I was thinking of having an assassin Doppleganger, pop in the middle of a battle with a group of rogues, looking like one of the party members. How do you handle the mechanics of it? He will pretend to fight the rogues, but in mid battle will sneakly stab a party member, and make it look like it was from the rogue he is fighting.
Deception roll on the attack and as long as it beats their passive I should be OK.
But How do I handle when it comes to the recognition part. They will notice 2 of the same party members. But all the party members are partial casters. Before the end of the fight he will disappear.
The players are going to know which of the two versions is or isn't being controlled by their fellow player. I mean, metagaming, technically, but, like, they'll know. So, possible ways around that:
The player being impersonated gets to control two of their character. You mentally assign one to be the doppelganger and don't track damage for the doppelganger's attacks on the enemy rogues, since those attacks are fake. Roll every time either copy of the impersonated character takes an action; if it's the real one, the roll means nothing, but if it's the fake one, it's the deception roll covering the attack. The fake attacks are bonus actions, while the attack under cover of deception is a main action. When the impersonated character's player is trying to take a bonus action, the doppelganger is too busy keeping up the deception to attack that round.
Establish a way of communicating with the player whose character is being impersonated without the knowledge of the others. Get their turns in secret, so that both "copies" appear to be controlled by you. You might escort the player out of the room and consult them on each turn, or text, or pass notes, or something like that.
Find a way to separate the impersonated character from the party. The player is, for the moment, solely controlling the doppelganger and probably knows this fact. The other players then have to find their missing comrade after discovering the doppelganger.
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Medium humanoid (human), lawful neutral
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I was thinking of having an assassin Doppleganger, pop in the middle of a battle with a group of rogues, looking like one of the party members. How do you handle the mechanics of it? He will pretend to fight the rogues, but in mid battle will sneakly stab a party member, and make it look like it was from the rogue he is fighting.
Deception roll on the attack and as long as it beats their passive I should be OK.
But How do I handle when it comes to the recognition part. They will notice 2 of the same party members. But all the party members are partial casters. Before the end of the fight he will disappear.
The players are going to know which of the two versions is or isn't being controlled by their fellow player. I mean, metagaming, technically, but, like, they'll know. So, possible ways around that:
Medium humanoid (human), lawful neutral