Hi all, I rarely post but I would like to take a moment to relate my last session and the successful deception with the party and Ixianian.
Several weeks ago while we were still in the middle of EaBK I spoke with the party rogue and tapped him to play the part of Ixixian (sp) for HoHR. The party headed to "WaterDeep" and split up to take care thier personal business's. The party rogue joined the "Red Sashes" guild and received special training with his scimitar . During that training the master brought in another student used the two of them as sparing partners. The other student ended up being Ixixian (sp, this worked out perfectly as he was able to spar with the party rogue for weeks learning how he fights to better mimic him later. Before the rogue rejoined the group at the crooked house, Ixixian (sp) knocked him out and took his place. The situation at the crooked house went according to plan. The rogue was able to lead the party to "Sodden Hold" easily after having "hit the streets" looking for any information on the symbol of the dagger left behind. During the first half of "Sodden Hold" the rogue was able to stay back during most encounters and keep out of the way with no suspicion.
He did make one mistake and walked right into the pit trap in area D10 after I had warned him off to the side earlier night. When the group entered the room with the real rogue and the doppelegangers posed as party members the reactions from my players was priceless. They litterally sat there for about 10 min's looking at each other and looking at the prisoners. The leader of group a favored soul untied his counter part and gave him a spare bastard sword then challenged him to battle. The fake pleaded with the party to help him as the other had all his gear and would easily kill him. This sent up even more uncertainty which allowed the rogue to move into position behind the party wizard. After 3 missed sneak attacks that none of the other members of the party noticed the rogue finally connected and dropped the mage instantly. I held the anticipation of what was happening as long as I could but the group was getting supicious of the fake rogue making rolls out of nowhere that I was paying close attention too. He hit and rolled him damage, at this point I did not say who or what he hit or what he was doing. The group just stared waiting to here to awesome damage, and which prisoner was going to die first. When I finally annouced that the party wizard was the one that took the damage jaws dropped all around the table. It look on their faces was priceless and will definatlly go down as one of the more memorable moments of this campaign for me. Thanks paizo :)
All in all they won the encounter and were not bitter about it. They were very surprised that their rogue had been a doppleganger for at least 2 sessions and leading them without thier knowledge.
We've tried evil character subterfuge in past campaigns several times but they alway get sabotaged with metagaming. This one worked perfectly.
Good to read, thanks. I'm heading down this path next week.