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

[NewJeffCT]

Geas, curses, dominate or charm effects or unique magic items, polymorph, not sure on the pathfinder rules on this but if the spell is now too limited then cursed items that have the effect of long term polymorph would work.
Turn them into horses and have them sold to some wagon master. There is a whole adventure there.

Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four did that with one of the skrulls - the creature shapeshifted into a cow, and Richards hypnotized it into staying a cow. (I think years later, the skrull woke up and tried to exact his revenge...)

 

[N'raac]

Allowing a back door and using Deus Ex Machina are two different things. The former lets the players correct their mistake by themselves, while the later is basically DM fiat and the players don't have to do anything. With a back door, yes, the players avoided something bad, but they did it, with their own power and ideas, they earned it.

Sure...like having the enemies who defeat, and could kill, the PC's instead sell them into slavery...

I always liked the old Villains and Vigilantes modules which specified what happened if the characters lost, normally structured to allow them a second chance. It's a rope of much heroic fantasy, of any stripe, that the heroes get defeated, and return stronger to win the day. That only works if defeat does not equal utter destruction.

 

[Brian Baier]

A lot of comments here (I don't have time to read them all) are very rules-oriented, which is fine. Don't forget using story elements to your advantage. You can make servitude a choice the PCs are compelled to accept. Put something the party cares about in peril. Make it difficult for them to opt out of your conditions; indentured servitude for the release/continued safety of the threatened entity, be it an individual, a community, a vital piece of property, whatever.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Since the thread is resurrected, and after re-reading some posts, I'd like to add the suggestion of dropping the spellcaster's casting stat to 9 or below as a simple mechanical option.

 

[Alensande]

OOC:

Good ideas...especially as some of my party have decided to wander off after unwittingly getting the attention of some less than nice people. Trying to figure out what they'd do with a known mage and barbarian who've flashea little too much cash. Barbarian is destined for the arena, not sure about the wizard yet.
I have found over the years that PCs will take capture personally...but if they can work out an escape it can be the best story in their character's life. The emotional run from panic to triumph is worth a gm's effort to pull off.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Tie them up, gag them. Break their fingers. Play rap music all night so they cannot rest and recover spells. Poison oak on the tongue. Cast silence on a rock and stick it up, er somewhere uncomfortable. Lots of ways. Use your imagination.

 

[Elf Witch]

I didn't see this thread when it was first around. First of all why do people think every group of gamers are carbon copies and will feel railroaded and resent the DM for enslaving them? As a player I don't have an issue with it and I have used it as a DM.

Things I have seen that worked the threat that if you escape ten other slaves will be put to death. This works on PCs that are good aligned. And if you are doing a slave revolt style story.

I took a device from a book of a magical net dropped on a casters head it causes intense pain and requires a huge concentration check to cast.

 

[gamerprinter]

My first time looking at this thread. Short of some uninvented new magic items that prevents both escape and a means to activate one's ability to use arcane or divine powers there really isn't a easy way to accomplish this task. The value of slaves as a commodity is that they are relatively cheap to purchase, to feed, to house, to maintain security. As soon as a slave owner is required to purchase expensive magic items just to keep arcane/divine casters from doing their thing, that slave is too expensive to afford - it's not worth it. Your initial solution of removing the tongues is not far-fetched, but I think that an in-processing step needs to occur to discover whether a given slave is an arcane or divine caster, and if they are kill them off, as soon as possible. The security risk of allowing someone with the capability of disrupting the slave operation, risk freeing other slaves as well as himself, and risk as a personal threat to the slaver and his staff is too much, IMO, to keep spellcaster slaves alive.

Granted if you plan to do this with your player's PCs, I doubt anyone would be pleased, so my suggestion is probably something you don't want to do, I was only really responding to the premise of dealing with spellcasters as potential slaves, not in the ramifications to your players if you actually chose to follow through with such advice. You probably shouldn't kill them off, so I probably would find some other plot to work with not involving enslaving your PCs.

I've got a published adventure for my Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) called Up from Darkness, which though not a slave situation, the PCs do begin the adventure waking up in the bottom level of a dungeon in a covered rock cut tomb with no memory as to who they are. As they progress through a very lethal, multi-level dungeon of traps, haunts and monstrous inhabitants their memories seep in with each successful encounter. When they finally escape, they learn that being run through the dungeon was an initiation into joining an elite force, and that their initial suicide and temporary memory loss was voluntary on their part to begin the challenge. Thus this adventure kind of puts PCs into a controlled situation very much resembling be taken as slaves, until they find out what is really going on. That is about as much control over the fate of PCs by the GM that I ever want to impose on an adventure party. This adventure works best using the pregenerated PCs, rather than imposing this on previously 'free' PCs.

On that note, it might be possible to temporarily remove/blank out the memories of newly indoctrinated slave PCs so that any possible spellcasters would not be aware that they are such, and might be useful to hold, process and transfer spellcasting slaves until they reach a specific slave owner that wants to keep and maintain spellcasting slaves and has the budget and reason to do so.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm running a mixed level game (2nd & 3rd), and am just about to capture the party to sell into slavery.

How do you know that? Are you just deciding what happens to them? Taking the party prisoner is something you do to prevent a TPK, not something you do because you want to as a DM.

But how do I insure that the Cleric & Sorcerer, don't cast any spells, short of cutting out their tongues?

You just gave yourself the answer. If the slavers are aware that they are dealing in spellcasters, they'll probably just cut their tongues out, blindfold them, and make use of a kangu to prevent useful movement. In many cases though, spellcasters probably won't be considered worth the trouble, and instead they'll be just killed outright. This is particularly true of the cleric, who can't be reformed or bargained with, and whose social status as a priest should be protecting this from happening in the first place.

You can make this less unfun than its going to be in several ways...

a) Do the blindfold and the kangu, but not the tongue ripping. Still stops spells because the caster has no line of sight and can't use somatic components.
b) If the party doesn't use spells, don't have the slavers realize what they are dealing with.
c) Have the slavers force the cleric to violate his beliefs in some fashion, cannibalism, unintentional murder, etc. resulting in temporary loss of spell casting capability until a means of atonement is found. Not sure that its strictly RAW but it might can keep the cleric alive when otherwise there is no logic to it.
d) Some of this depends on setting convention. The problem is you are trying to enslave modern persons possibly using conventions of antiquity - were slaves might ultimately be treated well, rise to high station, buy their own freedom, etc. Try to express through the conversations of the slavers that they think the spellcasters are potentially really valuable, and have the slavers be trying to convey to the spellcasters that if they don't resist, don't try to cast spells on their men, and so forth they are likely to be treated very well by whoever buys them. Maybe even have the slaver apologize to the players saying he regrets they've had to deal with them so harshly. Play against expectations.

There are a variety of other heavy handed techniques, but they have the same flaws as the tongue ripping issue. They also would suggest levels of competence by their captors that are rather extreme, leading what should be heroes into a situations where they are still apprentices.

On the whole though, this doesn't sound to me like its much fun for the players and its really difficult to arrange to happen. Most PC's will just fight to the death, and capturing PC's isn't easy. You've also probably moved in to areas where the social contract needs to be questioned. A lot of realistic 'you've been captured' behavior by enemies results in things that could violate consensual RP. If you are forcing that as a DM, you are engaging in questionable behavior and possible misuse of your authority.

It will be very important to if you don't end the slavery status soon, to at least end the constraints on personal freedom soon - either by providing for PC escape, or having them purchased by a sympathetic figure who sees them as potentially valued servants and members of his household.