Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Undermountain Encounter 2, The Hall of Many Mirrors

The corridor ahead seems to reflect your lights back from many glimmering surfaces, on both walls. All is quiet. Something small is lying on the floor, part way down the corridor.

The thing on the floor is the burnt out stump of a torch. The only reason I can gather that anyone would put this into the room is to get players to wander in, hoping that the small thing is, in fact, a Hackmaster +11 that just happens to be lying on the floor. Today's players will see a fucking torch stump and wonder why whoever was using it didn't bring sun rods.

There are sixteen large, heavy oval glass mirrors in this corridor, eight on each wall. They all look basically the same, though a few are showing signs of wear from being in a dank dungeon for a very long time. Some have a faint aura of magic about them, old protection spells meant to keep the soggy atmosphere of the dungeon from damaging the silver mirror-backs.

Three of the mirrors hang in front of small storage caches. The contents of these caches changes with the seasons. Sometimes creatures leave a little something in one of them to save for later. Sometimes adventurers, believing their goods will be safe in such a cache, leave themselves something to help on the way out. Below, you'll find a chart. Roll to see what your players find in the caches.

Things You'll Find in Undermountain

01-07

A garlic-stuffed, deep-fried rat.

51-57

A jar of dead bees.

08-13

A gem worth 50gp

58-59

A suit of leather armor +1

14-20

A potion of Healing

60-69

Frighteningly well-drawn goblin pornography

21-25

2 leather-bound books. One level 1 ritual.

70-74

A potion of Cure Light Wounds

26-35

A +1 sling

75-83

A gnawed-on dragon-femur (40gp)

36-42

A pile of shiny rocks and a 10gp silver statue

84-88

AD&D Undermountain poster map.

43-45

Poorly drawn goblin pornography (1cp)

89-98

A religious amulet to a dead god

46-50

An amulet of defense +1

99-00

A +2 weapon of the player's choice


 

The westernmost mirror on the north wall is a Mirror of Opposition. In Second Edition, what this basically meant was "Steal your player's character and beat the snot out of her with it." The mirror creates a perfect likeness of the player's character with her stats, her abilities, her armor, her weapons. Then it tries to kill the original. This was terrifying mostly because a single player character was a lot more proficient at the killing of people than any monster in a dungeon. While that's still true in 4th Edition (even more true, actually), the fact that stat blocks have changed so drastically over the past few editions, makes creating a duplicate of a player character difficult. Add the fact that Dungeon Masters have a hard enough time trying to remember everything in a stat block, let alone look it up in a character sheet that doesn't even belong to them, and you get a trickier situation.

Lucky for us, then, we have the Doppelganger. Now, so far Wizards hasn't really put out a lot of first-level dudes that don't suck. So I was forced to make a few. Below, you'll find stats for copies of each of the main character roles: there's a defender, a controller, a leader and a striker. When a player examines the Mirror of Opposition, a Doppelganger of the appropriate type will come out of the mirror and immediately attack him or her. Whenever another player character is within line-of-sight to the mirror, another creature steps out of the mirror and begins the next round with the initiative.


The mirror has 50 hit points (being a magical artifact, it's tougher than your normal mirror). If it is broken, the Doppelgangers are dazed (save ends) and take a -1 to rolls to hit and all of their defenses. Two more doppelgangers will appear the round after the mirror is broken, also dazed (save ends) but without the -1 to attacks and defenses.



 

Doppelganger Mirror-fighter

Level 1 Soldier

Medium
natural
humanoid

XP 100

Initiative +2        Senses Perception +0
HP 33; Bloodied 16
AC 20; Fortitude 17; Reflex 10; Will 13
Speed 6

M
Bastard Sword (standard; at-will) • Weapon

+8 vs AC; 1d10 + 3


Shapeshifter Feint (minor; at-will)

+4 vs Reflex; the doppelganger gains combat advantage against the target until the end of the doppelganger's next turn.


Change Shape (minor; at-will) • Polymorph

A doppelganger can alter it's physical form to take on the appearance of any Medium humanoid, including a unique individual.

