D&D 5E How do you restrain a captured spellcaster?

[FormerlyHemlock]

You can't in 1e either.

You misunderstand. Apparently 3rd edition, like 5E, does not cause you to lose all your memorized spells after falling to 0 HP. Unlike 1E and 2nd edition.

 

[Helldritch]

To restrain a spell caster you do the following.

1) Cut off his hands.
2) Cut off his tongue.
.....
.....
3) Forget 1 and 2. Put a ring of regeneration on one of the caster's finger. Cut off the caster's head. This will be sure to restrain him while the head grows back...

4) If you are without a ring of regeneration. Then go back to 1 and 2.
5) The hell with 4. Cut off the head anyway. You never know.

 

[Waterbizkit]

Ignoring the exceptions that would be difficult to account for without the use of magic, such as Druids or Sorcerers with the Subtle Spell metamagic, there's a wide array of things that I could see guards having on had that would do quite well.

For dealing with verbal components you've got ball/bit/and classic cloth gags. If you want to be extra mean a Mutes Bridle wouldn't be out of the question.

For general restraint I don't recall if anyone has mentions a simple straitjacket yet, these can restrain the hands just fine. There's various types of mitten-style hand restraints that can keep the hand fixed in a variety of positions from closed-fist, flat open-palm and even separate the individual fingers. You can see many of these used in modern medical care where the potential for a patient to cause self-harm is a concern. Other fun, aka awful, full body restraints may be a Skeffingtons Gyves or maybe an enclosed Drunkards Cloak.

Obscuring vision is pretty straight forward. Bag over head. Maybe just a blindfold if for some reason they feel bad about covering a person's entire head. Of course if they use half the stuff I've mentioned being nice isn't a priority.

No matter what, feel free to let your imagination run wild. History has taught us that there's no lack of odd and otherwise unbelievable means to restrain or torture people, so even if you just made something up its probably already been invented out here in the real world. People are awful.

Oh, and one last thing... if you don't want the poor spell caster to get any sleep, throw in a simple bell collar. Sometimes it's the simplest things that are the most terrible.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

That is an insane level of resources used.

True, but spellcasters are an insane level of threat.

In a world where spellcasters are known to exist, blindfolds, gags and finger-restraining manacles will be the minimum level of precaution taken. Blindfolds prevent spells that include "that you can see" in their targeting, gags prevent verbal components, manacles prevent somatic components. Instead of manacles, you might use shape rock magic to engulf their hands (and eyes?) completely in stone.

The level of precaution taken will depend on how much of a threat the prisoner is believed to be as well as how well-resourced the prison is. A small town jail is going to be able to take much fewer precautions than the city watch in the capital city. Someone carrying no weapons and wearing robes is going to be considered much more of a threat than someone in armour with a sword.

Other options include:

Knocking the prisoner unconscious.

Using guards who can't be charmed or hypnotised.
E.g. undead, golems, deaf-mutes, magic-resistant species.

Charming, hypnotising, or geasing the prisoner.

Threatening people or things close to the prisoner.
We've taken your family into custody. If you attempt to escape, they will be hurt/killed.
If you attempt to escape, the government will confiscate your house and lands.

Threatening retaliation.
We've taken a sample of your blood. If you escape, we will send a summoned monster on your trail.

Future consequences.
We trust you not to escape. If you do use magic to escape then next time we capture you, we will remove your eyes and hands.
We trust you not to escape. If you do use magic to escape then we will instruct your guild/clan/whatever that they are to disallow you.

Putting prisoners somewhere really hard to escape from.
A hole in solid rock, further underground than the range of spells like passwall and misty step.
Another plane. For example, inside a portable hole.
Inside a leomunds tiny hut or rope trick or similar.
Inside an anti-magic zone (which would be an ideal place to build a maximum security prison).


Whatever the precautions taken, there will be precautions. Mages are powerful, and once people they have power, they don't like to lose it. The mages who control society (because mages will control society) will have already thought about how to stop other mages usurping their power.

