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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8661117" data-attributes="member: 29398">True enough - in a D&amp;D setting, capturing people without using magic is best done via traps rather than brute force.The loss of h.p. and spells, however, would be fine from the captors' point of view, in that weakened prisoners are usually easier to keep in place than are prisoners at full strength.This depends greatly on the players and-or how they see their PCs, I think; and that varies player-to-player, never mind table-to-table.A few years back I was DM in a situation where the PCs had sheltered in a dead-end cave and the bad guys (who the party knew to probably be more than they could handle) trapped them in there.&nbsp; What followed, while the bad guys waited outside, was a long in-character debate within the party as to whether to surrender or go out fighting; with said debate only ending when one PC just said &quot;Screw it&quot;, walked out without warning, and - much to my surprise as DM - surrendered.Result: chaos all round!&nbsp; Of a party of 8, three others ended up getting captured (one by force, two surrendered) while the other four each found ways of independently escaping and scattering once they realized rescuing the one who surrendered was pointless.&nbsp; For a short time I was running 5 parties at once - the group of 4 captives plus 4 parties of one PC each - until the four started finding each other; and they somewhat later managed to find their companions...who had escaped on their own in the meantime.As written, yes.&nbsp; It can be done, sort of, but it takes probably a bit too much buy-in to be feasible.A partial workaround is to make missile weapons much deadlier - as in, as deadly as guns are in real life - at ranges of less than maybe 5 or 10 feet, to enhance their threat.&nbsp; Mechanically this might be achieved by multiplying their damage by [double the target's level] in these conditions (not every gunshot kills), or by bespoke mechanics if one doesn't mind subsystems.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8661117, member: 29398"] True enough - in a D&D setting, capturing people without using magic is best done via traps rather than brute force. The loss of h.p. and spells, however, would be fine from the captors' point of view, in that weakened prisoners are usually easier to keep in place than are prisoners at full strength. This depends greatly on the players and-or how they see their PCs, I think; and that varies player-to-player, never mind table-to-table. A few years back I was DM in a situation where the PCs had sheltered in a dead-end cave and the bad guys (who the party knew to probably be more than they could handle) trapped them in there. What followed, while the bad guys waited outside, was a long in-character debate within the party as to whether to surrender or go out fighting; with said debate only ending when one PC just said "Screw it", walked out without warning, and - much to my surprise as DM - surrendered. Result: chaos all round! Of a party of 8, three others ended up getting captured (one by force, two surrendered) while the other four each found ways of independently escaping and scattering once they realized rescuing the one who surrendered was pointless. For a short time I was running 5 parties at once - the group of 4 captives plus 4 parties of one PC each - until the four started finding each other; and they somewhat later managed to find their companions...who had escaped on their own in the meantime. As written, yes. It can be done, sort of, but it takes probably a bit too much buy-in to be feasible. A partial workaround is to make missile weapons [B]much[/B] deadlier - as in, as deadly as guns are in real life - at ranges of less than maybe 5 or 10 feet, to enhance their threat. Mechanically this might be achieved by multiplying their damage by [double the target's level] in these conditions (not every gunshot kills), or by bespoke mechanics if one doesn't mind subsystems. [/QUOTE]

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