C
Doppelganger's Hate (standard; at-will) • Polymorph

Close burst 1; targets all enemies in burst. The targets are marked until the end of the doppelganger's next turn. If a marked creature makes an attack that does not include Doppelganger Mirror-fighter, as an immediate interrupt, the doppelganger may slide that creature one square.

Alignment Unaligned

Languages

Str 16 (+3)

Dex 10 (+0)

Wis 10 (+0)

Con 10 (+0)

Int 10 (+0)

Cha 10 (+0)

 

Doppelganger Mirrormage

Level 1 Artillery

Medium
natural
humanoid

XP 100

Initiative –1        Senses Perception +3
HP 22; Bloodied 11
AC 13; Fortitude 11; Reflex 13; Will 14
Speed 6

m
Mace (standard; at-will) • Weapon

+6 vs AC; 1d8 + -1 damage

r
Dark Blast (standard; at-will) • Implement, Necrotic

Ranged 10; +7 vs Reflex; 1d10 + 3 necrotic damage, or 2d6 + 4 necrotic damage against a target at full normal hit points

C
Cursebite (standard; encounter) • Implement, Necrotic

Close burst 20; targets cursed enemies; +4 vs Fortitude; 2d6 + 4 necrotic damage


Curse (standard; at-will)

The Claw doppelganger darkmage curses the nearest noncursed enemy. The curse lasts until the end of the encounter. Once per round when the darkmage hits a cursed enemy, it can deal that enemy 1d6 extra damage.


Darkmage Fanatic (when the claw doppelganger darkmage drops to 0 hit points)

The Claw doppelganger darkmage makes a basic attack


Change Shape (minor; at-will) • Polymorph

A doppelganger can alter its physical form to take on the appearance of any Medium humanoid, including a unique individual (see Monster Manual, page 280)

Alignment Evil

Languages Common, Elven, Goblin

Skills Arcana +7, Intimidate +8

Str 8 (–1)

Dex 8 (–1)

Wis 7 (–2)

Con 10 (+0)

Int 14 (+2)

Cha 16 (+3)

Equipment Mace, Rod Implement

 


 

Doppelganger Mirrorpriest

Level 1 Lurker

Medium
natural
humanoid

XP 100

Initiative +7        Senses Perception +0
HP 22; Bloodied 11
AC 15; Fortitude 13; Reflex 14; Will 13
Speed 6

M
Mace (standard; at-will) • Weapon

+6 vs AC; 1d10 + 3 damage

C
Fleshknit (standard; encounter) • Healing

Close burst 1; targets allies within burst; targets gain 1d6+5 hit points, plus an additional 1d4 if bloodied.

C
Skinsculpt (standard; at-will)

Close burst 1; targets one ally in burst; target gains 1d6 hit points.

Alignment Unaligned

Languages

Str 10 (+0)

Dex 16 (+3)

Wis 10 (+0)

Con 10 (+0)

Int 10 (+0)

Cha 10 (+0)

 


 

Doppelganger Mirror-rogue

Level 1 Skirmisher

Medium
natural
humanoid

XP 100

Initiative +4        Senses Perception +0
HP 28; Bloodied 14
AC 16; Fortitude 12; Reflex 13; Will 14
Speed 6

m
Short Sword (standard; at-will) • Weapon

+6 vs AC; 1d6 + 3 damage

M
Shapeshifter Feint (minor; at-will)

+4 vs Reflex; the doppelganger gains combat advantage against the target until the end of the doppelganger's next turn


Combat Advantage

The doppelganger sneak deals an extra 1d6 damage against any target it has combat advantage against.


Change Shape (minor; at-will) • Polymorph

A doppelganger can alter its physical form to take on the appearance of any Medium humanoid, including a unique individual .

Alignment Unaligned

Languages Common

Skills Bluff +9, Insight +7, Stealth +7

Str 10 (+0)

Dex 15 (+2)

Wis 11 (+0)

Con 12 (+1)

Int 9 (–1)

Cha 14 (+2)

Equipment Short sword

© 2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This monster statistics block has been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools.

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