Illusionist with a hostage, what would you do?

[Whimsical]

As a player, I genuinely hate hostage scenarios. What the DM considered to be a dramatic situation, I see as the DM robbing the PCs of any way possible to resolve the situation. I only had one DM do hostage situations in a regular bases, but if he was ever to do another one, I believe that I would just walk away from the table at that point. After all, the point of the hostage situation to show us that we can't do anything about it. Even if I could cast halt as an immediate action, the DM would rule that the throat gets slit. So, come fetch me when I can start making a difference with my decisions and choices.

I believe in scenario over story. It should be "here's a hostage scenario; how do you resolve it?" over "This is when the villain walks away with everything he wants while you sit and stew."

 

[Twowolves]

The road to GM fiat is paved with trivial concessions.

Or, in Mutants and Masterminds, Hero Points.

Face it, if your DM sucks, you shouldn't be playing with them. If not, then a little leeway with the dramatic license is in order.

I like all the responses to far that make me glad that none of these people will probably ever end up on that side of a hostage situation.

Knife to the throat of a hostage, what do you do?

"I cast a spell"

DUMB. Really dumb.

Preach it, brother, preach it.

 

[Woas]

Wait... just kill 'em both and raise the hostage latter. People come back from the dead in fantasy land don't they?

 

[haakon1]

I like all the responses to far that make me glad that none of these people will probably ever end up on that side of a hostage situation.

Knife to the throat of a hostage, what do you do?

"I cast a spell"

DUMB. Really dumb.

Um, no. You disagree with me, therefore you are the dumb one.

My take on the situation: Annoying NPC must die.

If -- IF -- there is a hostage actually there -- hope he makes his save or has more hit points. Is the hostage any class but an arcane spellcaster? Then chances are he'll live through a Fireball that kills an Illusionist of equal or close level. Think of a Fireball are chemotherapy -- sure giving somebody poisonous chemicals/a Fireball is not a good idea for the average person, but if it's more likely to kill the bad than the good, it's a good idea.

The in-character point is, don't let an evil illusionist get away alive. Illusionists are SO annoying, I want to exterminate them in general. An evil hostage taking one really really needs to die. Area effect spells are the best way to go, when you don't necessarily know where or which one he is. Thus nuke it from orbit/Fireball coming on line is the way to go.

The OOC point is, hostage taking is really annoying. Illusionists are really annoying. Don't let the DM have fun with this scenario, and you probably won't have to deal with again. "Don't negotiate with terrorists."

 

[Vanuslux]

As a DM, I've only done a couple of hostage situations. In one case, the villainous sorcerer did the dagger to the throat thing with a love interest of one of the party members to buy time for his reinforcements to arrive. He slit the hostage's throat as soon as his buddies arrived. Of course, the party still got him in the end and quite vengefully healed him from unconsciousness just so they could rough him up some more then healed him again so that he was conscious when they threw him out the window, which was four stories up. Amazingly enough, the sorcerer survived the fall and ended up in the hands of the "proper authorities". Unfortunately for him known magic users accused of high crimes automatically have their hand chopped off until their trial (they regenerate the hands of those found innocent). The victim ended up being raised and lived pretty much happily ever after. The sorcerer ended up evading the death penalty , but his hands were never regenerated and after the horrors he faced in prison he found religion and repented his evil ways...mostly out of the terror of ever ticking off a band of chaotic neutral adventurers again.

The second time was a different campaign with a mostly good party. An evil bard took his own girlfriend hostage (the party knew she was a naive dupe rather than a party to his schemes). It seemed to be working pretty well for him until the party's rogue (the neutral loose cannon of the group) slipped out the door, snuck back in through the window behind the bard, and sneak attacked him. It wasn't enough damage to put him down, but it was enough for the bard to opt to surrender rather than carrying out his threat.

