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Hey, sorry if the title is a bit confusing, but a player of mine recently gained a custom mimic as a pet and I'm looking for some advice on how to design it so it can be a somewhat balanced aid in combat.
A bit of backstory before I start, the player who acquired it is on the low end of power level in the group (He's playing a non-optimized bad touch cleric in a group that has some other rather optimized characters) so I'd like it to be pretty strong, though not into the overpowered range.
Here's what I've established so far:
The mimic is not an actual mimic, but an enhanced version that has many capabilities that normal ones do not.
The mimic is capable of taking of the form of living beings, but has very low intelligence doing so, and can only mimic actions and voices that it sees the creature doing.
When taking the form of an intelligent being, it's movements are erratic and clumsy, as it doesn't know how to function as that being.
Here's where the combat stuff starts to come into play. The mimic can take the form of magic items, and function as that item.
The mimic can take the form of wands, and cast the spell as the wand does.
I have added a balancing mechanic, one that I think might work pretty well. The mimic requires water to function, specifically conjured water (It eats the magic in it or something similar.) If it's used as a magic item, after a certain period of time it'll require a good deal of water to continue functioning, or get burned out or something similar. If it's used as a wand, it'd require a certain amount of water to function again.
I think this mechanic is good for a few reasons. One, it's something that'd eat into action economy (Using standards to cast create water so you can get another use of your mimic friend). Two, the amount that water the create water cantrip creates scales with level, so it'll help the mimic not grow obsolete as the campaign goes on. Three, the players can try and find inventive solutions around that, which I love to watch and might have some fun messing with.
Now, the real problem I'm having is the specific implementation. I'm not that experienced of a GM, this is the first long-term campaign I've run. Balancing encounters is still a bit of an issue with me, and I'm not completely sure on my ability to make the mimic strong without being overpowered, and also have the way it works clear so the player can understand it.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to need two different systems, one for items that cast spells like wands and one for magic items. I'm also thinking of adding a mechanic where the mimic gets tired after a while and can't be used until it has a full days rest, to prevent infinite casting.
The basic idea I have for wands and similar is that the mimic will require 10 gallons of water for each spell level of the wand it casts the spell as. For example, a single cast of a level 1 wand would be 10 gallons, a level 2 would be 20, and so on.
For magic items I'm less sure on the duration and effect. I was thinking of going off the caster level of the item and using that to determine how long it can be in the form before recharging, but I'm really not sure on the equation I'd use.
Do you guys have any thoughts or suggestions? Any feedback is appreciated, I'm really hoping that I'll be able to make a fun and functional system out of this.
Thanks for reading!