Capturing a Party... A call for experienced DMs

[Calico_Jack73]

Um . . .
Talk to your players? Tell them you have an idea but it involves their characters being captured.
I think the reason that players are very leary of this is because of the importance of items. Take away a 4th level, or higher, character's equipment, and a big part of the character is now gone.

Where's the surprise in telling them? Luckily I have a good group that no matter what I do with the campaign they trust that there is a reason for it in the overall scope of the story. I don't think items would be a big issue for my campaign... I'm running a Midnight campaign so they'll never have a whole lot of magical items to begin with (nor would they want to keep them for very long in the first place). I'd also obviously allow for them to recover them after a nice prison break session where they have to use their wits to escape rather than their brawn.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I'd go with what evildmguy said! Just ask them out of character. Makes it far more palatable to the players and they may well help you organise it... Besides, if they instantly hate the idea and won't consider it under any circumstances, it'd probably give a good feel for how they reacted if you suprised them with a TPC. (Total Party Capture. )

An 'unwinnable' fight is always possible - perhaps use a one shot epic spell trigger item that does X subdual damage with no save to an 100' area? Just make X big enough to KO them all. Sure something like that can be cooked up in the rules. However - as a player I really 'hat' that kind of stuff.

Peskara's idea is also pretty cool - giving them a good reason to let themselves get captured... perhaps make it the only way to get to where they need to go. Gives them a chance to make sure most of their toys are safe beforehand. I like it so much that I'm going to steal that idea and try to make a plot out of it!

 

[Mystery Man]

If you'd like to scare the bejeebuz out of them...

What other ways would you go about capturing a party in such a way as to be seen as "fair" rather than an instance of railroading?

Ethereal Filchers and Maruaders. Trained of course and being pushed by a druid in the ethereal plain. Snatch and grab.

Edit: Throw an ethereal doppleganger in there for good measure.

 

[Shallown]

Its surprising how effective nets are at capturing people. Also lasso's as well. If you get 2-3 people netting characters at one time then it is very effective. Also wall of stone to capture people is effective as well speaking from the GM point of veiw of losing Villains to that spell.

Later

 

[Piratecat]

If you decide to go through with it, have the bad guys use spies (familiars, etc.) and divination magic to know when to strike.

I think Peskara has the right idea. When I tried to do this, I used a 3rd lvl spell (Althea's hammerblows) that did 1d6 subdual dmg per lvl with a fort save. It took the form of hundreds of pummeling fists and was regularly used by local law enforcement to subdue lawbreakers.

This was with 3e haste, and my group was roughly 16th lvl. I had a single 14th lvl wizard with his versions of the spell metamagicked, and two 1st lvl wizard lackeys with wands. All three hid on top of a building and ambushed the group as they walked down the street. All three were hasted.

Surprise round: Lackeys fire wands twice. Wizard casts spell twice, both empowered.

Round 1: Bad guys won initiative. Lackeys fire wands twice. Wizard casts spell three times, once quickened, twice normally.

Thus, before the group could act, they had taken over 80d6 of subdual damage (13 fort saves for half). It would have worked perfectly if the group hadn't gotten a clue earlier in the week through a divination spell and laid their own trap for the ambushers involving an illusory party created by an invisible PC. Only one PC was captured, and h was quickly regained by the rest of the group. Clever buggers.

 

[Ozmar]

Just send a goon squad with total EL about 3 or 4 points above the party and orders to capture alive. Have the goons start out dealing subdual for the first 2-3 rounds and then switch to lethal damage. As long as a target has any subdual damage, the odds are that they'll be alive when they finally drop.

Also, have the goons make liberal use of disarms, sunders, trips, and grappling. Or bull rush them into pits and throw down the lids. Use nets, caltrops (to slow their escape) and tanglefoot bags.

And then to top it all off, have a cleric and wizard of the party's level + 1 to cast hold person, sleep, charm person, fear (directed so they run into a second ambush or pit-trapped area), entangle (ok, druid), web and other similar spells.

Ramp up these tactics with nasty monsters that deliver paralysis and tougher spells at higher levels.

Lure the party into a dimensionally-locked area so they can't teleport out. Make sure all mid-level to high-level spells of rapid departure are accounted for (i.e., cut off the liklihood of flying away by having a couple flying pursuers, eliminate invisibility with an invis purge, etc..)

And above all, once you have set all this up and the bad guys have laid their careful plans, play it out fairly and be prepared for two scenarios: the PCs are captured, or they escape or defeat their enemies. Always be prepared for both scenarios and allow the PCs to play it out fairly.

Ozmar the Fair DM

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

You're lucky having players like that!


In the way of some more sensible capture devices:

Who could forget the tanglefoot bag? - Me apparantly, because I did. But IIRC, those things are pretty nasty.

Depending on the situation - as large as possible webspinning spider (optional poison sack removed, tamed?).

Grapplers - smeared with paralytic contact poison - preferably made immune to poison first! (high level monk, undead, etc).

Rogues - sneak attack can be subdual, give them clubs - have them run in after the grapplers. Or make them invisible.

Merciful spell feat (can't remember where from) - bomard them with subdual damage area of effect spells. Subdual scorching ray + sneak attack from an arcane trickster (or Rogue Assasin with UMD) may be workable.

Soften them up with Ray of Enfeeblement and possibly Enervation.

 

[Piratecat]

I went for decisive overkill because long, drawn-out battles almost always involve too many variables to ensure that the group will be captured... and if they are, it's just frustrating for the players. My group could teleport, plane shift and even gate; their enemies knew that in order to succeed they had to take them down FAST. I also wanted to accomplish this with a minimum of bad guys, and ones who were notably below the party's level. Lots of big guns, and then a quick retreat with whoever is unconscious!

 

[Mystery Man]

Soften them up with Ray of Enfeeblement and possibly Enervation.

And speaking of evervation, and to go along with my ethereal plane capture thing...

There is a monster in the Unapproachable East that can ethereal jaunt as a free action and cast evervation.

 

[Kalendraf]

Although I have used a few methods in the past to capture the whole party by design, some of them I've tried are not necessarily good methods. I strongly advise you to not use a cheesy spell or trap that has a near-unmakeable save. Such a method is too heavy-handed and clearly railroading which the players will not like. It's far better if you can subdue the group through other means.

I've had the most success in subduing parties almost by accident. For example, in one fight, the group was facing a group of humanoids led by an Ogre Mage. During the battle, the Ogre Mage managed to knock-out the main spell caster who'd been flying over the battle field. The ogre mage's invisibility + flying made it easy. The ogre mage then swooped down and hovered over the body threatening a coup-de-grace unless the whole party surrendered. At that point, I had them. But I wound up letting them off pretty easily, as the Ogre Mage really just wanted to negotiate for something else rather then take them as prisoners. In another campaign, a similar situation arose with a powerful, yet beatable enemy gaining the upper hand and again treatening one of the party members. In both cases, the party was lawful. If they'd been more chaotic or evil, this tactic may not have worked.

One other option to consider is to have the party get framed for a crime they didn't commit, then hauled into jail by lawful good guards, etc. This can work and be believable if they have recently angered a powerful agency (a guild, a rich noble, or even a powerful NPC) that has the connections to set this up. This also can work well if you have a repeating villain or someone that has escaped from earlier encounters. Just don't overuse this method. Doing it once in a campaign is probably the limit. It's essentially railroading, but it's also believable that powerful foes would try to do this as well.