My player's in both games seemed to enjoy these encounters. The point being that a hostage scenario can be a lot of fun if your players trust you and you actually deserve that trust. I don't run a hostage scenario to screw my players over or to force them into a specific course of action. In fact, simply letting the villian have his way is the exact opposite of what I hope the party will do. I want them to try something clever or daring.

 

[cmrscorpio]

It's called a "coup de grace" in game terms.

Indeed, which is a full-round action. You can only ready standard or move actions.

Are you willing to bet the hostage's life on the chance that the DM didn't give the Death Blow feat (Complete Adventurer) to the person holding the knife?

 

[Pielorinho]

Are you willing to bet the hostage's life on the chance that the DM didn't give the Death Blow feat (Complete Adventurer) to the person holding the knife?

Absolutely I would be, for several reasons:
1) It's unlikely that the DM has done so;
2) It's unlikely an illusionist would have need of such a feat;
3) It's not just the hostage's life I'm betting. It's the lives of the people the illusionist will kill if I let him go.

A decade ago, I read a book on virtual reality that talked about the features of interactivity. Two features stand out. First, in an interactive game, either party involved can interrupt the other party at any time. Second, in an interactive game, neither party knows the outcome of the game in advance. The book was talking about computer games, but I think the same principles apply to D&D.

A hostage situation can be plenty of fun if these two principles apply. That is, if the players may interrupt the DM at any time, and if the DM does not know how the scene will play out, then you've got a terrific scene full of tension. If, however, the DM has predetermined that the PCs cannot meaningfully interrupt (by "meaningfully," I mean being able to do something that changes the scene), or if the DM has predetermined that the bad guy won't get captured, then there's a problem.

I think the movie The Untouchables has a great hostage-taking scene, demonstrating how a good guy can kill a bad guy holding a hostage, at least in action-movie format. The hostage-taker is all about the sincerity of the threat. The hostage is only good to him alive, but is also only good to him if he's willing to kill the hostage. Once the hostage is dead, or the bluff is called, the hostage-taker is toast.

That's different from how the good guy sees it. From the good guy's perspective, he's got to convince the hostage taker that there's plenty of time, has to lower the tension more and more until the moment that overwhelming force can be applied. This means that your good guy needs high ranks in bluff and diplomacy to convince the hostage taker that there's a serious negotiation going on.

If I were DMing this scene, and the players tried to take down the hostage-taker, I'd allow them to make some bluff and diplomacy checks; if they succeeded on these checks, they could act before the hostage taker got a chance.

Daniel

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The one good thing that came out of the whole mess was taking a second look at the Close Wounds spell, which my cleric will never be without again. Its worth the spell slot to make sure the DM never tries another hostage sistuation on us (because he's the type who will change an encounter that you are prepared for to one you aren't) and it saved a PC's life last night.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

The one good thing that came out of the whole mess was taking a second look at the Close Wounds spell, which my cleric will never be without again. Its worth the spell slot to make sure the DM never tries another hostage sistuation on us (because he's the type who will change an encounter that you are prepared for to one you aren't) and it saved a PC's life last night.

Details of how it turned out would be appreciated.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Details of how it turned out would be appreciated.

The hostage encounter or the saving with Close Wounds?

Due partly to the in and out of character belief that the area we were in should have been free of people, partly to the fact that the hostage was a priest of Herionious (sp?) and we felt would not necassarily want to be saved in exchange for a murderer running free and doing more damage (assuming the hostage was real) and partly due to an entirely player based crankyness at being sufficiently jerked around with enemies we can never quite defeat due to DM or module fiat, we charged and attacked the illusionist, sadly leading to the hostages death. It's OK, it turned out he was a cultist who could have gotten most of us killed anyway...

After I discovered the spell I should have had, and started preparing it, we fought a floatsam ooze, which was smashing our highest hp fighter into a fine pulp. The Close Wounds kept him alive long enough for the reckless cleric and swashbuckler to leap headlong into the ooze and take turns smiting it...