I should note is: do not make a Mimic a treasure chest. Every D&D player who knows anything, or has just happened to skim through the Monster Manual, or has read this blog post, will know that any treasure chest is a potential danger. They will also know that if it attacks them, well, duh, it’s a Mimic. Silly silly silly. Never put a trap where someone expects a trap, because then, well, it’s not a trap, is it?

So, anyway: why us a Mimic? Well, like any trap, it’s a good way of keeping players on the edge, and besides, D&D is all about traps. You’re in a dungeon! Everyone knows there has to be traps! Additionally, a creature trap, like the Mimic or Gelatinous Cube, is frankly friendlier to players. Being able to stab the target of their frustration is more fun than having a giant rock fall on you. Creatures are also more of an attrition trap, and less of a one-hit-kill trap: one-hit-kill is NOT fun, no matter what certain 1st Edition designers may have thought.

What should you make a Mimic as then? A chair is a nice choice: the unlucky character is already in the arms of the creature. A bed could be alright. A barrel, perhaps? A boat! Trap the whole party! Basically, anything that fits into your current game without being a damn treasure chest. Besides, who goes and puts chests everywhere, anyway? Something that the characters are likely to interact with is better than a passive object, so a cupboard is better than a footstool: how often do players say, “I use the footstool”?

In addition to just trying to kill the party, a Mimic can provide interesting roleplaying options. For some strange reason, they speak Common. Don’t ask how. The 3.5 MM says:

“The creature does not necessarily fight to the death if it can succeed in extorting treasure or food from a party.”

Huh. Okay. What do Mimics eat? Since it says “treasure”, probably metal and gems, however much sense that makes.  What you can do, then, is throw a Mimic at the party when it is definately too strong for the party to fight without casualties. The Mimic knows it can probably kill one person, maybe two, but if the rest of the party will kill it then it wants to negotiate. Have it take one party member down to low health, and then the Mimic can threaten to eat him if the rest of the group doesn’t feed it something good. Give the players decent XP if they roleplay it properly. Just remember: not every fight has to end with one side dying.

On to the mechanics!

3.5 Edition

Very simple. Not much to say, really. Its abilities match how you use it: it grapples a single character, and then pummels them for a while. The sticky adhesive helps give it a little more survivability, but once the party is aware of it, it will go down pretty quickly. Sneak up on them!

4th Edition

Wait, what?

*Searches index*

There’s no Mimic!!!

*Googles*

Well… huh. Someone has come up with a version of the Mimic, but I really thought it would be in the Monster Manual.

Homebrew Mimic on D&D Wiki

This version is basically the 3.5 version updated, so it keeps pretty close to the original. However, it has much better survivability by comparison to the original, because it:

*Has more hit points

*Has the Snapping Maw ability, allowing it to counter-attack misses.

*Decent defences

Looks pretty good, the conversion to 4E rules has been done well. If you want to use a Mimic in 4E, I think this is the way to go.
Well, that just about wraps up another Monster of the Week. See you all again next week, where we look at another fantastic monster that I haven’t decided upon yet.

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