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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 3945846" data-attributes="member: 3400">If the players trust you and you're out in the open following the rules, I don't see the problem with planning a capture. Some villains just happen to be well-prepared. I've done it and wiped the floor with the PCs fair and square. They were worried about it becoming a TPK (I was using fully lethal attacks) and were somewhat relieved it was just capture in the end. I did plan a few things to make it easier. I hit them with a sleep gas that did non-lethal hp damage. That might have given them the idea that it was not necessarily a fight to the death. Plus, it gave them a buffer of non-lethal damage to help knock them out before they ended up going into negative hit points and risking bleeding out.I had scripted out some moves for the enemy to make that would make sense. In this case, I would suggest having someone hit all of the obvious arcane spell-casters (and only the obvious one) with dimensional anchor... even if they don't know any teleporting spells. That tells the PCs that, yes, the enemy uses good tactics in general but aren't using the DM's knowledge unfairly. Other things might help:Have the leader yell something like "I want them alive!" Use lots of grappling sorts of attacks and bull rushes to break up the PCs so they can be captured. If one PC falls or is well-grappled, hold threaten the rest with his death (I know the rules make this hard, and acknowledge to the players that it can't be an insta-kill... but underline to them that, even so, getting stabbed while your friends continue to resist will still be very painful from a role-playing point of view). Treat them reasonably honorably. If they surrender, don't kick them over and whiz on their backs like in the movie Shogun. Have the leader say, "You made the right choice. I wouldn't want to kill such a skilled warrior (or whatever) like a dog."Above all, plan things out so that they capture is not a necessary way for your adventure ideas to go forward. The PCs, if they get lucky or really good, might successfully escape. If so, kudos to them. Plan on dropping some comments in the fight that might pique their interest to finding some way of getting the information via other means. "Capture them. We must find out what they know about Operation Grand Slam!" Stuff like that. Even that comment alone might encourage some to play along knowing that the villain is likely to monologue the information to them.</blockquote>

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