When the PCs get powerful enough to be able to overcome such precautions, then the precautions aren't needed because the PCs are part of the ruling elite.

 

[MostlyDm]

Nice solution: put him in heavy armor. No spellcasting without proficiency. (Do this on top of manacles + gag just in case he really does have proficiency anyway.)

Personally, I'd opt to just load him down with weighted clothes (or a Lecter-style jacket), since actually dressing him in heavy armor is a bit too silly for my tastes. Sound plan, though. Hilariously so.

Less-nice solution: beat him unconscious and keep him at 0 HP.

Solid. Hard to argue with this one.

Even less-nice solution: cut out his tongue and sever both of his hands.

Ah yes, the Locke Lamora special. Tried and true.

In a semi-recent 5e game where I was a player for once, we caught a Red Wizard criminal and had to transport her some distance. I broke all of her fingers and her jaw, because I figured cutting them all off would alarm people. Didn't really work... they were still alarmed, and tried to rescue her from us "savages."

 

[Caliban]

Cool, thanks guys! So you reckon the hood is overkill?

No, since it prevents them from using Misty Step even if they manage to get the gag out, or if they are a sorcerer with Subtle Spell.

 

[Lanliss]

Another work-around to consider, though one I would allow to happen for inventiveness, is the Conjuration Wizard. They are able to summon the object into their hand, so they would be able to conjure material components for spells. OTOH, I don't know how many spells there are that only require material components, or if any of them would be useful for escaping bonds.

 

[Quickleaf]

I've never really had a situation in a game where the party spellcasters have been taken prisoner but one might be coming up in the next game. I assume in a world where spellcasters exist, the city guard must've put some thought into how to practically restrain captured spellcasters (aside from simply killing them). Assuming the existence of mundane resources available to the city guard only (no anti-magic cages or elaborate Hannibal Lector trolleys), how do you prevent a spellcaster from simply destroying everything in a 10 block radius and escaping?*

The best realistic solution I came up with that the city guard might have access to is manacles, a hood and a gag. The gag prevents verbal components. The hood blinds the spellcaster and removes line of effect (this doesn't stop area effect spells though I guess). The manacles... I'm not sure what the manacles do really. Gut feel, they give disadvantage to attacks or skill checks that involve using your hands but I'm not sure they would stop somatic gestures? I'm thinking of requiring a dexterity check (easy DC) to cast. What do you guys reckon?

*Exaggeration for effect

In one evil settlement that was magic-savvy, I had them put "cutting gloves" on mage prisoners. These were basically bracers/forearm guards akin to those worn by archers, with strings running from the front to rings which were placed on each finger and thumb. Normal movements of the hands wouldn't trigger the trap, but the sorts of exaggerated movements caused by the somatic component of spellcasting (or grasping an item/weapon) caused blades to emerge from the bracers and cut off the mage's fingers (the number of fingers lost, and amount of damage dealt corresponding to the spell's level). It was a very rat bastard DM thing to do, but the players certainly remembered it!

EDIT: I think I originally had a small chance for finishing the spell correctly before losing fingers. And loss of fingers had a permanent effect on spellcasting, IIRC. So there was a bit of a devil's dilemma there for a captive mage. Also, fingerless NPC mages were a thing in surrounding settlements, which added to the gritty theme I was going for.

 

[Celebrim]

I've never really had a situation in a game where the party spellcasters have been taken prisoner but one might be coming up in the next game.

In my world? Blindfolds, branks, and cangues if you are lucky. In less merciful areas, they have a tendency to pluck out the eyes, cut off the hands, and sever the tongue of accused witches, necromancers, enchanters, sorcerers, and diabolists - before putting them on trial. Trials are generally formalities, with the accused guilt being assumed and they are functionally little different than legalized lynching. On the rare occasion that guilt is not found, they send them to a priest to regenerate the lost organs.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

As others have said: Manacles, finger-manacles, gag, hood. I'd also add in "If he moves...shoot him, slice him, and bash him".

^_^

Paul L. Ming