Invasion of the mimics

[Stilgar2300]

So i came up with a Invasion of the body snatchers esk encounter where the PCs come across a town were nearly every NPC has been replaced by a changling and nearly everything has been replaced by a Mimic. The NPCs will act oddly to the players, sweeping the dirt road for example or eating plates (Things that could almost pass for socially acceptable). If the players choose to stay the night they will find themselves completely surrounded by Mimics and have to fight their way out, and any items they have bought will attack them (as they are also mimics).

Am i sadist for thinking this up?

[My Self]

No. Give them multiple Sense Motive checks (social interactions) to realize the townsfolk are messed up. Also, they should notice fairly quickly what is a mimic and what isn't- mimics can't disguise their texture. Additionally, normal mimics are only medium size.

Still, not the best thing to spring on a 1st level party. But not absolutely terrible.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

If the PCs are at a low level, it might be better to have your town of doppelgangers and mimics avoid hostility - pretending to be normal to encourage commerce, maybe an artisan asking if they could paint or sculpt one of them (for use as reference material). Perhaps one of them could ask for help with their fledgling Trapper & Lurker Breeding Program?

If they do want to kill these newcomers, you could always have one of the residents be a cleric or bard who can cast Animate Objects for extra hilarity. Chase them into a gelatinous cube, if they aren't already paranoid enough.

[Gevaudan]

It's a really neat set piece, but I'm not at all sure how to make it a playable encounter. That's a ton of monsters that would not normally gather en mass to just occupy a town.

May try doing it with a lonely inn instead, so you have a CR manageable amount of enemies.

In addition, changelings are a sentient PC/NPC race with normal intelligence. They wouldn't sweep roads or eat plates. They would clean and eat as normal humanoids. Better to use some kind of mutated lab experiments that were awakened and don't know what humanoids actually do.

In addition, add murdered husks of the previous occupants in places to be discovered.

There's a common 3.5 module I played back in the day that does this whole bit for like levels 7-10. It ends with the PC's cleansing the town.

[VRMH]

What would stop the party from torching the whole place once they catch on?

Kill 'em all, let the Gods sort 'em out.

[Lakesidefantasy]

I love this idea. Thanks for sharing.