My party recently started up the Hall of Harsh Reflections after absolutely trouncing the Lizardmen of the Mist Marsh. I'm looking forward to it as a chance to give them a new kind of challenge, as the party really didn't find any danger in the numbers of the Lizardmen.
The problem is this: There's no one in the party a Doppleganger can easily replace. We have four PCs: A Paladin tank who relies on her Summoned Mount and Lay On Hands (which a DG can't duplicate); a Half-Orc Cleric of St. Cuthbert who is a constant healer and caster; a Sorceress with an Infernal Bloodline (shown through Heritage Feats) who also casts constantly and uses unique feat-based abilities, and a Halfling Warlock/Rogue who is constantly Spider-Climbing walls and who hasn't touch a weapon in ages.
So how do I have a Doppleganger infilitrate them? I trust any one of my players to take on the roll, but I need to do it RAW. I want there to be a few clues, so if my players are paying attention they can root out the mole. Do I turn the infiltrator into a caster of sorts?
Any suggestions would be appreciated, especially if you've run the adventure with or without the infiltrator.
You could introduce an NPC or two. Maybe a bard can latch on to them at the tavern, and offer to follow them around and chronicle their adventures? You could introduce Ekaym eary in order to fill this purpose, but then you have to make sure he doesn't get killed too early...
You could also have some of the prisoners that they rescue tag along for a while to "help" - especially if the PCs don't choose to immediately rest or backtrack to escort them out of Sodden Hold. Rather than attack immediately, have them pretend to be helpful at first, them betray them at an inconvenient moment.
Of course, the whole doppleganger plot can be dropped completely, but I think it's useful to introduce a certain amount of paranoia into the adventure. It makes the PCs afraid to trust anyone.
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Don't forget that dopplegangers advance by class level. This means you can have a doppleganger actually be a warlock/rogue (for example) or any other class. If you are concerned about CR of the resultant doppleganger, you could ave the doppleganger just be a warlock, and oddly "fail" when making trap search checks and the like, though this takes a bit more panache on the part of the player, requires the other players to not overly scrutinize the replaced player's rolls and/or requires some of your support. Basically, the player of the rogue can play a doppleganger warlock and when doing rogue-like things, he just isn't as effective. You can hep in this as well by allowing the players of the doppleganger/warlock to roll trap checks, sneak attacks and do other thief-like things normally and just not add in the damage or tell the player that he failed to find a trap or whatever. This lets the player that is helping you have an easier time acting the part and provides the proper misdirection to others in the party. In the game world in the heat of battle or when creeping around the sewers, it is unlikely that the other party members are going to notice that the rogue's blows aren't as strong as they should be or that the rogue is somewhat noisier than usual. I am certain that between you and the player, you can fool the rest of the group.
For example, I replaced a spiked chain tripper fighter with the player's help. The doppleganger wasn't nearly as skilled as the fighter with the spiked chain, but of course had to use it to keep up the charade. The player never adjusted his to-hit and other rolls. Instead, I let him roll "normally" and then adjusted the rolls on my side of the screen to account for the doppleganger's hidden weakness. The player helped out by not trying to trip people as often and by fudging die rolls here and there when no one was looking. To the rest of the party, the fighter was just having a bad time of it. The entire group was so focused on the story and their character they never thought twice about the fighter; it worked perfectly.
IIRC the adventure specifically recommends letting the PC-replacing doppelganger simply use the replaced PC's stats & abilities, presumably so that you don't have to worry about all this stuff. Doppelgangers by the RaW always seem to throw a monkey wrench into things anyhow. From a RaW standpoint, since you said that's how you want to play things out, you could consider this recommendation as the Rule as Written for the doppelgangers in this particular adventure, which should override the regular rules. Presumably the rest of the adventure has been designed to be in balance with this in mind. Or, it could be that Zyrxog &/or the doppelgangers have an intelligence network so extensive that they are able to come up with a convincing duplicate for pretty much any adventuring character by selecting an infiltrator whose abilities match up very closely with the victim's. There you have it, you're good to go. Just a matter of picking which PC gets replaced, and really, you could even wait right up until the Big Reveal to decide which character has been replaced. That way it's a suprise for everyone; not just almost everyone...
The good news is, HoHR should provide a better challenge to your PC's than EaBK did - my players made mincemeat of just about all the lizardfolk too, never did really have a tough encounter in that entire chapter. They even left a PC behind in the swamp - the party's lizardfolk wilder, who took over the role of 'King of (all 3 or so surviving members of) the Twisted Branch tribe', which was basically his dream come true. But HoHR was a different story. The encounter with Zyrxog lasted 3 whole sessions and nearly became a TPK - would have been one for sure if I hadn't played up Z as overconfident enough in his own superior genius that he thought he could afford to toy with the party a bit (to drive up the level of terror in their minds, naturally - it's tentacle-slurping good!), only to have his buffs run out in the nick of time - his published mind blast DC (overstated in the adventure) which I used for the first two sessions of the battle, was certainly a factor as well; you'll want to correct that, IMO. We even had a PC death in the sewers leading to Z's domain - I got "lucky" and rolled up the black pudding on the random sewer encounter table, and with no room to maneuver and no significant arcane firepower (with which to do the old 'ok, you guys cut it up into many smaller pieces then I'll drop a fireball on all of them' trick) in the group at the time, they had a pretty rough time of it. For some reason, I want to believe there was another PC kill in this adventure, but I can't think when or where so maybe it was a different chapter... Maybe the giant octopus under the Sodden Hold? Hard to remember... By the end of the adventure, they didn't even want to search Zyrxog's treasure room - too paranoid to trust or even touch anything because of all the dirty tricks that are riddled throughout all parts of this adventure. Casting Analyze Dweomer on everything in there was the smartest thing they ever did in that adventure, I think, though they did forget to cast it on the bronze griffon figurine. Than wound up being highly entertaining the first time it got used, in one of the big battles in the following adventure (Champion's Belt).
