A mimic love story, help me build [No homebrew]

[Artagon]

Ok folks, background information:

Dead bodies = objects
Mimics can replicate objects.

What if I mimic decided to try being a 'human' (or other player race)? How would you go about building one using the rules as written?

Here's sorta my head canon:

A mimic finishes off an adventurer and hears it's companions coming closer, so he quickly transforms into the body he just ate. The adventurers act in a very different manner than it's used to, staying close to the mimic, carrying it back to camp.. where it is able to take the adventurers out one by one in the night. Thus it begins a truly terrifying few years of success as a mimic, but it begins to wonder.. "Why is this tactic working so well?" It pays more attention to the adventurers. Another few years go by and it's now understanding common and beginning to regret the anguish it causes, but it knows no other life. One day he devours a [insert adventurer race of choice] and the woman who finds him weeps over his body before beginning to cast revivify.. not knowing that it's not the guy's body. The mimic leaps at the chance and pretends to wake up, becoming intentionally animate for the first time, not to kill, but to interact with her. He pretends he simply cannot remember anything and goes off to be an adventurer with the woman who loves 'him'.

My first instinct is to use the Reborn lineage, since they are sorta construct/undead and show wounds from how they died, which makes sense for this story.

Thoughts on how to do this sorta fun/unique build?

[JonBeowulf]

Are you looking to make mimics a playable race? If so, there are lots of things in the monster statblock that must be sorted out. Like, literally everything in the statblock and description.

If you're looking to have a mimic pretend to be a dead body, no problem.

[Artagon]

I'm not looking to make them a playable race. I want to use an existing race that the mimic is pretending to be. Think of it in sorta a Data on Star Trek trying to learn how to be a human sorta way.. except more monster-y. I'm not looking for homebrew, just ways to make it click using RAW.

[rel]

tough. A mimic is pretty far from a standard PC class in terms of abilities.

Ignoring homebrew, the easiest option is to ignore the bulk of the mimics abilities and fluff it as the mimic has lost some of its powers after hanging out in an unusual form doing non-mimic things for so long.

Otherwise, you want shapeshifting (or maybe just a good ability to hide or disguise yourself to represent becoming objects mechanically), A decent grapple to represent the inherent adhesion and maybe some acid damage.

maybe a druid with a very carefully curated spell list or a rogue with a pile of alchemical items?

[Kane0]

Shifter or changeling? Otherwise maybe plasmoid?

[Artagon]

I certainly thought of doing Plasmoid, because it fits the base form of the mimic more, and it's got some cool properties, but I'd probably need to pick up some way to take another form.. either disguise self through warlock (or eldritch adept feat), or somehow get alter self as a rechargeable resource.

Other races just seem simpler. I liked Reborn because story-wise they make sense in my head canon, but Changeling would certainly work for mimicking other races/body types.

I sorta like the idea of doing a College of Whispers bard, since they excel at mimicking a dead person and they are ambush predators, but I don't really have anything set in stone just yet.

[Kurt Kurageous]

You are forgetting that a mimic probably lacks the creativity (INT 5) and subtlety (CHA 8) to pull off the deception of a humanoid they just ate, let alone walking around for weeks maintaining the charade. They imitate stuff commoners interact with, as mimics almost always lose to adventurers.

Think of the big bad bug in the first Men in Black trying to imitate the newly dead farmer "Ed." And that bug was a lot smarter than your RAW mimic.

Now what I have done is set up a mimic as a crying elf child with arms outstretched in supplication. It has succeeded every single time against 5+ parties in parallel universes.

[da newt]

I like the story idea, but I think the mimic is the wrong creature for it (as written). A Doppelganger, changling, mask of many faces warlock, Ooblex, intellect devourer, etc - there are a bunch of other creatures / races that would fit the theme better. The Mimic is too simple (and too sticky) to assume someone's identity. But some undead, or fiend, or humanoid, or fay, or parasite, or whatever - that could be interesting.

[Segev]

Assuming the story provides justification for the minic having PC ability scores, I would go with an amoeboid warlock with Mask of Many Faces. Either Great Old One as the mimic is treating humanoids in general as his tutors/patron, or hexblade because that one doesn't make sense anyway and can be anything.

Or an amoeboid with a hat of disguise if you want a different class. Maybe one of its victims had one.

[False God]

I am unclear, are you building a PC for someone else's game, or an NPC for your own game?

[Artagon]

I am unclear, are you building a PC for someone else's game, or an NPC for your own game?

It's sorta for fun? I certainly wouldn't mind playing it as a PC because I thought it was a super neat idea, but for the moment it's just a thought exercise. I don't have a campaign to jump into right now.

[Artagon]

You are forgetting that a mimic probably lacks the creativity (INT 5) and subtlety (CHA 8) to pull off the deception of a humanoid they just ate, let alone walking around for weeks maintaining the charade. They imitate stuff commoners interact with, as mimics almost always lose to adventurers.

Think of the big bad bug in the first Men in Black trying to imitate the newly dead farmer "Ed." And that bug was a lot smarter than your RAW mimic.

Now what I have done is set up a mimic as a crying elf child with arms outstretched in supplication. It has succeeded every single time against 5+ parties in parallel universes.

I'm sorta imagining what a mimic would look like if he succeeded to an incredible degree for decades, where his int/cha raw stats have a chance to level up due to exposure.. or maybe he eats a headband of intellect off a wizard?