Illusionist with a hostage, what would you do?

[phindar]

Is it a bad sign that when I read the title of this thread my first thoughts were:

"Pop Quiz! ... What do you do?"
"Shoot the hostage."

It didn't pop into my head. I thought:

"Nuke the site from orbit. Its the only way to be sure."

I ran a game one time, the pcs were raiding a bandit encampment and some of the bandits captured a pc's henchman/torchbearer. The pc's had been attacking from cover/concealment up until that point, and the bandits put a knife to the henchman's throat and demanded the pcs stop attacking. The pcs instead attacked in force, the henchman was killed, and the pcs wiped out the bandits. After the game we were having a little rap session about how things had gone, and one of my players said, "Yeah, when they took that hostage, we had to kill them all."

I thought it was interesting that the pcs would sneak up on an camp, surround it and start killing people, and then when the henchman gets nabbed say, "Now its personal." It was pretty personal to the bandits when they just started dying from surprise attacks.

 

[Wraith Form]

if you have an [Empowered] Ray of Enfeeblement handy, shoot it at the hostage: if the hostage is real, they'll go slack and it's very, very hard to hold up dead weight. If the hostage is an illusion, then the illusionist is now very weak.

Sweet idea.

 

[haakon1]

"Nuke the site from orbit. Its the only way to be sure."

That's exactly what popped into my mind, right after:

"Fireball coming on line, B.A." -- Teflon Billy in "Knights of the Dinner Table"

Illusionists just need to die . . .

 

[robberbaron]

Assume it is an illusion and leave the room.

 

[Maldor]

If I were the illusionist, the important illusion would be setting oil on fire in front of the door the players came through and hiding that with an illusion.

So while they dicker, they burn.

the illusion would not cover your pain so while you might not see the fire (assuming you failed the save) you would still know that your on fire.

 

[Merkuri]

Alternatively, if you have an [Empowered] Ray of Enfeeblement handy, shoot it at the hostage: if the hostage is real, they'll go slack and it's very, very hard to hold up dead weight. If the hostage is an illusion, then the illusionist is now very weak.

Um, maybe that would work in another situation, but here the hostage is already unconsious and presumably dead weight.

As a side note, when I worked at Wal-Mart one summer as a cashier, they told us that the best thing to do if you're taken as a hostage - or are otherwise being grabbed with a weapon pointed at you - is to faint. If you do not naturally faint in such a situation, go completely slack as if you had fainted. Make him/her work to hold you up, and he'll probably freak and let you go.

 

[Slife]

Attack with overpowering force. In the likely event of her death, have a cleric cast raise dead on the hostage. After all, if you let anyone get away with taking hostages, the situation will keep coming up. If you show that it doesn't stop you, nobody's going to try it again.

 

[Pielorinho]

Another option: if you have a high bluff score and you know the NPC well, then sneer and say, "Nice try, but Bob always wears his wedding ring. You forgot to add that in, idiot." Then watch the reaction. If the illusionist looks like, "Aw, CRAP!" then you know it's an illusion. If he's all, "Whatchoo talkin about?" then it's probably the real deal.

Note that the bluff check is so you don't actually have to spot a flaw in the illusion: you're acting like you spot one.

Daniel

 

[Felix]

Um, maybe that would work in another situation, but here the hostage is already unconsious and presumably dead weight.

Um, in which case when you fire the ray you'll go straight through the illusion because nobody can hold up a hostage who's unconscious with one arm.

And if the illusioninst isn't holding the body up as cover, then you have a line of fire to the illusionist. Cast Disintegrate.

 

[Pielorinho]

Um, in which case when you fire the ray you'll go straight through the illusion because nobody can hold up a hostage who's unconscious with one arm.

I would really not count on that in this situation. While this may be true in the real world, in D&D people behave more like an action movie than like real life, and it would not kind of cheesy to argue with the DM about the center of gravity of a limp body in the middle of a tense scene. The DM may not have thought of that issue, or may consider the dramatics of the scene more important than accuracy.

Daniel