Yikes, starting to ramble again here - point is, don't worry so much about the dopelgangers, nor about having another cakewalk on your hands with the HoHR adventure.
Good luck,
Kang
I just started thinking about this adventure and how I'm running the game in 4E. Each of my players has his character sheet and power cards all laid out on the table. I just know that if I take one of them aside and give him new power cards or even a new sheet, someone else will notice and know something is up.
Last time I ran this in 3.5 I emailed the player who was going to play the doppelganger and told him the deal. I also made it worth his while by throwing in a specific magic item that he could get if he did a good job.
He did an AWESOME job and almost caused a TPK.
So in 4E I'm going to let the player use his original character sheet, but basically give him a heads up that he should be looking to screw over the party at the signal :)
I thought the DG replacement idea was cool when I first read it, but I had already done that twice in past campaigns (once with a malaugrym and again with a drow). I didn't want to do it again, so I left it out entirely.
I did, however, replace Allustan with a powerful doppleganger for a time (had its throat ripped out by Illthane, ultimately). Let me recommend, perhaps, the half-illithid greater doppleganger with levels in illithid savant from Savage Species. Those savants can absorb class abilities when they devour a brain. Couple that with the doppleganger mimicry and mind blast, and you have a devious, dangerous replacement that is capable of copying any PC ability.
You could introduce an NPC or two. Maybe a bard can latch on to them at the tavern, and offer to follow them around and chronicle their adventures? You could introduce Ekaym eary in order to fill this purpose, but then you have to make sure he doesn't get killed too early...
You could also have some of the prisoners that they rescue tag along for a while to "help" - especially if the PCs don't choose to immediately rest or backtrack to escort them out of Sodden Hold. Rather than attack immediately, have them pretend to be helpful at first, them betray them at an inconvenient moment.
I am intrigued by the idea of a Doppleganger who befriends the party as a helpful NPC only to turn on them at the last minute. Crust's variation on the theme is also quite interesting.
I've run many Doppleganger encounters over the years, so I am familiar with the mechanics. In this instance, I'm less inclined to force a tight-nit party to be blindsided by a Doppleganger who was built specifically to infiltrate them, and more inclined to drop a friendly stranger into the mix.
Don't forget that dopplegangers advance by class level. This means you can have a doppleganger actually be a warlock/rogue (for example) or any other class. If you are concerned about CR of the resultant doppleganger, you could ave the doppleganger just be a warlock, and oddly "fail" when making trap search checks and the like, though this takes a bit more panache on the part of the player, requires the other players to not overly scrutinize the replaced player's rolls and/or requires some of your support.
This is also an appealing option. After review, I think the Warlock is the easiest to replace. The player would be up to the challenge. I can justify it by having a member of the Doppleganger pack be a warlock; infiltrate and replace; and then avoid rogue situations and "sneak attack" scenarios. The player would probably love the chance to encourage the heavy hitters to barrel into every situation, justifying his triumphant return and their need for a rogue.
I have just used this trick before, so I will need to make sure I do it in a fresh way. Last time, the Barbarian went two adventures without raging before the party noticed.
The problem is this: There's no one in the party a Doppleganger can easily replace. We have four PCs: A Paladin tank who relies on her Summoned Mount and Lay On Hands (which a DG can't duplicate); a Half-Orc Cleric of St. Cuthbert who is a constant healer and caster; a Sorceress with an Infernal Bloodline (shown through Heritage Feats) who also casts constantly and uses unique feat-based abilities, and a Halfling Warlock/Rogue who is constantly Spider-Climbing walls and who hasn't touch a weapon in ages.
Another option is setting the doppelganger up as a chameleon, which would let them mimic the spell casters somewhat, albeit with a likely reduced spell selection.
Paladin mounts are notorious at being too heavy for ramshackle balance beams and buckets, and the Hall of Harsh reflections itself could have ceilings low enough to not promote riding. Also possible is just jumping the paladin on his own, and making up a story that the mount was gravely injured and he used his lay on hands to stabilize it, and sent it home to recuperate.
Or just have the doppelganger/"wizard" say "Gee guys, it looked like you were handling that pretty well so I didn't bother wasting one of my valuable spells".
Actually, I've heard a lot of wizard PCs say something like that over the years. Maybe they were all doppelgangers all along!!
;-)
Definately replace a PC, as tough as it was to pull off, it is 110% worth it. I had much trepidation going into it, but in the end it worked better than I ever could have hoped. My group is entering Kings of the Rift, and yet they still are paranoid from HoHR, which was over a year ago, real time!
I would recommend replacing the warlock/rogue. Go with a doppleganger warlock, and dont worry about the rogue part. If the party is starting to get suspiscous, have the doppleganger point out some traps. (After all, he already knows where they all are and how to bypass them!)
Definately replace a PC, as tough as it was to pull off, it is 110% worth it. I had much trepidation going into it, but in the end it worked better than I ever could have hoped. My group is entering Kings of the Rift, and yet they still are paranoid from HoHR, which was over a year ago, real time!
I would recommend replacing the warlock/rogue. Go with a doppleganger warlock, and dont worry about the rogue part. If the party is starting to get suspiscous, have the doppleganger point out some traps. (After all, he already knows where they all are and how to bypass them!)
To add on to your idea, have the doppleganger as a warlock/rogue pc point out a trap he knows how to bypass and then have him "disable" it. He steps past and the party follows only to have the trap set off on them. The doppleganger claims the trap must have a secondary trigger that he missed.