Monsters Disguised as Cute Things

jasper · Jun 5, 2019

I moved the mimic from the chest to one of suit of armour in the room. I stole the idea from one my fellow dms who had mimic-x hybrids in his world. Note I don't play in his world.

Voadam · Jun 5, 2019

As a player I've been tricked by a town of house hunters, house-sized 20 or 30 HD mimics from 2e. "Did the whole block just move a little closer to us?". Not very cute but I was tricked.

The cutest thing I can recall encountering was Beauty and the Beast animated china in a Disney Princess themed campaign. I was not fooled and smashed them when they attacked, but I did get lots of crap later when we realized they were normal people under a curse and it turned out I had slaughtered a bunch of innocent servants. Particularly the old teapot lady.

Paul Farquhar · Jun 5, 2019

OMG you killed Angela Lansbury!!!

Fauchard1520 · Jun 11, 2019

Baldurs_Underdark said:
I dislike it when a DM disguises a monster without giving the players a chance to discover its true identity. A DM can withhold as much information as he wants, and as a result the players can be kept really clueless. This will only lead to two possible outcomes:

The monster always gets a surprise round in combat

Player characters trust nothing, and will just start murderhoboing everything, and stab strangers at the first opportunity

I find neither very appealing for my game.

If I want to trick my players, I make sure that they first commit a little sin. For example, there appears to be some gold on the floor. If greed takes over and they pick it up (usually in a rush before another player does it), then they get ambushed. I still get a surprise round for my NPCs, but now the players are bickering among themselves instead of with me. A much more appealing outcome.

It's all about the foreshadowing. Last session in was doppelgangers. My players knew that shapeshifters were about, and so they were suspicious when an old lady lying atop the corpse pile claimed that she was a victim in need of medical attention.

"I heal her leg."

*mediocre heal check*

"The bone pops right back into place easily at your touch."

"Too easily...?"

"Roll 'em!"

I'll be honest: I let the player have one here. The doppelganger beat the PC's insight check fair and square, but I gave the players the info anyway. If you stay frosty and question your surroundings, you ought to be rewarded for it.

alienux · Jun 12, 2019

Not exactly a "cute" creature, but a couple of years ago I was teaching my then 11 year old son to DM using Death House, and after defeating several pretty nasty enemies and surviving, my character was then beat to death by an animated broom.

Quartz · Jun 12, 2019

Voadam said:
As a player I've been tricked by a town of house hunters, house-sized 20 or 30 HD mimics from 2e. "Did the whole block just move a little closer to us?". Not very cute but I was tricked.

That was an adventure in Dungeon magazine wasn't it?

Nebulous · Jun 12, 2019

TarionzCousin said:
I've never seen players as terrified as my entire group was by a "completely innocent looking/harmless" eight year old girl loose in the lower levels of a dungeon.

Yeah, I did that, two little kids holding hands and wandering around the sewers, it scared the crap out of the PCs. Good thing too, they were polymorphed demons of some kind.