Effective ways to capture PC's without magic?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Better use two hostages as most PCs will try to call your bluff with the first one.

I took two PCs hostage in a Modern campaign and the rest of them still fought. (Of course, they only did so because the two PCs cleverly worked themselves out of imprisonment and one of them got their hands on a gun, too.)

If you take a hostage, expect the PCs to figure out a way to free the hostage and kill the bad guys real fast.

 

[SteelDraco]

In D&D, most PCs don't seem to care about hostages all that much. With Raise Dead and such available, they can usually just have them raised if their actions result in an innocent's death. That kind of takes the punch out of a hostage situation, unless something really out of the ordinary is going on. Usually guilt-free, too.

PCs will fight tooth and claw to avoid being captured. Players seem to hate it, and characters don't want to lose all their loot and/or get sacrificed to the Bad Guys.

If they have high ACs, that means the Bad Guys don't want to fight them. Trickery, then, is the way to go. Poison's always fun, as are pit traps. What kind of situation are the PCs in, and what resources do the baddies have? That determines entirely how they'll deal with the problem.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

In D&D, most PCs don't seem to care about hostages all that much. With Raise Dead and such available, they can usually just have them raised if their actions result in an innocent's death. That kind of takes the punch out of a hostage situation, unless something really out of the ordinary is going on. Usually guilt-free, too.

PCs will fight tooth and claw to avoid being captured. Players seem to hate it, and characters don't want to lose all their loot and/or get sacrificed to the Bad Guys.

If they have high ACs, that means the Bad Guys don't want to fight them. Trickery, then, is the way to go. Poison's always fun, as are pit traps. What kind of situation are the PCs in, and what resources do the baddies have? That determines entirely how they'll deal with the problem.

This is spot-on. I've marked the two portions I particularly want to emphasize.

 

[taferial]

Last time I was trying to emphasise a bad guys smarts (while captureing the party and realy, realy make the players hate the big bads top henchman) I had the henchman set a couple of "random" encounters on them.

He watched what tactics and weapons they used, then snuck into camp once or twice in the night while the person who didnt see either of the ambush encounters was on watch. He then glued swords in scabbards, poured gravey in spell components, weakened bow strings and the like.

Then had the hench dude jump em just as as they started learning the next days spells. A couple of big nets (with fish hooks sewn into them) and a few guys with saps and SA to give them a visious sack beating and all was golden. It was the tied together boot laces that my players never forgave him for.

 

[azhrei_fje]

Hmm, interesting point (re: taking two hostages).

In the game I run, one of the wizards is going to have their familiar kidnapped by an assassin. There are three spellcasters with familiars (two 9th level mages and a rogue6/wiz3) and I haven't figured out which one is the lucky one yet. But maybe I should grab two of them...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I love that glue example!

I have to wonder about poison, though. The rules for making it aren't balanced, and commercially available poisons are too weak to use against PCs.

Get yourself a venomous creature of some kind (use a template?). At least that way the save DCs won't suck, and it can apply venom repeatedly.

 

[Oryan77]

What kind of situation are the PCs in, and what resources do the baddies have?

The scenario is this:

(Underwater campaign) 4 PC's of lvl's 7-8 (sorcerer, cleric, ranger, rogue) will be ambushed by Sahuagins with several nets and anything else I can come up with to make it easier for the PC's to be captured. I don't want to have to stick a spellcasting Sahuagin in the mix unless I have to.

I hope that helps.

I don't need to railroad them into being captured but it would add a lot more fun to the adventure (believe it or not) and they can easily get their gear back if they just look for it once they escape. I would still like to try hard to capture them because that's what the NPC's would do in the situation. But if I am not successful, no biggy.

 

[librarius_arcana]

There was a kind of arrow that dealt non-lethal damage. Let me look...
Hmm, it must be the Arms and Equipment Guide, which I don't have on my computer at present.
Anyway, IIRC, the arrow did non-lethal damage with a penalty to hit for being non-aerodynamic.

And there's always boomerangs for ranged non-lethal.

Cheers

Arms and Equipment Guide.
Page 5, Blunt Arrows, Subdual damage,

 

[KarinsDad]

A net works well since although it is an exotic weapon and most creatures use it at -4, it only requires a ranged touch attack.

Remember to have the NPCs carry multiple nets because it's a bear to refold them so as to not get an additional -4 penalty to hit in latter rounds.

 

[shilsen]

The scenario is this:

(Underwater campaign) 4 PC's of lvl's 7-8 (sorcerer, cleric, ranger, rogue) will be ambushed by Sahuagins with several nets and anything else I can come up with to make it easier for the PC's to be captured. I don't want to have to stick a spellcasting Sahuagin in the mix unless I have to.

Since it's an underwater campaign, I presume they're all able to breathe and move easily underwater. Correct?

With the classes in the group, a straightforward melee-oriented group of enemies should be able to beat them down pretty easily. All you need is to make it reasonably difficult for the spellcasters to cast. Sahuagin are quite tough for their CR, so throw a few class levels on them and I think you'll be good to go. An EL 9-10 encounter should do it.