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

[Orius]

Bind, gag, and strip them along with a cavity search for starters. Putting a bag over their head might help too. You could have some sort of shackles or brands that suppess or dominate the caster as well.

Although honestly, it's really not worth the trouble of trying to keep a spellcaster who's above level 3 or so. They have abilities that makes them more useful than for just manual labor, and there's plenty of commoners who can till fields or something. If they're just run of the mill pulp slavers, its something that'll only be good for very lowe-level adventures. Otherwise the slavers will need to be something powerful like mind flayers or fiends.

 

[N'raac]

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.

We seem to have lost track of the OP comment that the characters are fairly low level (2nd and 3rd). A L3 wizard could cast a Silent Charm Person, but taking away his book makes it pretty easy to keep him from regaining spells. An L3 sorcerer has no spell slots above first level, so no Silent non-cantrips for him.

 

[MoonSong]

We seem to have lost track of the OP comment that the characters are fairly low level (2nd and 3rd). A L3 wizard could cast a Silent Charm Person, but taking away his book makes it pretty easy to keep him from regaining spells. An L3 sorcerer has no spell slots above first level, so no Silent non-cantrips for him.

But you are forgetting something, a lv3 sorcerer has too many cantrips, specially if human, and don't forget the fancy bloodline powers. A sorcerer isn't safe to kep as a slave unless put under a heavy geas

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Mark of Justice.
Antimagic Shackles (BoED).

I want to second Mark of Justice. The player can choose to cast a single spell, but then the Bestow Curse effect kicks in. If you want a simple one, go for the -6 to a single ability score, and make it the one what controls casting (CHA for Sorc., WIS for Cleric). You could also get creative and make up your own, whatever works. This way, the players COULD cast a spell, but at great cost. Let them toy around with that decision.

Geas and Lesser Geas can be used at similar effect. Give the instruction something along the lines of "Stay within this prison cell" or "Obey the orders of this person". The players can still choose to escape, but the penalty will come down on them. If they escape, become weaker, they can still choose to return to the cell or return to obedience of that person and be restored after 24 hours.

I personally prefer to avoid completely overriding a player's free will. Giving them the choice to cooperate or rebel with a penalty keeps the freedom and enjoyment within their hands. It also encourages them to be more creative, such as trying to find ways to twist the wording of the Geas. For example, if you put the players within the slave pit cell and give the order "Stay behind these doors", you've given your players a creative out- they need to remove the doors and carry them into their freedom for the rest of however long it takes for them to find a Remove Curse or similar spell. Dragging the doors leaves tracks and their captors follow them a few times before they finally get away. The doors get worked into tower shields and your players get to feel clever and talk about it for years.

I don't know your plot or exactly what you have in mind, but my suggestion is to give your players just enough wiggle room to possibly thwart your plans, while still giving a penalty if they do.

 

[N'raac]

I again come back to why they want slaves in general or this slave specificially. What resources do they logically have, and what would they reasonably use them for given their expectatons of these slaves? [MENTION=6749525]BuckyLastard[/MENTION] - you still around? Is any of this helpful?

If you can cast Bestow Curse every day, you can cast Create Food and Water every day - why do you need slaves to till the fields? If you can cast a Geas (lesser or greater), are you really scared of a 3rd level sorcerer? And what do you need him for? What services can he provide that you can't either do yourself or get done in a much easier means than preventing him casting spells?

Why not just give each and every slaver a magic item that keeps a Lesser Globe of Invulnerability around them at all times (who cares what the L3 sorcerer casts?), or just place the entire region/country/world under an anti-magic field. Voila - no spells. Seems like a lot of trouble to keep a few spellcasters as slaves, though.

 

[N'raac]

I see BL has a total post count of "1". I wonder if that answers my question...

 

[frankthedm]

Maiming. Few slavers are foolhardy enough to let slaves be armed and and slave you can't disarm is not worth keeping alive. Maim them to the point of not being able to cast or just kill them. Magics strong enough to enslave someone are to valuable to waste on low powered casters.

 

[Derren]

Maiming. Few slavers are foolhardy enough to let slaves be armed and and slave you can't disarm is not worth keeping alive. Maim them to the point of not being able to cast or just kill them. Magics strong enough to enslave someone are to valuable to waste on low powered casters.

Unless you intent to sell the mage slave and know you can get a good price for him. But that only passes the problem of keeping him in line to the new owner. Unless someone has mind control spells or similar methods no one would buy a mage as slave.
And a mage maimed so much to not being able to cast spells isn't worth having. Cutting out the tongue might work against most spells, but non verbal spells still would work. So why bother? A mute spellcaster is rather useless for spellcasting and a normal, nonmagical slave is less troublesome.

 

[BuckyLastard]

Thanks for all the ideas and possible problems you all pointed out. After reading them all I've decided to go the "bound and gagged" routine. Hoods and yokes to keep movement to a minimum and deny the rest they'll need to re-spell. This will give a little wiggle room to bring down the bad guys, though the party will have to think first rather than fight first. If any one cares I'll keep you posted. Thanks again.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Since I'm re-reading the Wheel of Time series right now, you can do something like Jordan did to his Aes Sedai and other channelers - fit them with a device that prevents them from casting, like the a'dam, which is essentially like a leash for a channeler that does not allow them to do any channeling/casting without permission of the leash holder.

http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/A'dam