Chris Salvato's page

I too had an infiltrator, and it All worked out pretty well.

My advice would be to cover your bases - make sure you have several logical scenarios under which the switch can be made. My party decided to turn themselves over the the authorities after the "assault" on the inkeeper, sidestepping the scenario I had in mind. I opted then for an interrogation session in which the relevant party member was swapped.

In addition, make sure that EVERY character is alone at some point or another, and make sure to bring up this point at the relevant time if the party doesn't bring it up.

I also invented a magical pair of amulets which allowed the doppelganger to access all the knowledge and abilities of the duplicated creature. It made things much easier, as the replaced PC's player could still make use of feats, class abilites, etc. This may also remove the ability of the party to detect the doppel early, but I found it easier to do things this way (the doppel player was less experienced than the rest of the players)

In addition, I had these amulets work both ways - the PC was privvy to the thoughts and unguarded knowlege of the doppelganger. This way, when the real character was rescued, she was able to pass on info about the doppelganger gang in a more natural way than me just telling them what's happening. Fianlly, they were destroyed when one of the two parties was killed.

To cover why the doppelganger would willingly attack and kill its compatriots, I had overwhelming thoughts of cold-blooded ambition about Ixaxian working its way up the gang's heirarchy via attrition. I had vague visions of a tentacled monster strike cold fear into the otherwise fearless and arrogant doppelganger's mind, hinting at the true mastermind of the gang.

My final piece of advice: Try to END a session with the party entering the room with their duplicates. You'll probably get a lot of valuable info in the post-game chit chat, as they talk about their discovey, their theories about who might be an imposter, and how to determine who is who. You and your stooge can also work out some exact battle plans. I managed to do this, and it worked well - the players had all that time between sessions to stew on it, theorize, and draw wild conclusions, and I had time to come up with why the druid's animal companion did not detect any scent differences (magic amulets to the rescue!).

Good luck - I think the switch is definately worth it!

The below follows the rules for drugs and addiction in the Book of Vile Darkness. Thoughts and comments would be appreciated:

Kalamanthis
A rare psychotropic drug derived from a plant grown on the slopes of GriffonÕs Roost. Kalamanthis is cultivated and traded by the monks of the Twilight Monastery. It is the dried root of the kalamanthis plant, pressed into sheets and then crumbled and smoked in a pipe.

Type: Inhaled DC 12
Cost: 5sp per dose
Alchemy DC: 15
Addiction: Medium (Fort DC 10)
Satiation: 5 days
Damage: 1d4 Wis, 1d4 Int

Initial Effect: 1 hour of euphoric hallucinations; user must make a DC 12 Will save every 10 minutes for one hour or be fascinated for 1d4 minutes. Most users voluntarily fail this save.
Secondary Effect: 5 more hours of sporadic hallucinations; user must make saves as above once per hour for the next 5 hours; a failed save means that the hallucinations come on at some time during that hour.
Side Effects: -4 on Will saving throws; the drug reduces the userÕs ability to tell reality from the hallucinations. This side effect lasts for the 6 hours of the initial and secondary damage.

Shidara