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<blockquote data-quote="Imperialus" data-source="post: 3554697" data-attributes="member: 893">Well the nice thing about ransoms is that on your average battlefield the PC's arn't going to have time to sit around and loot the dead.&nbsp; By the time they get back to the body of Baron Boris it's entiarly possible that someone else could have gotten to him first and stripped him to his skivies.&nbsp; By captureing Duke Dunderhead however not only do they get his gear but they can ransom him for whatever wealth Baron Boris might have had.&nbsp; Also the treasure per encounter guidelines tend to assume that Duke Dunderhead would have a nice shiny stack of treasure waiting for the PC's if they killed him in a traditional dungeoncrawl.&nbsp; That's unlikely to be the case on a battlefield.&nbsp; Dunderhead would have his equipment, and that's about it.&nbsp; Basically what it boils down to is that you can still give the PC's the standard treasure for an encounter of his type without rocking the boat too much.&nbsp; You may want to even increase the total (for his equipment plus his randsom) by 5 or 10 % to account for the difficulties of sucessfully taking him alive and keeping him that way until after the battle.To keep things simple I'd suggest that you let the PC's &quot;ransom&quot; their captives to someone else who can deal with them, that could be their king or a nutral party that specializes in dealing with captives.&nbsp; It saves them from being forced to enter prolonged negotiations with a their captives family and also keeps them from being forced to take care of the prisoner until hostilities have ended or the family comes up with the cash.&nbsp; It also means that the PC's see their money right away, not 12 sessions down the road when you happen to remember that Duke Dunderhead is still rotting away in the dungeon.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Imperialus, post: 3554697, member: 893"] Well the nice thing about ransoms is that on your average battlefield the PC's arn't going to have time to sit around and loot the dead. By the time they get back to the body of Baron Boris it's entiarly possible that someone else could have gotten to him first and stripped him to his skivies. By captureing Duke Dunderhead however not only do they get his gear but they can ransom him for whatever wealth Baron Boris might have had. Also the treasure per encounter guidelines tend to assume that Duke Dunderhead would have a nice shiny stack of treasure waiting for the PC's if they killed him in a traditional dungeoncrawl. That's unlikely to be the case on a battlefield. Dunderhead would have his equipment, and that's about it. Basically what it boils down to is that you can still give the PC's the standard treasure for an encounter of his type without rocking the boat too much. You may want to even increase the total (for his equipment plus his randsom) by 5 or 10 % to account for the difficulties of sucessfully taking him alive and keeping him that way until after the battle. To keep things simple I'd suggest that you let the PC's "ransom" their captives to someone else who can deal with them, that could be their king or a nutral party that specializes in dealing with captives. It saves them from being forced to enter prolonged negotiations with a their captives family and also keeps them from being forced to take care of the prisoner until hostilities have ended or the family comes up with the cash. It also means that the PC's see their money right away, not 12 sessions down the road when you happen to remember that Duke Dunderhead is still rotting away in the dungeon. [/QUOTE]

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