this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2025
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Breathing doesn’t guarantee that you can see something lol. Show me a breathing insect with its “chest” moving up and down. If you account for evolution then mimics who could best hide their breathing are also absolutely something that would happen. Plenty of mammals can hold their breath underwater a crazy amount of time. A mimic that could also position and shape its body would have no trouble hiding its breathing.
They’re motionless and indistinguishable and you’re just going to have to deal with that.
Bonus: the way to find them out would be to see if a character notices them looking out of place. Maybe it’s a contested stealth vs incestigation/perception role, or maybe the description of the room even has clues. There are absolutely other ways to “safely” discover them aside from breathing.
Of course it doesn't guarantee it. That's why you roll dice.
Does evolution apply to aberations? And would evolution not grant the same benefit to every living being as well? Not to mention, co-evolution would lead to better mimic detection, surely.
I don't see why I have to deal with your fiction over mine.
I brought up evolution as a way to explain the idea that even without magic it’s possible for there to not be any motion when a creature is breathing. There are also worlds where a mimic could be a normal animal, so that’s good there too. You, hilariously, are aaking if evolution even applies to aberations while being dead-set on them breathing, as if that isn’t a comically easy thing to hand-wave away if we’re saying the creature is a proper, built-for-purpose monster.
The book says “motionless” and “indistinguishable”. Those words mean “without motion” and “with nothing to [visually] distinguish it from the object it is trying to imitate”. There is no breathing motion because then it would not be motionless and there is nothing to tell it apart. Both of those are ok in a game context because there other ways to discover the monster.
We aren’t talking about your subjective opinion and your original comment was an “um actually” in relation to someone else’s so if you want to know why you’re having this conversation it’s because you started it.
Note that a feature applying while motionless doesn't mean it is motionless. And based on the rules, no, there are no other ways to notice the monster if it is motionless. Motion is the only way to spot a mimic, because if it's not moving, you can't distinguish it.
Look at the comment above mine. THAT was an um actually. OP described a perception check for a mimic, the comment I replied to said "um actually, there wouldn't be a perception check", and I replied with why there would be. Why are you making me the villain for defending the post?
Motionless and indistinguishable. Chests and crates don’t breathe and you’d be able to distinguish the two very easily based on that.
An investigation check could work, or maybe a straight intelligence roll. Paying attention to the description of the room, too, and passive investigation is a real thing as well. I’ve already explained at least twice that you can use those ways to figure out that something isn’t where you left it or otherwise seems out of place. You can absolutely still find it using mechanisms that don’t require getting chomped.
You’re just wrong. It’s fine, it happens, but the plain english is making it reeeeeally hard for me to understand how on earth you could be confused here.
Indistinguishable if motionless. If not motionless, distinguishable. You seem to be assuming that because it CAN be indistinguishable, it IS indistinguishable, and thus cannot be moving.
Meanwhile, Dark Souls has mimics that breathe, and they work perfectly fine. Easy to get caught out, but definitely possible to spot if you're careful.
Yes, you have explained twice how you can distinguish a creature that cannot be distinguished. And I've pointed out how paradoxical that is.
Like, are you okay? Genuinely, I'm getting concerned for you.