D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Hussar]

Mimics?

IME it's most often used when something's encountered that may or may not be a creature but that the in-character players know nothing about*. Less commonly, it's used as a Mimic detector. And, due to a ruling I made decades ago and have stuck with, it also works as a pregnancy test.

* - two sessions ago my party met a shut down robot that they initially thought might be something alive inside heavy odd-looking armour; it showed no signs of being alive or sentient but they hit it with Detect Life just to make sure.

What's wrong with either a stick to poke it with or a Detect Thoughts spell?

Who wastes a 2nd level cleric spell on this? Particularly in earlier editions where you had so few slots to choose from. My groups would beat me to death if my clerics did this.

 

[Incenjucar]

Scrolls wands etc.

 

[mamba]

There's less reason for the GM to create a contact for someone who doesn't have a feature or trait that gives them a contact.

agreed, but I am not really sure the stranger you conjured up was really there as one of the messengers the background describes… for one it then should not be a stranger, for another it then does not take a dead drop, and most of all you starting with “The Dark Powers mess with Ravenloft's reality all the time.”.

None of this is covered by the feature. To me it looks more like the Dark Powers are messing with the criminal for their own gains, background feature or not

 

[Faolyn]

agreed, but I am not really sure the stranger you conjured up was really there as one of the messengers the background describes… for one it then should not be a stranger, for another it then does not take a dead drop, and most of all you starting with “The Dark Powers mess with Ravenloft's reality all the time.”.

None of this is covered by the feature. To me it looks more like the Dark Powers are messing with the criminal for their own gains, background feature or not

That's literally what the Dark Powers do--they mess with people for their own purposes. In the case of the criminal, it will function as both their contact for whatever legitimate criminal purpose they want it to, and it will satisfy the Dark Powers.

So don't make it a stranger. Make it their contact--or rather, the Dark Power's version of the contact. The DPs can literally make entire people with minds crammed full of false memories. They can literally reach into a creature's mind to find out the best way to tempt them. It's no biggie for them.

 

[mamba]

That's literally what the Dark Powers do--they mess with people for their own purposes.

The DPs can literally make entire people with minds crammed full of false memories. They can literally reach into a creature's mind to find out the best way to tempt them.

that was my point, the feature does not really enter into this scenario

 

[Lanefan]

What's wrong with either a stick to poke it with or a Detect Thoughts spell?

Poking it with a stick means you've got within its reach, and the whole point is to check for life before getting that close.

I don't have Detect Thoughts as a spell in my game.

Who wastes a 2nd level cleric spell on this? Particularly in earlier editions where you had so few slots to choose from. My groups would beat me to death if my clerics did this.

We took out pre-memorization for Clerics about 146 years ago, and found it didn't make much difference to anything.

 

[Lanefan]

Scrolls wands etc.

Either a) you're replying to someone who has me blocked or b) you really need to add some context here...