Pathfinder 1E How do you keep spellcasting slaves from casting spells?

[N'raac]

Just kill the sorcerer and the cleric, but more the sorcerer than the cleric, you just cannot keep a sorcerer away from his magic for long, moreover there is a chance he hasn't expended all slots by the time of capture and decides instead to play the fool while biding his time, all he needs is a single second level slot for rope trick in order to escape long enough fo the cleric to pray and replndish spells.

In games where Rope Trick is universal and unbeatable (don't get me started...), I doubt known spellcasters would ever be imprisoned in close proximity to appropriate lengths of rope.

 

[MarkB]

Infect the casters with a Tetanus-like disease that causes lockjaw, first pulling a couple of their front teeth so they can be fed gruel.

If you have manual-labour tasks for them, put Sovereign Glue between their fingers to stick them together - that way they can still use their whole hand to grip a tool handle, but can't move fingers independently for complex tasks or gestures.

Compose a list of common material components, including things like spider silk and bat guano. These items are all considered contraband, and slaves who are found to be collecting them are subjected to severe punishment.

 

[ImperatorK]

Mark of Justice.
Antimagic Shackles (BoED).

 

[N'raac]

A lot of these ideas involve epensive magical items and/or spellcasting.

If you have the wealth for expensive magical items, why not spend it instead on constructing automatons or magic items that generate Unseen Servants, and avoid the bother of slaves entirely?

If you have the spells, use your own unseen servants, summoned workforce, etc. (or just reasearch higher level spells to do your labour), again avoiding the bother of slaves entirely?

 

[MarkB]

Yeah, even the sovereign glue was pushing it in my suggestion, especially at 2nd-3rd level.

Basically, unless you actually want them for their spellcasting, keeping spellcasters as slaves doesn't seem worth the trouble.

 

[Matthias]

Wouldn't the slavers want to keep magic-capable slaves (instead of liquidating them) in order to utilize their spellcasting abilities? In this case, they would want to keep the spellcasting ability intact, and take steps against having their new toy cast magic in any undesireable way. Mind-affecting magic would be one solution, but there has to be a way the PC can act against the captors, or else you will simply have turned the cleric and sorcerer into NPCs for the duration. Be sure that the players are OK with this because no one likes sitting back and watching everyone else have all the fun.

If a player is open-minded, you might let them bring in a secondary character to play while the party is in captivity, so they can still participate meaningfully and interact with the non-caster PCs. Later, when the party has escaped (or taken over the outfit), the "temp PCs" might revert back to NPCs; or if the player likes his new character better, his old caster can stay an NPC.

 

[S'mon]

I've just declared in my FR game that lead-lined collars negate spellcasting. Just do something like that.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Non-Pathfinder-player here: Why wouldn't simply gagging them work?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Silent Dimension Door - no components! Or just Silent Charm Person one of the guards, and get them to tell you the whole setup. Then plan an escape.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

In the past I've used a drug that negates spellcasting ability until the victim receives an antidote. (It doesn't wear off) It fit thematically with the captors so it worked very well.

I used this approach once and had a spectacularly successful adventure. It's one of the few my players still talked about years and years later.